Trump loyalists in Congress to challenge Electoral College results in Jan. 6 joint session (Update: Insurrectionists storm Congress)(And now what?) (2 Viewers)

[superchuck500]

I guess it's time to start a thread for this. We know that at least 140 members of Congress have pledged to join the objection. Under federal law, if at least one member of each house (HOR and Senate) objects, each house will adjourn the joint session for their own session (limited at two hours) to take up the objection. If both houses pass a resolution objecting to the EC result, further action can take place. If both houses do not (i.e. if one or neither passes a resolution), the objection is powerless and the college result is certified.

Clearly this is political theater as we know such a resolution will not pass the House, and there's good reason to think it wouldn't pass the Senate either (with or without the two senators from Georgia). The January 6 joint session is traditionally a ceremonial one. This one will not be.

Many traditional pillars of Republican support have condemned the plan as futile and damaging. Certainly the Trump loyalists don't care - and many are likely doing it for fundraising purposes or to carry weight with the fraction of their constituencies that think this is a good idea.

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL32717.pdf

 

[Optimus Prime]

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) called for President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for attorney general, Pam Bondi, to bring "murder charges" against the Capitol Police officer who shot and killed Ashli Babbit during the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

"Yes, 100%," Greene responded after the Washington Examiner asked if she supported charges for the Babbit shooting.

"I would hope that our new incoming attorney general, who I like a lot, I like Pam Bondi a lot, I hope that she looks into it and would consider murder charges, some sort of charges. At least," Greene said............

MSN

 

[fooferdoggie]

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) called for President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for attorney general, Pam Bondi, to bring "murder charges" against the Capitol Police officer who shot and killed Ashli Babbit during the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

"Yes, 100%," Greene responded after the Washington Examiner asked if she supported charges for the Babbit shooting.

"I would hope that our new incoming attorney general, who I like a lot, I like Pam Bondi a lot, I hope that she looks into it and would consider murder charges, some sort of charges. At least," Greene said............

MSN

Margirne Trailer grease strikes again.

 

[Optimus Prime]

The federal judge who oversaw the trial and sentencing of Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy for orchestrating a plan to violently stop the certification of Joe Biden’s presidency, said Wednesday that the prospect Donald Trump might pardon him is “frightening.”

“The notion that Stewart Rhodes could be absolved is frightening and ought to be frightening to anyone who cares about democracy in this country,” said U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta during the sentencing of one of Rhodes’ former Oath Keeper allies.

Mehta sentenced Rhodes to 18 years in prison last year, calling him “an ongoing threat and a peril to this country, to the republic and to the very fabric of our democracy.” The Obama-appointed judge emphasized Wednesday that his view of Rhodes has not changed, saying Rhodes still presents a threat...........

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/12/18/oath-keepers-pardon-rhodes-001632

 

[Optimus Prime]

Though most Americans oppose Donald Trump’s plan to pardon January 6 rioters charged with a crime, more than 4 in 10 said they support the decision, according to a new poll.

President-elect Trump has promised to issue pardons for those charged or convicted of a crime related to their actions on January 6, 2021, on his first day in office — a move that would validate his narrative of the day.

Despite the images, videos and convictions that show the tragic results of the attack on the Capitol, 43 percent of Americans said they support Trump’s decision to pardon rioters, according to the CNBC All-America Economic Survey.

Four people died on January 6 after a violent mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol while Congress was certifying 2020 election results. A fifth person, a Capitol police officer, died the following day.

The mob was inspired to stop the certification in part due to lies about mass voter fraud after Trump lost the election. He claims Democrats “stole” the election from him.…….

Many Americans support Trump’s plan to pardon Jan 6 rioters charged with crimes

Approximately half of Americans oppose Trump’s plan to pardon rioters

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Optimus Prime]

DC police officer convicted of tipping off Proud Boys leader before Capitol attack

Shane Lamond found guilty of leaking to Enrique Tarrio that a warrant was out for his arrest before January 6

www.theguardian.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

I don’t know what history will look at as the more tragic event, Jan 6th or the reelection of the man responsible
===========


The sun shone brightly on 6 January 2021. The birds chirped, children frolicked and thousands of unarmed patriots gathered peacefully in Washington DC for a “day of love”.

It was a beautiful gathering in support of US democracy. In the words of incoming president Donald Trump, “nothing done wrong at all”.

Perhaps that’s not quite how you remember the scenes of violent mobs storming the Capitol that were broadcast around the world four years ago.

Perhaps that’s not how you, personally, would characterise an event in which more than 140 police officers were viciously assaulted and four people died; a furious riot in which crowds chanted “hang Mike Pence” and set up a makeshift gallows.

But it’s certainly how a significant number of people seem to remember it: 6 January seems to have been alarmingly normalised – a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll published last year found about seven in 10 Republicans think too much fuss is being made about the event and that it is “time to move on”.

Other polls also show that, as the years go by, Republicans are less likely to believe 6 January participants were “mostly violent” and that Trump bears responsibility for the attack.

A collective amnesia appears to have set in. Across large swathes of the US, a brazen coup d’etat seems to have been successfully recharacterised as a protest that just went a teeny bit awry.

To be clear: when I say “coup” I’m not talking solely about the events that unfurled on 6 January.

One of the key reasons, I suspect, that Trump’s insurrection attempt is not taken as seriously as it should be in some quarters is that still, there is too much focus on the riot itself, rather than the broader scheme that it was part of. And the riot, while violent, can easily be characterised as a haphazard, almost absurd, affair.

One of the poster boys of 6 January, after all, was Jacob Chansley, AKA QAnon Shaman, who ran through the US Senate chamber sporting a horned headdress, face paint, and a bare chest. (After being arrested he also famously demanded an all-organic diet in prison.)

It’s tempting to look at him and think: “bunch of weirdos who got out of control”, rather than “complex insurrection attempt”.

But, again, the riot at the Capitol wasn’t the coup attempt: it was just one part (albeit the most dramatic part) of a broader campaign by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election via misinformation, intimidation and a number of complicated legal manoeuvres.

Rather than being spontaneous chaos, 6 January was part of a calculated plan……….

January 6 was part of an attempted coup d’etat in America. Don’t let Trump and his allies tell you otherwise | Arwa Mahdawi

That so many seem willing to normalise that anti-democratic outrage is frightening, says Guardian columnist Arwa Mahdawi

www.theguardian.com

 

[faceman]

I don’t know what history will look at as the more tragic event, Jan 6th or the reelection of the man responsible
===========


The sun shone brightly on 6 January 2021. The birds chirped, children frolicked and thousands of unarmed patriots gathered peacefully in Washington DC for a “day of love”.

It was a beautiful gathering in support of US democracy. In the words of incoming president Donald Trump, “nothing done wrong at all”.

Perhaps that’s not quite how you remember the scenes of violent mobs storming the Capitol that were broadcast around the world four years ago.

Perhaps that’s not how you, personally, would characterise an event in which more than 140 police officers were viciously assaulted and four people died; a furious riot in which crowds chanted “hang Mike Pence” and set up a makeshift gallows.

But it’s certainly how a significant number of people seem to remember it: 6 January seems to have been alarmingly normalised – a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll published last year found about seven in 10 Republicans think too much fuss is being made about the event and that it is “time to move on”.

Other polls also show that, as the years go by, Republicans are less likely to believe 6 January participants were “mostly violent” and that Trump bears responsibility for the attack.

A collective amnesia appears to have set in. Across large swathes of the US, a brazen coup d’etat seems to have been successfully recharacterised as a protest that just went a teeny bit awry.

To be clear: when I say “coup” I’m not talking solely about the events that unfurled on 6 January.

One of the key reasons, I suspect, that Trump’s insurrection attempt is not taken as seriously as it should be in some quarters is that still, there is too much focus on the riot itself, rather than the broader scheme that it was part of. And the riot, while violent, can easily be characterised as a haphazard, almost absurd, affair.

One of the poster boys of 6 January, after all, was Jacob Chansley, AKA QAnon Shaman, who ran through the US Senate chamber sporting a horned headdress, face paint, and a bare chest. (After being arrested he also famously demanded an all-organic diet in prison.)

It’s tempting to look at him and think: “bunch of weirdos who got out of control”, rather than “complex insurrection attempt”.

But, again, the riot at the Capitol wasn’t the coup attempt: it was just one part (albeit the most dramatic part) of a broader campaign by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election via misinformation, intimidation and a number of complicated legal manoeuvres.

Rather than being spontaneous chaos, 6 January was part of a calculated plan……….

January 6 was part of an attempted coup d’etat in America. Don’t let Trump and his allies tell you otherwise | Arwa Mahdawi

That so many seem willing to normalise that anti-democratic outrage is frightening, says Guardian columnist Arwa Mahdawi

www.theguardian.com

if he pardons these scumbags he'll open a war he cannot win. He will have some courageous republicans fighting him

 

[Dragon]

if he pardons these scumbags he'll open a war he cannot win. He will have some courageous republicans fighting him

I hope so..

 

[FullMonte]

He will have some courageous republicans fighting him

Those still exist?

 

[SFIDC3]

if he pardons these scumbags he'll open a war he cannot win. He will have some courageous republicans fighting him

Stop Face, next you'll tell me that unicorns are real.....

 

[Optimus Prime]

Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz concluded last month that no undercover FBI employees were at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, nor at the rally on the Ellipse preceding the riot.

He also revealed that the bureau had 26 informants in D.C. that day, but only three of them had been tasked by FBI field offices to be in the city.

While they entered restricted areas at the Capitol, none were authorized to do so or to encourage others to break the law.

These findings should be so unsurprising as to be unworthy of much attention.

They are sadly relevant because, four years after the insurrection, key figures in the orbit of President-elect Donald Trump have tried to misrepresent them to suggest that they validate the preposterous claim that the FBI staged the Capitol attack.

“For those keeping score at home, this was labeled a dangerous conspiracy theory months ago,” Vice President-elect JD Vance wrote on social media, sharing a story about the 26 informants.

Billionaire Trump backer Elon Musk added: “What’s the difference between a ‘right-wing conspiracy’ and reality? About 6 months.”

Vivek Ramaswamy, who is set to lead the “Department of Government Efficiency” alongside Mr. Musk, added that anyone who “uttered the facts” in the inspector general’s report was previously labeled a “conspiracy theorist.”

Hovering over all of this is Mr. Trump’s promise to quickly pardon people convicted of Jan. 6 crimes. This would be even less justifiable after the IG report’s than it was before.

The report says that the assistant special agent in charge of the counterterrorism division at the FBI’s Washington Field Office denied a request to send an undercover employee to D.C. for Jan. 6.

This shows that the agency was mindful of a policy that limits undercover employees from collecting intelligence at First Amendment-protected events.

In FBI lingo, informants are confidential human sources. The inspector general determined that 23 of the 26 who went to Washington on Jan. 6 did so “on their own initiative.”

The other three were tasked with reporting on potential domestic terrorism subjects who were thought to have been going. One of the three entered the Capitol, and the other two entered the restricted area around the Capitol…….

Does a new report justify Jan. 6 pardons? In fact, it does the opposite.​

 

[Optimus Prime]

Brandon Fellows, who broke into the US Capitol on January 6 and smoked marijuana in a senator’s office, stood outside the Washington DC jail where he spent part of his three years’ sentence behind bars, thinking about how Donald Trump might soon help him get his life back on track.

Having served his prison sentence after being found guilty on a slew of federal charges, the 30-year-old is today on probation under terms that have prevented him from leaving the capital region to start a chimney maintenance business in New Jersey. But with Trump returning to the White House on 20 January, Fellows expects his circumstances to change dramatically.

“I’m just going to wait till after the election, make sure I don’t have to partake in a real insurrection if Trump loses, and … then I’ll decide what I’m doing after,” he said about his thinking before November’s presidential election.

Now that Trump has won, Fellows is counting on the president-elect to pardon him and other January 6 defendants. “With Trump in office, yeah, I’m starting to plan and [rebuild] my life again,” Fellows said…….

“We’re excited for the pardon, but we’re excited that we have our country back, because we love our country and we love all the people in it,” added Gregory Purdy from New York, who was convicted last year of a slew of charges related to attacking police during January 6 riot.

James Grant, a North Carolina man who was found guilty of assaulting officers with a metal bike rack barricade, said the fallout from his conviction was keeping him from pursuing his career, and warned of worse consequences for others if the president-elect does not keep his promise.

“I need a pardon to return to law school,” said Grant, who has been released from prison. “If people are not pardoned, I hate to say it, but there will be suicides. These people are facing so much. What happens these next 20 days is going to change the fate of the world, and in these gentlemen’s lives, this is the biggest few weeks of their lives.”……..

‘We have our country back’: convicted January 6 rioters anticipate Trump pardons

The president-elect has vowed to hand out pardons to non-violent offenders convicted for the assault on the US Capitol

www.theguardian.com

 

[fooferdoggie]

Brandon Fellows, who broke into the US Capitol on January 6 and smoked marijuana in a senator’s office, stood outside the Washington DC jail where he spent part of his three years’ sentence behind bars, thinking about how Donald Trump might soon help him get his life back on track.

H

no lessons learned and expects a reward for being a traitor. sounds like a trump fan to me.

 

[cuddlemonkey]

“I’m just going to wait till after the election, make sure I don’t have to partake in a real insurrection if Trump loses, and … then I’ll decide what I’m doing after,” he said about his thinking before November’s presidential election.

“I need a pardon to return to law school,” said Grant, who has been released from prison. “If people are not pardoned, I hate to say it, but there will be suicides. These people are facing so much. What happens these next 20 days is going to change the fate of the world, and in these gentlemen’s lives, this is the biggest few weeks of their lives.”……..

Both of these guys can fork off. Boo frigging hoo, they decided to FA, and when they FO, they still didn't learn.

 

[Optimus Prime]

The man in control of the Utah-based rightwing militia Oath Keepers USA, a recent spinoff of the national organization first established by Stewart Rhodes in 2009, is a former Las Vegasmetropolitan police department (LVMPD) homicide detective who left the force in acrimony after advocating “race war”.

The revelations about Robert “Bobby” Kinch, now of Duck Creek, Utah, come from public records, online materials and the work of a longtime infiltrator of the patriot movement in the Pacific north-west, who provided vital evidence to the Guardian captured inside Kinch’s home.

The findings show that four years on from January 6, the Oath Keepers, who played a central role in fomenting that day’s insurrection in Washington, have not disappeared but have continued quietly adding law-enforcement officers to their ranks.


The return of Donald Trump to the presidency may encourage the likes of Kinch to bring their movement back into the spotlight, as the incoming administration promises to carry out unprecedented mass deportation of immigrants and to take on Trump’s perceived opponents, whom he has described as “the enemy within”.

Heidi Beirich, chief strategy officer and co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE), said: “These disclosures show once again how police departments aren’t taking the threat of extremists in the ranks seriously.”……..

Key Oath Keepers leader revealed as former Las Vegas police detective

Details about Utah-based Robert Kinch, who backed ‘race war’, suggest rightwing militia has retained links with police

www.theguardian.com

 

[DaveXA]

The man in control of the Utah-based rightwing militia Oath Keepers USA, a recent spinoff of the national organization first established by Stewart Rhodes in 2009, is a former Las Vegasmetropolitan police department (LVMPD) homicide detective who left the force in acrimony after advocating “race war”.

The revelations about Robert “Bobby” Kinch, now of Duck Creek, Utah, come from public records, online materials and the work of a longtime infiltrator of the patriot movement in the Pacific north-west, who provided vital evidence to the Guardian captured inside Kinch’s home.

The findings show that four years on from January 6, the Oath Keepers, who played a central role in fomenting that day’s insurrection in Washington, have not disappeared but have continued quietly adding law-enforcement officers to their ranks.


The return of Donald Trump to the presidency may encourage the likes of Kinch to bring their movement back into the spotlight, as the incoming administration promises to carry out unprecedented mass deportation of immigrants and to take on Trump’s perceived opponents, whom he has described as “the enemy within”.

Heidi Beirich, chief strategy officer and co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE), said: “These disclosures show once again how police departments aren’t taking the threat of extremists in the ranks seriously.”……..

Key Oath Keepers leader revealed as former Las Vegas police detective

Details about Utah-based Robert Kinch, who backed ‘race war’, suggest rightwing militia has retained links with police

www.theguardian.com

Still haven't been able to find my shocked face.

 

[bird]

Still haven't been able to find my shocked face.

Yeah, me neither.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Op ed by Joe Biden
==============

On this Jan. 6, order will be called. Clerks, staff and members of Congress will gather to certify the results of a free and fair presidential election and ensure a peaceful transfer of power. Capitol Police will stand guard over the citadel of our democracy.

The vice president of the United States, faithful to her duty under our Constitution, will preside over the certification of her opponent’s victory in the November election.

It is a ceremony that for more than two centuries has made America a beacon to the world, a ceremony that ratifies the will of the voters.

For much of our history, this proceeding was treated as pro forma, a routine act. But after what we all witnessed on Jan. 6, 2021, we know we can never again take it for granted.

Violent insurrectionists attacked the Capitol, threatened the lives of elected officials and assaulted brave law enforcement officers.

We should be proud that our democracy withstood this assault. And we should be glad we will not see such a shameful attack again this year.

But we should not forget. We must remember the wisdom of the adage that any nation that forgets its past is doomed to repeat it. We cannot accept a repeat of what occurred four years ago.

An unrelenting effort has been underway to rewrite — even erase — the history of that day. To tell us we didn’t see what we all saw with our own eyes.

To dismiss concerns about it as some kind of partisan obsession. To explain it away as a protest that just got out of hand.

This is not what happened.

In time, there will be Americans who didn’t witness the Jan. 6 riot firsthand but will learn about it from footage and testimony of that day, from what is written in history books and from the truth we pass on to our children. We cannot allow the truth to be lost…………

Joe Biden: What Americans should remember about Jan. 6​