Loser Don tried to get around his banishment from Twitter by using the official POTUS account, but he failed because oddly enough Twitter understands that Trump tweeting as POTUS is still Trump, and they zapped the tweets immediately.

This is built in. Loser D can of course use another outlet, or perhaps use another IP address to set up a new Twitter account, but he can’t do it as himself, because Twitter won’t let him, and doing it as someone else is no use to him. He already has plenty of slavish someone elses who will praise him from now until the earth falls into the sun, and what he wants is to speak in his own glorious albeit … Read the rest

They watched it.

Correction: this is the pre-speech warm up team.

https://twitter.com/edi_samira/status/1347176030495272960… Read the rest

Twitter finally did it.

Twitter permanently suspended President Donald Trump’s account on Friday, citing “the risk of further incitement of violence.”

Not to mention further lies and abuse and bullying.

The company banned the president’s account after years of public pressure and several attempts to limit the reach of his account in recent days. Hundreds of Twitter employees signed a letter urging Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to ban the president for using the platform to incite violence in the wake of the Capitol siege.

“In the context of horrific events this week, we made it clear on Wednesday that additional violations of the Twitter Rules would potentially result in this very course of action,” Twitter said in a

… Read the rest

They said no thanks.

According to the Associated Press, the Capitol Police knew about the potential threat of the riot days before it took place, but rejected offers of help from the National Guard and the FBI. Officials said that they wanted to avoid using federal force against Americans, as they had done this summer.

Uh………………………….

So when it’s Black Lives Matter, it’s deadly force time, but when it’s pasty-faced fascists, it’s hello nice to see you please don’t steal anything worth more than $5000.

The choice to turn down help amid warnings of an insurrection is as revealing as it is disturbing: Why did law enforcement assume that they’d encounter violence from protesters marching for Black lives in

… Read the rest

Accounts differ. CNN’s account of how Kevin Greeson died inside the Capitol:

Greeson had a history of high blood pressure and suffered a heart attack amid the excitement, his family said in a statement to CNN. He was an advocate of Trump and attended the event to show his support.

“He was excited to be there to experience this event,” the statement said. “He was not there to participate in violence or rioting, nor did he condone such actions.”

Well that’s not true. He was inside the Capitol. He was, necessarily, participating in the violence and rioting that enabled the rioters to be inside the Capitol.

Also…

Dead from heart attack. Kevin Greyson replied on Parler to post floating “militia

… Read the rest

They’re hustling.

A growing corps of House Democrats, furious over the invasion of the Capitol on Wednesday by a mob inspired and encouraged by President Trump, is pushing to rapidly impeach the president a second time — hoping to force Trump from office even a few days early rather than allow him to leave on his own terms.

Removing Trump by constitutional means is a tall order for the 12 days remaining in his presidency, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has not made a formal determination to move forward with a second impeachment, even as she consulted Friday with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff about curbing Trump’s ability to launch nuclear weapons.

That ability should … Read the rest

Takes some nerve.

Been spreading lies about the election for months, voted to disenfranchise millions in Arizona and Pennsylvania, but bygones amirite https://t.co/lj9C7d6gBP

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) January 8, 2021

WE must work together – says one of Trump’s loyal lapdogs. It’s not the Democrats who raised “the temperature” by enabling the treasonous mob boss who tried to incite a coup two days ago.… Read the rest

Anyway he’s already taken it back.

The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2021

Failed useless impotent loser tries to bully world by shouting.

Meanwhile he has five deaths on his hands – five people died because of his coup attempt. Four were coup-attempters and one was a cop resisting them.

But he’s not interested in that. He doesn’t care about that. He doesn’t feel any shame or guilt about that. He has other fish to fry.

To all of those

… Read the rest

The BBC is also asking pointed questions about the abject failure to stop the attempted coup on Wednesday.

Criticism centres on preparation by police and their failure to anticipate possible violence, despite evidence that radical pro-Trump supporters and other groups were openly discussing their plans online.

And despite the fact that it is apparently standard procedure to police-up heavily for a protest or march that could get violent. This one wasn’t even a case of “could get”; the coup plotters were openly shouting that it would get violent.

The Washington Post, citing sources close to the matter, says that Capitol Police charged with guarding the building and its grounds did not make early requests for help from the city’s main

… Read the rest

Trump may have had high-level help from federal officials who blocked the normal procedures for a potentially violent DC protest.

The supporters of President Donald Trump who stormed the Capitol on Wednesday to stop the ratification of President-elect Joe Biden’s election victory were attempting a violent coup that multiple European security officials said appeared to have at least tacit support from aspects of the US federal agencies responsible for securing the Capitol complex.

Insider spoke with three officials on Thursday morning: a French police official responsible for public security in a key section of central Paris, and two intelligence officials from NATO countries who directly work in counterterrorism and counterintelligence operations involving the US, terrorism, and Russia.

People who know … Read the rest

He’s surrendered…until he takes it back.

pic.twitter.com/csX07ZVWGe

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2021

… Read the rest

A new martyr for free speech! Not really martyr, since he’s not dead, but you know. Martyrish.

My statement on the woke mob at @simonschuster pic.twitter.com/pDxtZvz5J0

— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) January 7, 2021

He wasn’t really representing his constituents by pretending to believe Trump’s lies about the election; he wasn’t leading a debate about voter integrity, because that’s not what the pretend debate was about; it does look like sedition to try to overturn an election by lying about voter fraud; big publishing companies are not “the Left.”

And, crucial point, it’s not “canceling everything we don’t approve of” to resist efforts to steal an election.… Read the rest

Pro Publica notes that it was all out there in plain sight.

For weeks, the far-right supporters of President Donald Trump railed on social media that the election had been stolen. They openly discussed the idea of violent protest on the day Congress met to certify the result.

“We came up with the idea to occupy just outside the CAPITOL on Jan 6th,” leaders of the Stop the Steal movement wrote on Dec. 23. They called their Wednesday demonstration the Wild Protest, a name taken from a tweet by Trump that encouraged his supporters to take their grievances to the streets of Washington. “Will be wild,” the president tweeted.

Oh did he; let’s see.

Peter Navarro releases 36-page

… Read the rest

Yesterday:… Read the rest

In another part of the forest –

Slavery ended (in America, not China) 157 years ago. The 82-year-old wasn't there. 2+2=4 https://t.co/QYw2QGN7Pr

— James Lindsay, full varsity (@ConceptualJames) January 6, 2021

A couple of things. One, picking cotton is not a synonym for slavery. Sharecroppers picked cotton; laborers picked cotton. Warnock wasn’t saying his mother was a slave, he was saying she was poor, and had to do hard painful (the bolls tear up your hands) work to make a meager living.

Two, no, slavery did not end in America 157 years ago. Slavery was reinstated in the South (without being called that) after Reconstruction was terminated. Jim Crow laws were passed that made it a crime for black people … Read the rest

https://twitter.com/adamdavidson/status/1347176928378302466 https://twitter.com/adamdavidson/status/1347177545947619329 https://twitter.com/adamdavidson/status/1347178373026623489 https://twitter.com/sivavaid/status/1347179451617075201… Read the rest

Normally I would think this is “merely” political rhetoric – bad political rhetoric, hyperbolic, rabble-rousing (not in a good way), reckless, but not unmistakably incitement to violence. That’s probably wrong, it’s probably because this kind of frenzy has been normalized, I’ve probably been conditioned to think that just as others have…or then again maybe it’s just standard free speech thinking.

At any rate, at this moment in history, I don’t think it’s mere.

https://twitter.com/SethAbramovitch/status/1347130086038753281… Read the rest

Politico has a collection of on the scene reporting on what it was like inside the Capitol yesterday. (In one word: scary.)

Marianne LeVine, Senate reporter: Then there was an announcement the building wasn’t secure. Intercom, probably Capitol police. We decided to barricade the doors with couches and chairs. We turned off the lights and we hid behind the desks.

Marianne LeVine: We started hearing noise. We could hear they’d gone into the Capitol. We heard a lot of stampeding and cheers and people. We could hear chants of, “Four more years!” and all that.

Burgess Everett: We could hear people shaking the walls. At this point, people are on the Senate floor and all

… Read the rest

The rats are running.

So far seven officials associated with Trump and his inner circle have said they are quitting, including members of Melania Trump’s team, after the deadly violence that surrounded the Congressional vote to certify Joe Biden’s presidential election victory in November.

…

In further fallout that underlined the fracturing of the Trump administration’s inner circles, Marc Short, Pence’s chief of staff, indicated to journalists he had been banned from the White House by Trump after the president “blamed” him for advice he gave to Pence on Trump’s demands he overturn the election result.

He was shocked, shocked, to discover that Trump blames people for things.

In stark language that underlined the toxic and swirling sense of

… Read the rest

Now they’re getting serious.

https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1346970431039934464?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1346970431039934464%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fus-news%2Flive%2F2021%2Fjan%2F06%2Fgeorgia-election-latest-news-senate-ossoff-warnock-democrats-republicans-trump-biden

The social media giant added, “Future violations of the Twitter Rules, including our Civic Integrity or Violent Threats policies, will result in permanent suspension of the @realDonaldTrump account.”

Do it either way.

Queen Melania’s chief of staff has quit.

[Stepahnie] Grisham was one of the longest-serving Trump administration officials, having begun her tenure working for then-candidate Donald Trump in 2015 as a press wrangler on the campaign trail. Grisham entered the White House as deputy press secretary under Sean Spicer, but in March 2017, Melania Trump hired her for her East Wing staff. As East Wing communications director, Grisham quickly became the first lady’s most prominent staffer, acting as defender, enforcer and, often,

… Read the rest