…some days are easier than others…but somehow the saying that comes to mind of late is that boot camp motto about “the only easy day was yesterday”
The deadly breach at the Capitol last week will be a “significant driver of violence” for armed militia groups and racist extremists who are targeting the presidential inauguration next week, according to a joint intelligence bulletin issued by federal authorities.
The “boogaloo,” a movement that seeks to start a second civil war, and extremists aiming to trigger a race war “may exploit the aftermath of the Capitol breach by conducting attacks to destabilize and force a climactic conflict in the United States,” according to the bulletin issued by the National Counterterrorism Center and the Justice and Homeland Security Departments, which was disseminated widely to law enforcement agencies across the country.
The bulletin, obtained by The New York Times, is labeled “Domestic Violent Extremists Emboldened in Aftermath of Capitol Breach, Elevated Domestic Terrorism Threat of Violence Likely Amid Political Transitions and Beyond.” Antigovernment militias and racists extremists “very likely pose the greatest domestic terrorism threats in 2021,” the agencies said.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/01/13/us/capitol-investigation/fbi-and-us-officials-urge-police-chiefs-to-be-prepared-and-share-intelligence
In the bulletin, written by the National Counterterrorism Center and the Justice and Homeland Security Departments and obtained by The New York Times, federal officials said that extremist groups have viewed the breach of the Capitol as a success and have been galvanized by the death of Ashli Babbit, a military veteran and QAnon follower who was shot by the police as she tried to enter the heavily protected Speaker’s Lobby, just outside the House chamber. The extremists could perceive that death as “an act of martyrdom,” they said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/13/us/fbi-police-threats-inauguration.html
…because
We’ve been watching this drama ever since Trump refused to acknowledge he lost the election and went on a completely loony, unprecedented campaign claiming the vote had been fixed by Biden supporters. A multitude of his manic followers thronged to Washington, where Trump advised them, “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
Imagine his shock when they rushed to the Capitol in rage.
So which do you think gives Donald Trump more pain — being the first doubly impeached president in history or being fired as host of that big golf tournament? [NYT]
…after all…how could anyone have known how that was going to work out?
Trump brought leadership turmoil to security agencies in run-up to Capitol riot [WaPo]
Dozens of people on FBI terrorist watch list came to D.C. the day of Capitol riot [WaPo]
Only 75 people were arrested on the day of the Capitol siege, and police were not stopping and frisking random protesters.
Yet the authorities still turned up a wide array of weapons among the tiny slice of protesters who were arrested before and after the Capitol invasion.
The haul included an assault rifle, crossbow and eleven Molotov cocktails — all found in the car of an Alabama man.
Others had brass knuckles and pocket knives, stun guns and “stinger whips.”
In all, police recovered a dozen guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition from seven separate people who were arrested before and after the Capitol riot, according to a review of court documents. One man, Lonnie Coffman of Alabama, was found with a massive arsenal that included five guns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, federal prosecutors say.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/stun-guns-stinger-whips-crossbow-what-police-found-on-capitol-protesters
…& maybe this is just me but
Proud Boys Supporter With 1,000 Rifle Rounds Made Threats, U.S. Says
The man, Eduard Florea, had been detained late Tuesday after a search of his home turned up an arsenal of over 1,000 rounds of rifle ammunition, two dozen shotgun rounds, 75 military-style combat knives, two hatchets and two swords, prosecutors said. No gun was found.
[…]
At around 1 a.m. on Jan. 6, while posting under the name “LoneWolfWar” in a group thread about Mr. Warnock on the social media website Parler, the complaint says, Mr. Florea wrote that “dead men can’t pass laws,” with an obscenity added for emphasis.Later that day, also on Parler, Mr. Florea wrote of having three cars of “armed patriots” in a “caravan” headed to Washington, the complaint says. As the Capitol riot unfolded, he wrote that the time for peace and civility was over and that “here in New York we are target rich.”
The F.B.I. searched the home of Eduard Florea in Queens and found a cache of ammunition after he had posted threatening statements online on Jan. 6 supporting the efforts to overturn the election results. [NYT]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/13/house-republican-wanted-proof-incitement-here-are-four-rioters-who-came-dc-because-of–trump
…that kind of thing sounds like a pressing concern
News reports, including direct accounts from Democratic colleagues, suggest some Republicans voted against impeachment because they were afraid for their lives. Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) in a recent MSNBC interview said: “The majority of them are paralyzed with fear. I had a lot of conversations with my Republican colleagues last night, and a couple of them broke down in tears — saying that they are afraid for their lives if they vote for this impeachment.”
[…]
These Republicans’ concern for their own physical safety is not matched by any concern for the menace the mob poses to others. They will protect themselves, just not their fellow Americans. Indeed, they would protect themselves by voting with the mob at the risk of leaving others more endangered by a white-supremacist movement willing to kill, kidnap and overthrow the government.If these complaints about fear are legitimate, lawmakers committed a gross dereliction of duty by not coming forward with the information and by casting votes contrary to their oaths. And if they really were cowed into voting with the mob, they should consider leaving public life. They sound as though they don’t have the stomach for it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/01/14/bullied-into-voting-against-impeachment-tell-cops-then–resign
…& yet
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told his GOP colleagues in a note Wednesday afternoon that he remains undecided on whether he’ll vote to convict the president at his upcoming impeachment trial.
“While the press has been full of speculation, I have not made a final decision on how I will vote and I intend to listen to the legal arguments when they are presented to the Senate,” McConnell said.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/mcconnell-remains-undecided-convicting-trump-senate-trial
McConnell breaks with Trump, says he’ll consider convicting him in Senate trial [WaPo]
…surely if mitch felt any kind of pressing concern he’d convene the damn trial a little quicker
…seems like yesterday would have been a good start…mind you…this at least does actually seem like a good start
Social media platform Parler, which has gone dark after being cut off by major service providers that accused the app of failing to police violent content, may never get back online, said its CEO John Matze.
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/parler-ceo-says-social-media-app-favored-trump-supporters-may-not-return
…& this doesn’t hurt
With less than seven days remaining in his presidency, Trump’s inner circle is shrinking, offices in his White House are emptying, and the president is lashing out at some of those who remain. He is angry that his allies have not mounted a more forceful defense of his incitement of the mob that stormed the Capitol last week, advisers and associates said.
Though Trump has been exceptionally furious with Vice President Pence, his relationship with lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, one of his most steadfast defenders, is also fracturing, according to people with knowledge of the dynamics between the men.
[…]
As he watched impeachment quickly gain steam, Trump was upset generally that virtually nobody is defending him — including press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, economic adviser Larry Kudlow, national security adviser Robert C. O’Brien and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, according to a senior administration official.“The president is pretty wound up,” said the senior administration official, who, like some others interviewed, spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid. “No one is out there.”
[…]
Still, in a stark illustration of Trump’s isolation, the White House did not mount a vigorous defense Wednesday as House members debated his fitness for office and, ultimately, voted to impeach him. The president’s aides did not blast out talking points to allies. His press secretary did not hold a briefing with reporters. His advisers did not do television interviews from the White House’s North Lawn. His lawyers and legislative affairs staffers did not whip votes or seek to persuade lawmakers to vote against impeachment.
[…]
“I just think this is the logical conclusion of someone who will only accept people in his inner orbit if they are willing to completely set themselves on fire on his behalf, and you’ve just reached a point to where everyone is burned out,” a senior administration official said. “Everyone is thinking, ‘I’ll set myself on fire for the president of the United States for this, for this and for this — but I’m not doing it for that.’ ”A former senior administration official in touch with the White House said in describing the staff mind-set: “People are just over it. The 20th couldn’t come soon enough. Sometimes there’s a bunker mentality or us-versus-them or righteous indignation that the Democrats or the media are being unfair, but there’s none of that right now. People are just exhausted and disappointed and angry and ready for all this to be done.”
[…]
Other than family members, the president is mainly talking to Meadows, Scavino, senior policy adviser Stephen Miller and personnel director Johnny McEntee. Hope Hicks, counselor to the president and long one of his closest confidantes, has been checked out for some time, according to people familiar with her status.
[…]
Several aides laid blame for the situation not only on Trump but also on Meadows, because the chief of staff indulged Trump’s delusion that the election was rigged and fed him misinformation about alleged voter fraud.“He is the one who kept bringing kook after kook after kook in there to talk to him,” one adviser said.
[…]
Some current and former advisers described the impeachment as a sad ending that was unnecessary, propelled by a president who could not simply accept a loss and a vast array of aides willing to prop him up.
[…]
“He is feeling increasingly alone and isolated and frustrated,” this official said. “One of the metrics by which he’s often judged any number of things is: ‘Who’s out there saying good things about me or fighting on my behalf?’ And he never seemed to think there were enough people doing it strongly enough.”Now, in the final days, this official said, “it’s like death by a thousand cuts.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-isolated-impeachment/2021/01/13/story.html
…whereas this kind of shit
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/01/13/republican-lawmakers-house-metal-detectors
As lawmakers entered the Capitol on Wednesday for one of the most solemn enterprises in American government, the impeachment of a president, Representative Lauren Boebert was causing a spectacle before even making it into the chamber. She pushed her way through newly installed metal detectors and ignored police officers who asked her to stop so they could check her with a hand-held wand.
This reprised a standoff from the evening before, when Ms. Boebert, a freshman Republican from Colorado, refused to show guards what was inside her handbag as she entered the building. In both cases, she was eventually granted access, but not before engineering a made-for-Twitter moment that delighted the far right.
A Republican Lawmaker for Whom the Spectacle Is the Point [NYT]
[…]
The standoff at the metal detectors was a characteristic stunt by Ms. Boebert. She is only 10 days into her term but has already arranged several episodes that showcased her brand of far-right defiance as a conspiracy theorist who proudly boasts of carrying her Glock handgun to Washington. She is only one of 435 House members, but Ms. Boebert, 34, represents an incoming faction of the party for whom breaking the rules — and gaining notoriety for doing it — is exactly the point.
…for fuck’s sake…you’d think that if you were already under suspicion by your colleagues of conspiring to have them assaulted (&/or murdered)
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/aoc-says-she-feared-her-life-during-capitol-riot-i-thought-i-was-going-to-die
…that you’d maybe just submit to the indignity that so many schoolkids have to on a daily basis
Democrats demand investigation of whether Republicans in Congress aided Capitol rioters [WaPo]
Led by Representative Mikie Sherrill, a New Jersey Democrat and former Navy pilot, more than 30 lawmakers called on Wednesday for an investigation into visitors’ access to the Capitol on the day before the riot. In a letter to the acting House and Senate sergeants-at-arms and the U.S. Capitol Police, the lawmakers, many of whom served in the military and said they were trained to “recognize suspicious activity,” demanded answers about what they described as an “extremely high number of outside groups” let into the Capitol on Jan. 5 at a time when most tours were restricted because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Separately, the inspector general’s office of the Capitol Police said it was opening a potentially wide-ranging inquiry into security breaches connected to the siege. The Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan federal watchdog agency, signaled that it would look into what role, if any, members of Congress may have played in inciting the mob of Trump supporters who breached metal barricades and shattered windows on Jan. 6, seeking to overturn the results of the election.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/13/us/politics/capitol-riot-investigation.html
…rather than need to be charged in the other sense
…even just to comply with common sense
…but then these fuckers be crazy
QAnon didn’t fully account for the rampage, and the theory’s namesake — a top-secret government messenger of pro-Trump prophecies — has largely vanished, posting nothing in the past 35 days and only five times since Trump’s election loss.
But QAnon’s prominence at the Capitol raid shows how powerful the conspiracy theory has become, and how quickly it has established a life of its own. On fringe right-wing platforms and encrypted messaging apps, believers are offering increasingly outlandish theories and sharing ideas for how they can further work to overturn the results of the Nov. 3 contest — with violence, if necessary.
The fervent online organizing seen ahead of last week’s assault has begun building again. A QAnon group on Gab has grown by more than 40,000 members since the failed insurrection. Thousands more have flocked to QAnon-affiliated spaces on the private-messaging app Telegram. One 12,000-member channel was so overrun with new members that those behind the forum temporarily froze the chat feature.
Even as Trump is set to exit the White House, QAnon’s grip on the conservative psyche is growing. Two freshmen Republican members of Congress, Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) and Lauren Boebert (Colo.), have voiced support for QAnon, while others have tweeted its slogans. State legislators across the country have further lent it credence while also backing Trump’s claims of electoral theft despite a lack of evidence and dozens of swift rejections in court.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/13/qanon-capitol-siege-trump
First, the quality of Republican members of Congress is abysmally low. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Wednesday acknowledged that “the president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding.” But he couldn’t support impeachment. In other words, McCarthy concedes the egregiousness of Trump’s behavior, but he cannot find the decency and honor to seek the president’s removal. McCarthy’s only discernible argument was that there would not be time to remove Trump before a new president takes office, which is laughable since Republicans control the Senate and therefore the schedule for the impeachment trial. It was a shameful display by a weak, hollow politician.
Other Republicans voting against impeachment argued that Democrats had done bad things. Or that, contrary to what Americans saw on television, the mob acted on its own. Or that impeachment would be divisive (unlike allowing sedition to go unpunished, one supposes). The moral and intellectual degeneration of the Republican Party was there for all too see.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/01/13/trump-is-impeached-yet-again-most-gop-members-shrug-sedition
[…]
In short, a grim picture emerges that the Republican Party, with few exceptions, has departed from the bounds of reason, truth and democracy. If the House is representative of the party and its members as a whole, one can expect them to remain in the political wilderness for some time. There is, to the chagrin of those who support a two-party system, only one party that can be said to stand for the Constitution and objective reality.
…I’m starting to see a pattern when it comes to the people they have sympathy with
…& the ones they don’t
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/interactive/2021/blm-protest-capitol-riot-police-comparison
…so what do you suppose they might be trying to get done in the dying days of this dumpster-fire of misplaced vanities they had the temerity to call an administration?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/14/mike-pompeo-lashes-out-reign-ends
…you know
Trump administration makes last-ditch push for census numbers, whistleblowers say [WaPo]
…legacy shit
The Trump administration on Wednesday removed more than 3 million acres of Pacific Northwest land from the protected habitat of the northern spotted owl, 15 times the amount it had previously proposed opening to the timber industry.
[…]
“I’ve gotten several calls from wildlife biologists who are in tears who said, ‘Did you know this is happening? The bird won’t survive this,’” said Susan Jane Brown, a staff attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center, a conservation group that advocates on behalf of the northern spotted owl.The decision is the latest in a series of midnight regulations the Trump administration has pushed out in recent weeks that privilege industry over protecting the environment, including shielding industry from fines and prosecution if they kill migratory birds and reducing protections for animals and plants under the Endangered Species Act.
[…]
Two people familiar with the spotted owl decision said the sharp increase in excluded land was done at the behest of Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and other senior Trump administration appointees and was not backed up by the months of biological analysis previously conducted by the agency.The final rule does not provide new scientific analysis. Instead it says “the Secretary has exercised his discretion” to exclude millions of more acres of land from critical habitat. He concluded, it said, “based upon the best scientific and commercial data available” that the northern spotted owl would not be threatened with extinction.
Conservationists said that assertion was unsupported by the agency’s own evidence. In December, the Fish and Wildlife Service ruled that the northern spotted owl should actually be reclassified, as endangered rather than threatened, but the agency said it would not take steps to do so because it had “higher priority actions.”
Trump Opens Habitat of a Threatened Owl to Timber Harvesting [NYT]
…I don’t know about you but there’s a fair chance I’m going to have my head stuck out the window all weekend
…& I’m guessing @loveshaq might join me for the chorus
…so…yeah
I missed yesterday’s DOT, so I don’t know if this was covered, but there’s also Oak Flat, the ancient sacred site in Arizona;
https://nativenewsonline.net/sovereignty/apache-stronghold-files-lawsuit-in-federal-court-to-stop-oak-flat-transfer
And here in MN, we’re still trying to push back on PolyMet….
https://www.wdio.com/mining-news/prove-it-first-copper-nickel-mining-lawmakers/5976492/
Don’t forget, Jared & Vapid’s DC house is rented from/owned by a mining company
https://dc.curbed.com/2017/4/4/15177278/ivanka-trump-jared-kushner-home-rent
…I’m not sure I’ve ever added links to a DOT about the first two…been kind of slack about things to be indignant about that aren’t *gestures wildly in all directions* the obvious stuff…so thanks for those
…as for jared & the miss complicity…apparently while they’re in said rental their house rules include not letting the secret service use the bathroom…which is some stunning lack of gratitude for people whose job is potentially to risk their lives on your behalf
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/01/14/secret-service-bathroom-ivanka-trump-jared-kushner
…not to mention that’s a few thousand bucks more run up on the taxpayer’s tab for no good reason?
Oh, dear. Narcissist Barbie is discovering that even more people find treason objectionable and that Daddy Dearest is no longer a selling point:
https://www.rawstory.com/ivanka-2649949546/
I talked about it yesterday but it’s still fun to see doors getting slammed in her face.
Saw THAT one, yesterday, too, but forgot to mention it😉
The part about the Obamas letting the agents use THEIR garage was really unsurprising…
As was the fact that someone on Dolt45’s team TRASHING that bathroom🙃
The way RIP read this comment:
“I need to stop worrying about what links to leave out and instead stay up 24/7 finding ways to fit ALL OF THEM in.”
In some ways, I respect the Republicans in the fuhrerbunker spending their last days pounding out memos on rolling back regulations. They knew what they signed up for and by God they’re going to complete their mission even as the Red Army crosses the river into Berlin.
I read a really interesting book about Berlin in the final days of WWII. The city was being bombed to smithereens but somehow they got it to function. Everyone, no matter how young or how old, as long as they could carry a pail of rubble or throw a pail of water on a fire pitched in. The Allies would aerial bomb tram tracks and they’d be repaired overnight. The subway station I commuted to had a simple concrete one-level staircase, about two people wide, out of commission for nine years. They maintained daily, usually same-day, mail delivery. Someone recently mailed me a check and it took 13 days to get to me. I could have gotten to him in about two days on horseback. Telegraph wires, no problem. For some reason toward the end they had problems providing water and electricity reliably, but that was probably due to coal shortages. Functionaries worked around the clock to move documents into bomb-proof storage; that’s why we know so much about the Third Reich. When do you think your state/local government will get around to vaccinating you against COVID? 2023 maybe?
This is one of those things that I can never totally get over when I hear not-rich people sing capitalism’s praises. Even if you’re solidly middle-class and aren’t exposed to the system’s sharp edges, it’s not hard to look around and see how bad things are that might still affect you: Lousy roads! Vaccine delays! Shitty airports! Poor health care service! Either extremely poor or outrageously pricey child care! No high-speed trains! Not enough food inspections!
The answer to why stuff worked in war was collective effort, which we have abandoned so deeply that now just having a government function even at a minimum level is “socialism.”
…I know what you mean…& then I generally find myself thinking two things
…thank fuck they didn’t work this hard the whole four years
…& just imagine what could be accomplished if all that effort went into un-fucking some shit instead of fucking shit up worse
…so it’s hard to know what to call it…grudging respect doesn’t really get across the scale of the grudge involved?
It really is dedication, isn’t it? And let’s face it, most of this stuff will get overturned eventually, so they’re pushing back against the tide. I supposed they have to hope that developers et al. can swoop in and take action before the incoming administration can roll this garbage back. I further suppose that a lot of it is to burnish their resumes, to get jobs with fossil-fuel companies and construction overlords post-Trump (a lovely phrase).
Meanwhile, on the good news front:
https://www.npr.org/2021/01/14/956924155/ex-michigan-gov-rick-snyder-and-8-others-criminally-charged-in-flint-water-crisi
This is a reminder to me that, sometimes, accountability does take place–it just takes a lot longer than I want it to. Snyder’s charges are weak tea, but I guess that’s how plausible deniability works.
I watched Rachel Maddow cover that story last night and holy fucking crap I hope they rot in jail. Like I knew about Flint and how fucked over the residents were, but I didn’t realize how involved it was above the local level.
I didn’t see this in there, or remember it from yesterday. Schadenfreude, anyone?
Trump ‘refusing to pay’ Rudy Giuliani’s legal fees after falling out
I referred to it a couple times in responses because I find it fucking hysterical. And still do, so thanks for that.
…I think that I skipped quoting the appropriate bit but the WaPo piece that talks about the rudy/donnie boy relationship fracturing mentioned it?
…but it lacked that rather great quote so thanks for that
…kind of meant to find a spot for something about how (despite not dropping the 25th on him) pence is pissed enough to have pretty much stopped speaking to the tangerine tyrant who more or less told his slavering horde to go string up his VP for not doing some shit he’d explained was never in his power to do
…but…well…these run pretty long as it is?
At first I thought Pence was fleeing for his life but I’ve read somewhere since that he’s actually met with Trump since Trump tried to have him killed. I’m like, holy shit, how spineless are you?
The article further suggested that since Pence was the poorest of the Trump co-conspirators he has to worry about finding a job after all this. So he’s trying to avoid pissing off literally anyone because he’s worried that he won’t make it past the HR screens at right-wing corporations and so forth. He’s definitely not going to get hired by anyone else. So that means more Trump bootlicking.
…speaking of pence…remember that police officer who lured the people up a staircase away from an open door to the senate?
How the rioters who stormed the Capitol came dangerously close to Pence [WaPo]
…no shit eugene goodman deserves a fucking medal
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/lawmakers-introduce-bill-award-congressional-gold-medal-hero-officer
He’s brilliant for using their racism against themselves.
…yeah…it’s really something…the more that comes out about that episode on the stairs the more impressive the guy’s presence of mind & grasp of the situation looks
…also bonus points for the blazing saddles thing
I think one other black officer got suspended and/or fired because he was filmed wearing a MAGA hat and leading a bunch of knuckledraggers outside to rounds of applause. I’m willing to bet he did the same thing that Goodman was doing, so hopefully they figure that shit out and he gets his job back.
Honestly, Officer Goodman saved a lot of protestors’ lives with that move. If they’d gone for Pence, the Secret Service would have started annihilating them. They might have returned fire, but they’d have gotten chopped to bits. Look at some of the footage of the Reagan attack years ago and watch the Secret Service pull out automatic weapons. They don’t discuss what they are packing, but it damn sure ain’t limited to handguns.
…I had a similar-ish conversation with some folks earlier today…if that mob had come into contact with one of their “targets”…especially pence…the degree to which the situation would have escalated is hard to wrap my head around
…but it’s safe to say it would have included a body count significantly steeper than the one there was…& there’s a good chance the consequences would make the current circumstances seem like peaceful interlude by comparison?
Absolutely. They might have gotten past the Secret Service — I doubt it but it’s possible they could have overwhelmed them with numbers and we still don’t know the weapons some of them were carrying — but a LOT of them would have died. I honestly think that the first time the Service cut loose with an automatic burst of fire the insurrectionists would have trampled one another fleeing from them. That’s where most of the deaths would have come from.
Hell, they trampled one another getting into the Capitol.
Exactly. It seems safe to say that even the weekend warriors had no fucking clue what they were about to subject themselves to. Reagan’s assassination attempt was 39 years ago, and let’s face it, MAGAts are NOT known for their research skills or their knowledge of history. Plus, the Secret Service does NOT discuss their preparations or response level or other options, for obvious reasons. Even the trained imbeciles seemed to think they were headed to the OK Corral and would be swapping gunfire with people armed with revolvers. The Secret Service does NOT fucking play that game. Given the provocation they will gack your ass with extreme prejudice.
Can I just say (and maybe someone already has) how blessedly quiet it is without those tiny, fat orange fingers typing on an iPhone constantly? I mean, it’s just heavenly. I didn’t realize how incessant that orange fool’s onslaught was until it stopped. 58 tweets per day:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/14/trump-twitter-megaphone/
Now, of course, I feel anxious about what he’s up to, like when the kids are playing and all of the sudden it goes silent and you’re like, okay, what the hell is going on because I know damn good and well you’re getting into some shit and OPEN THAT DOOR RIGHT NOW
Or, more accurately, when the abusive spouse is out of the house and you have no idea what’s going on or what you’ll be confronted with when the front door opens. It’s really been an abusive relationship, hasn’t it?
Dude. You’re not getting paid. You can drop the act now.
This thread is a decent summary of how the feds are running down the larger conspiracy:
https://mobile.twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1350052927327629313
As in, funders, leadership structure, and ties to Congress.
They are pretty clearly not just treating this as a situation where they book a bunch of guys stupid enough to post in Instagram photos of themselves waving Trump flags and call it a day.
I think the feds are pursuing a theory that the bulk of the mob was organized to provide muscle for the initial break in and then provide distraction and cover for the ones who were out to seize Pence and Democrats. Now they are looking for ways to get the useful idiots to reveal what they know about the inner circle.
I think some of the GOP leadership understands this, and they are trying to walk a thin line between getting stuck backing criminals and getting hit with a backlash from the GOP base if the Feds can’t make a case.
When Barr was Attorney General I strongly suspect the GOP congressional leadership would not be flying blind — he would find a way to wink and nod toward what they should and should not worry about. I doubt they have much good intelligence now, and are probably limited in what kind of signals they can send to their own people.
Fuck both Jared and Ivanka. People are dying of a preventable disease thanks to THEIR ineptitude. Her idiot traitor of a dad started an insurrection against the institutions of the FEDERAL government.
Yet all they care about is their goddamned futures which is never surprising from what I know about both of them.
I hope all the horrible stupid inept things they’ve done haunts them and their family forever.
Someone somewhere brought up they undoubtably have the same ban on the people who clean or handle any of the other jobs to keep the house going.
I have had people working on my house asking extremely apologetically if they can use the bathroom, and I’ve realized that some people are just freakishly opposed to someone they have hired using their bathroom.
I can kind of see being concerned about your main bathroom if you have a bunch of prescription meds, but Ivanka and Jerry’s house had to have had a first floor bathroom that would have worked. And as far as Secret Service agents, you can trust them anywhere in your house.
…I think the number I saw quoted was something like a half-dozen…& they wouldn’t give the okay for the people protecting them to use even one of them…it beggars belief
Well, after all, they are the help. You wouldn’t want the help using your fine bathroom, would you? I mean, you just don’t know where they’ve been.
In all honesty, I think it was most likely that “You can trust them anywhere in your house” part which was exactly why they didn’t want them in the house.🤨🤨🤨
We KNOW that Jared’s been What’s Apping the Saudis & others….
He probably was using a part of the house as a “home office” where he had shit written down,to keep track of what he’s been selling off to whom…. (because ya don’t leave a digital trail, whenever possible!)…
I suspect that he & Vapid didn’t want anyone finding out what state secrets they’ve been trying to sell.
🤨🤔😒
You can all relax now, it’s Fur Face Friday!
https://backtalkvillage.blogspot.com/2021/01/fur-face-friday_15.html?m=1
…I may never have been so grateful for you dropping of one of those links as I am today
…is it possible that animals are better than people?
@SplinterRIP I have no doubt that they are.
I forgot to share this one last week (and I want to be able to drop that tab on my phone😉).
https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5ff51131c5b6ea7351c66821
I’d kept the story tab open, because I meant to share it over here–the story is NOT the “WTF?!?!????” story i thought it was gonna be, when I saw the headline…
I was thinking it was going to be terrible–like pretty much every modern “child bride” story eventually ends up… and I guess I figured this was going to be a “dustbowl-era” version of that.
But, surprisingly, it’s not.😉
The widow–Helen Viola Jackson *DID* marry Civil War vetran James Bolin in the heart of The Great Depression (1936), when she was 17, and he was 93…
But their marriage was one of kindness, and caring for your fellow human, rather than a “traditional marriage.”
They get into the story a good bit on the HuffPo article, but the Facebook link (as AWFUL as Facebook is, this IS a good story!) has a fuller version;
He was an elderly widower who needed help, she was one of 10 kids, and they attended the same church. Her dad sent her over after school to help Mr. Bolin with chores, and eventually–not wanting to feel like a charity case, Mr. Bolin proposed an arrangement–
He asked her to marry him, so that he could pass on his civil-war pension to her after he died, so that she could take care of herself.
She agreed, as long as she could remain living with her family, and keep her name–this was to be an agreement/ marriage of kindness, only.
So they were married for 3 years, until his death. She never applied for that pension, because one of his daughters–threatened to trash Helen’s reputation, and back then–according to Helen herself, “A woman’s reputation was all she had.”
She never told folks about her marriage, until a few years ago, when she happened to mention it to her minister as they were planning her funeral.
He talked to her more, and got the full story, then it sounds like perhaps he convinced her to talk to some local historians & get her story down, for folks to learn in the future.😃💖🤗
It’s SOOOOOOO not the story anyone would expect from the headline–because it’s just so often not what happens in the cases of folks with THAT sort of age gap, who are married as a minor.
It’s a decent, sweet little read, and although DIFFERENT than most folks can fathom, amazingly kindhearted, too.
RIP, I will scream & yell with you anytime! I am currently at my rage limit though so maybe we could schedule it in the morning?
…I hear you on the reached-my-limit thing…& hopefully the habitat thing is something that can get walked back with the quickness once these assholes get shown the door
…but it sure as hell seems like a screaming travesty to me
…be nice to think we might find something nicer to do with a saturday morning, though?
And now there is this: What is Donald Trump planning for January 20th?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9151549/Trump-plans-fly-Mar-Lago-morning-inauguration-final-snub-Biden.html
Jesus Tap-Dancing’ Christ. Just fucking give it up. Red carpet. Color guard. 21-gun salute. Meanwhile half the country will be dancing in the streets, at least metaphorically. The majority of members of Congress from both parties will be heaving huge sighs of relief. Even Mike Pence’s facade might crack and he’ll break out some “YMCA” dance moves. I think every radio station and tv network should play George Michael’s “Freedom” the moment Biden finishes taking the oath of office. I’ll be making a special Inauguration Day late lunch and while it’s cooking I’m going to blast Kate Smith’s “God Bless America.” I don’t care, I’ve become unhinged, and by a syphilis-addled TV game show host of all people.
Interesting. I figured he would be holding a campaign kickoff rally for 2024 during the inauguration, but I’m guessing the “optics” aren’t good right now, so they switched it to a big farewell party, which will only be attended by people paid to be there. What a piece of shit.
He can’t PAY for it. You and I have been paying for his rallies during his reign. He can’t get cities to front him and wait for a check now that he’s not president.
Donald Trump presidential library? Yeah, we already got that!
http://www.cc.com/shows/the-daily-show-with-trevor-noah/trump-twitter-library
Oh, fuuuuuckkk, my dude. You are so monumentally screwed:
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-brand/
Key quotes:
“What does the Trump brand represent?” [Tim O’Brien} wrote for Bloomberg. “And how valuable has it been, really — even before the president alienated half of the country and untold millions overseas, bungled the federal response to a deadly pandemic and got himself impeached for the second time by convincing a confederacy of dunces, thugs and white supremacists to lay siege to the Capitol?”
“Do you remember Donald J. Trump Eyeglasses, Donald Trump Regency Collection lighting, Select by Trump coffee, Success by Trump cologne, Trump Home mattresses and furniture, Trump Ice bottled water, Trump Steaks, Trump: The Game, Trump Vodka, or the Donald J. Trump Signature Collection of underwear, ties, shirts and suits? Does the Trump PrivaTest at-home urine test ring a bell?”
“As is his wont, he has saddled his holdings with lots of debt. Forbes estimates Trump’s total indebtedness to be about $1.1 billion, and about $900 million is coming due over the next four years, some of it this year,” [O’Brien] explained.
Hey, 80s kids! Anthony Michael Hall (Weird Science, The Breakfast Club) is a Qanon nut. You can see his Instagram
@amh4real
Super! Everything is totally normal.
This is sad, but also NOT particularly surprising…
Makes one wonder–because Q *IS* so anti-science/medicine/vaxx, if he’s off-meds again? 😕
There have been multiple incidents in the past, where apparently he (like MANY folks with MH conditions!!💖💔) started to feel “better,” so stopped taking his meds, and then just SPIRALED–it’s caused various lawsuits & he’s ended up with various charges over the years.
Much like Kanye’s stuff, it’s just sad & heartstring-pulling, when folks who could afford the BEST MH care possible end up self-sabotaging *and* around folks who enable that self-sabotage to flourish.😕
Also,just to clarify, Mental illness does NOT mean anyone can’t just ALSO be a racist/bigoted asshat, and racism/asshattery is 100% NOT a mental illness!!
Much like Roseanne Barr, I’m just gonna remember him as the version from my childhood.
Also, I heard Governor Walz irate tell Minnesotans that the federal stockpile of vaccines that was supposedly being released “immediately” apparently WAS released….
Back in December.
We ain’t got no backups, y’all!😳😲😬🥴
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/01/15/trump-vaccine-reserve-used-up/
eh tbh…same issue with the vaccines over here….i mean…we didnt have reserves..but it seems everyone selling them may have told a porky pie or two about how many they could make by when
We had 300 doses 3 weeks ago, we still have 200 doses. The rollout has gone really bad and the people that we are allowed to vaccinate don’t know they are eligible or where to go. We are trying to make people aware but only so much we can do. I spent my morning building an outdoor garage to set up an outdoor clinic and try to get more people through. What a mess!
over here theres been a big hooha about figuring out if frontline staff or gp’s or nursing home patients should get it first
anywhos…it was decided frontline staff should go first
sooo funnily enough the hospitals office jocks were amongst the first…funny how that shit works
Oh, this made my Friday a great one.
Trump Staffers Are Having A Hard Time Finding New Jobs
I hope the Lincoln Project interviews them, just for their own entertainment.