Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) was exonerated by 43 Republicans in his second impeachment trial soon after President Joe Biden’s inauguration, despite DDT’s incitement of violence for his followers to breach the U.S. Capitol on January 6, kill and wound many people, and block the election of the next U.S. president by terrorizing congressional lawmakers. Yet DDT’s worshippers, usually QAnon conspiracy believers of DDT’s lies about voter fraud, are again stopping congressional work, this time on March 4, by again threatening to attack. House members had to change their voting schedule, staying late on March 3 to vote on a police reform bill instead of on March 4. This time QAnon believers ignore the 20th Amendment changing Inauguration Day to January 4, ratified in 1933. Convinced DDT will be inaugurated and return to the White House on March, MAGA people plan violence against elected federal lawmakers.
On March 4, the National Guard won’t be subjected to the same restraints to protect U.S. lawmakers as on January 6, when DDT was still in the White House. On March 3, National Guard commanding general Maj. Gen. William Walker testified in a Senate hearing that he was blocked on January 6 for over three hours from getting permission to stop the violent insurrection at the Capitol although he received immediate approval against Black Lives Matter protests last summer.
In the Senate hearing, Walker described how he put National Guard troops immediately on a bus after he received “a frantic call from then-chief of U.S. Capitol Police, Steven Sund,” with the report “that the security perimeter of the Capitol had been breached by hostile rioters.” He also alerted the city so he could quickly move the buses through traffic. Yet, Walker had to wait for “3 hours and 19 minutes” before he received permission to send the Guard. Miller supposedly gave approval for the Guard to support Capitol Police at 4:32 pm—almost three hours after the frantic calls, but no one told Walker for over 30 minutes. Walker said, “Seconds mattered, minutes mattered.”
Miller stalled his approval by demanding a complete explanation of how the troops would be used at the Capitol and what their assignments would be. While he stopped Walker from helping the Capitol Police, insurrectionists broke through window and doors, killed and wounded people, and vandalized the Capitol, inside and out. The officials in charge said they didn’t like the “optics” of the Guard protecting lawmakers. One of those objecting was Lt. Gen. Charles Flynn, brother of Michael Flynn, who DDT pardoned after Flynn twice pled guilty to lying to the FBI about the investigation into Russian interference of the 2016 presidential election. Michael Flynn also wanted to declare martial law in overturning Biden’s election and promotes QAnon.
The intent to stop Walker from taking any emergency action on his own was evident. On January 5, Walker received an “unusual” letter preventing him from deploying any Quick Reaction Force service members without explicit approval from then-Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy.
Acting chief of the Capitol Police, Yogananda Pittman, also warned Congress that militia groups present at the January 6 riot “want to blow up the Capitol and kill as many members as possible” when President Joe Biden addresses a joint session of Congress for the first time. Because of this, Pittman said Capitol Police must “maintain its enhanced and robust security posture,” including fencing and National Guard presence. The date for that address by Biden hasn’t yet been decided. MAGA supporters force taxpayers to fund the National Guard in Washington, D.C. for lawmakers’ protections and for the fence around the Capitol, protecting lawmakers, which MAGA members want removed.
The House of Representatives Acting Sergeant at Arms Timothy Blodgett sent a letter to lawmakers warning of Capitol Police’s “new and concerning information and intelligence indicating additional interest in the Capitol” by a militia group on March 4 through March 6.
In a Senate hearing, FBI Director Christopher Wray testified that domestic “militia violent extremists” were responsible for the attack on the U.S. Capitol and are one of the biggest concerns for the agency. He specified those who “self-identify with the Proud Boys or Oath Keepers” in “white supremacy.” Several GOP senators, including Ron Johnson (WI) and Marsha Blackburn (TN), focused on the anti-fascists opposing white supremacists. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) still claimed anarchists were in the Capitol on January 6 despite Wray’s disagreeing with his position although Wray denied any “antifa” stormed the Capitol.
Wray also reported the number of domestic terrorist cases has doubled to 2,000 since last September because domestic terrorism “has been metastasizing around the country for a long time now.” Democrats criticized the failure of the FBI to highlight the terrorists’ threat of “war” at the Capitol, but Wray said the report was emailed to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force including D.C. and Capitol Police; posted on a law enforcement web portal; and mentioned in a command center briefing in D.C. He didn’t explain why the D.C. police chief was not phoned or why the information was not highlighted.
For months, people have complained about the ignorance of Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) for his insistence at putting Russian disinformation into the congressional record, conspiracies used as propaganda to falsely discredit Democrats. Now he clearly has trouble reading. Johnson plans to force reading of the entire 600-page $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill aloud to the Senate, requiring up to ten hours. He may not realize that 76 percent of voters—including 60 percent of Republicans—support the package. Or may not care that a portion of the money is designated for distributing hundreds of millions of coronavirus vaccine doses this spring and summer. The question is how constituents feel about Johnson running for re-election in 2022.
Governors in both Mississippi and Texas have announced the reopening of their states claiming their residents will do the right thing about keeping everyone protected from COVID-19. In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott, perhaps diverting media from his disastrous power grid during the “big freeze,” said people are protected by vaccinations. By now, seven percent of Texans have managed to get at least one shot. In Mississippi, Gov. Tate Reeves wants to keep media attention from the tens of thousands of people in Jackson who can’t get running or clean water. Over half the states in the U.S. have lower rates of infections and deaths than Texas, and Mississippi is the fifth in the nation in death rates—45 states more successful. Biden has described the decisions to lift requirements for wearing masks and maintaining social distancing as “Neanderthal thinking.” This could be an insult to the Neanderthals because of their adaptability to different ecologies, development of highly functional tools, and survival of injuries and illnesses with the help from others.
False stories from left-leaning and centrist news publications get fewer Facebook clicks, but lies from far-right publications get more clicks—almost twice as many. Researchers at the cybersecurity for Democracy project at New York University reported the rewards for far-right publications posting faulty information.
Protests can succeed. A study in Scientific America reveals police killings dropped 20 percent between 2014 and 2019 in cities with Black Lives Matter protests. Travis Campbell, University of Massachusetts Amherst and the study’s author, concluded:
“BLM protests also increase the probability of a police agency having body-cameras, expand community policing, and reduce the number of future property crime-related arrests, which may partially explain the lethal force reduction.”
More benefits from protests here.
Fox network continues to hire ultra-conservatives to keep its audience, but thus far the strategy has been a failure. In both January and February, MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show was the #1 most-watched show, and her network was the #1 most-watched cable news network during the day in February. Sean Hannity’s viewership is down 31 percent, and Fox & Friends dropped 40 percent. Maddow thanked her audience, saying she was “grateful and humbled.” She said, “We will keep doing our best to be worthy of your time and your trust for you tuning in.” For the past year, CNN was up 76 percent, MSNBC increased 37 percent, and Fox News was down 32 percent.
In an attempt to boost ratings, Fox rehired DDT’s former press secretary Kayleigh McEnamy who started her brief tenure in the White House by lying about never lying to the media. Some of McEnamy’s colleagues are not pleased, according to Daily Beast reporters Diana Falzone and Justin Baragona:
“The addition of a known and frequent liar to the Fox News roster set off some alarms within a newsroom that has been ‘purged’ in recent months in favor of right-wing opinion programming and content geared towards keeping a diehard MAGA audience satisfied.”
Earlier this year, Fox fired Political Editor Chris Stirewalt because he called Arizona for Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. Biden won Arizona, but Fox hates facts. The network joined the alternate reality and prefers people who incite insurrection. Its journalists “don’t give a damn about facts and real news.” One Fox News staffer said McEnany was rehired because “the viewers are morons.”
Even in retirement, DDT is contributing to offshoring: his golden statue presented at CPAC by an artist living in Mexico was “made in China.”
Nel's New Day 