Protesters climb the U.S. Capitol walls in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, as hundreds of people in a pro-Trump mob breached the building. (Jason Andrew/The New York Times)
More
When political scientist Robert Pape began studying the issues that motivated the estimated 380 people arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, he expected to find that the rioters were driven to violence by the lingering effects of the 2008 Great Recession.
Instead, he found something very different: Most of the people who took part in the assault, his polling and demographic data showed, came from places that were awash in fears that the rights of minorities and immigrants were crowding out the rights of white people in American politics and culture.
If Pape’s initial conclusions — published Tuesday in The Washington Post — hold true, they would suggest that the Capitol attack has historical echoes reaching back to before the Civil War, he said in an interview over the weekend. In the shorter term, he said, the study would appear to connect Jan. 6 not only to the once-fringe right-wing theory called the Great Replacement, which holds that minorities and immigrants are seeking to take over the country, but also to events such as the 2017 far-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where crowds of white men marched with torches chanting, “Jews will not replace us!”
“If you look back in history, there has always been a series of far-right extremist movements responding to new waves of immigration to the United States or to movements for civil rights by minority groups,” Pape said. “You see a common pattern in the Capitol insurrectionists. They are mainly middle-class to upper-middle-class whites who are worried that, as social changes occur around them, they will see a decline in their status in the future.”
One fact stood out in Pape’s study, conducted with the help of researchers at the Chicago Project on Security and Threats, a think tank that he runs at the University of Chicago. Counties with the most-significant declines in the non-Hispanic white population are the most likely to produce insurrectionists. This finding held true, Pape determined, even when controlling for population size, distance to Washington, unemployment rate, and urban or rural location.
Law enforcement officials have said 800 to 1,000 people entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, and prosecutors have spent the past three months tracking down many of them in what they have described as one of the largest criminal investigations in American history. In recent court filings, the government has hinted that more than 400 people may ultimately face charges, including illegal entry, assault of police officers and the obstruction of the official business of Congress.
In his study, Pape determined that only about 10% of those charged were members of established far-right organizations such as the Oath Keepers militia or the Proud Boys, a nationalist extremist group. But unlike other analysts who have made similar findings, Pape has argued that the remaining 90% of the “ordinary” rioters are part of a still-congealing mass movement on the right that has shown itself willing to put “violence at its core.”
Other mass movements have emerged, he said, in response to large-scale cultural change. In the 1840s and ’50s, for example, the Know Nothing Party, a group of nativist Protestants, was formed in response to huge waves of largely Irish Catholic immigration to the country. After World War I, he said, the Ku Klux Klan experienced a revival prompted in part by the arrival of Italians and the first stirrings of the so-called Great Migration of Black Americans from the rural South to the industrialized North.
In an effort to determine why the mob that formed Jan. 6 turned violent, Pape compared events that day with two previous pro-President Donald Trump rallies in Washington, on Nov. 14 and Dec. 12. While police records show some indications of street fighting after the first two gatherings, Pape said, the number of arrests were fewer and the charges less serious than on Jan. 6. The records also show that those arrested in November and December largely lived within an hour of Washington while most of those arrested in January came from considerably farther away.
The difference at the rallies was Trump, Pape said. Trump promoted the Jan. 6 rally in advance, saying it would be “wild” and driving up attendance, Pape said. He then encouraged the mob to march on the Capitol in an effort to “show strength.”
Pape said he worried that a similar mob could be summoned again by a leader like Trump. After all, he suggested, as the country continues moving toward becoming a majority-minority nation and right-wing media outlets continue to stoke fear about the Great Replacement, the racial and cultural anxieties that lay beneath the riot at the Capitol are not going away.
“If all of this is really rooted in the politics of social change, then we have to realize that it’s not going to be solved — or solved alone — by law enforcement agencies,” Pape said. “This is political violence, not just ordinary criminal violence, and it is going to require both additional information and a strategic approach.”
Pape, whose career had mostly been focused on international terrorism, used that approach after the 9/11 attacks when he created a database of suicide bombers from around the world. His research led to a remarkable discovery: Most of the bombers were secular, not religious, and had killed themselves not out of zealotry, but rather in response to military occupations.
U.S. officials eventually used the findings to persuade some Sunnis in Iraq to break with their religious allies and join the United States in a nationalist movement known as the Anbar Awakening.
Recalling his early work with suicide bombers, Pape suggested that the country’s understanding of what happened Jan. 6 was only starting to take shape, much like its understanding of international terrorism slowly grew after 9/11.
“We really still are at the beginning stages,” he said.
So these middle to upper middle class don’t want black or brown folks moving into their neighborhoods but are ok if they serve & clean and cook for them at their local restaurants or cut their lawns. Just don’t move next them
Protesters climb the U.S. Capitol walls in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, as hundreds of people in a pro-Trump mob breached the building. (Jason Andrew/The New York Times)
More
When political scientist Robert Pape began studying the issues that motivated the estimated 380 people arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, he expected to find that the rioters were driven to violence by the lingering effects of the 2008 Great Recession.
Instead, he found something very different: Most of the people who took part in the assault, his polling and demographic data showed, came from places that were awash in fears that the rights of minorities and immigrants were crowding out the rights of white people in American politics and culture.
If Pape’s initial conclusions — published Tuesday in The Washington Post — hold true, they would suggest that the Capitol attack has historical echoes reaching back to before the Civil War, he said in an interview over the weekend. In the shorter term, he said, the study would appear to connect Jan. 6 not only to the once-fringe right-wing theory called the Great Replacement, which holds that minorities and immigrants are seeking to take over the country, but also to events such as the 2017 far-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where crowds of white men marched with torches chanting, “Jews will not replace us!”
“If you look back in history, there has always been a series of far-right extremist movements responding to new waves of immigration to the United States or to movements for civil rights by minority groups,” Pape said. “You see a common pattern in the Capitol insurrectionists. They are mainly middle-class to upper-middle-class whites who are worried that, as social changes occur around them, they will see a decline in their status in the future.”
One fact stood out in Pape’s study, conducted with the help of researchers at the Chicago Project on Security and Threats, a think tank that he runs at the University of Chicago. Counties with the most-significant declines in the non-Hispanic white population are the most likely to produce insurrectionists. This finding held true, Pape determined, even when controlling for population size, distance to Washington, unemployment rate, and urban or rural location.
Law enforcement officials have said 800 to 1,000 people entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, and prosecutors have spent the past three months tracking down many of them in what they have described as one of the largest criminal investigations in American history. In recent court filings, the government has hinted that more than 400 people may ultimately face charges, including illegal entry, assault of police officers and the obstruction of the official business of Congress.
In his study, Pape determined that only about 10% of those charged were members of established far-right organizations such as the Oath Keepers militia or the Proud Boys, a nationalist extremist group. But unlike other analysts who have made similar findings, Pape has argued that the remaining 90% of the “ordinary” rioters are part of a still-congealing mass movement on the right that has shown itself willing to put “violence at its core.”
Other mass movements have emerged, he said, in response to large-scale cultural change. In the 1840s and ’50s, for example, the Know Nothing Party, a group of nativist Protestants, was formed in response to huge waves of largely Irish Catholic immigration to the country. After World War I, he said, the Ku Klux Klan experienced a revival prompted in part by the arrival of Italians and the first stirrings of the so-called Great Migration of Black Americans from the rural South to the industrialized North.
In an effort to determine why the mob that formed Jan. 6 turned violent, Pape compared events that day with two previous pro-President Donald Trump rallies in Washington, on Nov. 14 and Dec. 12. While police records show some indications of street fighting after the first two gatherings, Pape said, the number of arrests were fewer and the charges less serious than on Jan. 6. The records also show that those arrested in November and December largely lived within an hour of Washington while most of those arrested in January came from considerably farther away.
The difference at the rallies was Trump, Pape said. Trump promoted the Jan. 6 rally in advance, saying it would be “wild” and driving up attendance, Pape said. He then encouraged the mob to march on the Capitol in an effort to “show strength.”
Pape said he worried that a similar mob could be summoned again by a leader like Trump. After all, he suggested, as the country continues moving toward becoming a majority-minority nation and right-wing media outlets continue to stoke fear about the Great Replacement, the racial and cultural anxieties that lay beneath the riot at the Capitol are not going away.
“If all of this is really rooted in the politics of social change, then we have to realize that it’s not going to be solved — or solved alone — by law enforcement agencies,” Pape said. “This is political violence, not just ordinary criminal violence, and it is going to require both additional information and a strategic approach.”
Pape, whose career had mostly been focused on international terrorism, used that approach after the 9/11 attacks when he created a database of suicide bombers from around the world. His research led to a remarkable discovery: Most of the bombers were secular, not religious, and had killed themselves not out of zealotry, but rather in response to military occupations.
U.S. officials eventually used the findings to persuade some Sunnis in Iraq to break with their religious allies and join the United States in a nationalist movement known as the Anbar Awakening.
Recalling his early work with suicide bombers, Pape suggested that the country’s understanding of what happened Jan. 6 was only starting to take shape, much like its understanding of international terrorism slowly grew after 9/11.
“We really still are at the beginning stages,” he said.
So these middle to upper middle class don’t want black or brown folks moving into their neighborhoods but are ok if they serve & clean and cook for them at their local restaurants or cut their lawns. Just don’t move next them
This is correct. If you want to see a qtRUmplican head explode tell him/her that in a few generations there will be no more white people. That everyone will be tan.
Protesters climb the U.S. Capitol walls in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, as hundreds of people in a pro-Trump mob breached the building. (Jason Andrew/The New York Times)
More
When political scientist Robert Pape began studying the issues that motivated the estimated 380 people arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, he expected to find that the rioters were driven to violence by the lingering effects of the 2008 Great Recession.
Instead, he found something very different: Most of the people who took part in the assault, his polling and demographic data showed, came from places that were awash in fears that the rights of minorities and immigrants were crowding out the rights of white people in American politics and culture.
If Pape’s initial conclusions — published Tuesday in The Washington Post — hold true, they would suggest that the Capitol attack has historical echoes reaching back to before the Civil War, he said in an interview over the weekend. In the shorter term, he said, the study would appear to connect Jan. 6 not only to the once-fringe right-wing theory called the Great Replacement, which holds that minorities and immigrants are seeking to take over the country, but also to events such as the 2017 far-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where crowds of white men marched with torches chanting, “Jews will not replace us!”
“If you look back in history, there has always been a series of far-right extremist movements responding to new waves of immigration to the United States or to movements for civil rights by minority groups,” Pape said. “You see a common pattern in the Capitol insurrectionists. They are mainly middle-class to upper-middle-class whites who are worried that, as social changes occur around them, they will see a decline in their status in the future.”
One fact stood out in Pape’s study, conducted with the help of researchers at the Chicago Project on Security and Threats, a think tank that he runs at the University of Chicago. Counties with the most-significant declines in the non-Hispanic white population are the most likely to produce insurrectionists. This finding held true, Pape determined, even when controlling for population size, distance to Washington, unemployment rate, and urban or rural location.
Law enforcement officials have said 800 to 1,000 people entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, and prosecutors have spent the past three months tracking down many of them in what they have described as one of the largest criminal investigations in American history. In recent court filings, the government has hinted that more than 400 people may ultimately face charges, including illegal entry, assault of police officers and the obstruction of the official business of Congress.
In his study, Pape determined that only about 10% of those charged were members of established far-right organizations such as the Oath Keepers militia or the Proud Boys, a nationalist extremist group. But unlike other analysts who have made similar findings, Pape has argued that the remaining 90% of the “ordinary” rioters are part of a still-congealing mass movement on the right that has shown itself willing to put “violence at its core.”
Other mass movements have emerged, he said, in response to large-scale cultural change. In the 1840s and ’50s, for example, the Know Nothing Party, a group of nativist Protestants, was formed in response to huge waves of largely Irish Catholic immigration to the country. After World War I, he said, the Ku Klux Klan experienced a revival prompted in part by the arrival of Italians and the first stirrings of the so-called Great Migration of Black Americans from the rural South to the industrialized North.
In an effort to determine why the mob that formed Jan. 6 turned violent, Pape compared events that day with two previous pro-President Donald Trump rallies in Washington, on Nov. 14 and Dec. 12. While police records show some indications of street fighting after the first two gatherings, Pape said, the number of arrests were fewer and the charges less serious than on Jan. 6. The records also show that those arrested in November and December largely lived within an hour of Washington while most of those arrested in January came from considerably farther away.
The difference at the rallies was Trump, Pape said. Trump promoted the Jan. 6 rally in advance, saying it would be “wild” and driving up attendance, Pape said. He then encouraged the mob to march on the Capitol in an effort to “show strength.”
Pape said he worried that a similar mob could be summoned again by a leader like Trump. After all, he suggested, as the country continues moving toward becoming a majority-minority nation and right-wing media outlets continue to stoke fear about the Great Replacement, the racial and cultural anxieties that lay beneath the riot at the Capitol are not going away.
“If all of this is really rooted in the politics of social change, then we have to realize that it’s not going to be solved — or solved alone — by law enforcement agencies,” Pape said. “This is political violence, not just ordinary criminal violence, and it is going to require both additional information and a strategic approach.”
Pape, whose career had mostly been focused on international terrorism, used that approach after the 9/11 attacks when he created a database of suicide bombers from around the world. His research led to a remarkable discovery: Most of the bombers were secular, not religious, and had killed themselves not out of zealotry, but rather in response to military occupations.
U.S. officials eventually used the findings to persuade some Sunnis in Iraq to break with their religious allies and join the United States in a nationalist movement known as the Anbar Awakening.
Recalling his early work with suicide bombers, Pape suggested that the country’s understanding of what happened Jan. 6 was only starting to take shape, much like its understanding of international terrorism slowly grew after 9/11.
“We really still are at the beginning stages,” he said.
So these middle to upper middle class don’t want black or brown folks moving into their neighborhoods but are ok if they serve & clean and cook for them at their local restaurants or cut their lawns. Just don’t move next them
This is correct. If you want to see a qtRUmplican head explode tell him/her that in a few generations there will be no more white people. That everyone will be tan.
They know that the white majority is dwindling and I think that’s already a big part of why their heads are collectively exploding and what drives the base (and, therefore, the people they elect).
1995 Milwaukee 1998 Alpine, Alpine 2003 Albany, Boston, Boston, Boston 2004 Boston, Boston 2006 Hartford, St. Paul (Petty), St. Paul (Petty) 2011 Alpine, Alpine 2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
Armed ‘quick reaction force’ was waiting for order to storm Capitol, Justice Dept. says
As the Capitol was overrun on Jan. 6, armed supporters of President Donald Trump were waiting across the Potomac in Virginia for orders to bring guns into the fray, a prosecutor said Wednesday in federal court.
The Justice Department has repeatedly highlighted comments from some alleged riot participants who discussed being part of a “quick reaction force” with stashes of weapons. Defendants have dismissed those conversations as bluster. But in a detention hearing for Kenneth Harrelson, accused of conspiring with other members of the Oath Keepers militia group to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey S. Nestler said the government has evidence indicating otherwise.
“This is not pure conjecture,” Nestler said. In a court filing this week, he noted, prosecutors obtained cellphone and video evidence from the day before the riot showing that Harrelson asked someone about the quick reaction force. He then went to a Comfort Inn in the Ballston area of Arlington for about an hour before driving into D.C., prosecutors said. The day after the riot, surveillance video from the hotel shows him moving “what appears to be at least one rifle case down a hallway and towards the elevator,” according to the court records.
In court, Nestler said another Oath Keeper carried what appeared to be a rifle under a sheet out of the hotel on Jan. 7.
“We believe that at least one quick reaction force location was here and that Mr. Harrelson and others had stashed a large amount of weapons there,” Nestler said. “People affiliated with this group were in Ballston, monitoring what was happening at the Capitol and prepared to come into D.C. and ferry these weapons into the ground team that Kenneth Harrelson was running at a moment’s notice, if anyone said the word.”
Nestler did not detail the number of guns the group is alleged to have stashed.
Judge Amit Mehta called the evidence among the “most troubling and most disconcerting” he has seen in nearly a dozen cases related to Oath Keepers.
It is “the strongest evidence that the government has presented that there was a quick reaction force outside the District of Columbia, the location of the quick reaction force and that members of this conspiracy provided weapons to this quick reaction force,” he said. Harrelson, he added, “clearly is prepared to have weapons at the ready for violent conduct.”
Harrelson was a high-ranking member of the Oath Keepers, prosecutors said, in regular contact with group leader Stewart Rhodes. While members use the jargon and trappings of a paramilitary organization, in practice the group is made up of loosely connected chapters united by a right-wing ideology.
In conversations after the riot produced in court documents, Harrelson and others argued over the group’s leadership and direction.
“Look, I WAS THERE. I WAS RIGHT OUSIDE. Patriots stormed in. NotAntifa. And I don’t blame them,” wrote Rhodes,identified as Person Number One in documents.
“This organization is a huge . . . joke,” someone replied.
Harrelson, a 41-year-old Army veteran, subsequently apologized to Rhodes in a message on an encrypted chat service for not “step[ping] up to the plate” on Jan. 6.
“Not your fault, my fault,” Rhodes said, adding that he should have “held a mandatory meeting” the night before the riot and given out operating orders.
Harrelson deleted other communications, and Mehta found that Harrelson was “deceptive” in claiming he had left the group.
Defense attorney Nina Ginsberg argued that the commentary both on and after Jan. 6 indicates a lack of planning.
“It’s kind of difficult to imagine how people could have been effectively communicating with each other in the midst of that mob,” she said. “There was no preplanned agreement to overtake the Capitol, to storm the building, to force entry into the building, but that this was something that evolved as it was occurring.”
She said any inference about plans for armed backup at the Capitol was “speculation.”
In a court filing last month, the defense attorney for one of Harrelson’s alleged co-conspirators said the quick reaction force was “one person” who is “in his late 60s, obese, and has cardio-pulmonary issues, a bad back, a bum knee, and is need of a hip replacement.”
The person described in that filing has not been charged, and there is no evidence that any backup force arrived at the Capitol with weapons on Jan. 6.
In court filings, prosecutors have quoted Rhodes messaging the group in advance about preparations for “worst-case scenarios,” writing, “We will have several well equipped QRFs outside DC.”
Rhodes also recommended helmets, hard gloves, eye protection and weapons, according to prosecutors, writing: “Collapsible Batons are a grey area in the law. I bring one. But I’m willing to take that risk because I love em.”
Rhodes, who has not been charged with any crimes, has denied a plan to enter the Capitol and accused prosecutors of trying to manufacture a conspiracy.
In interviews, Rhodes has said that the national Oath Keepers organization never did muster a quick reaction force for Jan. 6, and that some members and their associates “went off mission.”
Police on Jan. 6 charged only a handful of firearms offenses in Capitol-related cases. Because so few arrests were made on the scene that day, however, investigators say the true number of rioters who were carrying firearms will never be known.
In charging papers, the FBI and Justice Department allege that many defendants discussed bringing firearms to Washington, as well as not carrying them to the Capitol because of the District’s gun laws.
One of those arrested late Jan. 6 for not leaving Capitol grounds was Maryland tow truck driver Christopher Alberts. Police said they stoppedhimoutside the building carrying a loaded black Taurus G2C 9mm handgun on his hip and a loaded, 12-round spare magazine in separate holsters, along with a gas mask, pocket knife and first-aid kit.
The oldest detained defendant, Lonnie L. Coffman, 70, of Alabama was arrested after returning to his truck parked near the Capitol, where police allegedly found 11 homemade, molotov cocktail-type incendiary devices, a rifle, shotgun, two 9mm pistols, a .22-caliber pistol — all loaded — as well as a crossbow, several machetes, a stun gun and smoke devices. Prosecutors alleged that the 11 jars were made with gasoline and melted plastic foam to produce a dangerous “napalm-like” explosion of sticky, flammable liquid.
Other charging and detention documents allege that many defendants discussed leaving weapons in vehicles, parking lots, hotel rooms, bags or with others to ensure quick access.
New York dating coach Samuel Fisher, also known as Brad Holiday, was arrested after allegedly posting on social media photos of himself at the Capitol and with firearms including a pistol and a rifle.
“If it kicks off I got a Vest and My Rifle,” he wrote, according to court documents.
Prosecutors have alleged that Erik Munchel of Nashville stashed weapons in a tactical bag outside the Capitol before bringing a stun gun inside. A search of his home found a legal arsenal of 15 firearms including assault rifles, a sniper rifle and tripod, other types of rifles, shotguns and pistols, a drum-style magazine, and other magazines and ammunition.
Searching the home of Karl Dresch of Calumet, Mich., investigators say they found a backpack containing a Hagerstown, Md., gas station receipt, a Metro transit card, radar detector, handheld radio and 160 rounds of ammunition. In his home they found a 12-gauge shotgun, a Glock pistol, a Remington rifle and a Russian-made AK-47-style rifle compatible with the ammunition.
A Dresch attorney said the weapons were “the type of ordinary firearms that are commonplace in rural households throughout America.” Attorneys for the other defendants have emphasized that they are not accused of weapons-related crimes.
D.C. police Officer Daniel Hodges said in a January interview that one reason he did not draw his weapon during the riot was that police understood the crowd to be armed.
“I knew they had guns — we had been seizing guns all day,” he said. “And the only reason I could think of that they weren’t shooting us was they were waiting for us to shoot first.”
Sentence is he has to fill in for C.C. Deville on Poison's next tour, sentence is then quickly thrown out upon appeal as being cruel and unusual punishment.
Sentence is he has to fill in for C.C. Deville on Poison's next tour, sentence is then quickly thrown out upon appeal as being cruel and unusual punishment.
Sentence is he has to fill in for C.C. Deville on Poison's next tour, sentence is then quickly thrown out upon appeal as being cruel and unusual punishment.
Sentence is he has to fill in for C.C. Deville on Poison's next tour, sentence is then quickly thrown out upon appeal as being cruel and unusual punishment.
Ha!
Because C.C. cooks!!
I didn't see him on Medoza's weakest link guitar thread.. What an oversight!
Sentence is he has to fill in for C.C. Deville on Poison's next tour, sentence is then quickly thrown out upon appeal as being cruel and unusual punishment.
Ha!
Because C.C. cooks!!
I didn't see him on Medoza's weakest link guitar thread.. What an oversight!
Sentence is he has to fill in for C.C. Deville on Poison's next tour, sentence is then quickly thrown out upon appeal as being cruel and unusual punishment.
Ha!
Because C.C. cooks!!
I didn't see him on Medoza's weakest link guitar thread.. What an oversight!
And a helluva Jeopardy contestant as well.
Needs to face Mark McGrath in a tourney of champions
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
0
brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,128
House narrowly approves $1.9B to fortify Capitol after riot
By LISA MASCARO and MARY CLARE JALONICK
2 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House on Thursday narrowly approved $1.9 billion to fortify the Capitol after the Jan. 6 insurrection, as Democrats pushed past Republican opposition to try to harden the complex with retractable fencing and a quick-response force following the most violent domestic attack on Congress in history.
The two measures now face an uncertain outcome in the evenly divided Senate as most Republicans have objected to both. Tensions are running high at the Capitol, with Democrats growing exasperated with Republicans who refuse to acknowledge the severity of the insurrection because of what appears to be their devotion to Trump — and fears of crossing him.
“We have a major political party in the country that’s ignoring it — we’re trying to solve a problem, they clearly don’t want to sit down and talk about it,” said Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, chairman of an appropriations subcommittee handling legislative branch security.
At the same time, the idea of bolstered security at the Capitol saddened many lawmakers who said they see no other choice because of the ongoing threats on Congress. Several leading liberal Democrats opposed the security money over concerns about policing, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders worked the floor during votes to ensure passage.
Together, the package of bills stemming from the domestic assault by Trump supporters on the Capitol reminded some lawmakers of the changes that emerged from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Then, a landmark commission investigated the attack's root causes and authorities hardened the security apparatus across the federal government.
Thursday's vote capped two days of emotionally wrenching debate as the political divide, particularly in the House, has widened in the months since the January assault.
House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro recalled her own experience being trapped in the House gallery that day as the attackers tried to break in, calling her husband to tell him she was OK after Capitol Police told her to duck on the floor.
“This bill is not about politics, it’s not about settling scores,” DeLauro said. “It’s about ensuring that every person who comes into the Capitol is safe and is protected.”
Republicans argued that the spending bill is too expensive and no fencing is needed. Many of them said lawmakers should be spending money on border security, not Capitol security.
Rep. Lance Gooden, R-Texas, contended that Democrats would rather spend money on a wall "around this building in D.C.” than they would on finishing a border wall advocated by Trump.
Already, National Guard troops have been protecting the building for months and public access is severely limited. Though razor-wire-topped fencing that stood as a stark reminder of the siege has been removed, an extended perimeter fence remains in place, cutting off access to the lush grounds popular with the public.
The Democrats who opposed the security legislation were some of the most liberal in the House. Some have expressed the view that police treat people of color unfairly. Democratic Reps. Cori Bush of Missouri, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota voted against it.
Omar said she had “not been convinced of the importance of the money.”
Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Jamaal Bowman of New York and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan voted “present,” effectively saving the measure from going down to defeat.
The chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, said the lawmakers “wanted to make sure that there were accountability measures” on the security funds. She voted for the bill.
Senate Democrats will not be able to pass either bill on their own in the evenly split 50-50 Senate and could have trouble persuading enough Republicans to vote with them after Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell announced he would oppose the inquiry. Ten GOP senators would need to join Democrats to meet the 60-vote threshold needed to advance legislation. Changes could be made to win over their support.
Months in the making, the emergency spending package incorporates the recommendations from an outside panel of experts to beef up security after the mob attack.
The bill includes money for new fencing — either retractable or “pop in,” according to Democrats — that would protect the grounds. The legislation bars money from being used for permanent above-ground fencing, reflecting the wishes of most members of Congress that the area should be open to the public.
Other changes would fortify windows and doors, install new security vestibules and cameras, and protect members with increased security at home and in Washington, as threats against them have doubled in the last year. There is also money to protect federal judges who are prosecuting the rioters and have received threats, and to repay the Capitol Police and other federal agencies for their efforts on Jan. 6.
Some lawmakers have objected to the proposal for the National Guard to maintain a “quick response force” nearby after it took hours for Guard troops to arrive Jan. 6 as attackers were brutally beating officers.
Leading Republicans on the armed services committees in the House and Senate oppose relying on the troops for the work of protecting the Capitol.
The National Guard Association of the United States said in a statement that the Guard should only be used for law enforcement as a “last resort.”
Democrats said they, too, are uneasy with many of the military-like measures, but say they have little choice but to protect the building. The delays in sending the Guard to the Capitol have been blamed in part for the failure to contain the violence. Five people died, including a Trump supporter shot and killed by police as she tried to climb through a broken window to access the House chamber, and a police officer who fought off the mob and died later.
“We’ve never had a quick response for us here — you know, we’ve never had an insurrection, either,” Ryan said. “So thinking has to evolve in order to try to solve some of these problems.”
___
Associated Press writer Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
House narrowly approves $1.9B to fortify Capitol after riot
By LISA MASCARO and MARY CLARE JALONICK
2 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House on Thursday narrowly approved $1.9 billion to fortify the Capitol after the Jan. 6 insurrection, as Democrats pushed past Republican opposition to try to harden the complex with retractable fencing and a quick-response force following the most violent domestic attack on Congress in history.
The two measures now face an uncertain outcome in the evenly divided Senate as most Republicans have objected to both. Tensions are running high at the Capitol, with Democrats growing exasperated with Republicans who refuse to acknowledge the severity of the insurrection because of what appears to be their devotion to Trump — and fears of crossing him.
“We have a major political party in the country that’s ignoring it — we’re trying to solve a problem, they clearly don’t want to sit down and talk about it,” said Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, chairman of an appropriations subcommittee handling legislative branch security.
At the same time, the idea of bolstered security at the Capitol saddened many lawmakers who said they see no other choice because of the ongoing threats on Congress. Several leading liberal Democrats opposed the security money over concerns about policing, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders worked the floor during votes to ensure passage.
Together, the package of bills stemming from the domestic assault by Trump supporters on the Capitol reminded some lawmakers of the changes that emerged from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Then, a landmark commission investigated the attack's root causes and authorities hardened the security apparatus across the federal government.
Thursday's vote capped two days of emotionally wrenching debate as the political divide, particularly in the House, has widened in the months since the January assault.
House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro recalled her own experience being trapped in the House gallery that day as the attackers tried to break in, calling her husband to tell him she was OK after Capitol Police told her to duck on the floor.
“This bill is not about politics, it’s not about settling scores,” DeLauro said. “It’s about ensuring that every person who comes into the Capitol is safe and is protected.”
Republicans argued that the spending bill is too expensive and no fencing is needed. Many of them said lawmakers should be spending money on border security, not Capitol security.
Rep. Lance Gooden, R-Texas, contended that Democrats would rather spend money on a wall "around this building in D.C.” than they would on finishing a border wall advocated by Trump.
Already, National Guard troops have been protecting the building for months and public access is severely limited. Though razor-wire-topped fencing that stood as a stark reminder of the siege has been removed, an extended perimeter fence remains in place, cutting off access to the lush grounds popular with the public.
The Democrats who opposed the security legislation were some of the most liberal in the House. Some have expressed the view that police treat people of color unfairly. Democratic Reps. Cori Bush of Missouri, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota voted against it.
Omar said she had “not been convinced of the importance of the money.”
Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Jamaal Bowman of New York and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan voted “present,” effectively saving the measure from going down to defeat.
The chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, said the lawmakers “wanted to make sure that there were accountability measures” on the security funds. She voted for the bill.
Senate Democrats will not be able to pass either bill on their own in the evenly split 50-50 Senate and could have trouble persuading enough Republicans to vote with them after Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell announced he would oppose the inquiry. Ten GOP senators would need to join Democrats to meet the 60-vote threshold needed to advance legislation. Changes could be made to win over their support.
Months in the making, the emergency spending package incorporates the recommendations from an outside panel of experts to beef up security after the mob attack.
The bill includes money for new fencing — either retractable or “pop in,” according to Democrats — that would protect the grounds. The legislation bars money from being used for permanent above-ground fencing, reflecting the wishes of most members of Congress that the area should be open to the public.
Other changes would fortify windows and doors, install new security vestibules and cameras, and protect members with increased security at home and in Washington, as threats against them have doubled in the last year. There is also money to protect federal judges who are prosecuting the rioters and have received threats, and to repay the Capitol Police and other federal agencies for their efforts on Jan. 6.
Some lawmakers have objected to the proposal for the National Guard to maintain a “quick response force” nearby after it took hours for Guard troops to arrive Jan. 6 as attackers were brutally beating officers.
Leading Republicans on the armed services committees in the House and Senate oppose relying on the troops for the work of protecting the Capitol.
The National Guard Association of the United States said in a statement that the Guard should only be used for law enforcement as a “last resort.”
Democrats said they, too, are uneasy with many of the military-like measures, but say they have little choice but to protect the building. The delays in sending the Guard to the Capitol have been blamed in part for the failure to contain the violence. Five people died, including a Trump supporter shot and killed by police as she tried to climb through a broken window to access the House chamber, and a police officer who fought off the mob and died later.
“We’ve never had a quick response for us here — you know, we’ve never had an insurrection, either,” Ryan said. “So thinking has to evolve in order to try to solve some of these problems.”
___
Associated Press writer Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report.
Comments
Yes that is what they want.
It's almost as if America really is that racist.
If you want to see a qtRUmplican head explode tell him/her that in a few generations there will be no more white people. That everyone will be tan.
2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Did someone mention "Grey SEALS?"
Armed ‘quick reaction force’ was waiting for order to storm Capitol, Justice Dept. says
As the Capitol was overrun on Jan. 6, armed supporters of President Donald Trump were waiting across the Potomac in Virginia for orders to bring guns into the fray, a prosecutor said Wednesday in federal court.
The Justice Department has repeatedly highlighted comments from some alleged riot participants who discussed being part of a “quick reaction force” with stashes of weapons. Defendants have dismissed those conversations as bluster. But in a detention hearing for Kenneth Harrelson, accused of conspiring with other members of the Oath Keepers militia group to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey S. Nestler said the government has evidence indicating otherwise.
“This is not pure conjecture,” Nestler said. In a court filing this week, he noted, prosecutors obtained cellphone and video evidence from the day before the riot showing that Harrelson asked someone about the quick reaction force. He then went to a Comfort Inn in the Ballston area of Arlington for about an hour before driving into D.C., prosecutors said. The day after the riot, surveillance video from the hotel shows him moving “what appears to be at least one rifle case down a hallway and towards the elevator,” according to the court records.
In court, Nestler said another Oath Keeper carried what appeared to be a rifle under a sheet out of the hotel on Jan. 7.
U.S. Capitol Police officer cleared of wrongdoing in fatal shooting of Ashli Babbitt during Capitol attack
“We believe that at least one quick reaction force location was here and that Mr. Harrelson and others had stashed a large amount of weapons there,” Nestler said. “People affiliated with this group were in Ballston, monitoring what was happening at the Capitol and prepared to come into D.C. and ferry these weapons into the ground team that Kenneth Harrelson was running at a moment’s notice, if anyone said the word.”
Nestler did not detail the number of guns the group is alleged to have stashed.
Judge Amit Mehta called the evidence among the “most troubling and most disconcerting” he has seen in nearly a dozen cases related to Oath Keepers.
It is “the strongest evidence that the government has presented that there was a quick reaction force outside the District of Columbia, the location of the quick reaction force and that members of this conspiracy provided weapons to this quick reaction force,” he said. Harrelson, he added, “clearly is prepared to have weapons at the ready for violent conduct.”
Harrelson was a high-ranking member of the Oath Keepers, prosecutors said, in regular contact with group leader Stewart Rhodes. While members use the jargon and trappings of a paramilitary organization, in practice the group is made up of loosely connected chapters united by a right-wing ideology.
In conversations after the riot produced in court documents, Harrelson and others argued over the group’s leadership and direction.
“Look, I WAS THERE. I WAS RIGHT OUSIDE. Patriots stormed in. NotAntifa. And I don’t blame them,” wrote Rhodes, identified as Person Number One in documents.
“This organization is a huge . . . joke,” someone replied.
Harrelson, a 41-year-old Army veteran, subsequently apologized to Rhodes in a message on an encrypted chat service for not “step[ping] up to the plate” on Jan. 6.
“Not your fault, my fault,” Rhodes said, adding that he should have “held a mandatory meeting” the night before the riot and given out operating orders.
Harrelson deleted other communications, and Mehta found that Harrelson was “deceptive” in claiming he had left the group.
Defense attorney Nina Ginsberg argued that the commentary both on and after Jan. 6 indicates a lack of planning.
Calls, texts by Oath Keepers founder contain ‘substantial evidence’ of Capitol conspiracy, prosecutors allege
“It’s kind of difficult to imagine how people could have been effectively communicating with each other in the midst of that mob,” she said. “There was no preplanned agreement to overtake the Capitol, to storm the building, to force entry into the building, but that this was something that evolved as it was occurring.”
She said any inference about plans for armed backup at the Capitol was “speculation.”
In a court filing last month, the defense attorney for one of Harrelson’s alleged co-conspirators said the quick reaction force was “one person” who is “in his late 60s, obese, and has cardio-pulmonary issues, a bad back, a bum knee, and is need of a hip replacement.”
The person described in that filing has not been charged, and there is no evidence that any backup force arrived at the Capitol with weapons on Jan. 6.
In court filings, prosecutors have quoted Rhodes messaging the group in advance about preparations for “worst-case scenarios,” writing, “We will have several well equipped QRFs outside DC.”
Rhodes also recommended helmets, hard gloves, eye protection and weapons, according to prosecutors, writing: “Collapsible Batons are a grey area in the law. I bring one. But I’m willing to take that risk because I love em.”
Rhodes, who has not been charged with any crimes, has denied a plan to enter the Capitol and accused prosecutors of trying to manufacture a conspiracy.
In interviews, Rhodes has said that the national Oath Keepers organization never did muster a quick reaction force for Jan. 6, and that some members and their associates “went off mission.”
Police on Jan. 6 charged only a handful of firearms offenses in Capitol-related cases. Because so few arrests were made on the scene that day, however, investigators say the true number of rioters who were carrying firearms will never be known.
In charging papers, the FBI and Justice Department allege that many defendants discussed bringing firearms to Washington, as well as not carrying them to the Capitol because of the District’s gun laws.
Oath Keepers founder, associates exchanged 19 calls from start of Jan. 6 riot through breach, prosecutors allege
One of those arrested late Jan. 6 for not leaving Capitol grounds was Maryland tow truck driver Christopher Alberts. Police said they stopped him outside the building carrying a loaded black Taurus G2C 9mm handgun on his hip and a loaded, 12-round spare magazine in separate holsters, along with a gas mask, pocket knife and first-aid kit.
The oldest detained defendant, Lonnie L. Coffman, 70, of Alabama was arrested after returning to his truck parked near the Capitol, where police allegedly found 11 homemade, molotov cocktail-type incendiary devices, a rifle, shotgun, two 9mm pistols, a .22-caliber pistol — all loaded — as well as a crossbow, several machetes, a stun gun and smoke devices. Prosecutors alleged that the 11 jars were made with gasoline and melted plastic foam to produce a dangerous “napalm-like” explosion of sticky, flammable liquid.
Other charging and detention documents allege that many defendants discussed leaving weapons in vehicles, parking lots, hotel rooms, bags or with others to ensure quick access.
New York dating coach Samuel Fisher, also known as Brad Holiday, was arrested after allegedly posting on social media photos of himself at the Capitol and with firearms including a pistol and a rifle.
“If it kicks off I got a Vest and My Rifle,” he wrote, according to court documents.
Prosecutors have alleged that Erik Munchel of Nashville stashed weapons in a tactical bag outside the Capitol before bringing a stun gun inside. A search of his home found a legal arsenal of 15 firearms including assault rifles, a sniper rifle and tripod, other types of rifles, shotguns and pistols, a drum-style magazine, and other magazines and ammunition.
Searching the home of Karl Dresch of Calumet, Mich., investigators say they found a backpack containing a Hagerstown, Md., gas station receipt, a Metro transit card, radar detector, handheld radio and 160 rounds of ammunition. In his home they found a 12-gauge shotgun, a Glock pistol, a Remington rifle and a Russian-made AK-47-style rifle compatible with the ammunition.
A Dresch attorney said the weapons were “the type of ordinary firearms that are commonplace in rural households throughout America.” Attorneys for the other defendants have emphasized that they are not accused of weapons-related crimes.
D.C. police Officer Daniel Hodges said in a January interview that one reason he did not draw his weapon during the riot was that police understood the crowd to be armed.
“I knew they had guns — we had been seizing guns all day,” he said. “And the only reason I could think of that they weren’t shooting us was they were waiting for us to shoot first.”
Armed 'quick reaction force' was waiting for order to storm Capitol, DOJ says - The Washington Post
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
Much respect for his bandmates quitting after the arrest.
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
we cannot abide treason. it has to be stomped out and punished to the furthest extent of the law.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
https://apple.news/AZYGIncoPQiKidZxiQ351fw
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
hope to call him my senator next year.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Right on, Congressman. Thank you!
-EV 8/14/93
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House on Thursday narrowly approved $1.9 billion to fortify the Capitol after the Jan. 6 insurrection, as Democrats pushed past Republican opposition to try to harden the complex with retractable fencing and a quick-response force following the most violent domestic attack on Congress in history.
The bill's 213-212 passage came a day after the House approved the formation of an independent commission to investigate the deadly mob siege by President Donald Trump’s supporters, who battled police to storm the building in a failed attempt to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s election.
The two measures now face an uncertain outcome in the evenly divided Senate as most Republicans have objected to both. Tensions are running high at the Capitol, with Democrats growing exasperated with Republicans who refuse to acknowledge the severity of the insurrection because of what appears to be their devotion to Trump — and fears of crossing him.
“We have a major political party in the country that’s ignoring it — we’re trying to solve a problem, they clearly don’t want to sit down and talk about it,” said Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, chairman of an appropriations subcommittee handling legislative branch security.
At the same time, the idea of bolstered security at the Capitol saddened many lawmakers who said they see no other choice because of the ongoing threats on Congress. Several leading liberal Democrats opposed the security money over concerns about policing, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders worked the floor during votes to ensure passage.
Together, the package of bills stemming from the domestic assault by Trump supporters on the Capitol reminded some lawmakers of the changes that emerged from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Then, a landmark commission investigated the attack's root causes and authorities hardened the security apparatus across the federal government.
Thursday's vote capped two days of emotionally wrenching debate as the political divide, particularly in the House, has widened in the months since the January assault.
House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro recalled her own experience being trapped in the House gallery that day as the attackers tried to break in, calling her husband to tell him she was OK after Capitol Police told her to duck on the floor.
“This bill is not about politics, it’s not about settling scores,” DeLauro said. “It’s about ensuring that every person who comes into the Capitol is safe and is protected.”
Republicans argued that the spending bill is too expensive and no fencing is needed. Many of them said lawmakers should be spending money on border security, not Capitol security.
Rep. Lance Gooden, R-Texas, contended that Democrats would rather spend money on a wall "around this building in D.C.” than they would on finishing a border wall advocated by Trump.
Already, National Guard troops have been protecting the building for months and public access is severely limited. Though razor-wire-topped fencing that stood as a stark reminder of the siege has been removed, an extended perimeter fence remains in place, cutting off access to the lush grounds popular with the public.
The Democrats who opposed the security legislation were some of the most liberal in the House. Some have expressed the view that police treat people of color unfairly. Democratic Reps. Cori Bush of Missouri, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota voted against it.
Omar said she had “not been convinced of the importance of the money.”
Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Jamaal Bowman of New York and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan voted “present,” effectively saving the measure from going down to defeat.
The chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, said the lawmakers “wanted to make sure that there were accountability measures” on the security funds. She voted for the bill.
Senate Democrats will not be able to pass either bill on their own in the evenly split 50-50 Senate and could have trouble persuading enough Republicans to vote with them after Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell announced he would oppose the inquiry. Ten GOP senators would need to join Democrats to meet the 60-vote threshold needed to advance legislation. Changes could be made to win over their support.
Months in the making, the emergency spending package incorporates the recommendations from an outside panel of experts to beef up security after the mob attack.
The bill includes money for new fencing — either retractable or “pop in,” according to Democrats — that would protect the grounds. The legislation bars money from being used for permanent above-ground fencing, reflecting the wishes of most members of Congress that the area should be open to the public.
Other changes would fortify windows and doors, install new security vestibules and cameras, and protect members with increased security at home and in Washington, as threats against them have doubled in the last year. There is also money to protect federal judges who are prosecuting the rioters and have received threats, and to repay the Capitol Police and other federal agencies for their efforts on Jan. 6.
Some lawmakers have objected to the proposal for the National Guard to maintain a “quick response force” nearby after it took hours for Guard troops to arrive Jan. 6 as attackers were brutally beating officers.
Leading Republicans on the armed services committees in the House and Senate oppose relying on the troops for the work of protecting the Capitol.
The National Guard Association of the United States said in a statement that the Guard should only be used for law enforcement as a “last resort.”
Democrats said they, too, are uneasy with many of the military-like measures, but say they have little choice but to protect the building. The delays in sending the Guard to the Capitol have been blamed in part for the failure to contain the violence. Five people died, including a Trump supporter shot and killed by police as she tried to climb through a broken window to access the House chamber, and a police officer who fought off the mob and died later.
“We’ve never had a quick response for us here — you know, we’ve never had an insurrection, either,” Ryan said. “So thinking has to evolve in order to try to solve some of these problems.”
___
Associated Press writer Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
The govt is making itself seem less accessible?