I missed this – hero Capitol cop who lured the insurrectionists away from the Senate chamber got a promotion and a glam assignment.

Vice-president Kamala Harris and her husband, Douglas Emhoff, were escorted at Wednesday’s inauguration ceremony by Eugene Goodman, the Capitol police officer hailed as a hero for single-handedly leading the mob that broke into the Capitol two weeks ago away from the Senate chamber.

Goodman has also been promoted to acting deputy sergeant-at-arms for the Senate, one of the most prominent positions in the Capitol Hill security force, according to an official announcement at the ceremony.

That’s good.

Congress peeps are still pressing for him to get a Congressional Gold Medal as well.

Another layer of treasonous plotting reported:

In yet another earth-shaking report, the New York Times said Trump plotted with an official at the Department of Justice to fire the acting attorney general, then force Georgia Republicans to overturn his defeat in that state.

Force them to. I don’t see that happening. Based on how they acted in reality I think they would all have resigned rather than let Trump “force” them to steal an election.

Former acting US defense secretary Christopher Miller, meanwhile, made an extraordinary admission, telling Vanity Fair that when he took the job in November, he had three goals: “No military coup, no major war and no troops in the street.”

The former special forces officer added: “The ‘no troops in the street’ thing changed dramatically about 14.30 [on 6 January]. So that one’s off [the list].”

…

The law enforcement and Pentagon response to the Capitol riot has been questioned, regarding the ease with which security was breached and the time it took to get the national guard to the scene. One Capitol police officer died after confronting the rioters. Another gained national fame after leading attackers away from where lawmakers hid.

“We had meetings upon meetings,” Miller told Vanity Fair. “We were monitoring it. And we’re just like, ‘Please, God, please, God.’ Then the damn TV pops up and everybody converges on my office: [Joint Chiefs of Staff] chairman [Gen Mark Milley], Secretary of the Army [Ryan] McCarthy, the crew just converges.

“We had already decided we’re going to need to activate the national guard, and that’s where the fog and friction comes in.”

“The friction” meaning, I think, reports that Trump insiders delayed the national guard activation.

Kash Patel, a Trump loyalist installed as Miller’s chief of staff – and accused of obstructing the Biden transition – said: “The DC mayor finally said, ‘OK, I need more.’ Then the Capitol police … a federal agency and the Secret Service made the request … and we did it. And then we just went to work.”

Miller called accusations the Pentagon was slow to respond “complete horseshit” and said: “I gotta tell you, I cannot wait to go to the Hill and have those conversations with senators and representatives … I know when something doesn’t smell right, and I know when we’re covering our asses. Been there. I know for an absolute fact that historians are going to look … at the actions that we did on that day and go, ‘Those people had their game together.’”

Classic trumper: claiming to know for an absolute fact what future historians are going to say. What future people are going to say is a category of thing you can’t possibly know for an absolute fact. You can’t know it about fifty times over, because of all the many intervening factors in addition to the obvious ones, like the impossibility of knowing that all future historians will think Trump was a stable genius.

The report detailed “stunned silence” among DoJ leaders as they were told of moves by Trump and “unassuming lawyer” Jeffrey Clark to “cast doubt on the election results and bolster … legal battles and the pressure on Georgia politicians”.

…

According to the Times, DoJ leaders decided that if Rosen was fired and replaced by Clark, they would resign en masse.

“For some,” the paper reported, “the plan brought to mind the so-called Saturday Night Massacre of the Nixon era, where Attorney General Elliot Richardson and his deputy resigned rather than carry out the president’s order to fire the special prosecutor investigating him.”

…

Ezra Cohen, another Trump appointee at the Pentagon, told Vanity Fair: “The president threw us under the bus. And when I say ‘us,’ I don’t mean only us political appointees or only us Republicans. He threw America under the bus. He caused a lot of damage to the fabric of this country.”

See? Another reason nobody can know for an absolute fact that future historians will flatter Trump. Even some of his own people refuse to do that any more, just minutes into that future.

So that’s it then, no more women’s sports in the US.

Joe Biden’s first day in office delivered an incremental victory for transgender athletes seeking to participate as their identified gender in high school and college sports.

That is, Joe Biden’s first day in office delivered an incremental victory for male athletes seeking to participate as female in high school and college sports, and a loss for girls and women.

In Idaho, a law signed in March by the Republican governor, Brad Little, became the nation’s first to prohibit transgender students who identify as female from playing on female teams sponsored by public schools, colleges and universities. The legislation was overwhelmingly supported by the state’s Republican-dominated house and the Trump administration but blocked from implementation by a federal judge while a legal challenge by the American Civil Liberties Union and Legal Voice proceeds.

Backers said the law, called the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, is necessary because transgender female athletes have physical advantages.

Opponents, which include healthcare groups and human rights advocates, claim the restrictions harm the emotional and physical wellbeing of transgender youth. Similar laws in other states have been funded by advocacy groups like Alliance Defending Freedom, a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate group whose other legal work revolves around attacking reproductive rights, gay marriage and other LGBTQ+ rights.

Notice the complete failure to address the “because transgender female athletes have physical advantages” part.

In Connecticut, the Trump administration intervened in support of a lawsuit filed by several non-transgender girls in Connecticut who were seeking to block a state policy that allows transgender athletes to compete in line with their identity. The plaintiffs argued transgender female runners had an unfair physical advantage.

But the two transgender runners at the center of that case said in court filings that being able to run against girls was central to their wellbeing.

“Running has been so important for my identity, my growth as a person, and my ability to survive in a world that discriminates against me,” Andraya Yearwood wrote to the court. “I am thankful that I live in Connecticut where I can be treated as a girl in all aspects of life and not face discrimination at school.”

What if being able to run against girls is also central to the wellbeing of the girls? Why should Yearwood’s wellbeing matter more than theirs? What about the girls’ identity, growth as persons, and ability to survive in a world that discriminates against them? Why does Yearwood’s everything matter more than their everything?

The piece ends with a comment from Chase Strangio.

From last week:

Several Republican members of Congress on Tuesday complained about — or outright bypassed — the metal detectors to enter the House floor, which were ordered put in place by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., after last week’s deadly riot at the Capitol.

…

Republican Reps. Louie Gohmert of Texas, Steve Stivers of Ohio, Van Taylor of Texas, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Debbie Lesko of Arizona and Larry Bucshon of Indiana, among others, were seen not complying with police at checkpoints or complained about the measure’s implementation, according to press pool and media reports.

Boebert, a newly elected member who vowed in a viral video to carry a gun in the Capitol, was seen in an apparent dispute with police over going through the metal detector.

“I am legally permitted to carry my firearm in Washington, D.C. and within the Capitol complex,” she tweeted. “Metal detectors outside of the House would not have stopped the violence we saw last week — it’s just another political stunt by Speaker Pelosi.”

The violence they saw January 6 wasn’t the only possible violence, especially possible from people like, precisely, Boebert. I wouldn’t trust her not to join the insurrectionists and help them from within, by murdering her colleagues. I would sure as hell not want to be on the House floor with her knowing she had a gun.

On the House floor, during arguments on a motion regarding the 25th Amendment, Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., called the metal detectors an “atrocity.”

“Take note, America,” he said. “This is what you have to look forward to in the Joe Biden administration.”

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, a top Trump defender, said the added security was hampering his constitutional rights.

And the pope is a porn star.

A bit of Senate history, from the Senate Historical Office, which I didn’t know there was such a thing.

On May 22, 1856, the “world’s greatest deliberative body” became a combat zone. In one of the most dramatic and deeply ominous moments in the Senate’s entire history, a member of the House of Representatives entered the Senate Chamber and savagely beat a senator into unconsciousness.

The inspiration for this clash came three days earlier when Senator Charles Sumner, a Massachusetts antislavery Republican, addressed the Senate on the explosive issue of whether Kansas should be admitted to the Union as a slave state or a free state. In his “Crime Against Kansas” speech, Sumner identified two Democratic senators as the principal culprits in this crime—Stephen Douglas of Illinois and Andrew Butler of South Carolina. He characterized Douglas to his face as a “noise-some, squat, and nameless animal . . . not a proper model for an American senator.”  Andrew Butler, who was not present, received more elaborate treatment. Mocking the South Carolina senator’s stance as a man of chivalry, the Massachusetts senator charged him with taking “a mistress . . . who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight—I mean,” added Sumner, “the harlot, Slavery.”

Representative Preston Brooks was Butler’s South Carolina kinsman. If he had believed Sumner to be a gentleman, he might have challenged him to a duel. Instead, he chose a light cane of the type used to discipline unruly dogs. Shortly after the Senate had adjourned for the day, Brooks entered the old chamber, where he found Sumner busily attaching his postal frank to copies of his “Crime Against Kansas” speech.

Moving quickly, Brooks slammed his metal-topped cane onto the unsuspecting Sumner’s head. As Brooks struck again and again, Sumner rose and lurched blindly about the chamber, futilely attempting to protect himself. After a very long minute, it ended.

Bleeding profusely, Sumner was carried away.  Brooks walked calmly out of the chamber without being detained by the stunned onlookers.

It took Sumner years to recover, and he was never the same again.

I should think so.

A group of Senate Democrats filed an ethics complaint Thursday against Republican Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz over their objections to the Jan. 6 certification of the presidential election results that coincided with the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol.

By objecting to the certification, Cruz, and Hawley, “lent legitimacy” to the violent mob of pro-Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol, the letter sent to incoming Senate Ethics Committee Chairman Chris Coons, D-Del., and Vice Chairman James Lankford, R-Okla., said.

The letter, spearheaded by Rhode Island Democrat Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, asked for an investigation into the two members to “fully understand their role” as it relates to the attack on the Capitol and to determine whether disciplinary action is needed.

Whitehouse and the six other Democrats who signed the letter want information on whether Hawley, Cruz or their staffers were in contact or coordinated with the organizers of the rally; what the senators knew about the plans for the Jan. 6 rally; whether they received donations from any of the organizations or donors that funded the rally; and whether the senators “engaged in criminal conduct or unethical or improper behavior.”

Objecting to the certification is itself pretty unethical and improper, seeing as how there was no reason to do so except the desire to steal the election.

Hawley, of Missouri, and Cruz, of Texas, have defended their actions by saying they were raising objections to what they saw as election irregularities in states that voted for Biden. There has been no proof for such claims.

No proof, no evidence, no anything except lies and shouting.

The Senate can expel or censure its members. Expulsion requires a two-thirds vote in the chamber. Censure requires a majority vote.

But according to Senate.gov, only 15 U.S. senators have been expelled since 1780 — all for disloyalty to the U.S. Most of them were removed for supporting the Confederacy during the Civil War.

Well that’s kind of what Hawley and Cruz were doing. Trump is Civil War part deux.

Rachel Maddow showed this clip last night; she said she had literally had nightmares about it.

He lifts the hockey stick over his head and slams it down on the cop, over and over.

He’s in jail pending a court appearance.

A Michigan man, allegedly seen attacking police with a hockey stick during riots at the U.S. Capitol, was arrested on Thursday after FBI agents got an unwitting assist from the suspect’s Facebook-posting father, officials said.

Michael Joseph Foy, 29, was picked up in the Detroit suburb of Wixom about 6:30 a.m., according to the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

He made a brief appearance in court about seven hours later, and was ordered to remain in jail until his next hearing on Monday afternoon, authorities said.

One minute it’s the glorious revolution, next minute you’re spending a nasty weekend in jail.

The FBI said it has video that shows Foy targeting members of the Metropolitan Police Department with the hockey stick.

“Foy begins striking a group of Metropolitan Police Officer assisting in the protection of the U.S. Capitol who had been knocked down and dragged into the crowd of rioters,” authorities said in an affidavit.

“This attack continues for approximately 16 seconds until Foy is knocked down by another rioter. At that time, Foy circles back through the crowd, lowers his hood, which reveals a clear image of his face.”

His lily-white face.

New brooming.

President Joe Biden is forcing out two Trump-era counsels from the National Labor Relations Board, the first time in more than 70 years a president has exercised that power over the agency.

I wonder why it’s been so long. Republicans are not what you’d call pro-labor.

National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Peter Robb, a Trump appointee, was fired Wednesday after refusing a request from Biden to step down from his post. On Thursday, Biden asked for the resignation of Robb’s replacement, Deputy General Counsel Alice Stock, by 5 p.m. or said she would be dismissed.

Robb’s dismissal — hailed by union officials and their Democratic allies, who blame him for what they say is a pro-management turn in the labor board — marked the first time a president has removed the top lawyer at the NLRB since Harry Truman did so in 1950.

…

Robb promoted Stock to deputy general counsel in 2019. Before joining the NLRB, she was a management-side attorney representing businesses in collective bargaining disputes and unfair labor practice charges.

Labor is already the underdog, so how about getting people in who are on the labor side instead of the management side?

Robb’s removal before his term was set to end in November follows criticism from Democrats over the direction the board took under President Donald Trump. Democrats have also raised concerns over Robb’s moves to reorganize some of the board’s regional offices and new guidelines for agency investigations.

Organized labor had long opposed Robb, who also previously served as a management-side attorney and is known for kicking off the Federal Labor Relations Authority’s case to decertify the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization following the 1981 strike.

Organized labor would prefer someone pro-labor as opposed to pro-management. Shocking.

Members of the labor movement hailed the news of Robb’s forced exit as evidence that Biden’s was following through on his campaign promises to be a fierce advocate for labor rights.

Well good on him. Not such a conservative Dem as I thought.

A top House Democrat called it “a major victory for American workers.”

Virginia Rep. Bobby Scott, the chair of the House Education and Labor Committee, said Robb “has consistently neglected his statutory duty to uphold workers’ right to stand together and negotiate for better working conditions.”

But anti-union groups and Republicans slammed the decision as divisive and “unprecedented.”

Well they would, wouldn’t they. Racists don’t like anti-racist moves, anti-union groups don’t like pro-labor moves.

Oh wait hold the phone we have to stop being pleased that Kamala Harris is VP. It’s transphobic to be pleased! Stop it at once or I’ll tell the authorities.

Maybe it’s satire. Is there any chance it’s satire?

Well, you see, he’s a white guy.

Downing Street has said it is up to Joe Biden how he decorates the Oval Office, after it was reported that a bust of Winston Churchill, lent by the UK government, has been removed.

“The Oval Office is the president’s private office, and it’s up to the president to decorate it as he wishes,” Boris Johnson’s official spokesman said, adding: “We’re in no doubt about the importance President Biden places on the UK-US relationship, and the prime minister looks forward to having that close relationship with him.”

Really; they’re allowing us to decide how we decorate our own rooms? I’m overwhelmed by the magnanimity.

Johnson’s relaxed attitude is in marked contrast to his criticism of Barack Obama, when the former president moved the Churchill bust aside.

Writing in the Sun in 2016, Johnson, then London mayor, and the author of a Churchill biography, called Obama’s decision a “snub,” suggesting it may have been because of “the part-Kenyan president’s ancestral dislike of the British empire”.

He did. I posted about it at the time.

I guess the Irish Biden’s ancestral dislike of the British empire is more acceptable to Johnson than the “part-Kenyan Obama’s.”

Yes that must be it.

NBC News reporter says:

Translation: they set off the metal detectors, which means they could be armed, which is a big no-no after the insurrection just 15 DAYS AGO.

I would like to know that myself.

James Kirkup on the Care Quality Commission’s reports on the gender identity services offered by the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust:

The CQC describes an NHS facility that — until last month — put vulnerable children on a pathway to the use of untested medicines and life-changing interventions, sometimes without keeping proper records proving consent for treatment or demonstrating the reasons for that treatment. An NHS service where staff were afraid to raise concerns about procedure and practice for fear of ‘retribution’ from their employers. An NHS service that failed to ask fundamental questions about the growing number of vulnerable children being presented for treatment.

It all sounds so old-fashioned, in the most literal sense, doesn’t it? Like the fashion for lobotomies, or bleeding.

These CQC conclusions are a significant vindication of a small but important group of people who have been raising concerns and questions about the Tavistock and its Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) for several years…

The accounts of these whistleblowers have not been welcomed by people who should have listened. In some cases, the Trust appears to have sought to penalise them…

For reference, this is what the CQC concluded about the Trust and GIDS’s approach to staff members raising concerns about its services:

Staff did not always feel able to raise concerns without fear of retribution. Some staff, particularly those in non-clinical roles, said there was a fear of blame within the service. This meant they were reluctant to raise concerns.

Oddly enough.

The CQC report resoundingly vindicates the journalism of good reporters such as Hannah Barnes and Deborah Cohen at BBC Newsnight, who have investigated the GIDS in the face of resistance. It also shows that a ‘shoot the messenger’ culture around trans issues can do real harm. For several years, anyone raising doubts about the GIDS ran the risk of being accused of transphobic bigotry, something that undoubtedly meant it has taken longer than it should have done for the failings of the clinic to be brought to light and (hopefully) addressed.

Hopefully indeed.

Yesterday I watched Anderson Cooper interview Amanda Gorman, the Youth Poet Laureate who blew everyone away at the inauguration. I was interested and impressed by what she was saying, and then suddenly I was some step beyond that, which I don’t know what to call but was about realizing that “Daaaaaamn this 22-year-old is doing what very few long-term adults can do who even is this” – and very soon after that Anderson Cooper ran out of cool and said more or less the same thing. (“You’re awesome!” were his exact words.)

The thing she was doing that suddenly struck me all of a heap was talk extemporaneously with barely a trace of fumble or filler words or backtracking or clumsiness or anything else that would differ from reading an elegant argumentative essay aloud. That is hard to do. She wasn’t just talking fluff, either.

She’s a stunner.

The Executive Order:

Section 1.  Policy.  Every person should be treated with respect and dignity and should be able to live without fear, no matter who they are or whom they love.  Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports. 

Wait a second. What do we mean by “whether they will be denied access to the restroom”? Everybody is denied access to one of the two multi-user restrooms, because they are sorted by sex, because there are some men and boys who just will use opportunities like public restrooms with incomplete partitions to peer at or photograph or assault women. Women don’t want to share multi-user toilets with men. The same set of facts applies to locker rooms. A different but related set of facts applies to school sports. Sports and toilets are sex-sorted for various (but well known and obvious) reasons, and keeping it that way doesn’t result in children who don’t have access, it results in male children who still are not allowed to intrude on female children. The female children have rights too.

Discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation manifests differently for different individuals, and it often overlaps with other forms of prohibited discrimination, including discrimination on the basis of race or disability.  For example, transgender Black Americans face unconscionably high levels of workplace discrimination, homelessness, and violence, including fatal violence.

That reads more like Twitter than adult legal reasoning.

It’s odd, because Biden is a very conservative Democrat. There’s none of this going way out on a limb over the wealth gap, or a genuine publicly funded national health system, or lobbying, or public housing – but somehow letting men play on women’s soccer teams is red-hot urgent?

It’s nuts.

So that’s why Trump put a whole bunch of trump hacks in the Pentagon after he lost the election.

The Pentagon blocked members of President Joe Biden’s incoming administration from gaining access to critical information about current operations, including the troop drawdown in Afghanistan, upcoming special operations missions in Africa and the Covid-19 vaccine distribution program, according to new details provided by transition and defense officials.

By “the Pentagon” here they mean civilian management, not the military.

The effort to obstruct the Biden team, led by senior White House appointees at the Pentagon, is unprecedented in modern presidential transitions and will hobble the new administration on key national security matters as it takes over positions in the Defense Department on Wednesday, the officials said.

The senior White House appointees are also new appointees, appointed for sheer spite, as well as perhaps to help with the military coup if the opportunity arose.

Biden openly decried the treatment his aides were receiving at the Pentagon in December, calling it “nothing short, in my view, of irresponsibility” after meetings were canceled ahead of Christmas. He said his people were denied information on the SolarWinds hack, and said his team “needs a clear picture of our force posture around the world and our operations to deter our enemies.”

They must have been doing that because Trump told them to. Trump told them to apparently because he hoped to stay in power with their help. Who knows what goes on in that liquefying brain.

But people involved with the transition, both on the Biden team and the Pentagon side, gave POLITICO a more detailed picture of what was denied, saying briefings on pressing defense matters never happened, were delayed to the last minute, or were controlled by overbearing minders from the Trump administration’s side.

…

Tensions between the Pentagon and the Biden agency landing team emerged almost the moment the General Services Administration authorized the transition to begin in late November after an initial delay following the election. While the military side of the house — the Joint Staff and the geographic combatant commanders — were more cooperative, the civilian side set up roadblocks at every turn.

“They really should not be allowed to get away with this. It’s just completely irresponsible and indefensible,” said one transition official. “To play politics with the country’s national security is just really unacceptable.”

They had to, they had a lot of bodies to hide.

So the Biden people find that Trump just dropped that whole vaccine distribution thing as if it were a rotting rabbit carcass.

The Biden administration has promised to try to turn the Covid-19 pandemic around and drastically speed up the pace of vaccinating Americans against the virus. But in the immediate hours following Biden being sworn into office on Wednesday, sources with direct knowledge of the new administration’s Covid-related work told CNN one of the biggest shocks that the Biden team had to digest during the transition period was what they saw as a complete lack of a vaccine distribution strategy under former President Donald Trump, even weeks after multiple vaccines were approved for use in the United States.

“There is nothing for us to rework. We are going to have to build everything from scratch,” one source said.

Another source described the moment that it became clear the Biden administration would have to essentially start from “square one” because there simply was no plan as: “Wow, just further affirmation of complete incompetence.”

Complete incompetence coupled with complete indifference.

Andrew fucking Jackson is gone.

President Biden has filled the Oval Office with images of American leaders and icons, focusing the room around massive portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt that hangs across from the Resolute Desk. It is a clear nod to a president who helped the country through significant crises, a challenge Biden now also faces.

…

Biden is also nodding to segments of the Democratic Party’s base via historic references. Behind the Resolute Desk is a bust of Cesar Chavez. The office also includes busts of Rosa Parks, Eleanor Roosevelt and sculpture by Allan Houser of the Chiricahua Apache tribe that once belonged to the late Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-HI) — the first Japanese-American elected to both houses of Congress.

Why talk about segments of the party’s base? Why not just say they’re activists and symbols of social justice? Why translate that into dopy insider jargon about “the base”? It’s good that busts of Cesar Chavez and Rosa Parks are there, especially after Trump’s murderous white guys, so how about not tainting it with cynical base-wooing bollocks.

A painting of Benjamin Franklin is intended to represent Biden’s interest in following science. The painting is stationed near a moon rock set on a bookshelf that is intended to remind Americans of the ambition and accompaniments of earlier generations.

I think “accompaniments” is supposed to be “accomplishments.”

Gone are the flags of branches of the military that Trump displayed behind the Resolute Desk. Biden has installed an American flag and another with a presidential seal.

From sojers to union organizers.

Not such a cheerful inauguration day for Joseph Biggs.

A Proud Boys leader caught on camera storming the U.S. Capitol with a pro-Trump mob has been arrested and charged for participating in the deadly insurrection.

Joseph Biggs, a top organizer with the white nationalist organization, has been slapped with three charges, including obstruction of an official proceeding, for his role in the Jan. 6 riots.

Prosecutors say the 37-year-old Florida resident is a “self-described organizer” of the Proud Boys, which describes itself as a “pro-Western fraternal organization for men who refuse to apologize for creating the modern world; aka Western Chauvinists.”

Biggs can be seen in several videos and photos taken inside the Capitol building, including one where someone shouts out his name. In the video, Biggs pulls down his face mask and declares, “This is awesome,” according to a criminal complaint.

The complaint against Biggs says he was seen on Jan. 6 with “a group of people that hold themselves out as Proud Boys” on the east side of the Capitol. The men were dressed “incognito”—instead of donning the Proud Boys colors of black and yellow, Biggs was “wearing glasses and a dark knit hat, is dressed in a blue and grey plaid shirt,” according to the court papers.

Videos and photos show the men marching down Constitution Avenue during the riots, chanting “Fuck antifa!” and “Whose streets? Our streets!” When the group reached the Capitol, Pezzola broke a window with a clear plastic shield before a swarm of rioters—including Biggs—entered the building, authorities said.

But Trump said he could.

It’s another not-Trump, but since it has been Trump for all this time let’s enjoy the not-Trump now that we can.

Trail of Tears guy out; good.

This is more than not-Trump; a lot more.

And does it in the building that was a scene of violence, intimidation and death just two weeks ago. Take that, haterz.

Lots of fizzled protests out there.

Police were on high alert in state capitals around the U.S. Sunday, after warnings that pro-Trump extremists might attempt to storm legislatures similar to the assault on the U.S. Capitol last week. But at many statehouses and capitols, security and the media outnumbered protesters.

One, Trump wasn’t there. Two, getting arrested probably doesn’t look so attractive any more. Three…ohIdon’tknow, whohastheenergy.

In Denver, the Colorado Capitol’s lower windows were covered in anticipation of possible unrest — but hardly anyone showed up on Sunday. “I’m really surprised. I figured there’d be more than this,” a supporter of President Trump told Colorado Public Radio.

Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown.

In Lansing, where protesters swarmed Michigan’s Capitol building last May and a plot against the governor was uncovered in recent months, Sunday’s protest was deemed “eclectic, but small and dull” by Michigan Radio. Events remained quiet, despite some demonstrators bringing their guns to the protest.

…

There was “relative quiet at the Oregon State Capitol,” according to Oregon Public Broadcasting, despite the arrival of a small group of armed demonstrators. The group included members of the extremist “boogaloos” movement, who are known for advocating for a new civil war.

But advocating for a new civil war goes a little flat when hardly anybody shows up for the advocamations.

“A couple dozen armed demonstrators gathered at the Texas Capitol on Sunday,” member station KUT reports, adding that the group said they had come to spread a “message of individual liberty.” But not many people were around to hear it, as the grounds were closed.

Individual liberty, man. They stayed home. Those beers aren’t going to drink themselves.

In Florida, the Capitol in Tallahassee was mainly populated by a range of law enforcement agencies and journalists, according to member station WFSU — which reports a man as he rode by on a bicycle called out, “It’s a beautiful day! Nothing happening here!”

There are a number of possible explanations for the smaller than expected protests – including that some right-wing activists are reluctant to congregate at a time when police are looking for any sign of trouble and the FBI is vigorously seeking people to face charges related to the assault in Washington.

Yes but it’s seriously also that Trump was not there, so 1. he was not a draw, and 2. he did not whip them into a rabid frenzy by screaming at them through a microphone.

And so then the crowd didn’t form so there wasn’t the crowd energy to feed off. Protests and rallies always carry that risk with them, including the ones with benign motivations and goals. I think it’s quite possible that some of the people who took part are now feeling terrible about it, and wondering what the hell they were thinking.