Drunkard's Walk Forums

‘He screwed the country’: Trump loyalty disintegrates

Capitol Police firings imminent after ‘attempted coup,’ top appropriator warns

Stephen Colbert has a thing or two to say.

(01-07-2021, 11:20 AM)SilverFang01 Wrote: [ -> ]More on the bans here:
Twitter says Trump’s account is locked, and he’s facing a ban

Trump blocked from Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat after violence on Capitol Hill

It took an assault on Congress for Facebook and Twitter to draw a line on Trump

Trump to Regain Ability to Tweet, but Facebook Ban to Continue

Also: Shopify Takes Trump Organization and Campaign Stores Offline

Quote:A Shopify spokeswoman said President Trump violated the company’s policy, which prohibits retailers on the platform from promoting or supporting organizations or people that promote violence. “As a result, we have terminated stores affiliated with President Trump,” the company said.

Rep. Ilhan Omar says she is drawing up articles of impeachment against Trump

https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/c...5658c67d8d

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/...-violence/

Reps. David Cicilline (D-RI), Ted Lieu (D-CA) and Jamie Raskin (D-MD) Announce Articles of Impeachment for Trump

Rep. Omar appears to have been involved in some way, but not as a primary author despite her announcement last night.

I think they should do both at the same time

And Elaine Chao has left the sinking ship.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/07/politics/...index.html

Seems she did not want to be one of the Cabinet Members to pull the trigger on the 25th amendment.

Ninja'd.

(01-07-2021, 12:04 PM)Bob Schroeck Wrote: [ -> ]Capitol Police firings imminent after ‘attempted coup,’ top appropriator warns

Quote:Ryan noted video footage that went viral of Capitol Police officers allowing rioters past fencing in order to access the building. “I have no idea why that would be permissible,” he said. “That’s unacceptable. … We’ll be looking at all of that.”

I'm kinda surprised we aren't talking more about this.  From what I heard from a coworker, police were even taking selfies with the rioters.  If this is true, then I expect to start seeing some metaphorical heads on pikes here soon.

I overheard something on the TV news Peg's watching about the Sergeant-at-arms resigning in connection with the pathetic "defense" of the Capitol, but I have no more info and I can't find a link at the moment.

Does this mean William Henry Harrison's record is in jeopardy? (Yes, I had to google him)

Mike Pence's sole Presidential act may well be to air the smell of burger out of the White House.

Trump is still lashing out at anyone who's not kissing his butt:

Trump withdraws actng Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf's nomination to become the actual Secretary of DHS after Wolf says Trump should 'strongly condemn' Capitol violence.

(01-07-2021, 10:06 AM)Bob Schroeck Wrote: [ -> ]Video Shows Newly Elected W.Va. Lawmaker Among Mob That Stormed The U.S. Capitol

A followup NPR article notes that the video was originally a live feed on the Facebook page of Republican Derrick Evans, member of the West Virginia House of Delegates. It's since been deleted, but not before copies were made and spread across the Web. Evans is currently claiming he was there "as an independent member of the media to film history" even though he isn't a journalist of any kind. However, the members of the mob in his vicinity clearly knew who he was, and "We're in! We're in! Derrick Evans is in the Capitol!" can be heard on the video.

West Virginia House Speaker Roger Hanshaw has implied he's going to be interrogating Evans as to just what the hell he was doing. And there have been calls for his resignation from other House of Delegates members.

Author John Scalzi comments on the situation:
https://whatever.scalzi.com/2021/01/07/b...-we-didnt/

(01-07-2021, 02:31 PM)SilverFang01 Wrote: [ -> ]And Elaine Chao has left the sinking ship.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/07/politics/...index.html

Seems she did not want to be one of the Cabinet Members to pull the trigger on the 25th amendment.

Honestly "You put my husband in mortal peril" is a good reason to resign, though maybe it shouldn't have come to that?  For those not in the know, Elaine Chao is married to Mitch McConnell.  But this is a clear sign that a major faction of the old Republican Party has split from Trump.

In other news, Rep. Eric Swallwell just went on TV and suggested that because of the specific offices in the Capitol that were targeted by protesters, that they may have had help from the inside, such as from Members or their staff.  Looks like it's time to revive the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Also literally no one is going to start from an Ilhan Omar document to impeach the President.  She's our party's leftmost wing, and she totally triggers the right.  If it came from her, the tide would turn against Democrats as the right media would start calling it a coup to impose sharia law.

I've linked to brilliant satire by Washington Post opinion writer Alexandra Petri before.  This time, she was too angry to be satirical.  Still brilliant, though.

Quote:This story is not unrelated to the American dream: a story about who deserves things simply by virtue of who they are, and who doesn’t; who is instantly presumed to be a true countryman, who will be told to go back to a place they never came from. It is a story about who gets to go where, who gets to exist safely in public, and who is only there on sufferance. It is a story about who gets to be real.
...
It is not a surprise that Trump has thrilled white nationalists and white supremacists, Proud Boys and xenophobes and misogynists, those to whom being more real than others is so important....
...The Trump era is also the story of being menaced with guns and told you weren’t actually being menaced with guns — you were seeing people exercising freedom; you were watching a cheery band of patriots come to see their government at work. They were domestic, in the most vibrant militia tradition of the Founding Fathers, nothing like terrorists. This was their right, if a little rowdy. Everyone calling it a coup, or a mob, or an insurrection was hysterical. Proud Boys will be boys, after all.
...
The message echoes down the frescoed corridors: Never forget, for a second, what we can do to you, if no one stops us.

In response to another opinion article, a reader using the handle Not Without A Fight commented:

Quote:The sight of the Confederate Battle Flag in the halls of Congress froze and then boiled my blood.  Trump succeeded in doing what the entire Army of Northern Virginia could not.

I’m so glad my father (USCG ret.), Uncle E. (USMC, KIA WWII), Uncle W. (USN/USCG ret.), and Uncle R. (USA, CIB in Korea) have all passed.  Their hearts, I think, would be as shattered as mine.

Yes.  The battle flag of the Confederates, the flag of treason against the United States, carried triumphantly through the Capitol Building.

(01-07-2021, 02:59 PM)Bob Schroeck Wrote: [ -> ]I overheard something on the TV news Peg's watching about the Sergeant-at-arms resigning in connection with the pathetic "defense" of the Capitol, but I have no more info and I can't find a link at the moment.

Yeah, the sergeant-at-arms is the chief of the Capitol Police:

Pelosi calls for the resignation of the US Capitol Police chief

Meanwhile The Nation brings readers inside the crowd

From " Gosh, if we kill a fifth of bourbon tonight,” said a man in a Thin Blue Line baseball cap, “it’s gonna be a rough ride home tomorrow.”

Through to "When the roars dissipated, individuals cried out to fill the silence. “Democrats are a cult!” “Long live the Republic!”

“So, where’re y’all from?” “Oh, we’re from Nebraska, howboutcherselves?”

“It’s going down tonight, motherfuckers!” one man cried, to loud agreement. “We’re going to get some tonight, let’s fucking go!”


“He’s the commander in chief. He’s telling us to go home!” ----- “I can’t go home, I drove all the way from Arizona!”

“Pigs!” “Is this what we get for backing the Blue?!”

“This is not America,” a woman said to a small group, her voice shaking. She was crying, hysterical. “They’re shooting at us. They’re supposed to shoot BLM, but they’re shooting the patriots.”

----

Reality exceeds the ability of fiction. Along with the banality of it all. And yer wan who got shot was on Twitter, with her final tweet preserve for all

Things that did not go as planned. A mix between the peculiarly sad, and playing stupid games.

(01-07-2021, 03:18 PM)SilverFang01 Wrote: [ -> ]Author John Scalzi comments on the situation:
https://whatever.scalzi.com/2021/01/07/b...-we-didnt/

I see one of the comments asks where they're going if what happened yesterday wasn't the intended end-result.

I can't speak for Mr. Scalzi, but I can offer my thought on the matter.

Quoting from Wikipedia's page on Heinlein's Future History:

Quote:These stories were key points in the Future History, so Heinlein gave a rough description of Nehemiah Scudder which made his reign easy to visualize—a combination of John Calvin, Girolamo Savonarola, Joseph Franklin Rutherford, and Huey Long. His rise to power began when one of his flock, the widow of a wealthy man who would have disapproved of Scudder, died and left him enough money to establish a television station. He then teamed up with an ex-Senator and hired a major advertising agency. He was soon famous even off-world—many bonded laborers on Venus saw him as a messianic figure. He had muscle as well—a re-creation of the Ku Klux Klan in everything but name. "Blood at the polls and blood in the streets, but Scudder won the election. The next election was never held."

Now, replace "television station" with "blog", "off-world" with "out of the country", and "Nehemiah Scudder" with "Donald Trump's less-narcissistic but just as power-hungry successor in the GOP".

Even during the era of the two Bush presidencies, I would have thought that to be far-fetched... but today I think it's all-too-possible.

The entitlement and privilege, it boggles the mind

Republican state lawmaker livestreamed himself in mob storming US Capitol: "Patriots inside, baby!"

He's in real estate and property management, but decided to claim that he was just in the Capitol as a member of the media.  This piece of human trash ran as a Democrat in early 2016 and lost, switched to run as a Libertarian in fall 2016 and lost, and finally got himself elected as a Republican in 2020.

Isn't that fellow's head of the party in his legislature the one who said 'I have lots of questions about this decision of his'?

That's the same guy I already posted a couple messages about, particularly #138 above.

YouTube’s Legal Eagle on the insurrection

Trump finally admits defeat: 'A new administration will be inaugurated on January 20'

He doesn't mention Biden by name, he doesn't say the word "concede", and he finally condemns the attack on the Capitol. I doubt he's terribly sincere; it strikes me as a tactic to try to escape the worst possible consequences coming from yesterday, including his removal from office.