Below is my column in the Hill on the riot at Congress and its implications for our country. As shown by the unfounded rush for a “snap impeachment,” we are experiencing a crisis of faith in this country — not only in our Constitution but ourselves. Pushing for a snap vote (and snap judgment) on these issues will only exacerbate our divisions. This is a time for deliberative, not impulsive, action in Congress.
Here is the column:
All the images of protesters scaling the walls of the Capitol and briefly occupying Congress will remain seared in our collective memories for decades. Some called it a riot. Others called it an insurrection. Whatever you call it, it was a desecration. The rioters desecrated the most sacred moment of our constitutional system when the nation comes together to certify our next president. That is why it is too easy to treat this like an insurrection crisis. It is far more dangerous. It is a crisis of faith.
There were some truly dangerous people in this mix, such as the agitators who had pipe bombs and ropes. Groups like the Proud Boys and antifa have fulfilled these roles in violent riots on the left and the right for years. However, the vast majority of protesters on Wednesday were nonviolent. Indeed, if this was a real effort at insurrection, we can take great comfort that many of our homegrown revolutionaries have come across as more Groucho Marx than Karl Marx. Those in the Capitol were spread across the spectrum, from mocking to menacing. There were the various costumed characters but also men in camo with suspicious backpacks. Yet the guy taking a selfie with his feet on the desk of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi seemed more interested in Instagram than insurrection.
The ease with which protesters entered the Capitol was shocking. Despite reports in advance of their plans to march there, Capitol Police seemed undermanned and unprepared. Once inside, protesters seemed to have the run of the building. Many of them seemed as shocked as the members of Congress fleeing the House and Senate chambers. This has happened before, although not to this extent. When I was a young page in Congress, a protest by truckers led to an ornate Capitol building door getting broken down, followed by a rampage through the halls of Congress.
The media portrayed the disgraceful rioters as unimaginable. Yet it was entirely all too imaginable. We have had four years of violent protests, including the attacks on federal buildings, members of Congress, and symbols of our democracy. Former Attorney General William Barr was heavily criticized for clearing Lafayette Square last year after protesters injured numerous law enforcement officers, were injured themselves, burned a historic building, caused property damage, and threatened to breach the White House grounds. There were violent riots during the inauguration of Donald Trump and a lethal assault on some Republican lawmakers playing softball. Indeed, this year started as last year ended, with attacks on federal buildings in Portland and other cities.
Several people viewed those violent protests against the police and the White House as sedition, including Barr. I criticized such labeling of Black Lives Matter or antifa riots as sedition or terrorism. I view those labels as undermining free speech. As with the Black Lives Matter movement, I do not believe most of the protesters this week were rioters, let alone part of an insurrection. As with the protests last year, some instigators pushed for confrontations. But most were at the Capitol to voice an opposition to the certification of votes in an election they believe was stolen. I do not share that view, but it is held by some 40 percent of Americans.
What are these people if they are not insurgents or terrorists? The answer is they are faithless. We face a crisis of faith rather than of revolution. Our Constitution is an article of faith. This republic was founded by a leap of faith taken together by people of different backgrounds and beliefs. Yet the Constitution, no matter how well crafted, is ineffectual if people lose faith in its system or, just as important, in each other.
Our system is designed to give everyone skin in the game. It is meant to bring factional interests to the surface. Unlike those that ignore them, our Constitution forces those out into the open in Congress, where they can be voiced and addressed. Systems that ignore all such divisions explode from within, like in the history of France. Our system is based on a type of implosion in which those pressures are directed into Congress, where factional interests are turned into majority compromises.
The violence this week is not what James Madison hoped for in noting the factional interests in Congress. It was a bit too direct for a system based on representative democracy. However, that is precisely the point. Such action taken reflects the same crisis of faith that was evident in Lafayette Park and on the streets of Portland. That is far more dangerous than a few agitators using a protest to commit mayhem. It is not anarchy but instead alienation that we should fear the most in our nation.
For years, the public has shown a lack of trust and faith in our political system. There also is a wide rejection of the media, which once was a shared resource for information. The media has destroyed its credibility with years of bias, including blackouts on stories viewed as harmful to Democrats. Without faith in our leaders or the media, more than half of this nation appears to be untethered from the political system. That detachment is perilous for a representative government.
We need to hold accountable all those who committed violence in the Capitol. However, after we determine who stormed Congress and how they succeeded in doing it, we have a far more difficult task to address. After all, an insurrection can simply be put down, but a desecration is much more insidious and dangerous for our democracy.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. You can find his updates online @JonathanTurley.
America is NOT a “pure democracy” which James Madison warned against as a “tyranny of the majority”. America is a “constitutional democratic republic” form of government. This system minimizes “tribalism” government creating an “us versus them” system that tears the nation apart.
If we were a “pure democracy” there would be no need to even have a Congress, President or U.S. Supreme Court. We could just have an “issues-election” and pass laws without any checks & balances.
Using a sports metaphor, America’s model is similar to a football team, with a referee and rule-book. Voters can ask for anything, as long as it stays in “constitutional out-of-bounds”. The U.S. Constitution and constitutionally-subordinate local, state and federal laws are the rule book (which can be amended). Judges and Justices are the referees that interpret the rule book. Rules can be challenged but the rulebook can’t be amended in the middle of a game.
In America’s rulebook, you can’t support 2nd Amendment gun rights but then violate the 1st Amendment rights of unpopular religions or the 14th Amendment rights of African-Americans, LGBT-Americans and immigrants or protesting the electoral college votes. You can seek to amend the U.S. Constitution through due process, but you can’t change the rules mid-game. All the players, including the police, FBI and national security officials swear a supreme & superseding loyalty oath to follow the rule-book (Title 5 US Code 3331 and Article VI of the U.S. Constitution).
Maybe the most important part is you shakes hands after the game, win or lose! A peaceful transition of power.
Pelosi’s laptop is out today.
The Russians have it all the way!
Putin got married to the window next door
She’s been inside the Capitol before!
And every cop was a Putin chump.
They wouldn’t be a Wiley or a Fred!
For there ain’t no law or order here.
DC the 8th I Am!
Capitol Police sing this song:
“We ain’t got no frigging firearms!
We don’t got no thought control.
All in all it’s just…another dip in the road!
Biden quoted in an interview yesterday..
” “But all kidding aside it’s a matter of… the thing We are simpatico on our philosophy of government, simpatico on how we want to attack…approach these issues we are facing. So I don’t have… When we disagree it will be just like, so far it’s just been like when Barrack and I did. It’s been in private, she’ll say I think we should do a,b,c, or d and I’ll say I like “a,” don’t like b and c. It’s ok, and like I told Barrack if I read something where there is a fundamental disagreement we have based on moral principle, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll develop some disease and say I have to resign.”
And Mr Turley is protesting the right of American citizens to protest a rigged election? Wow!
What did Trump really say?
In the 1:12:43 hour of the Washington speech, this is what he said:
“So we’re going to, we’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, I love Pennsylvania Avenue, and we’re going to the Capitol and we’re going to try and give… The Democrats are hopeless. They’re never voting for anything, not even one vote. But we’re going to try and give our Republicans, the weak ones, because the strong ones don’t need any of our help, we’re going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.
Donald Trump: (01:13:19)
So let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. I want to thank you all. God bless you and God bless America. Thank you all for being here, this is incredible. Thank you very much. Thank you.”
So walking down Pennsylvania Ave was inciting charging up the Capitol and illegally entering the halls?
When BLM and Antifa were burning and looting Kenosha, Minneapolis Seattle and Portland this last summer, CNN and MSNBC were reporting the protesters were mostly peaceful. https://thehill.com/homenews/media/513902-cnn-ridiculed-for-fiery-but-mostly-peaceful-caption-with-video-of-burning The incoming vice president set up a fund to get the “mostly peaceful protesters” out of jail.
“The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.” George Orwell
An addendum, from Russia, by Alexy Navalny, with more than a little disappointment.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1347969772177264644.html
And a quote from Max Fisch for those who believe that being partisan is the way to understanding.
“Objectivity is not absence of criticism, but unreserved submission to further criticism, complete opennness, withholding nothing from judgment.” (“The Philosophy of History: A Dialogue,” Philosophy (1959), p. 167.
It is an invitation to discuss and debate the facts that can be ascertained as such. One who is objective has ” no investment in reaching one conclusion rather than another.” (T. L. Haskell, “Objectivity is not Neutrality,” p. 139)
The problem for the past two decades has been that our intellectual and political elites have spoken and written with ulterior motives and they have been heavily invested in reaching one conclusion rather than another.
The rest of us have paid the price for their intellectual dishonesty.
The Navalny tweet should be read by everyone, particularly those commenting on the Sunday morning talk shows. They loved Navalny when Putin tried to poison him, but I doubt that they’d like him much after reading his tweet. I fear for the future of this nation.
Read the rest of the speech –
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-told-supporters-stormed-capitol-hill/story?id=75110558
Pay attention to the parts like “I would love to have if those tens of thousands of people would be allowed the military, the Secret Service … I would love it if they could be allowed to come up with us.” and “All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify, and we become president, and you are the happiest people.” and “Republicans are constantly fighting like a boxer with his hands tied behind his back. It’s like a boxer. And we want to be so nice. We want to be so respectful of everybody, including bad people. And we’re going to have to fight much harder. And Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us. And if he doesn’t, that will be a sad day for our country because you’re sworn to uphold our constitution.” and “after this, we’re going to walk down and I’ll be there with you. We’re going to walk down” and “you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong.”
He was calling on Pence to reject his oath to the Constitution, not to uphold it.
Jake Tapper: “Source close to the vice president tells me while the VP and his family were in a bunker in the Capitol, the President did not reach out to check on his safety or condemn those who said the VP should be executed.”
Chris Hayes: “Some in the crowd chanted “HANG MIKE PENCE” And to top it all off AFTER THE CROWD HAD BREACHED THE CAPITOL, perhaps the very moment they were asking aloud where Pence was, and chanting “HANG MIKE PENCE”, Trump ***sent out a tweet attacking Mike Pence.***”
Trump’s tweet on the afternoon of Jan. 6: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution”
“”I’ve known Mike Pence forever,” Sen. Jim Inhofe said Wednesday night. “I’ve never seen Pence as angry as he was today. I had a long conversation with him,” said Inhofe. “He said, ‘After all the things I’ve done for (Trump).’”
https://tulsaworld.com/news/state-and-regional/govt-and-politics/inhofe-ive-never-seen-mike-pence-as-angry-as-he-was-today/article_439af4ae-5082-11eb-96b1-53cf9e218598.html
Rioters were looking for Pence to assassinate him, and Trump incited them.
Pence learned first hand just how far loyalty to trump really goes. It’s as valuable as the next piece of toilet paper waiting to be used. Everyone including Cohen WARNED people that is the case with trump.
The Capitol Hill Pigs were singing this song:
“We’re NOT responsible e
For what they’re doing!
Our mothers made us what we is!
Cause it’s let the right wing in, you dumb mericans!
Mericans who pay their feed so we’ll.
Your 34 and drinking in honky tonk s!
Kickng hippies aholes and raisin hell.
I contend a faith in God is more important.
I bet you want it to by your god and not other gods, right?
Some follow Satan and have as much right to comment as I do.
Wow, are you saying that other gods are Satan and that you think everyone who worships a god different than yours is a Satan worshipper?
You are being farcical. I believe there is only one God. That doesn’t mean you can’t believe in. 20 different ones if you want. Our country is still free and has room for everyone and every belief. You are the only one trying to denigrate another’s beliefs.
Phyllis, you proposed your religious beliefs as the solution to our problems and then are upset that someone is denigrating religious beliefs. Don’t put them out as a practical solution if you don’t wan’t push back.
I don’t mind pushback. I do mind being told to sit down and shut up. Those days are over and you’d better get used to it.
There is a big difference between what happened last spring and summer and what happened on Wednesday. The protests and rioting this past summer were based on real disparity in how people of different races are treated by police. Now if you don’t believe that, look at the recent woman attacking a black teenager in NY over a suspected stolen phone, the central park woman accusing a man holding a phone of attacking her, the black man reaching for his wallet after being pulled over and shot, the list goes on. There is real racial disparity in this country. On Wednesday there was rioting in the Capitol over false allegations of voter fraud. No truth to the allegation, 60 court cases about voter fraud turned up…ZERO evidence. 2 supreme court cases turned up…ZERO evidence, So one is based on real grievances, the other based on lies.
This president is unhinged, deranged, and delusional. He holds the keys to our nuclear arsenal. He should be removed from office with all haste and never allowed to hold public office again.
Evidently it doesn’t bother you that Chief Justice Roberts refused to hear the fraud cases based on his fear of the left rioting. But Democrats aka communists always spin their own facts.
Did Chief Justice Roberts say anything of the sort? Pretty sure it only requires 4 of 9 justices to declare cert. Even without him, Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch and Barrett all could have signed on. In texas they said the following: “The State of Texas’s motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied for lack of standing under Article III of the Constitution. Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections. All other pending motions are dismissed as moot.” In Pennsylvania they flat out denied the request. And you’ve lost in 59/60 courts with the only win being immaterial to election results so why are you surprised the Supreme Court rejects frivolous lawsuits based on conspiracy theories and insignificant claims, occasionally made without standing.
SCOTUS did not take the case because it was frivolous and giving it any credence would have demeaned the court. SCOTUS is very selective in the cases it takes that that one did not come close to qualifying.
They didn’t say that it was frivolous. They said that Texas lacked standing.
Lack of standing was the specific reason it was frivolous.
I don’t agree that lack of standing implies it’s frivolous.
Do you believe that all lawsuits that are dismissed by a court for lack of standing demean the court?
you are clueless molly and obviously do not practice law. lack of standing is a common problem in certain types of lawsuits and that does not make them frivolous
Sal Sar
I was referring to PA when I said frivolous. It’s frivolous to contest election results in a state when you say less than the total number of votes you have to overcome are in dispute.
It would be like if Gore lost by 500 votes in Florida and went to the Supreme Court to contest 10. What’s the point?
SCOTUS chickened out. The real reason at best, was not standing, it was SEPARATION OF POWERS
they left the mess to Congress to handle, that’s the real reason, a valid choice based on a very important legal concept in constitutional law, that was NOT followed in Bush v Goe; which precedent they ignored
Saloth Sar
Real disparity is apparent in Big Tech censorship. You just don’t see it. And the zero evidence you repeat as often as the AP “baseless claims” schtick ignores thousands of pieces of evidence that NO COURT would examine. Why is that? They didn’t even look at any evidence. Don’t you find that shocking? They didn’t reject cases based on what was inside them, they simply refused to look. One exception in Antrim County Michigan, found evidence. Then had a kangaroo “hearing” without an expert present.
Guiliani has made public attempts to state his case and its a circus. If there’s a real case to be heard why would anyone trust this buffoon to present it? The logical explanation is there is no real case, simply a distraction.
Betsy, do you also find it shocking that the court dismissed Emoluments Clause lawsuits against Trump for lack of standing, without looking at the evidence?
Courts dismiss cases all the time for lack of standing, without looking at the evidence. It’s not shocking. It’s a normal part of how our court system works.
No excuses for either- rioting, violence must be dealt with evenhandedly but promptly regardless.
It’s so obvious reading this that you are getting your news in a vacuum. Anecdotal instances of racism, blah blah. Look beyond your information silo.
There is a big difference between what happened last spring and summer and what happened on Wednesday. The protests and rioting this past summer were based on real disparity in how people of different races are treated by police.
No, they were based on false claims that there is a disparity.
“There is real racial disparity in this country.”
You’re right. It’s called “affirmative action.”
What I find appalling is that Nancy Pelosi instigates and divides with commentary about protesters promoting “WHITENESS over democracy” and calling Trump “deranged, unhinged, dangerous” and she does so with impunity–not a word of criticism from mainstream media. She is no less inflammatory or divisive than those she throws her flames at.
But she is also saying things that are true.
MollyG is full of “buts” because her “truth” is not factual.
Okay Mr Turley, if swift action isn’t taken how do you propose they plan to ensure a peaceful transition of power? The commander in chief was delighted as far might militia groups invaded congress with many armed members out for blood. They had the noose ready for pence, zip ties for others and were looking for Pelosi.
Trump isn’t going to take action needed to stop them and help secure a smooth transition, and for 4 years his administration had done everything in their power to ensure these far right militias are ignored at best and encouraged at worst: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-extremists-program-exclusiv-idUSKBN15G5VO
4 years of investigations on Benghazi, a small embassy in Libya our ambassador happened to be visiting all because “Hillary didn’t respond fast enough.” And now Trump not only encourages a mob to attack a building where our entire legislative body is present alongside his 2nd in command, refuses to respond with any deliberate action and refuses to allow neighboring states to send troops, with his army secretary breaking the chain of command in approving Maryland’s national guard save our Capitol. You think they should do nothing and hope for the best? Cave to the mob and hope that appeases them?
Force must be met with force, this isn’t about being vindictive, it’s about the fact that Trump refuses to act as president and has given no indication he will. There will be additional attacks and the US will be virtually defenseless to stop it if we have to rely on Trump to do anything. This needs to be treated the same way it would if ISIS invaded the capitol and said they were coming back with additional numbers and arms in 2 weeks and the president was refusing to do anything. If they don’t act and the inevitable happens then it isn’t the president who deserves the blame, it’s Congress. They know what he is and he isn’t going to change for the better. He never has in the past.
Trump said to the people who stormed the Capitol “you’re special. We love you.” I would be surprised if he ever said this to his daughter Tiffany.
Anyway, a Capitol policeman was killed and many other injured. Turley wants to hold these people accountable – but what if Trump pardons them, as he has done for a bunch of other criminals who support him? I mean, then the people who stormed the Capitol would not be held accountable at all. And Turley would say – well, you can’t impeach someone for exercising a pardon power. How about we remove him from office before he can issue this and a bunch of other corrupt pardons?
Never Trumpers always revise the words to keep hammering away at their percieved enemies. Well done.
The President cannot be both the instigator of attacks on our federal buildings and government officials and the person in charge of defending them against attacks at the same time. That is a conflict of interest. That is why it is so easy for an attack like this to succeed.
+10
People have very short memories.
The occupation was neither an act showing a loss of faith nor one of sedition or insurrection like Shay’s rebellion. It was a demand finally to be heard, a protest that got out of hand, an act of desperation, not unlike the Bonus March of 1932. It was not as “seditious” as the “Resistance” of 2016, whose promotors vowed never to acknowledge the legitimacy of Trump’s election and whose participants called for the immediate expulsion of Trump and the burning down of the White House so long as he occupied it. Nor was it as inchoate and violent as the riots and protests which have wracked DC, Detroit, Milwaukee, Los Angeles, and other cities over the years.
To single this incident out as particularly egregious is to imbue a symbol with more importance than the millions of lives which bad policies by politicians and CEOs have diminished and immiserated since the 1980s.
If, as BLM and others argue, property is not as important as lives, why are people so upset about a hundred or so protesters in the Capitol after a year in which people have lost their livelihoods and been locked down and instructed on how to interact with one another, a treatment previously reserved for the unruly inhabitants of our prisons?
Why the hyperventilating because people are protesting an election they believed was rigged, an understandable suspicion, given the massive use of mail-in voting and the appearance overnight of just the right number of votesneeded to tip the outcome in the four swing states ?
Why the outrage at protests by supporters of Trump who have been largely silent during four years of defamatory propaganda by those who marched to protest his election 2016 and appear to have conspired to overturn a free and fair election and hound the legitimate Preident out of office on false pretenses and bogus accusations?
The country has been served badly by its political, media, and intellectual elites, leaving at least two-fifths of its citizens with no outlets to express their frustrations and no way in which to assure that the rights they purportedly enjoy under the Constitution are actually honored in their everyday lives.
The ‘occupation’ of the Capitol was theater, a farce, not serious drama, and certainly not insurrection. The reaction is much worse, a deliberate stoking of hatred and loathing based on what appears to be a deliberate misreading of Trump’s words and the actual behavior of most of those who protested, the type of irresponsible political rhetoric that kept Portland in flames and trashed Chicago businesses this past year.
I wonder how many of these outraged poseurs got upset when Pussy Riot desecrated Christ the Savior in Moscow or Antifa threw Molotov cocktails at the federal building in Portland or protesters overthrew a regime in Ukraine that had been certified by the OSCE as “free and fair.” I suspect not many, since their bull had not been gored.
A link, to jog memories, and my apologies for the length . . . if it is not posted, that is fine.
https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/madonna-defends-blowing-white-house-comment-violent-person/story?id=44972325
Well said.
Old guys comments should be on the front page of every fascist newspaper in this country!
Well said… and I might add that democratic members of congress encouraged people to “get in their face” and do whatever it takes. If anything laid the foundation for a riotous response it should be placed clearly at the feet of those democratic leaders that egged on four years of riots.
If it was a demand to be heard that got out of hand why were people prepared with zip ties and nooses saying “hang mike pence” and saying they’d be back heavily armed next time? Why do far right militia get a pass on this as we continue to turn a blind eye to them? The right is concerned with random chants from a crowd of thousands while we have repeated statements with thousands of likes from these lunatics on the far right calling for mass murder.
Trump will continue to lie to them and as Romney said, no amount of audits would appease them “particularly when the president is going to continue to say that the election has been stolen.” You need to tell them the truth. When Gore lost by 500 votes in Florida and the Supreme Court put a stop to the recount process, he didn’t order his followers to storm the court and capitol or anything of the sort. He did what was in the best interest for our country. We can’t count on Trump to do anything of the sort.
Truth quotient = 100. Well said.
You are not the only one who saw the similarities with the Bonus Marchers. Thanks for another wonderful post.
Imagine you died on United 93 to prevent terrorists from destroying the People’s House. You look down from heaven to see what humanity is up to and you see…a horde of Trump mutants wrecking up and smearing their feces in the Capitol you died to defend. Why not just go to the cemetery where Todd Morgan Beamer is buried and piss on his grave? It’d save you the effort of typing up obtuse justifications for Nazis, shit-smearers, cop killers, Qanaon lunatics and other animals.
Looked to me like a bunch of white privilege completely unaware of its own reality.
Elvis Bug
It is not a “snap impeachment”. It has a clear purpose. There are three reasons they want him to resign/get removed/get impeached now, so close to Inauguration Day. (1) They hate him so much they want to personally hurt/ embarrass/smear him as much as humanly possible. (2) They want to prevent him from ever running again. (3) They want to erase any vestige of his “legacy”, i.e., the many policies and actions he has taken, so that they can justify anything they do in the future as just “restoring” the nation to where it was before Trump was even on the radar, viz., to a continuation of the Obama effort to “fundamentally change” America and institute a Marxist one-party state.
They will fail in the effort to take him out before January 20, but that will not stop them from those 3 objectives. The investigations, criminal trials and lawsuits against him will be unceasing until he is convicted of something—anything— and jailed. Mark my words. Sadly they will do the same to his family and to anyone who worked with him and maybe anyone who ever supported him (!). Anyone on record as supporting Trump may never be employed again (that has already started). The police will target any car with a Trump bumper sticker (and that has already started). They will salt every square yard of ground he ever walked on so nothing will ever grow there again. The “Progressives” will not treat the Trumps the same way as the Bolsheviks treated the Romanovs, or as the Jacobins treated Marie-Antoinette, they will be treated much worse.
Mr Turley seems to be playing the devil’s advocate here, i suppose. Funny how President Obama could send pallets of cash without permission from Congress but President Trump getting up in the morning is impeachable.
The Democrats certainly have honed the idea of the law is for thee but not for me….
I agree ” little red book” is the Democrats bible now…
Amazing that you can go a whole column about the riots and do not even mention this was a Trump rally which Team Trump organized and paid for busses to bring the rioters here and Trump, his son and his lawyer spoke at and incited the crowd.
I mean, if you try to make this just sound like a spontaneous gathering of some people who gathered on their own. I mean, the people who stormed the Capitol are saying they came to Washington to answer Trump’s call.
Yes Your piece is far too forgiving of Trump and his syncopants who are responsible for the desecration of faith. If some who did this were more or less innocent victims they were led to believe by hateful rallies, reckless talk, and the spineless and greedy who overlooked it for their own benefit
Your hatred blinds you the issues. Sad.
Antifa buses were there, as well. But we will never again hear about it. Speak into the silo, please.
If you will never hear about it, how do you know about it? I mean, I would be really surprised if Antifa had busses at all. Have you ever seen an Antifa bus? What does an Antifa bus look like? Does it say Antifa on the side of it? How do you know such things exist?
Antifa buses were there, as well.
Prove it. Don’t imagine it.
If one proves it, it will make no difference. Anonymous forgets all these things after being proven to him. He has problems with his memory. His head can’t hold much information.
of the people arrested so far, how many are ANTIFA?
Not a Spontaneous Gathering – Reposting this from yesterday. According to ABC, this rally was organized by Woman For America. A permit for the rally submitted by “Women for America First” Executive Director Kylie Jane Kremer — the daughter of the group’s founder, former Tea Party activist Amy Kremer — was approved on January 4. The permit stated that the event would take place from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. with 30,000 attendees, according to documents obtained by ABC News.
Trump’s participation wasn’t publicly announced until just days before the rally. Beyond the president himself promoting the rally weeks ahead of January 6, his campaign also used its large social media presence to boost the rally to millions of followers on Twitter and Facebook.
A more than usual even handed article by ABC
https://abcnews.go.com/US/trump-allies-helped-plan-promote-rally-led-capitol/story?id=75119209
Did anyone claim it was a spontaneous gathering? It was a lawful gathering, and promoting and encouraging the gathering was perfectly lawful, as was everything Trump said. How is any of what you said supposed to be relevant?.
Well said Professor. While the US is based on the concept of consent of the governed, what happens when a segment withdraws consent? It reasonably appears that some on the left and right no longer consent, as shown by the riots and political violence that should have dominated the news over the summer and into the New Year. Throw in a political martyr, whom the D’s seem hell bent on creating out of spite and hatred, and you have a dangerous recipe brewing. Our so-called political leaders need to calm down if they expect others to do so.,
Insurrection, riot, or…. peaceful protest? Our people went there to be seen and heard since we couldn’t get a voice anywhere else. The Courts refused to even hear our cases. Not one of over 52,000 affidavits was even considered worthy of being heard by a court. The MSM just doesn’t report on facts they consider inconvenient. Now, all of social media has silenced the major conservative voices. You want to put our people in the same category as those who burnt down cities, toppled monuments, murdered Trump supporters in cold blood, threw urine and feces at cops, killed cops, derailed trains, and the list goes on and on? Give me a break. You want to know what the problem is? You and people like you, the see no evil hear no evil speak no evil monkeys, who somehow can’t manage to see fraud even when the votes surpass the voters by hundreds of thousands, and who use your intelligence to do mental backflips making everything your side does ok and making everything our side does not ok. You pose as an independent thinker while being an apologist for tyranny.
Well written.
Today, as you pontificate about desecration, ignoring all the other occupations of that building in protest over time, your efforts at “Free Speech” protection ring somewhat hollow. Of all the desecrations which have occurred during the last week, the most significant to me is your silence on the issue of Big Tech Censorship, and active shutdown of the President on all platforms, the engagement of Apple, Amazon, Google against free speech – not even Parler allowed? The citizens of this country, Trump supporters or not, should be deeply alarmed when even Jonathan Turley believes he must remain silent on this dark and terrible day. A peaceful transition of power, initiated by that shrew and her protected minions with shrieks for impeachment? 74 million voters cry foul. Not one alarm affidavit on the election entertained. It leaves me believing that we deserve the nightmarish dystopia unfolding, but I still have faith and hope that men and women of good will can honorably come to the aid of their country. Read Clarice Feldman’s article on American Thinker today: “Night of the Long Tech Knives.” There was massive foreign interference in this election, by the way. We all know it.
So very true. But I’m reminded that academics need student who are brainwashed to register for their classes…
I am very sorry to say that I unwittingly participated in the brainwashing of students for 40 years, and I just didn’t know what I didn’t know. An example is the use of the Southern Poverty Law Center (follow their money – into the Cayman Islands and back) materials that step by step indoctrinate middle grade students that their country has been horrible and racist, and never mentioned the great and noble experiment that we have been. Now, they’ll use that horribly slanted NYTimes 1619 Project junk. And students will continue to be taught we must abandon the Electoral College without any reasoning teachers to guide them on its reasons in the first place. Recognizing our flaws, adjusting and amending our Constitution, assuring fair and HONEST elections, keeping our people free of the excesses of city mobs, affirming free speech – that’s our job over everything else.
The EC exists because slavery was legal when the US was founded and the slave-owning states didn’t have large enough populations of legal voters.
You have to use Duck Duck Go to find your cited article by American Thinker “Night of the Long Tech Knives.” Just thought I’d pass that along since Google doesn’t seem to show this article of today in its top search results.
https://twitter.com/Schwarzenegger/status/1348249481284874240
“Now, all of social media has silenced the major conservative voices.” You are not silenced, The amount of threats on twitter and facebook is what brought this result. How many election officials in this country had death threats via social media? We don’t solve our differences by making death threats. If your evidence was so good, why wasn’t it presented in court? In most of the cases, your “evidence” was never submitted because there isn’t any evidence. In the few cases where it was presented, it was BS. There is now at least one defamation law suite concerning one of your major complaints of fraud. Let’s see if this goes through.
Death threats occur from right and left, but it is only from the right that they are silenced. A threat of action is not the action. I have never condoned threats from either side, but fair play and an open playing field is critical.
The courts spent way too much time on your fake cases. They were filled with lies. Get it though your thick skull that Trump lost fair and square. No one will take Trumpers concerns seriously as long as they continue to insist to spew lies about everything.
It seems the Death Star has cleared the planet. Trench run failed.
“We need to hold accountable all those who committed violence in the Capitol. However….” It seems there is always a “however”. Whether its the failure to prosecute our war crimes and torturing, there are those who want to “look forward” rather than making those responsible accountable. We look the other way too often.
I’m sorry Jon, it is a Revolution, which history defines as a governmental bankruptcy of the people by their government. I happens when a government is mired in systemic failure and the corruption in that government leaves it unable to represent the people any more even if the elect and appointed rulers of the government wanted to change. The “system” has gone overboard and it isn’t coming back. It’s what elected Trump, it’s what removed him when he failed to understand the dynamics that got him elected, which is what always happens in a Revolution. And now we have entered the 3rd Stage of Revolution and the violence it carries with it. Now people will finally start to realize the gravity of the situation and our greatest enemy now, is Fear, an emotion that renders the people most susceptible to very bad decisions. Ergo, we must educate the individual upon the nature of Revolution. It is a bankruptcy and leaves us with only two decisions. 1) Liquidate (violence) or 2) Reorganization (Peace), or what usually happens, both in sequence. I want to try to skip the former and go right to the latter. Wish me luck. Cheers! Bill
The system (the electoral college) is absolutely what elected trump. He’s never won a popular vote.
Elvis Bug