And Sleepy Joe Will Get The Credit: US Politics January 2021

Capitol Police Officer commits suicide:

Another US Capitol Police Officer has died after the insurrection.

Officer Howard Liebengood has died by suicide.

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) January 10, 2021

WAPO claims he was off-duty at the time but twitter comments say his social media was filled with pro-Trump garbage.

It’s very easy to say “they’re not going to come to your home” if you don’t have multiple casualties/attacks in your family tree where they came to your relatives’ homes

v much conscious of the fact that for now I'm still a comfortable UMC white guy in the suburbs, but I have a lot of inherited cultural memory.

think we could all do with not ganging up on people who merely express the thought of owning a gun in the "are you considering purchasing a gun?" thread, for the reasons annotated above.

Right, I mean a lot of the reason my family is here is because of the threat of people coming to their homes, and had they stuck around it would have happened, so I'll err on the side of overreaction.

possibly the wrong thread but I 100% support any ILX poster who feels like they need a gun. take classes though, and practice.

what little family I or my wife had that stayed around, yeah, people came to their homes

also, good morning!


https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/man-with-assault-rifle-charged-with-threatening-pelosi-officials-say/ar-BB1cCrob

jfc that Tucker Carlson post up thread. you rarely see it spelled out so bluntly. just a perfect realization of that “there must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds, but does not protect” ‬distillation of conservatism whose author I’m totally blanking on rn

Frank Wilhoit

think we should keep the gun talk to the gun thread if that's ok

Unfortunately not the state yer in tbh

The gun talk was done

"yeah state legislatures have way more sitting QAnon, white supremacists, etc, though Congress seems to be getting more of those as well"

those are the people who then run for House of Rep positions, which is why there were so many tea party dipshits (and now a bunch of qanon dipshits) in the House. It's exponentially more difficult to rise to the position of Senator though.

WAPO claims he was off-duty at the time but twitter comments say his social media was filled with pro-Trump garbage.

I'll grant all sorts of reasons can go into what he did. But I have to wonder if there was a further factor in this guy seeing a coworker die as a result of his preferred candidate's actions. (And Sicknick himself, per his father, was a Trump supporter, so pile on the ironies.)

xps I've been reading Pauli Murray's memoir, Song in a Weary Throat, and one of the most vivid images is of Murray's grandmother in 1919, after her husband's death, suffering from flashbacks to the night rides of the first Klan 50 years earlier, and pulling nine-year-old Pauli out of bed to help her barricade the doors against invisible enemies. Generational trauma, indeed.

Saw photos this morning of the officer who was killed being swarmed/beaten by the rioters. Some upsetting shit - but I’m glad it got documented so those responsible can be identified. Wondering if it would be too much to hold everyone involved storming the capitol criminally responsible for these deaths.

Self-xp Ack I just saw the request for gun talk to stay in gun thread, sorry

xpost Saw something from the DC Attorney's Office about hundreds of cases being prepared.

guy who threatened Pelosi: "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Mr. Meredith had erected a billboard in 2018 in Acworth, Ga., that read, “#QANON” along with the name of his business, Car Nutz Car Wash."

A tiny but telling detail from this piece:

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2021/01/10/inside-the-gops-week-from-hell-491346

Many Republicans not named Stephen Miller and Johnny McEntee have fled the White House — and there have been a lot more resignations than reported.

If someone resigns and no one knows, does it make a sound?

feel like all the First Amendment hounds are falling over themselves to forget that seditious speech that indicates an "imminent threat" is not protected speech under the FA

What about an eminent front?

Of course, everyone would have to leave anyway, etc. etc. But peacing out while not writing the usual 'as I look back on the good work my team did' stuff and so forth is probably a real thing, both in terms of them trying to scrub the stink away and hoping nobody comes after them. (No sympathy for them at all on either point of course.)

xpost the sun shines
and people forget

Eminence, gah. I ruined my own joke (which all sums up the GOP.)

Lol. JiC.

xps lol Josh

I Ruined a Joke - the GeeOhPees

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7wmRXEHizI

_WAPO claims he was off-duty at the time but twitter comments say his social media was filled with pro-Trump garbage._


I'll grant all sorts of reasons can go into what he did. But I have to wonder if there was a further factor in this guy seeing a coworker die as a result of his preferred candidate's actions. (And Sicknick himself, per his father, was a Trump supporter, so pile on the ironies.)

Like I said, all sorts of reasons could be at play. (Notable too that his father served in a similar role for the Senate, so...family tradition/honor/etc.? I mean, it's easy to joke but that can be a real factor for some.)

Oops, etc.

🚨NEW — the attending physician has sent out an email saying that people in the safe room during the riots may have been exposed to the coronavirus. pic.twitter.com/iqxYHG32ye

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) January 10, 2021

that article posted yesterday from the POV of Black Capitol officers, revealing their feelings towards their white counterparts, especially those acquiescing to the insurgents or willfully aiding them, was a pretty eye-opening one.

Huh

BEFORE WE GET THERE, Trump and the rest of us have the next 10 days to worry about. The challenges of impeachment (read POLITICO’s story on the latest thinking among Dems) and the 25th Amendment have been pretty thoroughly discussed.

But there’s a third option that many Republican lawmakers are already employing. One GOP strategist termed this the “wink, wink, nod, nod” strategy, by which lawmakers simply treat VP Mike Pence as president.

That's...not the greatest precedent there?

I wouldn't be in the least surprised. Aside from his own insane and bigoted grievances and whatever crimes he's up to, he wasn't doing anything the job requires him to do, and there's no more bills to pass for him to sign anyway. Why not cut him out of the loop on any remaining practicalities? It keeps the GOP ones thinking their hands are cleanish too.

Oddly I suspect the precedent IS Wilson, thus the 25th.

NEW - House will hold pro forma on Monday. No votes before Wednesday morning

— John Bresnahan (@bresreports) January 10, 2021

of course they were exposed to coronavirus. fuck, there were republican congresspeople in a room who absolutely refused to put masks on while they were huddled for safety.

Wilson's people bypassed VP Thomas Marshall entirely, let Edith Wilson run the show.

Maybe we should let Mother Pence run the joint.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D0nMzHjMR8

More like https://images.kerrangcdn.com/DanzigMother.jpg?auto=compress&fit=crop&w=1200

https://i.ibb.co/9rrMY9P/psycho8.jpg

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQGemY0AhYaSNml3hBpiWxDARui0pbAjI-Fcg&usqp=CAU

https://static.independent.co.uk/2020/12/09/09/newFile-4.jpg?width=982&height=726

re the question of are people coming to our homes with guns good piece from a couple months ago with historical context on periods of low level political violence, one of which we may already be in

If proud boys and vigilantes can’t pull off a coordinated drive for power, they may opt for a time-honored approach in democratic politics: the “strategy of tension.” The term was coined in Italy during the Years of Lead from the late 1960s to the 1980s, when political violence exploded, with bombings, kidnappings, and failed coups making weekly headlines.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/30/america-years-of-lead-political-violence-trump-election

That would be troubling

tip o' the cap

PGA will strip Trump Bedminster of 2022 PGA Championship, insider says https://t.co/B5ecyuAXzr

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) January 10, 2021

BLOOMBERG: Marriott Suspends Donations to Senators Who Opposed Vote Result https://t.co/O7KRacUuOO pic.twitter.com/z5anuvPCUt

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) January 10, 2021