Category Archives: Armed insurgence

Stacey Abrams: Our democracy faced a near-death experience. Here’s how to revive it.

Pro-Trump rioters storm the U.S. Capitol to contest the certification of the presidential election on Jan. 6. (Ahmed Gaber/Reuters) (Ahmed Gaber/Reuters)
The Washington Post, Opinion by Stacey Abrams, Feb. 7, 2021

Stacey Abrams, a Democrat, is a former minority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives and founder of the group Fair Fight.

The violent Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, coupled with ongoing threats to election officials, election workers and lawmakers at all levels, represent unprecedented attacks on the foundations of our democracy. Certainly, President Donald Trump and others in his party who inspired the attacks must be held accountable through all available means. But accountability alone will not be nearly enough.

Only meaningful reforms can undo the damage done — and establish a government that is truly representative of the people. The next real test of our democracy comes now.

Make no mistake: Democracy may have survived this year, but President Biden and Vice President Harris were elected despite, not thanks to, weakened electoral systems. Together with the Democratic Congress, they now have the opportunity to implement reforms that reaffirm our nation’s promises that our country represents and works for everyone. We as Democrats must act before it is too late.

Our democratic system faces extraordinary threats today because of sustained attacks from Republican leaders who throw up roadblocks to voting and, among the worst actors, stoke the flames of white supremacy and hyper-nationalism to cling to power. There can be no clearer example than the covid-19 pandemic. The deaths of more than 450,000 people in the richest country in the world are symptomatic of a democracy in crisis and a political system that rewards cronyism over competence. Despite strong public support for the Centers for Disease Control’s work, the Affordable Care Act, and other economic justice and safety-net policies that could save lives, millions nevertheless continue to contract the disease without adequate access to health care.

No thinking person can deny that the communities of color disproportionately suffering and dying from this pandemic are also the people whose votes — and ability to hold failed leaders accountable — have been continuously suppressed.

The pandemic has been a collision of tragedy and corroded institutions, and the challenge is in how we respond. We can either engage in collective amnesia about what we have just lived through, and leave an unaccountable government in place, or we can rise to meet this moment by fixing the broken social compact. Defeating Trump was not enough. Meaningful progress on health care, racial justice and the economy requires aggressive action on voting rights, partisan gerrymandering and campaign finance.

One of the first steps must be an overhaul of the Senate filibuster, which has long been wielded as a cudgel against the needs of millions who struggle. Today, the parliamentary trick creates a more sinister threat to our nation: the ability of a minority of senators, who represent 41.5 million fewer people than the Senate majority, to block progress favored by most Americans.

Democrats in Congress must fully embrace their mandate to fast-track democracy reforms that give voters a fair fight, rather than allowing undemocratic systems to be used as tools and excuses to perpetuate that same system. This is a moment of both historic imperative and, with unified Democratic control of the White House and Congress, historic opportunity.

The agenda to restore democracy also includes passing the For the People Act to protect and expand voting rights, fight gerrymandering and reduce the influence of money in politics; the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to restore the full protections of the 1965 Voting Rights Act; and the Protecting Our Democracy Act to constrain the corruption of future presidents who deem themselves above the law. These landmark bills have broad-based support, and would have passed long ago were it not for obstructionist leaders who fear losing their own influence if the American people have more power of their own.

Further, fixing our democracy requires we finally allow our fellow Americans in D.C. and Puerto Rico, the vast majority of whom are people of color, to have full access to our democracy. That means D.C. statehood and binding self-determination for Puerto Rico. In the District, as white extremist mobs destroyed the Capitol, murdered a police officer, and threatened the lives of elected officials and residents, Washingtonians were left defenseless because D.C. is not a state and its chief executive had no authority to deploy the National Guard.

Time is short. The forces standing against a democracy agenda seek to preserve and expand paths to power by shrinking the voting pool rather than winning voters over. In reaction to the historic turnout of 2020 and Democratic victories in places such as Georgia, already this year more than 100 bills have been put forward in state legislatures seeking to restrict voting access. Those efforts will not end without a fight.

We don’t know how many chances we will get to reverse our democracy’s near-death experience. We must not waste this one. We must go big — the future of democracy demands it.

Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI): white nationalist groups, QAnon and influencers planned and led the violent siege

By Roger Straw, January 9, 2021
Denver Riggleman, Former Virginia U.S. Rep, Air Force Intelligence, NSA, Network Analysis, Disinfo Hunter, Whiskey Distiller. Author: “Bigfoot…It’s Complicated”

Former Republican U.S. Representative Denver Riggleman appeared tonight on CNN with a shocking and factual analysis of the hate groups behind Wednesday’s capitol riots and armed and deadly siege of the U.S. Congress.

Read the full report below; but here is a brief summary listing of the insurrection leadership:

Hate Organizations involved in the U.S. Capitol Riots per this report:

      • Proud Boys (White Supremacists)
      • Oathkeepers (Anti-Government)
      • NSC131 (Neo-Nazi)
      • New Jersey European Heritage Association (White Supremacists)
      • Nick Fuentes and “Groyper Army” (Neo-Nazi)
      • American Nationalist Party (White Supremacists)
      • American Guard (White Supremacists)

Summary:

    • Virtually all violent vanguard elements appeared to come from predominantly far-right fringe groups
    • Some in the crowd interpreted portions of President Trump’s speech as an instruction to march aggressively to the capitol building directly.
    • High profile figures associated with the administration were also inciting violent sentiment and cued instructions previous to the event,
    • Widely subscribed messianic ideology in QAnon, together wth situational cues, created conditions that strongly favored mass enactment of its fantasy of insurrection.
    • Explicit plans to ‘Occupy the Capitol’ were circulating across social media suggesting that the capitol building was an explicit target of the violent vanguard from the beginning. Evidence suggests some rioters were armed with weapons and zip-ties.
    • There is no credible evidence that the crowd was infiltrated or led by Antifa activists at this time.

The January 9 report is carefully researched and factual, detailing the planning and leadership of the January 6 violent insurrection and mob attack on the U.S. Capitol.  Check out the tweet below, or go directly to the 10-page report, “1/9/21 – NCRI ASSESSMENT OF THE CAPITOL RIOTS: Violent Actors and Ideologies Behind the Events of January 6, 2021“.

SOURCE: The Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) is a politically neutral, multi-disciplinary team of experienced neuroscientists, technology industry leaders, physicists, and machine learning experts from across academia and industry who have developed an integrated technology platform – Contextus – to track and expose the epidemic of virtual deception, manipulation, and hate, as it spreads between social media communities and into the real world.

Rep. Mike Thompson: ‘Trump an enemy of the state’ following ‘armed insurgence, treasonous effort to topple our government’

Congressman Thompson: ‘Trump an enemy of the state’

Hopes 25th Amendment, impeachment ousts president

Vallejo Times Herald, by Richard Freedman, January 7, 2021 UPDATED: 6:24 p.m.

With 24 hours to take a breath, U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson hasn’t wavered. He wants Donald Trump ousted, no matter that the one-term president’s time expires at noon, Jan. 20.

After Wednesday’s siege by an unruly mob at the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., the congressman Tweeted that he’s “calling on the Vice President to initiate proceedings under the 25th Amendment to gather the Cabinet and remove the President from office. On this dark day for our nation, we need to stand up and end this immediately. Nothing less than the future of our democracy is at stake.”

In a 20-minute phone interview Thursday afternoon, Thompson reiterated that he “absolutely” wants Trump’s reign finished immediately.

“We need to do whatever we can to remove him from this position of power,” Thompson said. “In addition to that, he needs to be impeached for a second time. The articles of impeachment have been drafted and I’ve signed onto that effort. I believe it should be done as quickly as possible.”

There’s no waiting out Trump’s term, Thompson emphasized.

“You saw how much damage he did yesterday — one day. I’m frightened to think about what else he could do,” Thompson said.

Rep. Mike Thompson. (Rich Freedman–Times-Herald)

Trump “is completely off the rails. He’s become an enemy of the state,” said Thompson, believing the president incited the rioters to seize the Capitol building “to try and prevent a peaceful transition of power” to President-elect Joe Biden.

“He set up a coup attempt yesterday (Wednesday), trying to encourage the vice president to steal this election,” Thompson said, calling the siege aftermath “a sad, sad day in this country.”

Trump “encouraged people to break the law, take up laws against their own country and march to the Capitol and stop the peaceful transition. He asked them to march with him, but when they started marching, he went back to the White House,” said Thompson. “That speaks volumes to what kind of person he is.”

Explaining the lack of law enforcement to help thwart the Capitol siege “is the $64 million question,” said Thompson, adding that he sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “asking to do a top-to-bottom review to find out what went wrong and that we ensure it never goes wrong again.”

Thompson said he also sent Pelosi a text Wednesday night requesting the head of the Capitol State Police be terminated.

“Folks that run security should be fired by morning,” Thompson said. “Whomever was in charge not only put our institution of representative government at risk, but put at risk of the lives of every person in that Capitol building, every staff person, every member of the House, every janitor. And they put the life of every cop at risk by putting them out there ill-prepared to do the job they were asked to do.”

Thompson said he was safely in his office when the mob entered the Capitol, though he was evacuated once when “some kind of explosive device” was located and a second time when shots were fired.

“When hooligans broke through security, I was over in the library,” Thompson, managing to quip, “I don’t think they could find a library with a GPS.”

Seriously, added Thompson, “they need to arrest every one” of the infiltrators “and try them for treason.”

“They call themselves ‘patriots’ but they are really traitors,” Thompson said.

Four people died during the siege, including one woman by gunfire.

“I think the president bears full responsibility for what happened,” Thompson said. “He did this. He did this whole thing. He convinced people to participate in a coup. That’s why he needs to be impeached.”

Thompson said Trump will “definitely be impeached by the House, I’m sure of that. I hope the Senate drums up some courage since they didn’t last time.”

Thompson sees a window of opportunity.

“The dam is starting to break. Some Republicans are calling for his removal. I move to convict him,” Thompson said.

Though 9/11 and school shootings “were terrible, this is in a different league,” Thompson said. “It’s armed insurgence with a treasonous effort to topple our government. It’s an attack on the institution, an attack on democracy, an attack on our republic.”

Almost lost in the scuffle — Democrats flipped the Senate earlier this week, thanks to Georgia, with Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff emerging with run-off wins.

“That’s a shining light in all of this,” Thompson said, reflecting on 500-plus bipartisan bills languishing on Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell’s desk.

With McConnell on the verge of becoming Senate minority leader and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris the tie-breaker in a potential 50-Democrat, 50-Republican vote, “it’s now a different story,” said Thompson, awaiting the Inauguration Jan. 20.

“Everybody I know — Democrats, Republicans, Independents — don’t want a revolution. They want a return to normalcy,” Thompson said. “It’ll be a much better world.”