No way in hell would any of those Q folks leave their insane beliefs because their mother disinvited them. They were fucked up before this but are becoming identified easier now.
In their minds Q is the truth though. If my Trump-supporting father threatened to disown me over Trump I’d let him cut ties before I came over to his side. Many of them are in deep pain. One of them was even talking about how she spent all her money to make preparations on behalf of her children who still won’t speak to her.
I think you need to watch Home Alone again. I can tell you from experience that telling your family to FO because they’re crazy and toxic is deeply depressing.
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It is 0.1% “mea culpa” and 99.9% “it’s not their [our] fault”. WSJ and other right-leaning media has to explain/justify RWNJ or else they will be seen to be complicit in its rise. And that they will not accept under any circumstances. Anybody or any media outlet that tells/publishes stories like that are essentially telling on themselves.
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Can’t Putin just call this Parler douche and just be like, “How many servers you need, comrade?”
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Except they’re not.
The ones that receive the most exposure on TV are. But most aren’t. They’re your next door neighbor. Your mechanic, electrician or the barista who serves you coffee. They’re loving parents, barely bat an eye at the black cashier and are as courteous as can be.
But when they get home, they open Parler or Facebook to fill their head with right-wing propaganda. They go to their partner or neighbors and bitch about the black cashier whose shirt was too baggy over dinner or how they heard a barista speaking Spanish. They complain about how hard it is to breathe without a mask and that the government is forcing them wear it to suppress their freedom.
No doubt that more people are more open about their views on conspiracy theories than in the past. But there are still plenty of closet Trump supporters who you may be completely friendly with and just not know it.
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How the hell did they get far enough to get seated?
Step back and consider how insane this is.
Members of law enforcement aided in a coup attempt led by the President in the United States of America.
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Hmm also had headaches. Unusual for me.
Just before noon Wednesday, Sund was monitoring Trump’s speech to the crowd on the Ellipse when he was called away. There were reports of two pipe bombs near the Capitol grounds. So Sund didn’t hear the president call on protesters to “fight” against lawmakers preparing to confirm Biden’s victory. Nor did he hear Trump’s personal attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani, urging the crowd to engage in “trial by combat,” an eerie reference to battles to the death in the series, “Game of Thrones.” Sund said he now suspects that the pipe bombs were an intentional effort to draw officers away from the Capitol perimeter.
The first wave of protesters arrived at the Capitol about 12:40 p.m.
“As soon as they hit the fence line, the fight was on,” Sund said. “Violent confrontations from the start. They came with riot helmets, gas masks, shields, pepper spray, fireworks, climbing gear — climbing gear! — explosives, metal pipes, baseball bats. I have never seen anything like it in 30 years of events in Washington.”
Using video footage from the Capitol and radio transmissions from his incident commanders, Sund could see his officers trying to hold the line. But the rioters immediately yanked the barricade fence out of the way and threw it at his officers’ heads.
“I realized at 1 p.m., things aren’t going well,” he said. “I’m watching my people getting slammed.”
Sund immediately called Contee, who sent 100 officers to the scene, with some arriving within 10 minutes. But at 1:09 p.m., Sund said he called Irving and Stenger, telling them it was time to call in the Guard. He wanted an emergency declaration. Both men said they would “run it up the chain” and get back to him, he said.Minutes later, aides to the top congressional leaders were called to Stenger’s office for an update on the situation — and were infuriated to learn that the sergeants at arms had not yet called in the National Guard or any other reinforcements, as was their responsibility to do without seeking approval from leaders.
“What do you mean that there’s no National Guard, that there’s no reinforcements coming?” aides demanded to know. “Why haven’t you ordered them, why aren’t they already here?”
Sund said he called Irving twice more and Stenger once to check on their progress. At 1:50 p.m. — nine minutes before the Capitol was breached — Sund said he was losing patience. He called Walker to tell him to get ready to bring the Guard. Irving called back with formal approval at 2:10 p.m. By then, plainclothes Capitol Police agents were barricading the door to the Speaker’s Lobby just off the House chamber to keep the marauders from charging in.
Sund finally had approval to call the National Guard. But that would prove to be just the beginning of a bureaucratic nightmare to get soldiers on the scene.
At 2:26 p.m., Sund joined a video conference call organized by D.C’s homeland security director, Chris Rodriguez. Among those on the screen were the District’s police chief, mayor and Walker.Unlike anywhere else in the country, the D.C. Guard does not report to a governor, but to the president, so Walker patched in the office of the Secretary of the Army, noting that he would need authorization from the Pentagon to order soldiers to the Capitol.
A top Army official noted the Pentagon still needed authorization from Capitol Police to step foot on Capitol grounds. Sund ticked through details on the severity of the breach, but the call got noisy with crosstalk as officials asked more questions.
Contee sought to quiet the din. “Wait, wait,” he said, and then directed attention to Sund. “Steve, are you requesting National Guard assistance at the Capitol?”
Sund said he replied: “I am making urgent, urgent, immediate request for National Guard assistance.”But the Army official, dialed in from across the river at the Pentagon, pushed back, according to Sund, saying he would prefer to have Guard soldiers take up posts around Washington, relieving D.C. police, so that they could respond to the Capitol instead of guardsmen. Sund’s account is supported by four D.C. officials on the call, including D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser.
Bowser told The Post that Sund had “made it perfectly clear that they needed extraordinary help, including the National Guard. There was some concern from the Army of what it would look like to have armed military personnel on the grounds of the Capitol.”
Falcicchio said that once Contee confirmed that Sund wanted the National Guard, D.C. officials echoed his request.
“Contee was definitely — I hate to use this term, but there’s no other term for it. He was pleading,” Falcicchio said. “He was pleading with them to fulfill the request that Capitol Police was making.”
But the entire discussion was in vain. Only McCarthy, the secretary, could order the Guard deployed — and only with the approval of the Pentagon chief. McCarthy has since said that, at the time of the call, he was busy taking the requests to activate more Guard to acting defense secretary Christopher C. Miller.
At one point, according to a defense official, Contee said, “Let me be clear, are you denying this?” To which the Army official responded that he wasn’t denying the request; he simply didn’t have the authority to approve it.
“It was clear that it was a dire situation,” the defense official said. “He didn’t want to commit to anything without getting approval.”
At 3:45 p.m., Stenger told Sund that he would ask his boss, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), for help getting the National Guard authorized more quickly. Sund never learned the result. More of Contee’s officers had arrived and were helping remove rioters from the grounds. Capitol Police worked with other federal authorities, including the Secret Service, the Park Police and the FBI, to secure lawmakers, eject rioters and sweep the building so lawmakers could return to finish counting the electoral college votes that would allow them to formally recognize Biden’s victory later that night.
According to a timeline the Defense Department published Friday, Miller verbally authorized the activation of the entire D.C. Guard at 3:04 p.m. It would take two more hours for most of the citizen soldiers to leave their jobs and homes, and pick up gear from the D.C. Armory.
Sund, who was officially replaced as chief Sunday, said he is left feeling that America’s bastions of democracy need far more security. He said the violent crowd that mobbed the Capitol was unlike anything he has ever seen.
“They were extremely dangerous and they were extremely prepared. I have a hard time calling this a demonstration,” he said.
“I’m a firm supporter of First Amendment. This was none of that,” he added. “This was criminal riotous activity.”
Sund blamed Trump for putting his officers at risk, saying “the crowd left that rally and had been incited by some of the words the president said.” Sund said he fears what may come next.
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At one point, according to a defense official, Contee said, “Let me be clear, are you denying this?” To which the Army official responded that he wasn’t denying the request; he simply didn’t have the authority to approve it.
“It was clear that it was a dire situation,” the defense official said. “He didn’t want to commit to anything without getting approval.”
Yeah well I mean… can you blame him? Like there are good reasons that some middle manager at the Pentagon can’t just order soldiers onto the streets of America based on personally deciding it would be a good idea. Under slightly different circumstances we’d want the head on a fucking pike of anyone who tried to do that. The problem here was that Sund had been confidently telling everyone that the Guard would not be required.
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lol, how old is the author of this article?
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so this is more or less what happened then
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We need way more information, but it is pretty clear the law enforcement under the control of the executive branch was straight up in on this.
Sund claims in this article he asked two days before certification for the national guard to be on standby, but was turned down by the congressional sergeant at arms because they didn’t like the optics of it.
I mean what were the people inside allowing this to happen expect? Did they really think a bunch of untrained idiots with no plan would be able to prevent the ballots from being counted? When was the last time a successful coup was led by a bunch of LARPing chuds?
For reference, Jon Ralston is the early vote data journalist guy. He’s not exactly a fringe journalist. This is pretty bad.