kerzain
3944
She does. She really does.
Clay
3946
…and sadly, we are at a point where one of the options to kickstart the accountability for those people is to have one of them remove his boss from power. And he probably doesn’t want concrete boots for Valentine’s Day.
kerzain
3948
I really like this tweet. I don’t say that about tweets.
It looks like the officer was trying to protect the people in the Senate chamber by distracting the mob, but he probably wound up saving the lives of the people chasing him:
A video captured by Igor Bobic, a congressional reporter for HuffPost on the scene, shows the officer trying to hold back a few dozen rioters who push him back and up the steps leading almost directly to the chamber.
For almost a minute, the officer held them back — at the exact moment that, inside the Senate, police were frantically racing around the chamber trying to lock down more than a dozen doors leading to the chamber floor and the galleries above.
“Second floor!” the officer yelled into his radio, alerting other officers and command that the mob had reached the precipice of the Senate.
Had the rioters turned right, they would have been a few feet away from the main entrance into the chamber. On the other side of that door, had they made their way into the Senate, were at least a half-dozen armed officers, including one with a semiautomatic weapon in the middle of the floor scanning each entrance for intruders.
Instead, the group — all White men — followed the Black officer in the other direction and met a group of police in a back corridor outside the Senate.
You’re assuming Parler wasn’t already compromised? It would surprise me if it wasn’t hacked quickly (or even compromised from the very start ).
It didn’t need to be hacked. Parler is financed by Rebekah Mercer, who bankrolled Trump 2016 as well as Cambridge Analytica’s illegal acts, and founded by John Matze, a guy whose wife is a Russian national whose who juuuust happened to pick him up while she was “hitchhiking” across the US in 2016. Her mother is a long-time employee of the Russian government, since the Soviet days.
We are dealing with mass radicalization, and there isn’t any obvious answer except cutting these folks off from the platforms that make it easy to spread violent conspiracy theories. Folks can still find and participate in that speech, but no more megaphones to millions.
Clay
3953
I think you start to see why Germany has limitations on free speech. Should it be legal to spread violent conspiracy theories?
So when is Fox news getting taken off the air?
Deep dive by WaPo on the attack and the events leading up to it.
So, compromised from the start. This is my very surprised face.
Everyone who has access should read that Post article. The worst didn’t happen this time, but it easily could have. Exactly why drastic measures should have been taken earlier. They got lucky this time.
mono
3958
So who’s in charge to make the call about an adequate armed presence in the days leading up to and including inauguration? Is there any reason to think the red carpet won’t be rolled out again?
Menzo
3959
Yes, because the Secret Service and FBI don’t fuck around with the President’s life.
There are already thousands of security forces in DC. There are plenty of articles from reputable media about security preparations for the inaugural.
The guy in a red stocking cap looked like he was holding a giant candy cane. He looked like one of Santa’s elves.
Looked like there was a journalist in with them. The guy had two or three cameras.
magnet
3961
Let’s hope others follow.
It’s just locker room sedition nbd.
The good news, such as it is, is that the inauguration is planned far, far in advance and anticipates crowds up to 1 million.
In interviews, law enforcement experts sought to draw a sharp contrast between Inauguration Day and this week’s disturbance, where a mob of violent Trump supporters breached the Capitol building and sent lawmakers scrambling for safety.
“There’s so much more specificity put into these events that I do think they’re going to be buttoned up pretty tight,” a former U.S. Secret Service veteran with knowledge of the planning said of the upcoming inauguration. “There will be barriers in place you didn’t have yesterday. And I think instead of having just the Capitol Police there to protect the Capitol [to start], you’re going to have thousands of other law enforcement that are going to be standing elbow to elbow.”
A senior Biden inaugural official echoed that, noting that their security partners who started preparing for the inauguration ceremonies months ago.
Indeed, federal agencies have spent more than a year planning for what is designated as a National Special Security Event involving the United States Secret Service, FEMA, Department of Defense, intelligence agencies and other departments that establish security perimeters and coordinate on terrorist threats and crisis management. Such events typically include a multi-agency coordinating center with scores of officials representing the departments to manage coordination and communication, law enforcement experts said.
The bad news is that, while the Capitol Police are not the only ones involved in the inauguration, the Capitol Police are currently leaderless and morale is presumably terrible.
