The Trump Riot Aftermath (Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes found guilty of seditious conspiracy. Proud Boys join the club)

[China]

One of These Riots Is Not Like the Other

 

Why make such a big deal about January 6?

 

Sean Hannity, radio host and off-the-books Donald Trump adviser, demands to know. After all, Hannity points out, there have been scores of riots, some of them deadly, over the past couple of years. Why fixate on that one?

 

Sean Hannity apparently believes that he has the dumbest audience in America.

 

The sacking of the Capitol on January 6 by a gang of enraged Trump acolytes acting on the president’s complaint that the election had been stolen from him is different from other riots because of its particular political character. Stealing Nikes is one thing, and stealing the presidency is another. Hannity knows this. Most of you know this.

 

But, apparently, some people need to have it explained to them.

 

Consider: There were 21,570 homicides in the United States in 2020. If one of the victims had been the president of the United States, we would have made a pretty big deal about it. It would have been on the news. There might have been congressional hearings. Why? If we take Sean Hannity’s view, then we should treat such a murder as one murder among the thousands of murders the United States sees in a typical year.

 

But, of course, we do not treat the murders of political leaders that way. We even have a special word for such murders — assassination — because they are different from your average Saturday-night recreational shoot-’em-up in Chicago.

 

Likewise, nobody would care about Hunter Biden’s shenanigans if his father were the president of an office-supply company instead of the president of the United States.

 

We care especially about the killings of political leaders not because these men and women are special people whose lives are valuable in a special way. I am sure Abraham Lincoln’s family mourned him in much the same way as any other murder victim’s family would — but the nation was convulsed because of the political consequences of the assassination.

 

Even Sean Hannity knows this is a problem. That is why he — along with fellow Fox News hosts Laura Ingraham and Brian Kilmeade — texted Trump’s chief of staff to ask the president to try to put a stop to the riot. It is strange that these people, who today insist that Trump had nothing to do with the violent events in question, believed at the time that he was in a position to stop them.

 

(Incidentally, isn’t it at least a little improper for hosts on a so-called news network to be acting in such an advisory capacity? Didn’t CNN dump Chris Cuomo for precisely that — advising the New York governor?)

 

What has been clear to some of us for a long time — and what is becoming more difficult to deny every day — is that the events of January 6 were part of an attempted coup d’état, one that proceeded on two fronts: As the rioters occupied the Capitol and disrupted the process of certifying the Electoral College votes, Trump’s legal minions sought madly for some pretext upon which to nullify the election. Meanwhile, Trump allies occupying several points on the far-right tail of the bell curve of glue-sniffing madness hatched all kinds of supplementary schemes, some of them involving the military.

 

Click on the link for the rest

[China]

‘You’re Backstabbing Trump’: Tempers Flare At Fox News After Geraldo Blames Trump For Jan 6 Attack

 

On Tuesday night, tempers flared during a Fox News segment on the recent release of text messages sent by some of the network’s top influencers to then-chief of staff Mark Meadows during the Jan 6 riot at the US Capitol. The heated war of words started after panelist Geraldo Rivera directly accused former President Donald Trump of inciting the deadly attack.

 

Host Sean Hannity tried to change the subject by asking Rivera why Congress was only investigating the Capitol riot and not the nationwide protests over the murder of George Floyd last year, which saw some incidents of rioting from the demonstrators.

 

Rivera replied that those riots were not an attack on the American republic and system of government the way that this one was.

 

“This was a riot that was unleashed, incited, and inspired by the president of the United States, which targeted the heart of American democracy” Rivera charged.

 

Hannity quickly jumped in and tried to deflect blame by claiming that Trump had urged protesters to act “peacefully,” without noting the fact that Trump for more than three hours refused to tell the rioters to leave the Capitol after the riots had begun.

 

Rivera didn’t back down and cited Hannity’s own texts that he sent to Meadows during the riots asking Trump to put out a statement telling people to leave.

 

“I beg you, Sean, to remember the frame of mind you were in when you wrote that text on January 6,” he said. And when Laura did. And when Brian did. And when Don Jr. did! Remember that concern you had. Remember the frustration you had at our beloved 45th president.”

 

Hannity cut Rivera off and asked guest Dan Bongino to have the final word in the discussion. Bongino answered by accusing Rivera of “backstabbing” Trump.

 

“The backstabbing of the president you’re engaging in is really disgusting!” he fumed. But Rivera was not taking it and a heated argument ensued.

 

Watch the video below.

 

 

[China]

Democrats May Start Releasing The Names Of House GOP Coup Participants Within A Week

 

1/6 Committee Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) said that the committee might decide within a week to release the names of Republican 1/6 coup participants.

 

CNN’s Manu Raju tweeted Thompson’s comments:

 

 

[Fergasun]

Cawthorn, Boebert, MTG...

 

Cawthorn is a Meadows protoge... 

[LD0506]

[Chachie]

21 hours ago, Larry said:

One thing I'm seeing, in those texts?  

 

Those "news hosts" aren't gathering information or asking questions about an ongoing story.  They're giving political advice.  

 

 

 

 

Also noteworthy (but not a shocker). The texts from Ingraham and Kilmeade don't indicate any actual concern for the lives/well being of anyone inside the capitol. 

 

Ingraham: "This is bad for all of us." It's about Trump's and FOX News' (and her own) reputation. Not about people's safety or even democracy.

 

Kilmeade: "He's destroying his legacy." Legacy? F you, bro. Police officers are being beaten with fire extinguishers as you text.

 

Again, not surprising in the least. Just indicative of the people at FOX.

[Califan007 The Constipated]

 

 

 

[Bang]

19 hours ago, China said:

Democrats May Start Releasing The Names Of House GOP Coup Participants Within A Week

Woo Hoo! A week to go before nothing happens to them!!
Everybody ready??

NOTHING WILL HAPPEN TO  ANY OF THEM.

~Bang

Edited December 17, 2021 by Bang

[China]

The Jan. 6 puzzle piece that's going largely ignored

 

As Donald Trump and his allies squeezed then-Vice President Mike Pence to single-handedly stop Joe Biden’s presidency in the weeks ahead of Jan. 6, they used one particular tool that’s been largely ignored ever since.

 

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) sued Pence on Dec. 27, just as Trump was ratcheting up his pressure campaign against his vice president. Backed by a squad of lawyers associated with Trump ally and conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell, Gohmert argued Pence should assert unilateral control over certification, governed only by the vague wording of the Twelfth Amendment.

 

Gohmert’s move forced Pence to publicly resist Trump’s subversion of the election, only a week before the fateful Jan. 6 joint session of Congress. When the Justice Department stepped in to defend Pence from the lawsuit on Dec. 29, it marked the first time Pence signaled he wouldn’t fold to Trump’s demands.

 

Pence allies have long believed that Trump played a role in Gohmert’s legal strategy, and they've indicated that Trump was frustrated that the Justice Department intervened to defend his vice president against Gohmert’s suit. But what remains unknown is just how involved Trump was in Gohmert’s legal strategy. A spokesperson for the former president did not respond to a request for comment.

 

And while it’s unclear whether the Jan. 6 select panel is probing the genesis of Gohmert’s suit — which was quickly rejected by federal district and appellate courts in Texas — one committee member described it as an important episode in the runup to the violence at the Capitol.

 

“It’s a significant detail in that it was part of a plan to isolate and coerce Pence,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.).

 

Click on the link for the full article

[EmirOfShmo]

This is a good article detailing the hypocrisy of the tv-channel-hosts-with-direct-pipe-to the-POTUSCOS by a former same tv-channel-ex-employee:

 

Donald Trump’s Megaphone

Fox News news hosts knew that Trump’s lies were lies—and they amplified them anyhow.

 

Screw it.

I’ve shown a good deal of restraint since news broke that I left Fox News.

I haven’t done any TV about it, and I’ve let a lot of nonsense go by without a response.

A major reason I chose to leave with more than a year left on my contract was that I felt conflicted about speaking freely. Fox understandably doesn’t like to pay people who criticize Fox or its talent, and there is something unseemly about it.

So that was one reason why I left.

Another was that I didn’t want to be complicit in so many lies.

That’s the thing. I know that a huge share of the people you saw on TV praising Trump were being dishonest. I don’t merely suspect it, I know it, because they would say one thing to my face or in my presence and another thing when the cameras and microphones were flipped on. And even when I didn’t hear it directly, I was often one degree of separation from it. (“Guess what so-and-so said during the commercial break?”) Punditry and politics is a very small world—especially on the right—and if you add-up all the congressmen, senators, columnists, producers, editors, etc. you’ll probably end up with fewer people than the student population of a decent-sized liberal arts college.

Yes, yes, some people started to drink the Kool-Aid and actually came to believe their own lies, but that’s a subject for another time. Suffice it to say, however: Just because you’ve come to believe a lie that doesn’t make that lie true.

I never deliberately lied on Fox, but over time I felt like I was becoming complicit in a series of lies of omission. I’ll come back around to explain that in a moment. But let’s start with the news of the day.

The Meadows texts.

Too much and too little has been made of the Meadows texts released this week. On the one hand, we already knew that lots of Trump boosters were horrified by what they saw on January 6. Heck, I suspect that the vast majority of pro-Trump Republicans were horrified. Even Lindsey Graham, who spent much of Trump’s presidency as the Renfield to his Dracula, famously said he was done with Trump from the well of the Senate that very day. We know that Kevin McCarthy, a political homunculus who makes Lindsey Graham seem Churchillian by comparison, was outraged and expressed his outrage directly to the president during the riot—because he knew the president was responsible.

 

https://gfile.thedispatch.com/p/donald-trumps-megaphone

[EmirOfShmo]

 

 

[TradeTheBeal!]

 

[Califan007 The Constipated]

18 hours ago, Bang said:

Woo Hoo! A week to go before nothing happens to them!!
Everybody ready??

NOTHING WILL HAPPEN TO  ANY OF THEM.

~Bang

 

 

 

 

[China]

CNN Exclusive: Jan 6 investigators believe Nov. 4 text pushing 'strategy' to undermine election came from Rick Perry

 

Members of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol believe that former Texas Governor and Trump Energy Secretary Rick Perry was the author of a text message sent to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows the day after the 2020 election pushing an "AGRESSIVE (sic) STRATEGY" for three state legislatures to ignore the will of their voters and deliver their states' electors to Donald Trump, three sources familiar with the House Committee investigation tell CNN.

 

A spokesman for Perry told CNN that the former Energy Secretary denies being the author of the text. Multiple people who know Rick Perry confirmed to CNN that the phone number the committee has associated with that text message is Perry's number.

The cell phone number the text was sent from, obtained from a source knowledgeable about the investigation, appears in databases as being registered to a James Richard Perry of Texas, the former governor's full name.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Largo man receives the longest prison sentence yet for Capitol insurrection

 

U.S. Judge Tanya Chutkan sentenced Robert Scott Palmer to the longest sentence for any person convicted for their role in the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol.

 

Palmer was given a 63-month sentence to be served in federal prison. He received an additional 36 months of supervised release and was ordered to pay $2,000 in restitution. Judge Chutkan said she would recommend that Palmer be housed in a federal prison close to his home in Clearwater but could not guarantee that would happen.

 

Palmer pleaded guilty to his role in the attack on the Capitol on 1/6. The government said Palmer threw a wooden plank at officers, sprayed the contents of a fire extinguisher at the officers before then throwing the extinguishers. He then searched for more materials to assault police with including throwing a fire extinguisher a second time.

 

According to the sentencing memorandum, Palmer was eventually pepper sprayed by law enforcement, but that didn’t stop him. The government said Palmer assaulted another group of officers with a 4–5-foot pole that he threw like a spear at the officers. He was then shot by officers with a non-lethal bullet that hit him in the abdomen.

 

The government said Palmer admitted in interviews that his goal was to subvert a democratic election and that he hoped for military intervention to overturn the election to keep then-President Donald Trump in power.

 

The judge was critical of Palmer’s actions on 1/6 and said that the U.S. Marshals, Capitol Police, and others who fought to keep the insurrectionists out of the Capitol and away from the elected leaders were “the real patriots that day.”

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Corcaigh]

31 minutes ago, China said:

U.S. Judge Tanya Chutkan

i’d have loved to see the reaction of the rioter Robert Scott Palmer when he realized who he had for his judge:

Edited December 18, 2021 by Corcaigh

[Larry]

 

[China]

Marjorie Taylor Greene Falsely Claims ‘There Was No Planning’ and ‘All the People’ at the Insurrection ‘Were Unarmed’

 

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is falsely telling the more than 400,000 people following her verified Facebook campaign account that “all the people” at the January 6 insurrection “were unarmed.”

 

That’s provably false.

 

USA Today has a regularly updated trove that currently contains 675 of the more than 700 people who have been arrested and/or charged for their actions during the insurrection.

The database shows dozens were charged with possession or use of a dangerous weapon.

 

“At least 85 people are charged with carrying or using a weapon during the Capitol riots,” Buzzfeed News reported last month, citing its analysis of court records, detailing them as: “Guns, knives, bats, chemicals, stolen police gear, flagpoles, a ‘Trump 2020’ sign, pieces of metal and wood, crutches, a skateboard, stun devices, a crow bar, and a firecracker.”

 

“The US attorney’s office in Washington has said that approximately 140 police officers were assaulted on Jan. 6, and the majority of defendants charged with weapon-related offenses are also accused of using those objects to attack police. Some are charged with using weapons to break windows, and others are charged simply with having weapons at the Capitol, a crime in itself.”

 

Back in October Scott MacFarlane, one of the top reporters covering the insurrection noted “at least 65 of the Jan 6 defendants have been charged with ‘entering a restricted area with a dangerous or deadly weapon.'”

 

 

Click on the link for more

[Fergasun]

It doesn't matter.  It's clear from this that I'm not even sure Fox News believes their BS... the Trump Riot and the election BS followed on the heels of eight years of crazy, conspiratorial anger that Fox unleashed on the country during the Obama Presidency.  "Birtherism...", "Benghazi...", fill in your racist dog whistling.

 

This is a failed social experiment.  Fox News intentionally fed a false reality to their viewers for decades now (I can say that now because 2009 to 2021)... now  we are seeing a snap forward as their viewers feed into the already distorted false reality.  It's crazy. 

 

I used to think of myself as "conservative", but its crazy that I want nothing to do with the people in the GOP, their leadership, etc.  

 

[EmirOfShmo]

Uh, he did what to them?

 

 

[Barry.Randolphe]

Lindsey Graham probably welcomed that

[China]

2 hours ago, Barry.Randolphe said:

Lindsey Graham probably welcomed that

 

Although he probably would have preferred fisting.

[Llevron]

This is going down a dark path 

 

 

👀

[Spaceman Spiff]

On 12/16/2021 at 8:20 PM, EmirOfShmo said:

This is a good article detailing the hypocrisy of the tv-channel-hosts-with-direct-pipe-to the-POTUSCOS by a former same tv-channel-ex-employee:

 

Donald Trump’s Megaphone

Fox News news hosts knew that Trump’s lies were lies—and they amplified them anyhow.

 

Screw it.

I’ve shown a good deal of restraint since news broke that I left Fox News.

I haven’t done any TV about it, and I’ve let a lot of nonsense go by without a response.

A major reason I chose to leave with more than a year left on my contract was that I felt conflicted about speaking freely. Fox understandably doesn’t like to pay people who criticize Fox or its talent, and there is something unseemly about it.

So that was one reason why I left.

Another was that I didn’t want to be complicit in so many lies.

That’s the thing. I know that a huge share of the people you saw on TV praising Trump were being dishonest. I don’t merely suspect it, I know it, because they would say one thing to my face or in my presence and another thing when the cameras and microphones were flipped on. And even when I didn’t hear it directly, I was often one degree of separation from it. (“Guess what so-and-so said during the commercial break?”) Punditry and politics is a very small world—especially on the right—and if you add-up all the congressmen, senators, columnists, producers, editors, etc. you’ll probably end up with fewer people than the student population of a decent-sized liberal arts college.

Yes, yes, some people started to drink the Kool-Aid and actually came to believe their own lies, but that’s a subject for another time. Suffice it to say, however: Just because you’ve come to believe a lie that doesn’t make that lie true.

I never deliberately lied on Fox, but over time I felt like I was becoming complicit in a series of lies of omission. I’ll come back around to explain that in a moment. But let’s start with the news of the day.

The Meadows texts.

Too much and too little has been made of the Meadows texts released this week. On the one hand, we already knew that lots of Trump boosters were horrified by what they saw on January 6. Heck, I suspect that the vast majority of pro-Trump Republicans were horrified. Even Lindsey Graham, who spent much of Trump’s presidency as the Renfield to his Dracula, famously said he was done with Trump from the well of the Senate that very day. We know that Kevin McCarthy, a political homunculus who makes Lindsey Graham seem Churchillian by comparison, was outraged and expressed his outrage directly to the president during the riot—because he knew the president was responsible.

 

https://gfile.thedispatch.com/p/donald-trumps-megaphone

 

 

This article was fantastic.

 

4 hours ago, EmirOfShmo said:

Uh, he did what to them?

 

 

 

Did he do the humpty dance next?

[China]

Jim Jordan ‘Committed a Felony’ Punishable By 20-Year In Prison On Jan 6: Ex-Federal Prosecutor

 

GOP Rep. Jim Jordan, of Ohio, was thrown into the spotlight this week after it was revealed that he forwarded a text message to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows urging then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject some electoral college votes on Jan. 6 in order to keep Donald Trump in power.

 

In response to the report, Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) called Jordan “a traitor to the Constitution.”

 

During an appearance on MSNBC on Friday Gallego defended his use of the word “traitor” and said Jordan is “more dangerous” than the rioters who stormed the Capitol wearing camouflage and carrying Confederate flags.

 

“As a matter of fact, he’s more dangerous than the yahoos, because he actually has access to power, access to information, and actually knows the process of how to stall democracy,” Gallego said, Raw Story reported.

 

Fellow panelist Glenn Kirschner, a former federal prosecutor, agreed with Gallego that Jordan is a “traitor” and said Jordan’s text message to Meadows constitutes probable cause that Jordan committed “obstruction of official proceedings,” a federal felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

 

Click on the link for the full article