Trump urges “no violence,” but takes no responsibility for inciting Capitol attack

In a video posted on social media Wednesday, President Trump did not acknowledge the U.S. House's historic impeachment vote against him. But after facing condemnation from members of his own party, the president did condemn last week's riot at the U.S. Capitol and urged "no violence" ahead of President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration. But the President is still not taking responsibility for his part in inciting the crowd that attacked the Capitol last week. CBS News White House correspondent Paula Reid has more.
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Business as usual for high court, despite riot, impeachment

WASHINGTON (AP) - Amid insurrection and impeachment, the Supreme Court's big news Thursday was a decision in a bankruptcy case. Wednesday brought arguments over the Federal Trade Commission's ability to recapture ill-gotten gains.

At this fraught moment in U.S. history, the court is doing its best to keep its head ...

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National Guard In DC Authorized To Use Lethal Force Days Before Biden’s Inauguration

Washington, DC is beginning to resemble a war zone, as National Guard troops numbering in the tens of thousands are armed and have been given permission to use lethal force as Joe Biden’s inauguration date looms.

A statement from the D.C. National Guard indicates “National Guardsmen were given authorization to be armed in support of the U.S. Capitol Police to protect the U.S. Capitol and individual members of Congress and their staff.”

A defense official confirmed to U.S. News & World Report that the authorization “includes permission for Guard troops to use lethal force.”

Reports indicate that 20,000 National Guard troops are on-site in preparation for anti-Biden demonstrations over the weekend.

RELATED: Combat Veteran And Double Amputee Rep Brian Mast Shreds Jake Tapper After CNN Anchor Questions His Patriotism

DC Is In Lockdown As National Guard Given Green Light to Use Lethal Force

The Associated Press is reporting that “a state of lockdown” has “descended on Washington that will last through the Jan. 20 inauguration.”

The FBI warned of armed protests being planned in all 50 state capitals as well as in Washington for the days leading up to Biden’s inauguration.

On January 6th, thousands of protesters upset over perceived election integrity issues stormed the Capitol, resulting in its evacuation and lockdown, and leading to five deaths.

The protests were mostly peaceful.™

Still, authorities are taking no chances as inauguration day approaches.

Federal officials indicate the National Mall will be closed to the public on Inauguration Day, in-part due to concerns of violence and the fact that Biden’s event will be mostly virtual.

Bloomberg News reports that soldiers flowing into Washington D.C. is “a scene reminiscent of Civil War deployments.”

RELATED: Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene – I Will File Articles Of Impeachment Against Biden The Day After His Inauguration

Stepping up Security

The stepping up of security efforts to include lethal force marks a significant shift in tactics from riots over the summer which caused countless buildings to be torched and businesses to be robbed and vandalized.

Lethal force was not an issue when domestic terrorists were persistently attacking Hatfield Federal Courthouse in Portland.

In fact, many of those charged with the assault on a federal courthouse were charged with minor offenses.

Republican California Rep. Tom McClintock, during the impeachment debate, pointed out that had criminals on both sides of the political spectrum been treated equally, there might not have been an escalation of violence on January 6th.

“If we had prosecuted BLM and Antifa rioters across the country with the same determination these last six months, this incident may not have happened at all,” McClintock said.

The post National Guard In DC Authorized To Use Lethal Force Days Before Biden’s Inauguration appeared first on The Political Insider.

CNN’s Don Lemon Shames Trump Voters – Lumps Them All In With Nazis, KKK, Alt-Right

CNN host Don Lemon shamed all 74 million Americans who voted for Donald Trump in this past election, not only lumping them all in with Capitol rioters, but also with Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan.

Lemon Shames Trump Voters

While sending off his own show to Lemon’s, Chris Cuomo asked for his fellow host’s reaction to, “Now what you hear is, ‘Well, you can’t say that everybody who voted for Trump is like the people who went into the Capitol.'”

“You need to think about the side you’re on,” Lemon responded. “Principled people — conservative or liberal — never on the Klan side. Principled people — conservative or liberal — never on the Nazi side. Principled people who are conservative or liberal never on the side that treats their fellow Americans as less-than.”

“That says that your fellow Americans should not exist,” he added. “That says your fellow Americans should be in a concentration camp or that sides with slavery or sides with any sort of bigotry.”

“Right,” Cuomo said. “And if they say, ‘I don’t agree with those people, I just like Trump’s policies—'”

“Well, then get out of the crowd with them,” Lemon fired back. “Get out of the crowd with them.”

Related: Don Lemon And Chris Cuomo Claim BLM Riots Were More Justified Than Capitol Riot

Cuomo And Lemon Double Down

That’s when the two engaged in a deranged role-play, with Cuomo taking on the role of Trump supporter.

“I wasn’t in the crowd; I just voted for Trump,” Cuomo said.

“You’re in the crowd who voted for Trump,” Lemon replied. “If you voted for Trump, you voted for the person who the Klan supported. You voted for the person who Nazis support. You voted for the person who the alt-right supports. That’s the crowd that you are in.”

“You voted for a person who incited a crowd to go into the Capitol and potentially take the lives of lawmakers, took the lives of police officers, took the … innocent lives of the people who were at the Capitol that day,” he continued.

“You voted on that side,” he added.

Related: CNN’s Don Lemon Unravels – ‘Stop Saying We Have To Respect Trump Supporters Who Believe Bullsh*t’

Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro said it best when he branded this entire exchange as “vile.”

He later added, “It’s this deliberate attempt to lump together anyone who voted for Trump and the Capitol rioters that undermines the possibility of unity. It also happens to be false and indecent.”

This piece was written by James Samson on January 14, 2021. It originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

Read more at LifeZette:
Trump Takes Blame For Assault On The Capitol
Man Arrested After He Allegedly Discussed ‘Putting A Bullet’ In Pelosi Via Text
Top GOP Senator Claims Trump Impeachment ‘Clearly Is Not Going To Happen’

The post CNN’s Don Lemon Shames Trump Voters – Lumps Them All In With Nazis, KKK, Alt-Right appeared first on The Political Insider.

House Republicans overwhelmingly stood behind Trump after he incited white supremacist insurrection

The House of Representatives voted to impeach President Donald Trump for a historic second time on Jan. 13, and in the process confirmed that even after he incited a white supremacist insurrection at the Capitol building, an overwhelming majority of Republicans see still no problem with Trump’s conduct. While it is technically correct that the 10 Republican votes in favor of impeachment made it “the most bipartisan one in history,” as described by the The Washington Post, The New York Times, CNN, and others, that’s an extremely low bar to clear. In fact, the vote numbers don’t suggest bipartisanship in any meaningful sense, but rather paint a stark portrait of a political party that has almost unanimously aligned itself with white supremacy and the white backlash to BIPOC political ascendancy. As if to drive home the point, GOP representatives even booed Rep. Cori Bush for denouncing white supremacy during the hearings. Rather than rushing to lionize the handful of Republicans who momentarily broke with the party—and did so only after their own sense of safety was threatened—news coverage needs to reflect these realities.

There are 211 Republicans in the House of Representatives, only 10 of them voted in favor of impeachment. That means over 95% watched as insurrectionists broke into the Capitol with Confederate battle flags held high and white supremacist symbols adorning their bodies as they apparently searched the building for government officials to execute, and decided, “This is fine.” Of course, the overwhelmingly white Republican caucus may have correctly surmised that they weren’t the ones in mortal danger on Jan. 6. Rather, Democratic members of Congress—especially women and Black and brown members—represented the primary targets of the mob’s ire, as newly emerging details have revealed.

The same day the impeachment vote was taken, the Boston Globe reported that as Rep. Ayanna Pressley and her staff barricaded themselves in her office to keep safe from the intruders, they discovered all of the panic buttons in the office had been torn out. On Instagram Live the evening before the vote, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said that during the attack she “had a very close encounter where I thought I was going to die.” Both Pressley and Ocasio-Cortez are part of The Squad, an outspoken group of progressive Black and Latina Democratic representatives elected to the House of Representatives in 2018 and 2020, which also includes Bush and Reps. Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Jamaal Bowman. As highly visible avatars of women and BIPOC’s growing political and demographic power, members of The Squad have long been on the receiving end of racist rhetoric and right-wing death threats. The events of Jan. 6 suggest at least some people had designs on carrying those threats out, possibly even with help from members of Congress who graciously offered “reconnaissance tours” to the insurrectionists. 

The attempted coup also posed a significant risk to a great many Black and brown people who aren’t lawmakers. The residents of Washington, D.C. itself—a largely Black city—along with Congressional support staff and Capitol building custodians had to contend with the trauma of being descended upon by a white supremacist mob, and afterward, were left to clean up the mess that same mob left behind. Overly credulous news coverage praising “principled” Republicans not only threatens to miss the racial realities of where most of the party stands, but also the narrowly circumscribed and race-specific extent of its support for the working class.  

With the looming threat of more insurrectionist violence in the coming days, it is of the highest moral and political significance that so many House Republicans condoned and aided the racist incitement that put the republic, fellow Americans, and the lives of their own Congressional colleagues in serious peril. And because the animating impulses behind the Capitol insurrection won’t wane with the dawn of the post-Trump political era, it’s imperative that we in the media don’t close our eyes to what the impeachment vote actually has to tell us about race, politics, and power in the United States.

Ashton Lattimore is the editor-in-chief of Prism. Follow her on Twitter @ashtonlattimore.

Prism is a BIPOC-led nonprofit news outlet that centers the people, places and issues currently underreported by our national media. Through our original reporting, analysis, and commentary, we challenge dominant, toxic narratives perpetuated by the mainstream press and work to build a full and accurate record of what’s happening in our democracy. Follow us on TwitterFacebook, and Instagram.

Trump impeachment trial crashes Biden’s first 100 days

President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial is set to collide directly with President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration. And there may be little anyone can do about it.

Absent the consent of all 100 senators, Trump’s trial for “incitement of insurrection” will start at 1 p.m. on Jan. 20 — just an hour after Biden is sworn into office and Trump becomes a former president, provided the articles arrive by Jan. 19. And only the same consent from the entire Senate will allow the chamber to create two tracks: One to confirm Biden’s Cabinet and pass his legislative agenda, and another for Trump’s impeachment trial.

“I’m all for accountability. But I want to make sure that we prioritize our business in a way that gets the Cabinet set and Covid relief legislation moving fast,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said in an interview, adding: “Especially after the events of the last week, it’s so critical that we get a Cabinet into place and we show the peaceful and efficient transition from one Cabinet to the next.”

Given that many Republicans oppose impeachment or think it’s not even constitutional once Trump has left office, it could be tough to get the cooperation Biden needs to handle a trial alongside Cabinet confirmations and begin work on a new coronavirus stimulus bill. Biden and Democrats say it’s critical to cut a deal that does both, but one single senator can disrupt any effort to multitask.

All that makes for an even higher degree of difficulty for Biden’s Cabinet and early legislative priorities to pass the Senate in his critical first few days in office.

“We are working with Republicans to try to find a path forward,” said a spokesperson for Sen. Chuck Schumer, who will become majority leader later this month once two new Democratic senators from Georgia are sworn in and Kamala Harris becomes vice president to break ties. Until then, however, Sen. Mitch McConnell is the majority leader.

Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said on MSNBC on Thursday that he spoke to Schumer that morning and that "there has been no exchange or conversation with Senator McConnell about setting a specific time to begin the trial."

And there’s already concern that Biden will be hamstrung in his early days. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), a centrist who supports convicting Trump, said a trial “impedes that first week or two that basically should be dedicated to putting our government back in place.” He had hoped that the House might give the Senate at least a month “until we had our government up and running again.”

But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is unlikely to wait until after Biden’s inauguration to trigger the trial’s start by formally transmitting the impeachment article over to the Senate. Pelosi has been tight-lipped about precise timing, but her top lieutenants spent recent days emphasizing the urgency of moving the process to the Senate as quickly as possible. Democrats had wanted McConnell to bring the Senate back this week to begin the trial in earnest, but McConnell rejected their request.

“To choose between holding accountable those who are responsible for attacking our democracy in the U.S. Capitol on the one hand and getting the work done for the people around Covid relief? That is a false choice,” said Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.). “We need to do all of those things.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer sit together at the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Schumer and McConnell could also be faced with a procedural mess even after the trial begins. Control of the Senate is set to flip in the middle of the trial, once Biden and Harris are inaugurated and Georgia’s two newly elected Democratic senators, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, are sworn in. Simultaneous to setting up the trial, Schumer will have to work out the rules of the road for a 50-50 Senate with McConnell.

With the Senate split and Chief Justice John Roberts presiding over the trial, partisan votes in the Senate could also lead to deadlock. Last year both parties sought to avoid putting Roberts in the position of having to break a tie.

Some Republican senators have even called into question the Senate’s constitutional authority to put a former president on trial.

“The Founders designed the impeachment process as a way to remove officeholders from public office — not an inquest against private citizens,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said. “The Constitution presupposes an office from which an impeached officeholder can be removed.”

There are signs that Biden is concerned about the upcoming trial and its impact on his first 100 days in office. Earlier this week, the president-elect said he hopes the Senate can “bifurcate” during the trial and “go a half-day with the impeachment and a half-day getting my people nominated and confirmed in the Senate as well as moving on the [Covid-19 relief] package.”

And in a statement after the House’s impeachment vote Wednesday night, Biden indicated he supports the effort to hold Trump accountable for the deadly Capitol riots, but said the Senate should not abandon his Cabinet confirmations and other legislative priorities like Covid-19 relief.

“This nation also remains in the grip of a deadly virus and a reeling economy,” Biden said. “I hope that the Senate leadership will find a way to deal with their Constitutional responsibilities on impeachment while also working on the other urgent business of this nation.”

Biden may enter office with none of his Cabinet nominees confirmed by the Senate, which typically considers an incoming president’s choices ahead of the inauguration. That makes the opening days of his presidency all the more critical.

Biden specifically named the Homeland Security, State, Defense, Treasury and intelligence chief positions as his top priorities. Senate committees are convening in the coming days to hold confirmation hearings for those and other Cabinet posts.

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), the top Republican on the Homeland Security panel, said on Wednesday evening that Biden “has rightly said he wants to set a new tone of greater unity as his administration begins. All of us should be concerned about the polarization in our country and work toward bringing people together.”

But if Trump’s second trial plays out like his first, it will be that much harder to turn the page for Biden. Republicans are already complaining that the House did not grant Trump “due process” — suggesting the Senate could be in for a slog.

“I’ve spent the last two days interviewing five Biden nominees to the Cabinet and I want to get to the serious business of legislating and forming a new administration we can work with,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said on CNBC. “Not continue to work against, which is what I’m afraid is going to happen if we continue with these theatrical impeachments.”

Ben Leonard, Marianne LeVine and Anthony Adragna contributed to this report.

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