Well the newly elected representative from the state legislature of West Virgina's selfie video will be problematic. the FBI just arrested him.
The reckoning begins... facing criminal charges for January 6th.
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And then there are those who only stood around and watched, but did they stay too long?
LA Times has a piece up reporting on divisions in reactions and plans amid groups that supported the Capitol incursion. Some enthusiasts want to do it again at assorted state capitols. Others were already having second thoughts, some them apparently bewildered by experiences of conflicting emotions while in the Capitol, once having gained access. Other demonstrators who disdained the violence but still do support a chaotic sort of resistance to conspiracy-fueled ideas of oppressive government are uncertain what to do next. But some of them are apparently unable to process the fact that violence was a purpose of some of their members, and so are blaming it all on infiltrators, leftists, antifa...
Meanwhile
www.latimes.com
Meanwhile
"Federal authorities Friday announced charges against 13 of the rioters, and 40 more have been charged in Superior Court on counts including firearms-related offenses."
Far-right extremists want to target more capitols, but are divided after D.C. riot
The extremist groups behind Wednesday's pro-Trump mob violence plan to take the fight to state capitols, but are also hobbled by divisions. One rioter, Josiah Colt, expressed regret.
www.latimes.com
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If only they wore their Covid masks. 
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The military guy from the below who tried very hard not to show his face has been identified.
If only they wore their Covid masks.
Yeah right? Some of these guys really are total dunces, they filmed themselves naked-face... one wore a work ID badge... some even gave interviews to TV crews and provided their details....
It can seem tempting not to worry too much about their future endeavors, taking that carelessness into consideraton along with some other indications that they are not all that connected to the reality most of us live in.
But then we have to ask ourselves where the hell was law enforcement in the upfront of this? In on it or just incompetent or tech-ignorant (social media, duh!) or totally asleep at the switch? Was the whole thing organized and fell apart at the end because someone high up caught on or chickened out or WTF?
When it came down the whole Congress and the VP were in there FFS. Can't even make that up and yet it happened. And even if the insurrectionists loathed the government officials, what about the ordinary workers in there. I saw a photo of the employees carrying the boxes with the electoral votes from each state into the chamber for the joint session... they are just ordinary people the same as an insurrectionist's sister or cousin... with a day job happens to get paid by Uncle Sam. What were these people thinking.
I thought the whole point of our sacrificing assorted personal liberties after 9/11 was to enable greater homeland security. So we take our shoes off and get felt up in airports for the good of the country and then somehow we end up with a President who bans Muslim immigrants and encourages white presumed-Christan boys to run down to the Capitol and overturn his successor's election. Great. I finally know what the Chinese meant by the curse of living in interesting times. I often find myself recalling a verse from a W.S.Merwin poem lately, the last three lines of it:
“Send me out into another life
lord because this one is growing faint
I do not think it goes all the way.”
-- W.S. Merwin, in “Words from a Totem Animal”
Anyway people whose day job is to worry about extremists don't think it's time to stop worrying yet. I agree. I'm way too old to worry for myself but I sure as hell wonder where we went wrong raising some of the next generations.
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Unfortunately a lot of the people who believe these far right conspiracies are baby Boomers, not people younger. That’s why they have so much power at the polls.
Fortunately there were very few people there who could be a real threat who you needed to dig more into - if there were more younger well educated people there you could have been in much bigger trouble.
The US does need to secure its institutions better, before 9/11 security in the US was a complete joke. In no other country can/could you just sort of wonder onto military bases where you could do so in the US.
Theres plenty wrong with the physical security of the building too. That the capitol doesn’t have double/triple glazing on all external windows and solid steel emergency doors is really a bit of a joke. As is the lack of panic rooms for staff or any degree of compartmentalisation.
SuperMatt
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I have said from the day they banned water bottles from airplanes: it is 100% security theater. It does nothing to actually keep anybody safe. Apparently the Capitol police force of 2,000 with a $460 million budget is just for show too. For those complaining about “defund the police” - well, look what a $460 million budget gets you: an unruly mob of out-of-shape idiots EASILY overwhelmed them. The money surely isn’t being spent productively.
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Its quite clear practically all the security is the stuff on the outside of the building that you can see. There is almost nothing within the building.
Yah well I bet there is more human (and god knows what else) security inside that place now than there was before Wednesday. But since we don't know yet what the extent of insider participation was, how comforting can that really be to the people who have to work there every day. I have read that a few members of Congress wonder how insurrectionists managed to locate their private offices when they are so obscurely located that staffers of other members have had trouble finding them when sent there on an errand.
This incident and the beginning of the period of unraveling "how did this happen?" are a time when uncertainty can suggest in the short term that the terrorists are still winning even after the central event has concluded. That cannot be allowed to persist so it means security has to be shored up enough and visibly enough to let people feel comfortable showing up to work. We should really commend all those who resumed the process of counting the electoral votes meanwhile on the very night of the incursion. Well all those except those particular and treasonous sods in Congress who had chosen to help Donald Trump and right wing media outlets disinform half the country as to the outcome and integrity of the elections.
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The real problem is that domestic technology is very very good now.
If you can get an intern or a cleaner into the building you can probably get a pretty accurate floor plan and record it digitally with just an iPhone.
And as someone who enjoys the outdoors outdoor gear is very very good now. A buff would make a pretty good mask for example - and they are small, light and about $20. And I’m sure climbing or gym gloves are also very good and not super expensive.
And battery powered tools like angle grinders are as good as mains powered ones these days - you could do a lot of damage with those - and you can buy them from a DIY shop.
And with this stuff being domestic it is very very difficult to police bad actors as 99.99% of people will have these thing for legitimate reasons.
The capitol needs to not be invade-able with domestic tools by ordinary people.
There are references in media to how opaque the management of the Capitol Police is. They lack Congressional oversight, for instance. How is that even possible? Because they are friendly and helpful --as required for tourism-- so they are our wonderful and reliable "teddy bears," as the congressional officials and workers may have come to think of them.
I say that not to derogate the rank and file of the Capitol Police, aside from whichever bad apples are turned up. I am sure most are dedicated and a lot of them showed that during the attack on the Capitol buildings. I felt that "teddy bear" way about the in-house security guards in a corporation I worked at in the 70s when we lived through a series of bomb threats related to the discovery of US involvement in the overthrow of the Chilean government. We knew those guards for years and they were like family to us, we even knew their birthdays and the names of the kids. But they were also rotated and overseen and regularly drilled separately and also along with us on what do do in threatening circumstances. It sounds like the Capitol Police might be light on some of that stuff. More oversight and transparency are obviously needed and one hopes that lack will be remedied legislatively and promptly. Doesn't seem like it's enough just to change top tier officers and discover any rank and file bad actors that got involved in the insurrection plans.
One wonders for instance if the Capitol Police top management was blindsided deliberately, via intel provided them by other security or defense-related agencies, guided by direction from pro-Trumpers who meant to weaken overall readiness of the Capitol Police and so to enhance any insiders' chance of enabling the insurrectionists.
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I think physical building security should have been sufficient to keep the vast majority of these people out. There’s no evidence they had a coordinated group with angle grinders to tackle solid steel doors or anything like that. They had what half dozen military/ex military and that’s it?
How much damage could half a dozen rouge special forces troops do with say 6 months to plan? I reckon they could kill half of Congress.
Nice dry run then if that's what it was.
But under the old advice that "if you strike the king, best kill him" extension of principle to what happened on Wednesday, insurrectionists don't really get to do a dry run on laying waste to half of a legislature and that civilian our sitting VP who is a heartbeat away from president and command of the military. You either pull it off or you're outed and off to the slam.
But in the USA, citizens have rights... even bad citizens and even as perpetrators of terrible crimes.
And in the USA, the leaders of the outgoing president's party are officially as of the RNC winter meeting this week, pretty dismissive of the import of the Capitol incursion. They just doubled down on Trump as still their nominal head of party going forward, by re-electing Trump's favored RNC chairperson and installing a pro-Trump guy as her second. By McDaniels' speech at that event it's also clear the GOP will stick with their 2020 no-policy-platform just-support-Trump approach because it papers over their internal fractures. Further, they mean to work on voter suppression tactics via attempts to undo or redo legislation at state levels: they don't like what happened in 2020 in key states that had increased voter registation and larger turnout enabled by easier voting options like no-excuse absentee ballot and by-mail voting.
Maybe the January 6th event was not some single conspiracy, so not exactly a dry run. After all, counting on ability to go again is not your average professional approach to a coup.
But there was intent of some instigators or possibly loners to cause harm or at least perhaps take hostages, what with stuff like zip ties floating around. In any case they got in and had a chance to look around, familiarize themselves with the venue, check out existing resistance when they encountered it. And there has been some recognition now by principals in Congress that whatever their intel has been on extremist threats to the seat of government, it is inadequate and incompetent or else compromised.
So both "sides" then overall have learned something from this event, but not the same things. What have the American people learned? Unfortunately until leaders on both sides of the major party fence can address all this without political rancor uppermost in mind, it looks like what Americans think depends mostly on our lean towards or affiliation with one or the other party.
It's more than weird that the behemoth social media companies are the ones belatedly offering to shore up against extremism in speech, while their potential overseers in the federal government spar over whether there's a right to overturn a federal election representing the certified will of the people in all 50 states. It almost plays into the idea that it's extreme to vote for either party.
I still feel like I'm stuck inside the pages of some unfinished draft of a work by George Orwell or Lewis Carroll.
But under the old advice that "if you strike the king, best kill him" extension of principle to what happened on Wednesday, insurrectionists don't really get to do a dry run on laying waste to half of a legislature and that civilian our sitting VP who is a heartbeat away from president and command of the military. You either pull it off or you're outed and off to the slam.
But in the USA, citizens have rights... even bad citizens and even as perpetrators of terrible crimes.
And in the USA, the leaders of the outgoing president's party are officially as of the RNC winter meeting this week, pretty dismissive of the import of the Capitol incursion. They just doubled down on Trump as still their nominal head of party going forward, by re-electing Trump's favored RNC chairperson and installing a pro-Trump guy as her second. By McDaniels' speech at that event it's also clear the GOP will stick with their 2020 no-policy-platform just-support-Trump approach because it papers over their internal fractures. Further, they mean to work on voter suppression tactics via attempts to undo or redo legislation at state levels: they don't like what happened in 2020 in key states that had increased voter registation and larger turnout enabled by easier voting options like no-excuse absentee ballot and by-mail voting.
Maybe the January 6th event was not some single conspiracy, so not exactly a dry run. After all, counting on ability to go again is not your average professional approach to a coup.
But there was intent of some instigators or possibly loners to cause harm or at least perhaps take hostages, what with stuff like zip ties floating around. In any case they got in and had a chance to look around, familiarize themselves with the venue, check out existing resistance when they encountered it. And there has been some recognition now by principals in Congress that whatever their intel has been on extremist threats to the seat of government, it is inadequate and incompetent or else compromised.
So both "sides" then overall have learned something from this event, but not the same things. What have the American people learned? Unfortunately until leaders on both sides of the major party fence can address all this without political rancor uppermost in mind, it looks like what Americans think depends mostly on our lean towards or affiliation with one or the other party.
It's more than weird that the behemoth social media companies are the ones belatedly offering to shore up against extremism in speech, while their potential overseers in the federal government spar over whether there's a right to overturn a federal election representing the certified will of the people in all 50 states. It almost plays into the idea that it's extreme to vote for either party.
I still feel like I'm stuck inside the pages of some unfinished draft of a work by George Orwell or Lewis Carroll.
thekev
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A number of them may have provided false identification information, but keep in mind, you are arguably seeing some sample bias here. The dumb or careless ones are likely to be caught quickly. These guys don't appear to be using burner devices, disguising themselves with prosthetic makeup, or obfuscating their means of travel. You aren't seeing Ted Kaczynski types here.
It's also unlikely that all of them will be arrested. It's likely that a lot of protesters went to DC but didn't commit federal crimes. The ones being arrested within the first 24 hours or so are likely very visible ones.
Still examples must be made and it must be clear to any who wish to go again in the coming days or weeks that consequences may include more lethal defense against any attempts to breach security at further permitted demonstrations. To participate in a permitted public demonstration doesn't mean you get to follow somebody who decides to ignore limits of the permit terms and just break into buildings. Are we that ignorant now or are a lot of people just lying about their intent when they breached Capitol security.
As for insiders helping... you gotta be stupid to imagine that it's really OK for Capitol Police to help you invade a building when others around you are smashing windows and climbing walls to get in. It's true enough that some of those photos looked like some of the followers were in over their heads as to wtf they were actually doing, i.e., didn't have a clue never mind a plan. Never want to hear a right winger in a social forum use the word "sheeple" on lefties again. Some of those insurrectionists talked later about having mixed feelings even while they were still in there. What substance or ideas have they consumed that deadens the gut level instincts that even lower species of animals have about whether they should be someplace they're exploring?
We cannot afford to dismiss this the way the GOP is trying to do, and in fact pretty much just did officially, in their RNC winter meeting. There's at least one clear example from history about the danger of just blowing off stuff like what happened on Wednesday. And yeah i don't care if I just Godwin'd the thread.
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Now Forbes says they will scrutinize any company that hires a former Trump press secretary as being suspect and possibly lying about their business.
www.justjared.com
Good to see Trump poisoning future job prospects for his supporters and enablers because even before Trump it seemed many there who were supposed to serve the people did little more than obstruct and pad their resume for a future lobbyist job. I hope many other bad faith gravy trains come tumbling down.
Forbes Sends Warning to Companies Looking to Hire Trump’s Press Secretaries
Here's what the magazine said...
www.justjared.com
Good to see Trump poisoning future job prospects for his supporters and enablers because even before Trump it seemed many there who were supposed to serve the people did little more than obstruct and pad their resume for a future lobbyist job. I hope many other bad faith gravy trains come tumbling down.
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I’m tired of people saying a Hitler comparison nullifies all arguments. Aside from gassing Jews and starting a world war, the similarities between Trump and Hitlers administrations are startling.
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