Links - 10th July 2023 (2 - Capitol Riot)

🇺🇸Travis🇺🇸 on Twitter - "Happening Now:  According to a new Senate report the FBI had plenty of intel on what would happen on Jan 6 but decided not to disclose the information to the Capitol police and local law enforcement.    According to the investigation the FBI received multiple tips and even photographs.  Before the protest the FBI even sent internal emails that said no serious threat exist.    Either the FBI is incompetent and failed to do their job, or they knew people would go into the Capitol and let it happen to use it against Trump, or maybe both are true.    Which do you think?"

‘Opposite of unity’: Democrats’ identity politics pushes US towards conflict akin to Lebanese civil war, professor warns - "It’s the Democrats’ ideology-driven policy labeling the opposing camp ‘domestic terrorists’ and not Donald Trump’s legacy that's pushing America closer to a civil conflict, Canadian evolutionary psychologist Gad Saad told RT.  What happened during the storming of the Capitol by an angry mob earlier in January was “wrong” and “criminal,” Saad told an RT podcast hosted by Ben Swann. It still does not warrant flooding Washington with tens of thousands of National Guard members for President Joe Biden’s inauguration, said the professor at Concordia University in Montreal.  Neither does it warrant labeling literally every single Trump supporter a “domestic terrorist” – something Saad believes the Democrats are very much inclined to do now. Despite retaining the House and getting a majority in the Senate as well as winning the White House, the Democrats are still acting as if on the defensive... “It is not enough to win. You have to destroy the enemy. They should not exist,” the professor explained, adding that the Democrats and their supporters apparently believe that no “sane” person could support Trump and those that still do should literally be “deprogrammed” to see him as evil.  Now, according to Saad, the Democrats and at least the most ardent of their supporters believe there is no way of treating Trump supporters other than “pathologizing them.”  Instead, it is the Democrats themselves that are in the thrall of “ideological parasites” or “idea pathogens”... Stoking fears and anger in society is not a sustainable reality, nor a sound political strategy, Saad warned. Promoting intolerance of any group within a society for political or other reasons could end up in a disaster, said the professor, calling for a healthy discussion instead of “hysteria.”... Saad said he saw something similar back in Lebanon, where society was divided along sectarian lines and was eventually thrown into the abyss of a 15-year-long civil war that resulted in estimated 120,000 fatalities in a country with just over 6.8 million people.  “Lebanon was organized and continues to be organized along religious tribes... everything in Lebanon is viewed through the prism of one’s religious identity and look what happened to Lebanon”... Saad believes it's not the statements by former president Donald Trump or his legacy that is driving America towards greater disunity, but the “progressive” identity politics professed by the Democrats.  “Identity politics is by definition an opposite of unity, because it ghettoizes us into tribes – political, sexual orientation or skin color ones. It is an opposite of a unifying message”"

Michael Shellenberger on Twitter: "The FBI & Democrats say the whistleblowers who testified today are "a threat to our national security,” but they're not. Rather they are honorable public servants who are being attacked for exposing abuses of power related to January 6.
Why the FBI And Democrats Are Attacking Whistleblowers
FBI says it won’t release Jan 6 surveillance video because it would show too many undercover government agents and informants
by @galexybrane  & @shellenberger
The FBI whistleblowers who testified before Congress today are not actually whistleblowers, say the FBI and Democrats. Rather, they are disloyal Americans who undermined investigations into the January 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.  “My [Republican] colleagues have brought in these former agents, men who lost their security clearances because they were a threat to our national security,” said Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-V.I.), the ranking member of the House weaponization subcommittee. “Who out of malice or ignorance or both have put partisan agenda above the oath they swore to serve this country.”  But there is no evidence that any of the FBI whistleblowers are or were ever a threat to national security. One of them, Marcus Allen, won two medals fighting in Iraq and Kuwait. Another, Garret O’Boyle, served in the Army in Iraq, worked as a police officer, and graduated with honors in criminology and law.  Democrats pointed out that the FBI had revoked the security clearances of two whistleblowers, Allen, and Steve Friend, earlier this month. That news came in a letter that Christopher Dunham, the acting assistant director of the FBI, sent to the House Judiciary Committee last night.  The FBI claimed that Allen “expressed sympathy for persons or organizations that advocate, threaten, or use force or violence, or use any other illegal or unconstitutional means, in an effort to prevent federal government personnel from performing their official duties.”  But neither FBI nor Democrats presented evidence that Allen, Friend, or the other FBI whistleblowers who testified participated or even sympathized with the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol Building. “I was not in Washington D.C on January 6, played no part in the events of January 6, and I condemn all criminal activity that occurred,” said Allen.  Others suggested the FBI agents were exaggerating. “You all have employment grievances,” said Rep. Gerald Connolly. “That doesn’t make you whistleblowers… We’re listening to sad tales of certain individuals,” said Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. “These individuals have been determined not to be whistleblowers.”  But the FBI agents testifying followed the legally required whistleblower protocols within the FBI and were not fringe agents. Allen, for example, was the 2019 Employee of the Year for the Charlotte Field Office.  Friend, a Special Agent at the FBI for eight and half years, O’Boyle, and Allen all said they made protected whistleblower disclosures and yet were retaliated against by the FBI. Allen was suspended without pay in January 2022. O’Boyle was transferred to a new unit, moved his family across the country, and was placed on an unpaid suspension the first day he arrived.  For decades after the FBI was caught spying on Martin Luther King, Jr. and abusing its powers for political ends, Democrats emphasized strong constraints on domestic spying and the importance of whistleblowers. Now, Democrats are savaging these former public servants as threats to national security. Why is that?"
Whistleblowing is only good when it helps liberals' ends

To the Blackpilled types, explain why the Ratio for The Marvels is so bad? It's over 50% disliked. : KotakuInAction - "variety.com/2021/politics/news/trump-protesters-riot-capitol-video-1234879939 Facebook took down his "go home" because they WANTED it to get bad so they had a excuse to block him"

Tulsi Gabbard: Domestic-Terrorism Bill Is ‘a Targeting of Almost Half of the Country’ - "She said the proposed legislation could create “a very dangerous undermining of our civil liberties, our freedoms in our Constitution, and a targeting of almost half of the country.”  “You start looking at obviously, have to be a white person, obviously likely male, libertarians, anyone who loves freedom, liberty, maybe has an American flag outside their house, or people who, you know, attended a Trump rally”"
From 2021

Meme - Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1: "NBC News: Jan. 6 Committee's Rep. Zoe Lofgren says Secret Service officers Ornato, Engel, and the driver of the SUV that wouldn't take Trump to the Capitol, have all retained private counsel. @NBCNews"
Jo @JoJoFromJerz: "Fishy as fuck."
Damin Toell @damintoell: "As a Super Follower, I want the rest of your normie followers to please know that hiring counsel in response to being investigated by the government is not only not fish but also very smart."
Frank Babbitt @Frizzy1563: "It's smart when you've done something wrong. Totally unnecessary if you haven't and are willing to be honest."
Ironic. Liberals keep going on about how the legal system is biased against "minorities" and they are persecuted and need to fight back with as much legal counsel as they can get

Meme - *Everything on fire*
"BURNING, RIOTING, AnD MURDER IN CITIES ACROSS AMERICA FOR OVER A YEAR 2020-2021"
Democratic Donkey pointing at puff of dust: "US. CAPITOL JAN 6, 2021"
"FIRE!"

Tucker Carlson Capitol riot video: The Fox host is right about Jan. 6 in one way. - "while Carlson is sometimes effective at the lies he tells, he has seemed out of his element with these specials, his strident act showing signs of strain as he attempted to course-correct the conclusion the majority of the country has drawn about Jan. 6... the video footage he’s dwelled on does accurately reflect what I witnessed on Jan. 6 myself. I personally followed people from the Trump rally at the Ellipse and into the Capitol. By the time I got there, it had already been breached. The lawn was swarming with MAGA hats and Pepe flags. The Capitol police officers I saw were overwhelmed, standing near the entrances of the building looking helpless as people squeezed in to see the inside of the building for themselves... In my own initial dispatch, I wrote, “They were having fun, entertaining themselves. The priority seemed to be to have their friends take selfies with them inside the Capitol.” I saw a lot of people who treated the insurrection like a party"
When the media are forced to admit what is patently obvious

Twitch removes PogChamp emote: 'We can't in good conscience continue to enable use of the image' - "t has responded to a tweet from fighting game personality Ryan "Gootecks" Gutierrez by removing Twitch's immensely popular PogChamp emote, which depicts his face.  In the tweet, Gutierrez called for "civil unrest" on behalf of one of the rioters, a woman who was shot and killed by law enforcement inside the Capitol. Gutierrez referred to her as "the #MAGAMartyr" and characterized her death as an "execution." Twitch viewed the statement as a call for further violence by the pro-Trump mob."
MissBehavin After Twitch-Strip: 3-Day-Ban Lifted & Still Partner - "The female Twitch streamer MissBehavin, who bared her private parts live in front of the cam, now only gets a 3-day ban & is still a Twitch partner. Others, however, are permanently excluded for much less!"
Amazing how explicit TOS violations only get a slap on the wrist
Of course if you support the BLM riots, Twitch doesn't do anything

Meme - "YOUR OUTRAGE IS MANUFACTURED
BLM RIOTS
LEFT WING VIOLENCE
Lasted 7 Months
Condemned Mostly By Republicans
Encouraged By Media And Politicians
Police Force Used
23+ People Shot Dead
700 Officers Injured
150+ Fed. Buildings Damaged
Hundreds Of Small Businesses Destroyed
No Outrage
CAPITOL RIOT
RIGHT WING VIOLENCE
Lasted Several Hours
Condemned By All Republicans And Democrats
Encouraged Only By Fringe Political Groups
Police Force Used
1 Person Shot Dead
14 Officers Injured
One Federal Building Damaged
No Small Businesses Destroyed
Nationwide Outrage"

John Cardillo on Twitter - "Trump told the protesters to go home. Find me one video of a prominent national Democrat doing that when leftists riot and destroy cities."

Dennis Michael Lynch - Posts | Facebook - "Millions of people are frustrated over this election.  Many thousands of them went to the nation's capital to voice that frustration.  Sadly, there are a few bad apples who took it too far.  However the media will try to lump 74,000,000 with a handful of over-the-top protesters.  What we must ask ourselves is why an entire country of conservatives gets lumped into a bad narrative carried out by a handful of people, but when the wildest of BLM members burn down cities, loot, shoot, and attack old people the media separates them apart from the entire movement.  Violence and law breaking is never an option, but neither is the biased reporting."

In Bombshell Report, Tucker Carlson Alleges Bank of America Is 'Acting Like an Intelligence Agency' - "BoA allegedly combed through the financial records from its more than 60 million customers looking for those who “fit a specific profile.”...  The problem, according to Carlson, is that no one in law enforcement or the Biden administration is explaining who fits the bill for being a political extremist.  "We're starting to believe they're not defining it for a reason""

When Reporting Becomes a Defense for Rioting | The New Yorker - "John Sullivan made a habit of blurring the lines between activism, advocacy journalism, and opposition research... “If everyone has equal claim to being a reporter, regardless of intent or track record, what it means in practice is that law enforcement won’t be able to tell the difference,” Lucy Dalglish, the dean of the University of Maryland’s journalism school, told me. “Suddenly, you have a situation where anyone can do any crazy thing—like break into the Capitol building, for instance—and then, when the cops show up, they can just take out their phone and say, ‘Hands off, I’m a documentarian.’ ” One of the people who invaded the Capitol on January 6th was Nick Ochs, a Proud Boy from Hawaii, who was later arrested for unlawful entry. “We came here to stop the steal,” Ochs said on a live stream the day of the siege. That night, however, Ochs told CNN that he had entered the Capitol as a professional journalist. He was associated with a far-right new-media collective comprising audio and video talk shows, published on YouTube and other platforms. The name of the collective was Murder the Media... “Fuck that shit,” Sullivan says. “Push!” Several times throughout the video, he can be heard saying, “I got a knife.” (He now claims that he didn’t actually have a knife: “I used that to navigate myself to the front of the crowd.”)... Sullivan and his lawyers may end up arguing that some of his actions on January 6th—shouting support for the mob, for example—were acts of newsgathering, necessary for Sullivan to get as far as he did. This theory would be less helpful, presumably, in explaining away some of Sullivan’s other actions, such as encouraging the invaders to push forward or claiming to have a knife."

Michael Tracey on Twitter - "Myanmar political leaders, including Aung San Suu Kyi, detained by the military, her party says"
"So funny that US elites now think it’s a “coup attempt” when a bunch of conspiracy-addled looney tunes temporarily disrupt a legislative proceeding, meanwhile in other countries the concept usually implies that the military has arrested the entire political leadership"

HuffPo reporter claims Capitol riot was '1000 percent worse' than 9/11 - "HuffPo's senior White House correspond S.V. Dáte not only compared the Capitol riot on Jan. 6 to 9/11, but he suggested that the former inflicted greater damage on the soul of America than the latter did... The Sept. 11 attacks are cited as the deadliest terrorist act in world history and the most devastating foreign attack on United States soil since Pearl Harbor in 1941."

A History of Attacks at the US Capitol - "while the Capitol was built to house legislative governance, it has also been the site of violence in the form of fire, break-ins, fistfights and shootings."
So much for the "unprecedented" violence of the Capitol riot

Ben Sixsmith on Twitter - "*As I evict someone* Why don't you just build your own house? Also, you're banned from my friends' construction company, home improvement retailer, and bank."
On Parler

James Lindsay - Posts | Facebook - "People are now asking (demanding) Cloudflare to deny Parler DNS services and DDOS protection."

Escape The Echo Chamber - Posts | Facebook - "Federal prosecutors are trying to hold a man in jail without bail for his part in the Capitol riot. He’s been held 14 weeks despite having no history of violent crime, didn’t go into the Capitol building, and isn’t associated with any extremist groups. First, prosecutors said he’d killed an officer with a fire extinguisher. He hadn’t. Then they indicated it was his bear spray that triggered the officer’s death. No bear spray was used and the officer died of natural causes unrelated to the riot."
One Blue Anon follower refused to believe the official reports saying that the fire extinguisher claim was dubious, as well as the official autopsy report. So much for "post-Truth"

The left's 'urge to purge' response to the Capitol assault - "It’s an unbalanced, cynical and fundamentally anti-democratic drive.  Notably, they want to expel the 140-plus Republicans in Congress who objected to certifying President-elect Joe Biden’s win.  “I believe the Republican members of Congress who have incited this domestic terror attack through their attempts to overturn the election must face consequences,” declared Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.). “We can’t have unity without accountability.” Well, purging your opponents is one path to “unity,” we guess. Democrats are particularly targeting Republicans they’ve always most disliked: House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) and Sen. Josh Hawley (Mo.), who was the first to announce he’d object to the results.  Much of the media are aiding and abetting them in their purge project. The Houston Chronicle has called on Cruz to resign; Simon & Schuster canceled Hawley’s upcoming book citing “his role in what became a dangerous threat to our democracy and freedom.” (The point of Hawley’s book, “The Tyranny of Big Tech,” seems pretty relevant after Twitter banned not just the president but also many of his supporters, and a Big Tech cartel moved to shutter the conservative-popular social-media app Parler.)  Bush last week introduced legislation that aims to use the 14th Amendment to expel GOP members. It says those “who sought to overturn the 2020 Presidential election violated their oath of office to uphold the Constitution.” That amendment bans from office anyone who has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the Constitution. It was written to ensure members of the Confederacy — real traitors — couldn’t hold office.  Cruz, Hawley & Co. were well within their rights to object to electors, and constitutional scholars agree. They committed no crime against the Constitution. Democrats have done the same thing themselves. Then-Vice President Biden was interrupted 11 times during certification of Trump’s win in 2017. “The electors were not lawfully certified, especially given the confirmed and illegal activities engaged by the government of Russia,” Rep. Jim McGovern (Mass.) said in objecting to Alabama’s votes. “People are horrified by the overwhelming evidence of Russian interference in our election,” Rep. Barbara Lee (Calif.) said in objecting to Michigan’s votes. Rep. Jamie Raskin — a Maryland congressman just named to the House impeachment team — also objected to certifying Trump’s election. More hypocrisy: Demonstrators occupied Wisconsin’s state capitol for weeks in 2011 to protest Gov. Scott Walker’s collective-bargaining bill, with some surrounding and heckling a state senator at one point. Democrats have gone out of their way after the US Capitol attack to call that a peaceful protest.  New York’s own Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is on board with the purge, of course, saying: “If we allow insurrection against the United States with impunity, with no accountability, we are inviting it to happen again.”  More, as she said on an Instagram livestream, she and some colleagues are looking at how to “rein in” the media: “It’s one thing to have differentiating opinions but it’s another thing entirely to just say things that are false,” she . . . explains. You know who she expects to decide what’s false and not merely a differing opinion.  It goes on: Private groups promise to compile lists of those who served in the Trump administration, to prevent them ever working in polite society again.  This is madness: How much longer until they come for the more than 74 million people who voted for Trump?"
Addendum: Related: Cancelling a book about censorship

Nikole Hannah-Jones Calls For 'Deprogramming' Republicans - "Hannah-Jones responded with a vague call to look toward an undefined “history,” declaring that “there has to be consequences” based on how you vote. She then decried the push towards a quick “reconciliation” between the left and right. The so-called journalist painted Trump supporters with a broad brush, lumping the Capitol rioters in with average Republicans who voted based on policy.Her only explanation of why anyone would possibly vote for Trump was that the “white labor force” voted for his policies to keep themselves more powerful than “Muslims, Latinos and Black Americans.” By inventing exclusively racist intentions of her political enemies, Hannah-Jones said every Trump-voting Republican merits “punishment” before they can be allowed to re-enter polite society and have a chance at reconciliation."

POLITICO - Posts | Facebook - "Thousands of National Guard members were forced to vacate the Capitol today and are now taking their rest breaks outside and in nearby parking garages. “Yesterday dozens of senators and congressmen walked down our lines taking photos, shaking our hands and thanking us for our service. Within 24 hours, they had no further use for us and banished us to the corner of a parking garage. We feel incredibly betrayed”"
When their use was done

Americans Abandoning Free Speech Better Brace for the Consequences - ""We need to shut down the influencers who radicalize people and set them on the path toward violence and sedition," argued columnist Max Boot in The Washington Post. His solution? Carriers should drop Fox News and other conservative cable news outlets if they don't stop spreading "misinformation." Boot also believes that "Biden needs to reinvigorate the FCC" to impose British-style controls over the news—never mind that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) doesn't have the authority to regulate cable outlets that it has over broadcasters that use public airwaves...   Challenging the value of unrestrained speech and debate has become something of a cottage industry. After the ugly exchanges that erupted in the Capitol riot, CNN pointed out that "questions emerge about unrestrained free expression, long championed by First Amendment theorists as a benefit to society, no matter how ugly and hateful." The network quoted scholars who conclude that the Internet and free speech protections make it too easy to exchange bad ideas.  None of these fans of speech restrictions explicitly advocate suppression of activists or ideologies; they favor controls on what they claim are false, extremist, or misleading communications. But they don't explain why reversing speech protections would accomplish their goals when misinformation existed long before modern jurisprudence, filling the pages of the country's newspapers and fueling political contests despite legal peril. Nor do they explain why they're so eager to hand more control over speech to government officials who have a historically rocky relationship with truth... Obama, too, had a problem telling the truth about issues ranging from health care to government records and earned "the lie of the year" label from PolitiFact in 2013. Government officials even lie to each other, as then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper did to Congress to conceal the inconvenient truth about domestic surveillance by the NSA.  Protections for free speech, it's worth pointing out, aren't some perfect counter to false and extreme ideas. Instead, they're a recognition of core individual rights. But they're also a pragmatic acknowledgment that putting government agencies in charge of suppressing misinformation just gives one team of bullshit artists an advantage over their less-powerful competitors.   Some fans of speech suppression think they've found a solution in privatized muzzling...   After evolving First Amendment jurisprudence made it safer for print media to criticize politicians, then-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt infamously held radio licenses hostage in return for positive coverage. "It did not take long for broadcasters to get the message," historian David Beito wrote for Reason in 2017. "NBC, for example, announced that it was limiting broadcasts 'contrary to the policies of the United States government.'"  That practice has become increasingly popular as a means for governments to evade accusations that they're muzzling critics.   "Of course, Twitter is a private company," Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny cautioned after the tech giant suspended Donald Trump's account in the wake of the Capitol riot. "But we have seen many examples in Russian and China of such private companies becoming the state's best friends and the enablers when it comes to censorship."   The ultimate risk is that respect for free-wheeling speech is devalued in the eyes of many as a thing to be cherished in itself. Instead, it may become a resented obstacle to be worked around by innovators who aren't bound by allegedly archaic legal protections. They can then feel virtuous in suppressing expression they consider bad, or hateful, or an example of "misinformation."  If popular support for free speech continues to erode, it's difficult to see how legal protections survive for long without foundations in the wider society. A culture of free speech can't prevail if the culture comes to prefer censorship. Eventually, people who've come to believe it's better to challenge "bad" ideas not with other ideas but with a muzzle will erase or reinterpret protections for speech.   Then, government officials with wish lists of expanded powers ready to go will eagerly step in to save the country from "influencers who radicalize people." The influencers will take their communications to underground channels or else adopt the martyr role of dissidents. And officials will try to suppress misinformation from those influencers in favor of misinformation of their own."

Meme - Blm Emily ACAB: "What happened in DC last night was horrible. These terrorists broke into the capitol and were being violet towards these poor police officers"

Antifa Activist Dan Baker Sentenced to Three Years for Online Posts and a Flyer - "Tallahassee antifascist activist Dan Baker was sentenced to three years in federal prison. According to the FBI, Baker had posted threats of violence and kidnapping online in the run-up to January 20, the date of Joe Biden’s inauguration...   Baker, 34, is a yoga instructor, EMT in training, and an active antifascist organizer in the Tallahassee area. He was involved in last year’s Black Lives Matter protests in Tallahassee"
Proof that Trump supporters are violent!
I love the hamster wheel spinning to justify the double standards

FBI Arrests Activist Daniel Baker Over Posts About Police Abuse and Self Defense - "The closest thing to a non-self-protective pledge of violence is an Instagram post where Baker writes "If you don't take up arms against trump them (sic) you are coward"...   "If nothing else, Baker's case shows how easily the martial climate that has prevailed since the Capitol riot can be turned on unrelated individuals who hold vastly different beliefs," suggests Branko Marcetic at Jacobin."