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  5. It’s a significant event. These protesters will be dispersed but the genie is out. Trump’s supporters from all over the US will now be packing up the SUV’s and starting cross country journeys to do their own storming. DC will be much inconvenienced for days to come. There will be military on the streets in the city for weeks to come. Biden’s inauguration will be another flashpoint and will not proceed smoothly. Not now.

    And I will bet the vile malignant at the heart of it is shitting himself. What the actual fuck has he started. He has no control over any of this. He’s a flailing maniac.

        • Jacob RM not Johnson. The British government has to work with whoever is President. At that time Trump was in charge, the UK government butters up whoever is in power. See also Blair and Bush jr.

          We need them way more than they need us. Same goes for Canada unfortunately, more so in fact.

          • There is language nuance.

            Usually, when the UK government talks about issues like (trade, foreign relations, the special relationship) they refer to the country in question by the name of the country.

            When they personalize it to the name of the President, or Prime Minister, they are personalizing it and making it about the person. Language matters in these issues, and they knew exactly what they were talking about.

            Remember Johnson suggesting that Trump may be Nobel-worthy? I do.

    • Yep. Trump was one of the few world leaders to support their bully boy Brexit. The right wing establishment in the UK have been cheerleaders for Trump. Endless articles in the Telegraph and Mail of the “He’s crude but he’s right, you know”, variety. The fawning of Farage, Gove and Raab. Johnson suggesting he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. An Etonian thugocracy. It’s quite the look.

          • Seems like a perfectly statesmanlike answer to the question he was asked. He’s not ‘suggesting Trump be given the Nobel peace prize’ as you say above, he’s laying out the almost impossible conditions that might allow him to be a candidate for it.

            Amazing how differently two people can interpret 14 out of context seconds, isn’t it?

            • Why are you being so po-faced about this? I get that you are desperate for a return to a more reasonable and considered political discourse. But are you seriously suggesting that Trump was not seen as a key ally for this Brexit government? That this government took inspiration from Trump’s tactics and methods? Why fight this trivial battle when the evidence is all around you?

              • He didn’t fix North Korea he averted a military confrontation. If he had gone further with his rapprochement we could have seen even better results. That is about the only thing he deserves some credit for – but only a small amount.
                He certainly hasn’t fixed Iran – anything but.

              • This clip’s doing the rounds on Twitter today and by the look of it most people are just blindly accepting it as an endorsement of Trump, if they even bother to listen to it. I don’t think it is. We look at Trump’s supporters and at the diet of misinformation they are fed, and tell ourselves we’d never be so easily gulled into believing that what we’re looking at isn’t what it looks like. Is it ‘po-faced’ and ‘trivial’ to suggest that sometimes we fall into the same trap?

                I say this clip doesn’t do what you say it does, so you say I am seriously ‘suggesting Trump was not seen as a key ally for this Brexit government.’ Does that automatically follow, I mean, really?

                As the evidence is all around us, why choose a clip (out of presumably hundreds) that doesn’t support the point you’re making?

                • I threw it up there in a rush. It was simply a device to remind people that Johnson was happy to massage Trump’s ego. There are other examples out there, as I mentioned higher up. A true statesmen, one not compromised by the need for support for Brexit, might have said that this was a matter for the Nobel committee and demurred.

                  I applaud your effort to enforce rigorous standards, and suggest you start by unsubscribing from Twitter.

          • That’s not the important part, the important part is ‘if’. Johnson’s only achievement since coming to office is a string of empty promises and aspirations towards some more hopeful future which he promises but can’t deliver. ‘If’ Trump achieved that he would be worthy of the Prize, and ‘if’ my granny had wheels she’d be a bicycle.

  10. Not the main issue, but an awful lot of people have completely fucked their chances of ever getting a job.

    Thank God for a calm, measured, LITERATE speech from the President-Elect.

  11. Everyone was warned over and over and over again.
    You’ve got a leaking roof, you get a plumber.
    Want a wall built? Get a builder.

    Want a political leader? Get a politician … DO NOT get a TV celebrity, you get one of them for TV reality shows. Rather hoping, if it does nothing else, that this alerts people in this country to the similarities to Johnson.

  16. That bastard has no intention of leaving the White House, ever. Had he won the election he’d have altered The Constitution to enable him to do a ‘Putin.’

    The fun and games have only just started and when they get underway America will catch fire.

    I truly hope I’m wrong.

  17. Suggestions of some police collusion…BBC reporting that footage appears to show police officers at the Capitol building opening the gates to allow protesters through, while members of law enforcement posed for selfies with the rioters who had broken inside the building.

    Either collusion, or gross incompetence. Can you imagine what would happen if this was BLM supporters?

    • I don’t think he has any control whatsoever of these people. They are doing their own thing now. The weevils are out of the woodwork.
      It’s an attempted coup, i.e. treason, so all of those who entered the Capitol should be arrested and locked up for a long time. If they’d been BLM protesters they would have been shot.
      If stories of police collusion with them are true it would be no surprise to me.

  20. 25th Amendment looking possible.

    Trump Cabinet secretaries are discussing invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him.

    Whether they will or not, they certainly should.

  21. That was nothing like a coup. That was a disorganised rabble who couldn’t believe that they could get past security and just wandered around inside with little idea what to do next.

    • I disagree Junior, these people were organised and some of them were armed. Thugs, a mob for sure, but these people didn’t just appear randomly. Trump has been whipping this up since the election. Have you seen the clip of the girl who says she was maced. She said “we were storming the Capitol, this is a revolution.” It doesn’t end here.

      • Some of them were organised, most weren’t from what I saw. I have been in a couple of countries during Coup periods and I’m reminded of Crocodile Dundee,… that’s not a knife, this is a knife.
        Come back to me when they tell us the national guard refused to come out and quell the insurrection and the army pledged allegiance to Trump.
        Not saying it couldn’t happen but this ain’t it.

        • It wasn’t a coup, but it was an attempted coup. What else? Were they random tourists? Escaped lunatics drawn magnetically to the Nut House? Their aim was clear – to overturn the election, ie stage a coup. That it was unsuccessful doesn’t affect this.

          I live in a country (the world’s oldest fledgling democracy) where coups are such a feature of political life they’ve turned into annual festivals.

          • In my book a coup is an attempt to take over control of power, how did that ramshackle performance come anywhere near that? It was insurrection for sure but you don’t take over comfort having a bunch of bewhiskered fat fucks putting their boots on Pelosi’s desk- you get control of critical arms of government, preferably the military and telecommunications. I take your point that by delaying the sitting of Congress they have thwarted the democratic process but only for today.
            Trump’s behaviour in not calling out the National Guard, treason maybe certainly a failure to defend the constitution.

            • I agree with @Junior-Wells, this was an insurrection not an attempted coup. You need support of the military to attempt anything like that and would result in probably the kidnapping and/or execution of Biden, closure of airports and the closure of all TV stations except Fox News and other supporters.

              I enjoy watching CNN, but they do tend towards hyperbole at times and have definitely adopted a position opposite to Fox News for some media news reporting balance.

              Having said that, some of the scenes were disgusting yesterday and I think Trump should be immediately removed from office if at all possible. He, his son and Guiliani should be arrested and charged for incitement to violence and possibly treason.

        • Not to be taken lightly, of course, but since the mob was able to overcome the police presence so easily, it’s a blessed relief they were not actually better organised, or armed.

    • Junior Wells says

      That was nothing like a coup. That was a disorganised rabble who couldn’t believe that they could get past security and just wandered around inside with little idea what to do next.

      Sounds like you were watching coverage of what happened in the capitol as the various senators and congressmen went about their business on Tuesday.

      The actual coup/invasion didn’t start until 24 hours later.

      Joiking aside, they surely have no option other than to invoke the 25th amendment and have this fucker committed…

  24. When the Russians have done this sort of thing, they’ve had artillery with which to shell the building.

    Thing is, I fear that at least a significant minority of these fantasist, clutching-at-straws-in-a-vain-attempt-to-understand-reality, overweight and out-of-their-depth American morons with shiny eyes talking of revolution and insurrection and all kinds of other historically inaccurate and logically disconnected conspiracy-laced claptrap would have happily shelled the building if they’d had the requisite hardware to hand.

    The intent, and the willingness to act upon it, is undoubtedly the same here – these people are beyond reason and willing to follow the orange calls to action, yea right up unto the barricades. If I lived in the Charleston area, I’d consider boarding up my windows right now, loading the kids into the SUV, filling the tank and heading either west or north east, pretty sharpish.

    View post on imgur.com

    • The NG, and Washington, is a political hot potato.

      My understanding is that the surrounding States – Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, NJ at a push, have to be invited or asked to send in their NG. The DC NG is under the command of Pentagon, and thereby the President, not the Mayor.

      Cock up or conspiracy? Well, on the available evidence:
      Very quickly called out for BLM protests.
      Not very quickly called out when a well planned far right protest took place.

  29. I hope the Biden family have good life insurance on Joe because out of all those nutters out there with guns and an axe to grind his odds of surviving a full term must have just plummeted.

  31. I don’t know if there were sufficient police on the scene to do it, but none of those people should have been allowed to leave the Capitol except in handcuffs. This needs to be firmly stamped down on.

  35. I’m sure there was something in the impeachment papers of 2019 where the consequence of a successful impeachment would mean that Trump would not be able to be held to account. If his presidency ended “naturally” – then he could be prosecuted. Makes me wonder whether he is provoking a premature removal to allow this immunity to take effect.

  36. Seems Trump’s latest video message is as close as he will ever come to a concession and will hopefully calm things down. Of course tomorrow he may change his mind.

    • That latest video is such a contrast from the speech he gave in front of the Capitol, it can’t possibly be sincere. And now even the rats like Mulvaney and DeVos are deserting him, he must be shitting himself even more about what will happen in the coming days. Just a shame that Pence won’t pull the rug from under him.

  38. I read somewhere last night (may have been Twitter, but I am not certain) that Trump is finding out if/ how he can pardon himself.

    FWIIW, I think that if he can he will.

    More or less thinking out loud here, but could an incoming administration veto his pardons &/or self pardons?

  40. Re: Jack the Biscuit’s comment re pardons a few posts up the page

    Before you can be pardoned you first have to admit culpability for the offense you’re being pardoned for. As he sees himself as being above the laws that apply to everyone else, It’s hard to see Trump fessing up to anything.

    Given their rabid, mob mentality, it is equally hard to see JB risking creating a martyr for Trump’s followers by putting him on trial. Doing so would take years to resolve and just feed Trump’s toddler-like need for attention by making him the top story on the nightly news until the – hopefully soon – day he dies.

    When Ford pardoned Nixon in the mid-70s, he was roundly reviled for doing so. Most historians now agree his clemency saved what was an already badly divided post-Vietnam US from totally tearing itself apart.

    Rather than being unnecessarily divisive by picking a fight in which there will be no winners, Biden will surely want to focus on eliminating the inequalities and resentments which Trump exploited so cynically.

  41. I would just like to add an observation that this situation has raised the pomposity levels among US politicians to alarmingly high levels.

    Each one seemed to have an aw-gee-shucks simple story of being a son/daughter of a (insert honest-sounding occupation here) and then launching into stuff like this:

    “This blessed and sacred ground has been violated and desecrated. Their voices may be loud but they will never be louder than the voices of our founding fathers who bestowed on us the Constitution as delivered to we, the people. It calls to mind the words of Benjamin Franklin, who when faced with adversity said ‘he who henceforth proceeds with pure heart and a respect for the Law must beholden himself to, erm, the Constitution above all others”. And on and on and on.

  42. Has he gone?

    Thought not.

    One can only imagine the volleys of eggs and rotting fruit that will be hurled at any limousine containing his eternally dark and needy soul in future.

  44. I have said on various other threads that I think President Biden will pardon him, now I am not so sure.

    Trump will have face some sort of sanction if for no other reason to set an example to future Presidents.

    I think it would be a mistake for Biden to be seen to be “letting him off” & could catch him out later in his time in office.

    President Bidens attorney general is the judge who got shafted by the republicans, he doesn’t owe Trump any favours, so Biden could just say to him something along the lines of “l will leave it for you to do as you see fit”.

  45. He must now have knowledge of some fairly important state secrets. He’s clearly unwell, massively embarrassed and looking lash out. How they deal with him once he’s gone so that he doesn’t continue to cause trouble is a diplomatic minefield. I suspect it will be a case of go away quietly and we’ll all just move on. Step out of line and we’ll JFK you. I will be a fascinating couple of months

  46. Here’s the little form the FBI have published so that you can dob in your neighbourhood fantasist, clutching-at-straws-in-a-vain-attempt-to-understand-reality, overweight and out-of-their-depth moron with shiny eyes talking of revolution and insurrection and all kinds of other historically inaccurate and logically disconnected conspiracy-laced claptrap who you have recognised on the social media content vomited out by the numb-nut cretins who took part in this fiasco:

    View post on imgur.com

    If you’ve got your own footage to supply, the link is here: https://fbi.gov/capitol
    If you do not have an attachment but have information to provide, please submit it at tips.fbi.gov.

    If you’re part of the Afterword’s American massive, check out the published videos to see if you can spot that loudmouth asshole you keep seeing at the Mall giving the Mexican shop clerk a hard time. The one with bearded children in baseball caps wearing QAnon T shirts and toting AR15s. Fill in the form and wait for them to come and drag him away in an orange jumpsuit. And his kids.

  47. Pretty ominous insight from MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. She thinks Trump will perceive the coup as a win. As she points out, only a few hours after the insurrection in which five people died, eight Republican Senators and 147 Republican members of the House of Representatives continued to raise baseless objections to the Presidential vote. Trump still has the party on side.

    https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/maddow-violent-attack-on-u-s-capitol-a-win-in-trump-s-eyes-as-republican-support-holds-99124293834

  48. Just revisited Howard Sounes’ brilliant BBC Radio 4 documentary on “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” (written in 1963), and every time Hattie Carroll’s killer’s name was uttered you could replace it with the word “Trump,” and not notice the difference.

    White privilege, gross bad taste, sexism, racism, apologists at every turn… it was all there.

  49. If there is one small consolation about such shitstorm times it is that it can stimulate some artists into great work. John Fogerty has just released this – his first new song in eight years – and it has all the righteous anger of ‘Fortunate Son’ and the bewildered powerlessness of ‘Who’ll Stop The Rain’.

  50. Not now going to attend the Inauguration, apparently; as if anyone thought he would.

    So if you see someone playing golf in the Washington area on Wednesday, 20th January, it may well be Trump.

    How would you know?
    It won’t be the garish clothes or the complete inability to play sport (see Fat Boy Johnson) that will make him stand out… it will be the big letter “L” on his forehead.

  51. If any of you were thinking of entering the Darwin Awards, don’t bother – entries are closed.

    One of the deaths in the Capitol was a man who accidentally tasered himself in the scrotum while trying to steal a portrait of Tip O’Neill.

    Allegedly.

  52. All the airy, comforting dismissal of this as an unorganised, almost random, event doesn’t hold up in the light of social media activity over several weeks of preparation. The Trump family’s disgusting rally (where the Great Dictator promised to be with them as they “walked” to the Capitol, and Don Junior shouted “Trump’s Republican party!”) was the trigger – the moment the attempted coup started on the street. And the fucking idiots will be out again on Inauguration Day.

    • FBI are beginning to gather them up to their craggy bosom – Nancy Pelosi guy has been arrested, and Zip Tie guy has been identified as a bartender in Nashville with the help of a Twitter mob who seem to be a bit more savvy about social media than the Feds. Unless he was going to tidy up the wiring, Zip Tie Guy can only have been going to take prisoners.

  54. He hasn’t apologised, he hasn’t resigned and he hasn’t even definitively said ‘I concede’. Not that he needs to do the latter.

    He has no intention of relenting. Panicked, stupid and reactive as he is, he wants this and he wants to cling on. He will disrupt the inauguration – he’s done enough already pre ban from social media to ensure Red Hats aplenty somewhere in the vicinity.

    He needs comeuppance if anyone on this earth does. He’ll never see the true justice he deserves but he needs at some point to be led away in cuffs under arrest.

    • Yup. The second impeachment would hurt. Also – it’s more legal tangle for him to cope with, on top of everything else that’s going to hit him. As George Conway said, “it’s doing the right thing”. Impeaching him may seem tedious, but it’s one of the right things that must be done.

  56. A small but – for a narcissist like Trump – very hurtful way for interviewers and pols to show their contempt would be by refusing to address him as “Mr President”, a title to which all former POTUSes are entitled as a matter of course.

  64. Mark Steel;

    It might … be a bit pointless appealing to the people who invaded the building. Many of the protestors waved Confederate flags, which suggests they have some way to go before accepting the result of the 2020 election, as they haven’t yet accepted the result of the one in 1860.

    • No way could I sit through a whole hour of his talking – it’s like listening to Colin Robinson. After just 5 mins I feel drained. Pity cos from what I did listen to it sounds important. Have you listened to it all Sal? If so, can you give a brief summary?

        • He says there’s going to be more violence and that the police and the military will let it happen. I often find him quite hammy but he sounds properly scared.

          It’s not a patch on Canadian Bacon.

        • At least he’s not showing us his chesticles.

          EDIT – Here’s his short post:

          The Terrorist Attack Is NOT Over.

          Friends —

          The terrorist attack is NOT over. Thousands from Wednesday’s terrorist mob assault on the Capitol have not been arrested and have NOT LEFT the DC area. They are planning more attacks. A poster advertising an “ARMED MARCH ON CAPITOL HILL & ALL STATE CAPITOLS” on January 17th is being displayed all over. It has even been circulated among the members of Congress. Some leaders are afraid to say straight up what I’m telling you. They don’t want a panic. They don’t want to help publicize it (understandably). But the public needs to be told — and now. Law enforcement knows that there’s more violence ahead. Trump and his inner circle, his crime family, have called for this uprising and they are pleased with what they’ve seen and they know what’s going on. Unless these white terrorists are arrested NOW — en masse — there will be people killed between now and Inauguration Day. I can’t stress this enough. Way too many police are sympathetic to their white terrorist brethren. They will stand down again and allow the violence to continue. NOTE: This poster circulating on the internet is calling for an ARMED March on January 17th. And they are calling for it to take place not just in DC but in EVERY state Capitol in all 50 states. I keep hoping in the back of my mind this poster isn’t real. But it was sent to me by a Member of Congress. We HAVE to treat it seriously and demand action. The terrorists saw on Wednesday that they could get away with it. They are empowered and excited. They believe this is their moment. We are all in danger. I ask that you listen to me — me, the person who warned you Trump would win in 2016, who warned you there would be no weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq and that the premise for the invasion was a lie. I’m the guy who warned you that Columbine would be only the first of many, many mass school shootings. And on and on. I only recite this litany of my failures to convince the public we are in serious danger in the hopes you will listen to me today. Impeachment is scheduled to happen by Thursday? Too late. Too late. Remove the head of this terrorist action TODAY. He’s at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. His co-conspirators are in the Republican Caucus of the House & Senate. The mob is everywhere. They often wear red hats and have no Covid masks on their face. Some carry weapons, some make bombs, and a few kill cops while chanting “Blue lives matter!” All of them know they are protected by their white skin and believe nothing will happen to them. All of them want to stop our votes from being counted — and stop the new President from taking office. Their only problem: there’s more of us than there are of them. And that only infuriates them more. A show of strong legal force and the removal of their Leader is the only thing that will stop what we are about to experience. For the sake of peace — DEMAND ACTION! Stop this madness.

        • Just finished. Moose and H.P. give a good summary of what he was about. Most of the hour was him talking about what happened on Wednesday, but the last 10 minutes is the text H.P. gives.
          In the rest, what did he say?

          * There were too few Capitol police on duty that day (500 of the over 2000 capacity). People remarked that it felt more like a Saturday, than a working day, even less the politically-charged ratification of the vote with a much-publicised hostile march planned weeks, if not months before.

          * There were no mounted police, which would be normal procedure for a march of that nature.

          * Trump didn’t send in the National Guard when called to do so by the city’s mayor – Virginia and Maryland did respond, but there was no real police action until after the 6 pm curfew, and even then there was only arrests for trespass, illegal entry – no domestic terrorism charges.

          * Moore has 30 years of experience filming and trying to film in the Capitol. It’s hard to get access, given the normal police presence and once inside, the place is like a warren – it’s really hard to find your way around – yet marchers found their way to Polosi’s office and the unmarked office of the majority leader (not sure who that is – I didn’t catch all the details). He was told that security officers inside the building gave them directions to the offices.

          * He said there were clearly veterans and military in among he marchers (as well as many white supremacists) – the climbing of the capitol walls, the plastic tags showed a knowledge and a predetermination.

          * He noted it was an all-white crowd – who left the building without hindrance (even complaining of being maced). Any black or brown protestors in a similar situation would definitely get a shot in the back of the head.

          * There was video footage of marchers later at the Willard Hotel (v. pricey, opposite the White House) smoking cigars and congratulating themselves – felt good to stop the United States for 8 hours.

          * There has been no press conference until now – ranks of politicians, police, mayor, military addressing the media – unusual for such an incident. Moore thinks they are still getting their story straight.

          * Trump apparently regretted even the ‘go home, I love you, special people’ tweeted video, and was happy with the results of the day, the riot. Over the city, with flags at half mast for the killed policeman, only the White House has a flag flying high.

          * Moore thinks urgent action is needed to cut off the head of the insurrection. Mid-week is too late. All the protestors should be arrested and charged, as well the 138 Republican representatives who voted not to approve the vote should be charged with sedition.

          Not very brief, but then neither was he. Hope that helps, @Gary.

  66. Perhaps Trump’s refusal to go to the inaugaration isn’t just a churlish protest, perhaps he knows about something being planned by his followers and doesn’t want to risk taking a stray bullet…

    • It’s also a message to the Waffle House and tiki torch crowd that he’s not giving the ceremony legitimacy by attending, and that he’s leaving the field clear for them. “Something being planned by his followers”? – ri-ight. He’d know nothing about that.

    • True, it’s important that companies and media outlets show some backbone and cut him off. Sadly, he won’t go away. The Bob Mercers of this world have plenty enough to keep him funded in whatever he chooses to do. Right now, it’s crucial that Congress sticks to the impeachment line and doesn’t let him off the hook.

      • He may not want to go away, but he’ll be put away. To those who can’t believe he’ll ever be convicted, let alone imprisoned – remember when it was impossible to believe he’d ever be President?

        • Yebbut – those thousands and thousands (millions) of pissed-off braggarts, survivalists and just plain morons, armed to the teeth. Plus smart people with money. They aren’t going to go away.

          • … and they have always been there, Mike. In spite of every claim to the contrary, America has always been a bit of a shithole nation. In a private email, a friend writes thusly:

            “This is not who we are as a nation,” Jimmy Carter, among several others, has said, in reference to the nation of the kids in cages, the nation of the other kids who cower under their school desks while an “alumnus with a grudge” picks off their classmates with an assault rifle he bought on sale at WalMart, the nation that funded the Central American death squads, the nation that deems universal free health care to be a communist plot, the nation where one in three black boys will grow up to go to jail, the nation of the gun racks on the pickup trucks, the nation of the mob-front trade unions, the nation of the meth labs in the boondocks, the nation where the life-expectancy rate is lower and the infant-mortality rate is higher than in Cuba, the nation – in living memory – of an assassinated president, his assassinated presidential-candidate brother, and an assassinated civil-rights leader.

            No, this is exactly who they are as a nation. And the high-sounding declarations in denial of those realities only underline that nation’s unique navel-gazing complacency and conceit about how the American Way is supposed to be the envy of other, allegedly more fragile, democracies elsewhere in the world – a pervading myth that’s as mistaken as the mass MAGA delusion that Trump won the election by a landslide.

            • Much of what your friend writes is true. But also I think a misread of a lot of stuff in America.

              Almost everything he (or she) has pointed out is to do with particular groups, and I would argue are not unique to America. There is also a sneering condescension in it.

              I may not agree with the current interpretation of the Second Amendment, but I don’t mock the people who exercise their legal rights. What next, mocking the ACLU for defending the people who have been thrown off several tech platforms.

              Scratch beneath the skin of most countries and you’ll find something you don’t like. In fact, with some countries, you don’t even need to scratch, it’s there for all to see.

              When people say that this is not who we are, I think they are referring to two things: the large group of very decent people who don’t tend to get much airplay – the ex President who in his 90s is still active building Houses for Humanity; the career civil servants who stick to mission despite the lunacy of the people in charge.

              They’re also referring to the ideal of what they think and want America to be. That’s a country that is based on decency and courtesy and opportunity, and where people look out for each other – and that is a country that does exist, albeit sporadically and in pockets.

              It’s a big country, full of contradictions. All its flaws are there on show for all to see. And I retain hope for America, and that’s based largely on a lot of the people I know. Most vote blue; some vote red. Some were rabidly red and then flipped 4 years ago. But they are decent people, trying to live their lives as best they can and to help their friends when they need to.

              • If America wants to be “Great” again – to be the ‘Leader of the free world’ – it must have appropriately higher standards than any other country. Otherwise it’s lying to itself and to everyone else.

                So, in my book at least, “Scratch beneath the skin of most countries and you’ll find something you don’t like. In fact, with some countries, you don’t even need to scratch, it’s there for all to see.” doesn’t count for much, even though I agree with you.

                Many of us know that the countries in which we choose to live are packed with venal, self-serving, lying, hypocritical, thieving, grasping, immoral and amoral shitbags in both positions of power and in positions of no power whatsoever.

                But our respective countries don’t routinely strut about on the world stage beating their chest and claiming to be what everyone else ought to look up to, to be the answer to every disatisfied global citizen’s dreams, wherever they currently reside, to be the apotheosis of democratic purity and a liberal nirvana.

                I don’t read any ‘sneering condescension’, I read disappointment.

                  • One packed with venal, self-serving, lying, hypocritical, thieving, grasping, immoral and amoral shitbags in both positions of power and in positions of no power whatsoever, and one which could only claim any measureable presence on the world stage by a huge display of deluded hubris, and one where kids can’t pick off their classmates with a mall-bought assault rifle, where we don’t fund Central American death squads, don’t deem universal free health care to be a communist plot, don’t doom one in three black boys to go to jail, etc. etc.

                    • Not quite so good here as you’d maybe like to think on your last example.
                      Not as terrible as the USA but definitely not as good as it could be.

                    • Look, I’m basically agreeing with everything @Sitheref2409 says, but I’m adding my own assertion that the USA is in many ways an order of magnitude more reprehensible than most other countries that claim to be liberal democracies.

                    • You make fair points.
                      I think it is worth pointing out that the UK Intelligence and Military have hands almost as dirty as the CA death squads, and the arms industry is almost as bad.

                      You’re right on guns, and the systemic oppression of the African American youth.

                      I think a tad hyperbolic on health care given the fights that are occurring about single payer, Obamacare etc.

  68. According to reports today, some potentially good news is that Parler has been righteously f*cked, with a huge amount of user info from posts made synchronously with the storming of the Capitol having been snatched for archiving, including posts with video, geotagged by the phone taking the video. There may therefore be a significant amount of traceable and damning evidence available to law enforcement. Question is, of course, whether that means it will actually be acted upon.

    • Lindsey Graham is another one. Trump has something *really* nasty on him. Trump took him aside during a round of golf when he (Graham) was getting out of line, and a Secret Service man present was shocked by his change of attitude as he walked away – “something really heavy went down.” Since then, he’s been maniacally pro-Trump.

      #ladygraham

    • I’ve been wondering for a while what exactly is going on in the heads of folks like Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, Republican Senators and Ivy League educated lawyers at the vanguard of Trump’s baseless charges. Then I read a piece in yesterday’s New York Times entitled ‘The Roots of Josh Hawley’s Rage’, and it all started to make sense, in a dystopian sort of way. Essentially, Hawley seems to be arguing that conventional democracy has led to a morally depraved USA and only an appeal to a higher power can rescue it. He believes in the necessity of a Christian theocracy in other words, and uses that belief – either genuinely or cynically, to justify his opposition to a legal and fair vote.

      Do you remember how we used to laugh at the foolish antics of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran, a decade or so ago. Compare and contrast Ahmadinejad and Iran with Trump and the mediaeval obsessions of US theocrats and their demented followers. This is what the Democrats are up against. An opposition that denies reason and reality.

  71. This is from The Orange one’s declaration of an emergency situation.

    “Based on recent events and intelligence assessments, we must prepare for large groups of trained and armed extremists to come to Washington, DC.”

    I think this has been worded carefully. If I was a redneck nutcase wondering if anyone else is going to turn up, I would read this as a thumbs up from Donny.

  72. “Turns out” House Retrumpicans gave the F.I.s a reconnaissance tour of the Capitol days before they stormed it, so they’d know how to find Pelosi’s office in a complex and confusing building. Couple this with a much-diminished deployment of in-house security on the day and – well –

    https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/politics/2021/01/12/mikie-sherrill-pro-trump-rioters-got-tour-congress-members/6648386002/

    Just a random bunch of pushy selfie enthusiasts, right? (@Dai)

  73. You kinda hope security is tight for the Inaugeration.
    Not much to ask surely?
    The checks and balances on 6th January were far more lapse than they were at the Wendron United v. St. Dennis football match I went to last month.

    Given it’ll be on TV, need there be more than about 100 people there?

    Some of the stuff coming out on 24/7 U.S. TV is frightening and, worse, next Wednesday the Test Match would have finished.

  74. I’m expecting the US authorities to stamp down really hard on this, in Washington and other major cities at least.
    Lots of arrests and broken heads. Probably multiple deaths. Anyone with half a brain who opposes the Trumpanzees will stay at home and let the cops and National Guard do their thing, because they’ll be breaking heads indiscriminately and shooting at anyone when it kicks off.

  75. It seems Deutche Bank have told him to fuck off and conduct his finances elsewhere. I assume once he’s paid them back.

    The PGA have announced that none of their tournaments will ever take place on any of his courses in future.

    And the city of New York has cancelled all ‘contracts’ with the Trump Organisation. Not precisely sure what they may be. They net only 17m a year which seems like small beer to me.

    No doubt he’ll spend the rest of his life not adequately punished and he’ll never know poverty but it’s nice to know some drawbridges are going up.

  76. And now he’s decided he’s not paying Rudy. He feels let down and isolated and none of his buddies have rallied round.

    What a tiny tiny little man he is. Such a small space holding so much poison.

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