Actually, no.
Or is that Ngo, as in Andy Ngo, "A mob of antifa assault a small group of conservatives in San Diego, Cal. The black bloc mob is also waving an #antifa flag."
Antifa goons are using the Capitol riot to get him banned from Twitter, which they've been trying to do for years, to say nothing of murdering him.
Also at ABC News 10 San Diego:
It's actually Amazon's "AWS" --- Amazon Web Services, where Parler's been hosted. The alternative social media platform has already been de-platformed off Apple and Google's app stores. Amazon's AWS move is the coup de grâce.
From Ed Driscoll, at Instapundit, "UPDATE: Amazon Is Booting Parler Off Of Its Web Hosting Service":
“In a post on Sunday evening following publication of this story, Parler CEO John Matze said it is possible ‘Parler will be unavailable on the internet for up to a week as we rebuild from scratch.’” ANOTHER UPDATE (FROM GLENN): I don’t know if you can buy Parler stock, but it should be rising on the strength of its private antitrust suit against a bunch of deep-pocketed tech firms.
From Glenn Reynolds, at Instapundit, "MAZDA’S LUXURY-BRAND AMBITIONS":
Bottom line: “As it stands now, the Mazda 3 2.5 Turbo offers a hell of a lot of car for the money, while the Audi A4 offers an appropriate amount of car for the money.”
I've been meaning to follow him, but wasn't sure if he was the genuine article. But after seeing this thread, I'm gobsmacked!
And it's now available on the Thread Reader App (which hasn't been banned yet by Big Tech).
Here, "Chad Felix Greene":
Every person on the left believes they just survived the parallel to the rise of Nazism in Germany and they defeated it. They stopped it. They believe all Republicans are 1950's white racists. They feel empowered to live out their Civil Rights warrior fantasies. They imagine themselves toppling Jim Crow and the Confederacy and the Nazi army in one swoop and every powerful authority is on their side. They aren't silencing conservative speech. They are eradicating violence, terrorism, racism and hate from the internet. ***** They are *gleeful* we are vulnerable and scared of our voice being suppressed. They think we are the people in old 1950's photos angrily shouting at black school children. We are not people to them.We are symbols of what they feel morally driven to remove from the world.
The most powerful people who influence technology see us the same way.
We aren't customers.We aren't users.
We aren't people with real lives and families and businesses.
We are a problem to be solved and they've been trying to figure out how for years and finally can do it.
The reason free market ideals no longer work is because the market is controlled by fewer and fewer people who dominate all options. And those people are ideologically driven to eradicate from society all sources of hate. Its a religious crusade. And we are the target. ***** We cannot reason with them. They see our pleas for fairness like you would imagine a segregationist doing so. They believe - believe - that once we are gone the internet and therefore society will be cleansed, free, peaceful and able to heal FROM US. I say 'us' because we are not the one's defining our place in this world. We aren't white supremacists or nazis or bigots or violent insurrectionists. But the powerful have segregated society into good and bad thought and their strict and narrow worldview has placed us here.We are innocent.
But it doesn't matter to them.
They *hate* what they imagine we are.
They cannot be persuaded otherwise. You cannot convince them *you* are a good person wrongly categorized. The only people with influence have made up their minds and don't care to change it. The *only* option is a steady Civil Rights movement to make it illegal, step by step, to do this to us. They won't voluntarily stop. They think they are the heroes of the story fighting for the good of humanity. Each remaining GOP leader MUST begin NOW. Legal action. Now. ***** This means adding Political Affiliation to anti-discrimination law in red states. We no longer have the luxury of arguing against the idea of protected classes. We are now a marginalized group. You need to accept that and behave as such. This is a Civil Rights movement. If you think you are exempt from this because you didn't vote for Trump or you defend businesses with 'they have a right to' you are not paying attention. *You* do not define your status.Its imposed onto you.
Just like every prior targeted group.
You are a minority now. You are targeted for what you believe, who you are associated with and - be very clear - your existence. You cannot change that fact.
This has been applied to you.
Enough bickering over the philosophical nuances. You are a marginalized minority now. 1st step is adding Political Affiliation to anti-discrimination AND hate crime laws because the left targets us for physical violence. Create the legal framework to force businesses and corporations to defend their discrimination policies. Force them to second guess them. We don't need the federal level to do this. We just need a solid foundation to force their hand legally. This will not stop until it is illegal and enforced to stop. You will not shame them into acting ethically or fairly. Any GOP who refuses to act must be voted out. Eventually we must stop treating the internet as a fad and gadget we can just toss aside and move on from. We must have an internet bill of rights. Legal rights protecting all people from censorship and banning for who they are or what they believe. This is a new world. ***** Again. I understand the traditional free market arguments, but they no longer apply. Businesses are behaving collectively as they did in the 1950's Jim Crow era and joining together to discriminate against a single group in order to protect themselves from popular outrage. You are now in that group. Your entire online life.Your online communication.
Your digital currency.
Your job.
Your healthcare.
Your access to the world.
Its not 'just Twitter.' It can be taken from you for nothing more than a photo or an association. You cannot compete. People who believe your skin color, your sexuality, your gender identity, your faith and the core beliefs that make up how you engage in politics place you in a category deserving of discrimination and violence *control* your life right now. Understand this.Stop fighting it.
It is time to relentlessly legally fight back.
We don't like to do this. But its our only option to regain liberty. ****** Every act of racism, seismic, discrimination, religious discrimination - all of it must be treated like an LGBT person suing over a wedding cake. I cannot repeat this enough. The powerful left **will not** voluntarily stop this crusade. We must use available legal efforts now to overwhelm them with lawsuits and legal challenges to stop all forms of discrimination they feel entitled to now. Political Affiliation too. I am a gay/trans man and a Jew. I know what discrimination and marginalization is. I know what its like to be hated for nothing more than who you are. This is it.This is real.
From Professor Jonathan Turley, at the Hill, "Swift new impeachment would damage the Constitution":
The author Franz Kafka once wrote, “My guiding principle is this. Guilt is never to be doubted.” Democrats suddenly appear close to adopting that standard into the Constitution as they prepare for a second impeachment of President Trump. With seeking his removal for incitement, Democrats would gut not only the impeachment standard but also free speech, all in a mad rush to remove Trump just days before his term ends. Democrats are seeking to remove Trump on the basis of his remarks to supporters before the rioting at the Capitol. Like others, I condemned those remarks as he gave them, calling them reckless and wrong. I also opposed the challenges to electoral votes in Congress. But his address does not meet the definition for incitement under the criminal code. It would be viewed as protected speech by the Supreme Court. When I testified in the impeachment hearings of Trump and Bill Clinton, I noted that an article of impeachment does not have to be based on any clear crime but that Congress has looked to the criminal code to weigh impeachment offenses. For this controversy now, any such comparison would dispel claims of criminal incitement. Despite broad and justified condemnation of his words, Trump never actually called for violence or riots. But he urged his supporters to march on the Capitol to raise their opposition to the certification of electoral votes and to back the recent challenges made by a few members of Congress. Trump told the crowd “to peacefully and patriotically make your voices be heard.”
Still more (via Memeorandum).
A great piece, from Tyler O'Neill, at Pajamas:
After the white nationalist riots in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and others renewed their demands for the suppression of conservative speech on social media. After Trump’s supporters breached the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Big Tech companies clamped down on President Donald Trump and many of his supporters. Incoming President Joe Biden has said he plans to pass a law against domestic terrorism. While conservatives rightly denounced the violence this week, this response bodes ill for conservative speech not just on social media, but in the public square and even in private organizations. In the aftermath of the Capitol riots, Twitter suspended President Donald Trump’s account for the first time and Facebook permanently banned the president. After Trump deleted the tweets Twitter had flagged and had his account restored, Twitter proceeded to ban him entirely on Friday, and then it banned the official President of the United States (POTUS) account. Facebook throttled the great Rush Limbaugh, notifying him that his “Page has reduced distribution and other restrictions because of repeated sharing of false news.” Limbaugh left Twitter in protest after the platform banned Trump. Apple and Google attacked Parler, claiming that the new haven for conservatives had allowed people to plan the violence of the Capitol riots on its platform. House Democrats filed articles of impeachment that explicitly blame President Trump for the Capitol riots, even though he never told his supporters to invade the Capitol. While the president’s exaggerated rhetoric inflamed the rioters, Democrats repeatedly did the same thing this summer. Before and after Black Lives Matter protests devolved into destructive and deadly riots, Democratic officials repeatedly claimed America suffers from “systemic racism” and institutionalized “white supremacy.” Big Tech did not remove House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s accounts when she called for “uprisings” against the Trump administration. Facebook and Twitter did not target Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez when she claimed that allegedly marginalized groups have “no choice but to riot.” These platforms did not act against Kamala Harris when she said the riots “should not” stop. This week, Joe Biden condemned the Capitol rioters, saying, “What we witnessed yesterday was not dissent, it was not disorder, it was not protest. It was chaos. They weren’t protesters, don’t dare call them protesters. They were a riotous mob, insurrectionists, domestic terrorists. It’s that basic, it’s that simple.” Yet he refused to speak in those terms when Black Lives Matter and antifa militants were throwing Molotov cocktails at federal buildings, setting up “autonomous zones,” and burning down cities. Instead, he condemned Trump for holding up a Bible at a church — without mentioning the fact that that very church had been set on fire the night before. Despite this hypocrisy, Biden’s speech on Thursday proved instructive. Biden used the Capitol riots to condemn Trump’s entire presidency, accusing Trump of having “unleashed an all-out assault on our institutions of our democracy from the outset.” Biden twisted Trump’s actions into an attack on “democracy.” He claimed Trump’s originalist judges were a ploy to undermine impartial justice — when they were truly the exact opposite. Biden claimed Trump’s complaints about the Obama administration spying on his campaign were merely an “attack” on America’s “intelligence services.” Biden said Trump’s complaints about media bias constituted an attack on the “free press,” when the Obama administration actually attacked the free press...
Keep reading. The article is backed up with tons of link-citations.
My wife called out Michelle Obama, lol.
But here's the lovely Ms. Pavlich's take, at Fox News:
Following-up from yesterday, "The Elites Have Unmasked Themselves and Declared War."
See Jason Whitlock, at the Blaze, "Ignoring the concerns of Trump supporters will destroy America":
Ashli Babbitt's blood is on the hands of Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg as much as, if not more than, on President Trump's. That's why Dorsey and Zuckerberg rushed to silence Trump on their respective platforms, Twitter and Facebook. Political tension and violence are fomented, planned, and monetized on Silicon Valley's social media platforms. Wednesday's "violence" hit the wrong target. The Capitol is where global elites exchange cash for influence and privilege. It's where $150,000-a-year politicians become multimillionaires building cozy relationships with Big Tech lobbyists and American corporations looking to curry favor with China. The Capitol is sacred ground for elites. The way you might revere a church edifice is the way millionaires and billionaires revere the Capitol. The NBA multimillionaires said they played with "heavy hearts" Wednesday night after seeing the Capitol desecrated. They made twisted, illogical analogies between nonviolent civil disobedience and the rioting, looting, and violence that occurred in Minneapolis, Atlanta, Kenosha, and across this country all summer. "It reminds me of what Dr. Martin Luther King has said, that there's two split different Americas," Boston Celtics star Jaylen Brown told reporters. "In one America, you get killed by sleeping in your car, selling cigarettes or playing in your backyard. And then in another America, you get to storm the Capitol and no tear gas, no massive arrests, none of that." Brown is right. There are two different American realities. There's the false reality world created by and for elites and their groupies. In this world, progressive elites feign concern for poor black people by championing the cause of a tiny handful of black resisting criminal suspects harmed by white police officers tasked with subduing them. The elites have no interest in the thousands of black men and boys killed annually due to random gang, street, and drug violence. Those black lives do not matter. Progressive elites live inside a social media matrix where they call the Crips and the Bloods to protect them from the police. The rest of America lives in an alternate universe driven, at least partially, by reality, facts, and common sense. We don't see the norms of Western Civilization as the root of all evil. We have no interest in disrupting the nuclear family. We don't think the storming of the Capitol is analogous to the months of looting, arson, shooting, rioting, and anarchy we watched throughout 2020. Philadelphia 76ers coach Doc Rivers, a man I greatly respect, lives in a different reality than I do. His interpretation of Wednesday's chaos baffles me. "No police dogs turned on people, no billy clubs hitting people. People peacefully being escorted out of the Capitol," Rivers told reporters Wednesday. "So it shows you can peacefully disperse a crowd. It basically proves a point about a privileged life in a lot of ways. I will say it, because I don't think a lot of people want to: Can you imagine [Wednesday], if those were all black people storming the Capitol, and what would have happened? That, to me, is a picture worth a thousand words for all of us to see, and probably something for us to reckon with again." What is he talking about? We've watched buildings burned to the ground this summer. We've seen "protesters" prowling the streets of Atlanta with semi-automatic weapons. We've seen protesters berate and spit on police officers. David Dorn, a 77-year-old, black retired cop, was assassinated. Parts of Portland have been under attack from Antifa and Black Lives Matter for months. There have been no dogs, no billy clubs. We don't have to imagine how law enforcement would react to black, lawless protesters. It has aired on CNN, MSNBC, and FOX News all summer. The police have been remarkably restrained. The media, athletes, and celebrities have treated black protesters as heroes. Politicians have taken knees and worn kente cloth to show allegiance with black protesters. Every national sportscaster and head coach has gone along with the facade that police pose a greater threat to black men than black men. We're inundated with television commercials promoting Black Lives Matter. The NFL has celebrated criminals involved in drive-by shootings. A laundry list of media personalities have taken turns rationalizing every violent, lawless action taken by Antifa or Black Lives Matter. No one cares that George Floyd stuck a gun in a pregnant black woman's belly or that Jacob Blake sexually assaulted a black woman. The New York Times commissioned a group of black female reporters to rewrite American history to fit the narrative of the critical race theory taught at our academic institutions. The concerns propagandized by the ministers of black victimhood are a high priority in American society. Sinners are excommunicated from their employment. There is so much money, fame, and adulation from joining the Church of Black Victimization that white people such as Shaun King and Rachel Dolezal have disavowed their natural heritage to identify as black. A Trump supporter? He or she is an American pariah. A racist. A coon. An idiot. A sellout. Someone to be silenced or ignored. Trump supporters will not go away quietly or peacefully. It's their country, too. Their concerns are legitimate. The lawmakers they chased to the basement of the Capitol sold out the American working-class man and woman...
RTWT.
Did President Trump "incite" an "insurrection" against the government of the U.S.?
Actually, no.
But see Ed Driscoll, at Instapundit, "THAT’S DIFFERENT BECAUSE SHUT UP."
Ann Althouse is linked there, "The 7 most violence-inciting statements in Donald Trump's speech to the crowd on January 6th":
There are places where he clearly talked about a peaceful protest march. He says: "I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard." And: "So we’re going to, we’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue... So let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue." But here are the 7 most violent statements. Please, if you can find anything more violent or more related to the idea breaking into the Capitol and physically disrupting the proceedings, let me know, and I'll add it to the list. This is what I've found and have put in order from least to most violent:7. We’re going walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators, and congressmen and women. We’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.6. To use a favorite term that all of you people really came up with, we will stop the steal…. We will not let them silence your voices.
5. The Republicans have to get tougher. You’re not going to have a Republican party if you don’t get tougher.
4. [W]e’re going to have somebody in there that should not be in there and our country will be destroyed, and we’re not going to stand for that.
3. We will never give up. We will never concede, it doesn’t happen. You don’t concede when there’s theft involved. 2. We’re not going to let it happen. Not going to let it happen.
1. Together we are determined to defend and preserve government of the people, by the people and for the people.
Not violent, at all.
More at Instapundit.
President Trump has been permanently banned from Twitter, and most other "unsocial" media platforms.
The left is bringing on the civil war for which they keep blaming the other side. It's not going well.
At AoSHQ, "Lee Smith: The Elites Have Unmasked Themselves and Declared War."
Here's Smith's essay, originally published at the Epoch Times:
When a regime sanctions the political violence of one faction against another, events like Wednesday’s bloody skirmishes at the Capitol are a foregone conclusion. Presumably the country’s corporate, political, and cultural elite assumed that after four years of trying to humiliate and unseat President Donald Trump that his supporters would simply accept their continued degradation, impoverishment, and disenfranchisement. Or maybe they thought that with their allied press and social media obscuring reality, no one would notice they were waging war on Americans. Details of Wednesday’s events are still unfolding. In places, protestors overran police. A Capitol Police officer died of injuries suffered while holding off protestors and others were reportedly injured. Elsewhere it seems that law enforcement welcomed Trump supporters into the Capitol and posed for pictures with them. No doubt there were agents provocateurs among the MAGA crowd, but Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed by a Capitol Hill policeman when she tried to crawl through a window, wasn’t with Antifa. She proudly supported Trump, as she proudly served her country, doing four tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq. No one in the building the 15-year Air Force veteran entered illegally can explain why America is still committed to those strategically pointless wars. Neither can anyone on the Democratic or Republican side rationally justify why large parts of the country are still under coronavirus lockdowns—public health measures draining Americans’ life savings and, as importantly, their hope—to fight an illness with a 99.7 percent survival rate. No one can say why the senior FBI, CIA, Justice Department, Pentagon, and State Department officials from the Obama administration who plotted against Trump’s White House before he was inaugurated are still at liberty, and why some have been named to the incoming Joe Biden administration. Nor can the representatives of the American people explain to them why the lights went out in half a dozen states election night with Trump holding commanding leads and came back on hours later with Biden in front in all six. But don’t blame the people sent to Washington for the fate and fortune of the Americans they’re supposed to represent. Rep Liz Cheney says Trump is at fault for Wednesday’s unrest. “The president formed the mob, the president incited the mob, the president addressed the mob,” she said. The Wyoming Congresswoman is one of the staunchest supporters of the Afghanistan war, begun when her father was George W. Bush’s vice president. To hand down a war from one generation to the next is the sign of a careless and depraved elite. Trump’s former Defense Secretary James Mattis also blames Trump. “His use of the Presidency to destroy trust in our election and to poison our respect for fellow citizens has been enabled by pseudo political leaders whose names will live in infamy as profiles in cowardice,” wrote the retired Marine General. In June, he defended the Black Lives Matter and Antifa riots that caused billions of dollars in damage across the country and left dozens dead, including law enforcement officers. Those protests, said Mattis, “are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values.” Both parties within the Beltway are joined in their attacks on Trump because partisan identity—Democrat and Republican—is no longer relevant in U.S. politics. It’s the Country Party, currently represented by Trump, vs the Establishment Party, representing the interests of an oligarchy anchored by Big Tech and owing its power, wealth, and prestige to its access to cheap Chinese labor and China’s growing consumer market. The establishment party protects its protestors because they are the instruments weaponized to target Trump supporters. “Protestors should not let up,” vice president elect Kamala Harris said of the summer’s violence. “There needs to be unrest in the streets as long as there’s unrest in our lives,” said Rep Ayanna Pressley. “I just don’t even know why there aren’t uprisings all over the country,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. It is not hypocrisy that corporations like Bank of America and Coca-Cola that issued statements in support of the summer riots were quick to denounce Wednesday’s protests. Nor is it hypocrisy that the activists who took over parts of a Senate office building to protest the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh were celebrated while Biden and the press labeled the people who broke into a federal building Wednesday domestic terrorists. It is not hypocrisy for the establishment to draw a sharp divide allies and enemies, but just evidence that they are at war with the party of the country. History, simple common sense, tells that when one side shoots at the other, the side taking incoming has two choices: surrender or shoot back. There is little doubt the party of the establishment will use the events on the Hill to implement further measures to punish the party of the country, for they would use any pretext—a respiratory illness, for example—to serve those ends. But now they can no longer be sure how the party of the country will respond.
Following-up from last night, "'The Associated Press reported the Capitol Police turned down offers of help to deal with pro-Trump protesters from not one but two law enforcement agencies, opting to treat Wednesday's rally as if it were a free speech demonstration...'"
Never forget that all the Biden-Harris talk of "unifying" the country was all campaign lies.
At NYT, "Live Updates: Democrats Look to Impeachment as Chaos Engulfs Trump’s White House":
Democrats plunged forward on Friday with plans to impeach President Trump over his role in inciting a violent mob attack on the Capitol, picking up some potential Republican support to move as early as next week to try to force Mr. Trump from office just as his term is drawing to a close. Representative Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, the No. 4 Democrat, said that if Vice President Mike Pence would not invoke the 25th Amendment to forcibly relieve Mr. Trump of his duties, Democrats were prepared to act by the middle of next week to impeach him for a second time. Speaker Nancy Pelosi planned to gather Democrats by telephone at noon to discuss the effort. They were rushing to begin the expedited proceeding two days after the president rallied his supporters near the White House, urging them to go to the Capitol to protest his election defeat, then continuing to stoke their grievances as they stormed the edifice — with Mr. Pence and the entire Congress meeting inside to formalize President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory — in a rampage that left five dead. “If the reports are correct and Mike Pence is not going to uphold his oath of office and remove the president and help protect our democracy, then we will move forward with impeachment to do just that,” Ms. Clark said in an interview on CNN. She added that Democrats would use a fast-track process the could begin as early as “mid-next week.” “We have a president who incited a seditious mob to storm the Capitol,” Ms. Clark said. “We now have five deaths from that and the harm to our democracy is really unfathomable.” The prospect of forcing Mr. Trump from office in less than two weeks appeared remote given the logistical and political challenges involved, given that a two-thirds majority in the Senate would be required. But the push unfolded amid a sense of national crisis following the Capitol siege, as White House resignations piled up and some Republicans appeared newly open to the possibility, which could also disqualify Mr. Trump from holding political office in the future...
"What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger," as Friedrich Nietzsche apparently said.
Democrats will further divide the nation and make the MAGA forces stronger. You can go to the bank with that, sheesh.
Prolly a good idea, at this point. (*Eye-roll.*)
At USA Today, "Politics live updates: Trump says he won't attend Joe Biden's inauguration."
The notorious "SoHo Karen."
Truly bizarre, but not surprising, given our destructive youth entitlement culture.
The woman refused to take responsibility, and then gets herself arrested!
Also at Bro Bible, "SoHo Karen" Miya Ponsetto, who falsely accused a black teenager of stealing her iPhone, shushed Gayle King in a bizarre interview hours before her arrest."
And at TMZ:
7:54 PM PT -- Law enforcement sources tell us Miya went anything but peacefully. We're told officers attempted to pull her over 3 blocks from home, but she refused. Once in her driveway, officers had to physically pull Miya out of her car and in the process, she attempted to slam the door on a deputies leg, we're told she will likely face additional charges of resisting arrest. Ponsetto is being held without bail as she'll be extradited to NYC.
This is not a good person, needless to say.
From Kim Strassel, at WSJ, "He also destroyed any chance of a political future, all on a single Wednesday afternoon":
A politician has to work hard to destroy a legacy and a future in a single day. President Donald J. Trump managed it. By this Wednesday afternoon, media outlets had called both Georgia Senate runoffs for the Democratic candidates, handing Sen. Chuck Schumer the keys to that chamber. We now have a Democrat-controlled Washington. The Georgia news came as a mob of Trump supporters—egged on by the president himself—occupied the U.S. Capitol building. Now four people are dead, while aides and officials run for the exits. It didn’t have to be this way. The president had every right—even an obligation, given the ad hoc changes to voting rules—to challenge state election results in court. But when those challenges failed (which every one did, completely), he had the opportunity to embrace his legacy, cement his accomplishments, and continue to play a powerful role in GOP politics. Mr. Trump could have reveled in the mantle of the one-term disrupter—the man the electorate sent to Washington to deliver the message that it was tired of business as usual. He could have pointed out just how successful he was in that mission by stacking his cabinet with reformers, busting convention, and overseeing policy changes that astounded (and delighted) even many warrior conservatives. The withdrawal from the Paris climate accord and the Iranian deal. The greatest tax simplification and reduction since Reagan. The largest deregulatory effort since—well, ever. Three Supreme Court justices and 54 appellate court judges. Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve. The Jerusalem embassy. Criminal-justice reform. Opportunity zones. He could have noted that the greatest proof of just how much Democrats and the establishment feared his mission were the five years of investigations, hysterical allegations and “deep state” sabotage — which he survived...
You prolly can't read the rest, as it's behind the paywall. (I was able to RTWT on my phone.)
Strassel goes on to argue that Trump needed to fully invest himself in Georgia: "Every day needed to be about fundraising, rallying the troops, making clear to his supporters that the only way to preserve his legacy was to keep the Senate in GOP hands. ... This isn't what happened..."
And you know the rest: While popular (even in this household), Trump's demands for a $2,000 stimulus check, "his veto of a defense authorization bill that provided pay raises and support for Georgia's military bases," and his hopeless denial of the results of the presidential election "energized Democrats and depressed Republicans."
With that cluster of a political miscalculation, Charles Schumer, the incoming Senate Majority Leaders, "will now methodically erase ... [Trump's phenomenal] policy legacy."
****
Folks, I voted to reelect President Trump, but I too am feeling betrayed by his personal selfishness. Millions of people have supported him over the years, and literally 74 million Americans pulled the lever to send him back for another term. And for what? Death and destruction on Capitol Hill?
And hold off on your, "But, but, what about the ..."
Trump screwed the pooch and snatched congressional defeat from the jaws of victory. It's really sad. And now just this morning we learn that the radical left is making urgent (perhaps hysterical) demands that Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer retire to make way for a younger (more ideologically polarizing) leftist replacement, ideally a black woman. (See Politico for that, "Liberals to Breyer: Time to Retire.")
So, it's all crashing down.
Andrew McCarthy was on Fox News with Sandra Smith earlier, and he said the next two years are going to be "explosive."
Gird your loins, people.
I saw the A.P. story earlier and tweeted it.
I'm coming back to this now, because a Capitol Police officer was killed yesterday in the line of duty.
At USA Today, "DC riots live updates: Capitol Police officer dies from injuries; FBI offers $50K reward for pipe bomb suspect info":
WASHINGTON — A U.S. Capitol Police officer died Thursday after being injured when supporters of President Donald Trump raided the Capitol building on Wednesday, bringing the total number of fatalities to five. Brian D. Sicknick "was injured while physically engaging with protesters" on Wednesday, USCP said in a statement. He returned to his division office and collapsed, then was taken to a local hospital where he died Thursday evening. "The death of Officer Sicknick will be investigated by the Metropolitan Police Department’s Homicide Branch, the USCP, and our federal partners," the USCP said in a statement. Sicknick had been with the USCP since July 2008, and most recently served in the department’s First Responders Unit, officials said in a statement. ... Before sunrise Thursday, the lawn in front of the Capitol was nearly deserted and silent, a stark contrast from the cheering and chanting of Wednesday's massive crowd that eventually devolved into chaos. Thursday showed little evidence of the pro-Trump mob that breached the U.S. Capitol, forcing the certification of President-elect Joe Biden's victory to be postponed in an attack that left four demonstrators dead. The Washington Post reported several dozen people arrested Wednesday made first appearances in court Thursday. Also Thursday, U.S. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, whose department was severely criticized for its flawed response to Wednesday's attack, resigned abruptly. The Associated Press reported the Capitol Police turned down offers of help to deal with pro-Trump protesters from not one but two law enforcement agencies, opting to treat Wednesday's rally as if it were a free speech demonstration. The lack of preparation and support allowed rioters to breach the Capitol building with little resistance, endangering legislators and resulting in a mob scene that sent shudders throughout the world. Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser was among several critics who called the police's actions “a failure.”But "many others" (the story continues) --- meaning in particular the far-left cable network pundits --- claimed "racism" in the alleged "disparate" response between Wednesday's events and the D.C. protests following George Floyd's death last year, and this (of course) was evidence of the "systemic" injustices that privileged "white supremacist domestic terrorism" over Black Live Matter "peaceful protesters."Now, apparently, Democrats think is the winning message, damn the "unity" agenda the president-elect has been proclaiming this past two months. And don't let Bowser off the hook either. According to the Twitter chatter today, she apparently told the D.C. National Guard that only "unarmed" units would be allowed at the Capitol, and should they need more firepower, they'd have to return to their barracks and come back with the needed firepower later. She's on video saying "the Metropolitan Police Department has been deployed to assist the U.S. Capitol Police ... in restoring order..."As Stars and Stripes reported, "The initial 340 [National Guard] troops activated earlier this week were deployed without firearms or other weapons and without body armor."And also seen on Twitter, "In a letter to federal officials Monday, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser urged federal law enforcement to have a light footprint for Wednesday’s protests, seeking to avoid the type of show of force that inflamed tense situations last year."And according to this report at Politico, President Trump had authorized acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller to "take any necessary steps to support law enforcement..."Great call, Muriel!This country is totally FUBAR. (*Eye-roll.*)
This is a point-blank video, and again, you have been warned.
At Legal Insurrection, "Video of Shooting Death of Ashli Babbitt Raises Questions About Use of Deadly Force."
That video is posted to Twitter, which no doubt will be removed for violating the platform's ever-changing "terms of service."
Fortunately, for truth and posterity, copies of the video have been made, and hosted on non-Google platforms.
See Law Officer, "Videos show shooting of Ashli Babbitt during Capitol crisis."
And to remind you of how leftists have politicized her death, just one quick search on Google and this is among the first three articles to pop up, at NBC News (where else?): "Woman killed in Capitol was Trump supporter who embraced conspiracy theories: Social media profiles connected to Ashli Babbitt were almost singularly focused on radical conservative topics and conspiracy theories."
They're smearing her, a dead woman who cannot stand up to defend herself against such typical leftists demonization.
Shame. Shame. Shame.
I personally wouldn't have stormed the Capitol building. But I wasn't there, so I can't say if this woman acted recklessly or thought she was doing her patriotic duty.
Either way, it's a tragedy.
She was an Air Force veteran. She was loved. The L.A. Times has some background, "Woman fatally shot in U.S. Capitol was a San Diego resident, family says":
Business records show Babbitt was the CEO of Fowler’s Pool Service & Supply Inc. in Spring Valley. Her husband is listed as the company’s chief financial officer. In an email Wednesday evening, Babbitt’s ex-husband, Timothy McEntee, called her “a wonderful woman with a big heart and a strong mind.” McEntee said he and Babbitt were married from April 2005 until May 2019. Her Facebook page indicates she remarried that year. “I am in a state of shock and feel absolutely terrible for her family,” McEntee wrote. “She loved America with all her heart. It’s truly a sad day.” McEntee and Babbitt served together in the U.S. Air Force while married. McEntee wrote that he instantly recognized Babbitt when he saw a photo of the woman who was shot. "[I] immediately knew it was her but was unaware she was in town so I initially had doubts because she lives in California,” McEntee wrote. “But [I] reached out to a friend and he said she was in town for the rally.” Her Twitter account included a photo posted in September of her in a “We are Q” shirt in front of a harbor, with hashtags that included #TrumpBoatParade2020. The post also included the initialism WWG1WGA — “Where we go one, we go all,” — used by followers of QAnon, which promotes baseless conspiracy theories.
Yes. Baseless. (*Eye-roll.*)
I would like to be blogging more, but frankly, I'm overwhelmed with just tying to sort through the news to get at least some semblance of the truth.
Also, my older sister's son has died ---- I just got the news yesterday, of all days ---- so my regular news and blogging routine is a bit messed up right now.
I should have more posts throughout the day, but either way, don't miss this piece from Michael Lind, at the Tablet, "The Five Crises of the American Regime":
In the past eight months, two Capitol Hills have fallen. Two shocking events symbolize the abdication of authority by America’s ruling class, an abdication that has led to what can be described, not without exaggeration, as the slow-motion disintegration of the United States of America in its present form.
The first occurred on June 8, 2020, when the Seattle police evacuated their East Precinct building in the city's Capitol Hill neighborhood. Left-wing rioters stormed the police headquarters and looted it. For 24 days, Seattle’s government allowed would-be revolutionaries to create an anarchist commune, acting out the fantasy of “abolishing the police” embraced by much of the American left as well as liberals who should have known better. This anarchist commune, created in the midst of nationwide protests against the death on May 25 of a Black Minnesotan, George Floyd, in police custody, was the scene of the fatal shootings of two Black men before the police finally shut it down on July 1. On Jan. 6, 2021, America’s elite abandoned another Capitol Hill to rioters. After President Donald Trump stirred them up in an incendiary address in which he claimed that Joe Biden had stolen the presidency from him, a mob of right-wing radicals broke into the United States Capitol, where the certification of the results of last November’s election results was taking place. Like the leaders of Seattle in June, America’s congressional leaders abandoned their posts and fled. In the ensuing chaos, the Trumpist rioters, mostly men wearing MAGA hats or more exotic outfits, posed for selfies in the well of the House chamber or in the legislative offices they broke into. A police officer killed a female rioter. Three others died as a result of “medical emergencies.” As in Seattle’s Capitol Hill, so in America’s: The forces of legitimate authority and coercive order for a period were nowhere to be seen. What is the meaning of these dystopian scenes? Many Democrats claim that Republicans are destroying the republic. Many Republicans claim the reverse. They are both correct. The leaders of both parties have weaponized anarchic mobs against their rivals—the Democrats, by tacitly encouraging and bailing out foundation-funded NGO staffers with secret identities and superhero-style antifa outfits during the tolerated riots of summer 2020, and now the squalid, defeated demagogue Donald Trump, unleashing his own costumed followers on the U.S. Capitol itself. As a rule, comparisons between the United States and Weimar Germany or late republican Rome are misleading, but when rival elite political factions tolerate or encourage mob violence in the streets, the comparisons might be forgiven. A building can rot from within for a long time, before an earthquake or a fire reveals the depth of its structural decay. The COVID-19 pandemic, and the economic disaster that the subsequent lockdowns have produced, no doubt have influenced the timing of the present crisis of the American regime. But the real cause of the crisis itself, I would argue, is the confluence of five crises: A political crisis, an identity crisis, a social crisis, a demographic crisis, and an economic crisis.
At Instapundit, "They are inside the Capitol, with reports of one person shot in the chest":
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): I’ve been mostly offline this week as I recover, but this isn’t right, tempting as it is to call this “mostly peaceful” or somesuch after the past year’s sanctioned riots. Follow the PJ Liveblog for minute by minute coverage. Excerpt:
PREVIOUSLY: "U.S. Capitol on Lockdown!"
