Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
marmar
marmar's Journal
marmar's Journal
January 10, 2021
(NPR) The acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Michael Sherwin, says "hundreds" of people may ultimately face charges related to the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, which interrupted a session of Congress and left five people dead.
Sherwin spoke with NPR's Martin Kaste in an exclusive interview Saturday evening about the multiagency investigation, the challenges officials face and what they'll be looking for.
Sherwin says he doesn't want to "Monday morning quarterback" the U.S. Capitol Police, but the fact that they allowed hundreds of potential suspects to leave the scene has made his job more difficult. Now he says staffers are putting in "24-hour shifts" to identify suspects, searching for evidence online and saving it before it can be deleted. ...........(more)
https://www.npr.org/2021/01/10/955314373/d-c-s-acting-u-s-attorney-calls-scope-of-capitol-investigation-unprecedented
D.C.'s Acting U.S. Attorney Calls Scope Of Capitol Investigation 'Unprecedented'
(NPR) The acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Michael Sherwin, says "hundreds" of people may ultimately face charges related to the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, which interrupted a session of Congress and left five people dead.
Sherwin spoke with NPR's Martin Kaste in an exclusive interview Saturday evening about the multiagency investigation, the challenges officials face and what they'll be looking for.
Sherwin says he doesn't want to "Monday morning quarterback" the U.S. Capitol Police, but the fact that they allowed hundreds of potential suspects to leave the scene has made his job more difficult. Now he says staffers are putting in "24-hour shifts" to identify suspects, searching for evidence online and saving it before it can be deleted. ...........(more)
https://www.npr.org/2021/01/10/955314373/d-c-s-acting-u-s-attorney-calls-scope-of-capitol-investigation-unprecedented
January 10, 2021
Democrats: Reject the Trump Census
(Salon) On election night 2020, there was a path — ultimately not taken — that could have made all the difference. The one that, in the months leading up to Nov. 3, excited all the Nates in ways only numbers can and was single-handedly able to recharge Steve Kornacki's battery pack with merely a thought.
That path was Joe Biden's narrowest route, a harrowing one that went through Wisconsin and Arizona and Nebraska's 2nd congressional district to exactly 270 electoral votes. You know, the map that might have broken our democracy, and the result you'd get if Rudy Giuliani could substitute his vote for all Pennsylvanians and if Lindsey Graham could personally do signature matching for all black Georgians.
That 270-268 victory might just have held up, through recounts, Brooks Brothers riots, legal challenges, state legislature shenanigans, suborning faithless electors and an invasion of the Capitol. But like our teetering democratic norms and institutions, it won't survive the next time. In the 2024 election, the 23 states plus D.C. and that one district around Omaha that currently get Democrats to 270 will no longer suffice. Our decennial reapportionment will foreclose it. Unless Democrats fight it — with this One Weird Trick.
....(snip)....
In that light, a refusal to transmit the census information by Johnson would not be out of line. She would have her pick of any number of justifications: The census is incomplete, and not have been delivered to her within a week of the new congressional session, as required; any count that excises unauthorized immigrants violates the Constitution; all states that engage in voter suppression need to have their population count reduced, in accordance with the 14th Amendment; the Commerce Department engaged in practices to suppress the count; the commerce secretary who supervised the count had previously, as vice president of the Bank of Cyprus, had exceedingly dubious business dealings with agents of the Russian government, whose interference in the 2016 election is a major reason he has that job. ..........(more)
https://www.salon.com/2021/01/10/democrats-can-save-themselves-with-this-one-weird-trick-reject-the-trump-census/
January 10, 2021
Ugh. Joe Manchin again waffling on CNN....
.... saying he doesn't support $2,000 to everyone making less than $75,000 if it's not "targeted".
January 10, 2021
Insurrection Day: when white supremacist terror came to the US Capitol
Witnesses say Trump was oblivious to the gravity of the situation as five died, Congress was violated and his vice-president faced the very real possibility of being lynched
by Julian Borger in Washington
(Guardian UK) If there was one single moment when the veil of American resilience crumbled and the Trumpist assault on democracy turned into an invasion, it arrived just before 1pm on Wednesday.
That was when a group of pro-Trump militants burst through a flimsy outer barrier on the north-west side of the Capitol building and advanced on a secondary barricade guarded by four frightened police officers, dressed only in basic uniforms and soft caps.
One of the officers can be seen resting his hands on the barrier in as casual a manner he can manage, in an attempt to defuse the confrontation. He clearly had no idea what was coming.
On the other side, a young man in a white hoodie and a red Make America Great Again cap, pulls at the metal barricade but it holds. Then an older man, also red-capped but in full military uniform, takes the youth by the shoulder and whispers something in his ear as the swelling crowd around them chants “USA”. ...........(more)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/09/us-capitol-insurrection-white-supremacist-terror
Insurrection Day: when white supremacist terror came to the US Capitol
Insurrection Day: when white supremacist terror came to the US Capitol
Witnesses say Trump was oblivious to the gravity of the situation as five died, Congress was violated and his vice-president faced the very real possibility of being lynched
by Julian Borger in Washington
(Guardian UK) If there was one single moment when the veil of American resilience crumbled and the Trumpist assault on democracy turned into an invasion, it arrived just before 1pm on Wednesday.
That was when a group of pro-Trump militants burst through a flimsy outer barrier on the north-west side of the Capitol building and advanced on a secondary barricade guarded by four frightened police officers, dressed only in basic uniforms and soft caps.
One of the officers can be seen resting his hands on the barrier in as casual a manner he can manage, in an attempt to defuse the confrontation. He clearly had no idea what was coming.
On the other side, a young man in a white hoodie and a red Make America Great Again cap, pulls at the metal barricade but it holds. Then an older man, also red-capped but in full military uniform, takes the youth by the shoulder and whispers something in his ear as the swelling crowd around them chants “USA”. ...........(more)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/09/us-capitol-insurrection-white-supremacist-terror
January 10, 2021
The distressing truth: Why white people are embracing fascism
Thom Hartmann
White supremacy is real and white suppression of minorities, particularly Black people, absolutely permeates every aspect of our society, from business to culture to governance. Without setting aside that reality, it’s useful to examine why so many white people, with their built-in white privilege, would stand shoulder-to-shoulder with a wannabe dictator like Trump.
All over social media people are asking, “Why would anybody embrace fascism? Why would they be willing to overthrow a functioning democratic republic?”
....(snip)....
There was an actual rationale for this, laid out by Russell Kirk in his 1951 book The Conservative Mind. Kirk argued that without clearly defined classes and power structures, society would devolve into chaos. He essentially predicted in 1951 that if college students, women, working people, and people of color ever got even close to social and political power at the same level as wealthy white men, all hell would break loose.
....(snip)....
Kirk’s original vision was to produce a more secure and stable America. Like so many conservatives before him, from Edmund Burke (who opens Kirk’s book) to today’s columnists for The Wall Street Journal and talking heads on Fox News, he argued that when “those people” were simply put down, suppressed and marginalized — when people knew their place and were kept in it — society would function smoothly.
It was a fantasy then and its a fantasy now. And it’s brought us the dystopian reality of a ruined economy (except for the rich), racial hatred and now a full-blown fascist anti-democratic anti-republican movement grounded in a bizarre conspiracy cult led by Donald Trump. .............(more)
https://thomhartmann.medium.com/the-distressing-truth-why-white-people-are-embracing-fascism-c71b8712ffee
The distressing truth: Why white people are embracing fascism
The distressing truth: Why white people are embracing fascism
Thom Hartmann
White supremacy is real and white suppression of minorities, particularly Black people, absolutely permeates every aspect of our society, from business to culture to governance. Without setting aside that reality, it’s useful to examine why so many white people, with their built-in white privilege, would stand shoulder-to-shoulder with a wannabe dictator like Trump.
All over social media people are asking, “Why would anybody embrace fascism? Why would they be willing to overthrow a functioning democratic republic?”
....(snip)....
There was an actual rationale for this, laid out by Russell Kirk in his 1951 book The Conservative Mind. Kirk argued that without clearly defined classes and power structures, society would devolve into chaos. He essentially predicted in 1951 that if college students, women, working people, and people of color ever got even close to social and political power at the same level as wealthy white men, all hell would break loose.
....(snip)....
Kirk’s original vision was to produce a more secure and stable America. Like so many conservatives before him, from Edmund Burke (who opens Kirk’s book) to today’s columnists for The Wall Street Journal and talking heads on Fox News, he argued that when “those people” were simply put down, suppressed and marginalized — when people knew their place and were kept in it — society would function smoothly.
It was a fantasy then and its a fantasy now. And it’s brought us the dystopian reality of a ruined economy (except for the rich), racial hatred and now a full-blown fascist anti-democratic anti-republican movement grounded in a bizarre conspiracy cult led by Donald Trump. .............(more)
https://thomhartmann.medium.com/the-distressing-truth-why-white-people-are-embracing-fascism-c71b8712ffee
January 9, 2021
The nation is diversifying even faster than predicted, according to new census data
The U.S. Census Bureau has just released its last batch of race-ethnic population estimates in advance of the 2020 census, with data indicating that the national headcount will reveal a more diverse nation than was previously expected. The new estimates show that nearly four of 10 Americans identify with a race or ethnic group other than white, and suggest that the 2010 to 2020 decade will be the first in the nation’s history in which the white population declined in numbers.
Over the decade’s first nine years, racial and ethnic minorities accounted for all of the nation’s population growth, and were responsible for population gains in many states, metropolitan areas, and counties that would have otherwise registered losses due to declines in their white populations. And while the U.S. and more than half of its states have shown absolute declines in populations under age 25, such declines were largely due to white losses among the youth population. These declines would have been even greater were it not for youthful gains among racial and ethnic minorities, especially the Latino or Hispanic population.
...(snip)....
The declining white population share is pervasive across the nation. Since 2010, the white population share declined in all 50 states (though not Washington, D.C.) (download table A), and in 358 of the nation’s 364 metropolitan areas and 3,012 of its 3,141 counties. Moreover, as of 2019, 27 of the 100 largest metropolitan areas have minority-white populations, including the major metropolises of New York, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Miami—as well as Dallas, Atlanta, and Orlando, Fla., which reached this status by 2010 (download Table B).
Most noteworthy is the increased diversity in the younger portion of the population. In 2019, for the first time, more than half of the nation’s population under age 16 identified as a racial or ethnic minority. Among this group, Latino or Hispanic and Black residents together comprise nearly 40% of the population. Given the greater projected growth of all nonwhite racial minority groups compared to whites—along with their younger age structure—the racial diversity of the nation that was already forecasted to flow upward from the younger to older age groups looks to be accelerating. ...........(more)
https://www.brookings.edu/research/new-census-data-shows-the-nation-is-diversifying-even-faster-than-predicted/
In the end, their fear is not of socialism or whatever BS they spouted in DC on Wednesday, but this:
The nation is diversifying even faster than predicted, according to new census data
The U.S. Census Bureau has just released its last batch of race-ethnic population estimates in advance of the 2020 census, with data indicating that the national headcount will reveal a more diverse nation than was previously expected. The new estimates show that nearly four of 10 Americans identify with a race or ethnic group other than white, and suggest that the 2010 to 2020 decade will be the first in the nation’s history in which the white population declined in numbers.
Over the decade’s first nine years, racial and ethnic minorities accounted for all of the nation’s population growth, and were responsible for population gains in many states, metropolitan areas, and counties that would have otherwise registered losses due to declines in their white populations. And while the U.S. and more than half of its states have shown absolute declines in populations under age 25, such declines were largely due to white losses among the youth population. These declines would have been even greater were it not for youthful gains among racial and ethnic minorities, especially the Latino or Hispanic population.
...(snip)....
The declining white population share is pervasive across the nation. Since 2010, the white population share declined in all 50 states (though not Washington, D.C.) (download table A), and in 358 of the nation’s 364 metropolitan areas and 3,012 of its 3,141 counties. Moreover, as of 2019, 27 of the 100 largest metropolitan areas have minority-white populations, including the major metropolises of New York, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Miami—as well as Dallas, Atlanta, and Orlando, Fla., which reached this status by 2010 (download Table B).
Most noteworthy is the increased diversity in the younger portion of the population. In 2019, for the first time, more than half of the nation’s population under age 16 identified as a racial or ethnic minority. Among this group, Latino or Hispanic and Black residents together comprise nearly 40% of the population. Given the greater projected growth of all nonwhite racial minority groups compared to whites—along with their younger age structure—the racial diversity of the nation that was already forecasted to flow upward from the younger to older age groups looks to be accelerating. ...........(more)
https://www.brookings.edu/research/new-census-data-shows-the-nation-is-diversifying-even-faster-than-predicted/
January 9, 2021
It Is Never Too Late to Impeach a Despot
“Every single hour that Donald Trump remains in office, our country, our democracy, and our national security remain in danger.”
By John NicholsYESTERDAY 5:45 AM
(The Nation) Donald Trump should have been removed from office a year ago. But Republicans in Congress failed the country. Now, the question is whether they will fail again by making excuses about the lateness of the hour.
The Constitution leaves no doubt that it is never too late to impeach and remove a president who poses a threat to the republic. And, make no mistake, Trump poses a threat.
His incitement of the riotous takeover of the US Capitol on Wednesday is a classic example of what the founders understood as a high crime, and there is every reason to believe Trump will commit more high crimes if he is allowed to finish his term.
“The urgency of this moment is real and we have to be courageous and unified in defense of our Republic,” says Representative Ilhan Omar, who has taken up the push for impeachment. “The time to stand up to a tyrant is now and history will not be kind to those who sit on the sidelines.” ...........(more)
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/impeach-25th-trump-insurrection/
John Nichols: It Is Never Too Late to Impeach a Despot
It Is Never Too Late to Impeach a Despot
“Every single hour that Donald Trump remains in office, our country, our democracy, and our national security remain in danger.”
By John NicholsYESTERDAY 5:45 AM
(The Nation) Donald Trump should have been removed from office a year ago. But Republicans in Congress failed the country. Now, the question is whether they will fail again by making excuses about the lateness of the hour.
The Constitution leaves no doubt that it is never too late to impeach and remove a president who poses a threat to the republic. And, make no mistake, Trump poses a threat.
His incitement of the riotous takeover of the US Capitol on Wednesday is a classic example of what the founders understood as a high crime, and there is every reason to believe Trump will commit more high crimes if he is allowed to finish his term.
“The urgency of this moment is real and we have to be courageous and unified in defense of our Republic,” says Representative Ilhan Omar, who has taken up the push for impeachment. “The time to stand up to a tyrant is now and history will not be kind to those who sit on the sidelines.” ...........(more)
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/impeach-25th-trump-insurrection/
January 9, 2021
(WSJ) The political party President Trump commanded with a firm hand for four years is now torn over whether he has a place in its future.
The violent incursion into the Capitol that Mr. Trump helped instigate this week—which left five people dead, including a U.S. Capitol Police officer—has made some Republican leaders and strategists so worried about the party’s image they believe the only course is to split with Mr. Trump.
Sen. Ben Sasse (R., Neb.), who has criticized Mr. Trump’s behavior before, said he would consider articles of impeachment if approved by the House. Another Republican lawmaker, Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, on Thursday called for Mr. Trump to be removed from office through the 25th Amendment. “Here’s the truth: The president caused this. The president is unfit,’’ Mr. Kinzinger said in a video message. ......(more)
https://www.wsj.com/articles/gop-splits-over-post-trump-path-11610147555
GOP Splits Over Post-Trump Path
(WSJ) The political party President Trump commanded with a firm hand for four years is now torn over whether he has a place in its future.
The violent incursion into the Capitol that Mr. Trump helped instigate this week—which left five people dead, including a U.S. Capitol Police officer—has made some Republican leaders and strategists so worried about the party’s image they believe the only course is to split with Mr. Trump.
Sen. Ben Sasse (R., Neb.), who has criticized Mr. Trump’s behavior before, said he would consider articles of impeachment if approved by the House. Another Republican lawmaker, Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, on Thursday called for Mr. Trump to be removed from office through the 25th Amendment. “Here’s the truth: The president caused this. The president is unfit,’’ Mr. Kinzinger said in a video message. ......(more)
https://www.wsj.com/articles/gop-splits-over-post-trump-path-11610147555
January 9, 2021
A white man who deliberately sped his car through a crowd of racial injustice protesters in Iowa City, striking several, will avoid prison and have the incident erased from his record if he stays out of trouble for three years. ......(more)
https://www.chicagotribune.com/midwest/ct-iowa-man-drives-into-blm-protest-20210108-lt6ssq37qzc2ngnqa2eclgqpca-story.html
White man who drove into Iowa protesters avoids prison after guilty plea
A white man who deliberately sped his car through a crowd of racial injustice protesters in Iowa City, striking several, will avoid prison and have the incident erased from his record if he stays out of trouble for three years. ......(more)
https://www.chicagotribune.com/midwest/ct-iowa-man-drives-into-blm-protest-20210108-lt6ssq37qzc2ngnqa2eclgqpca-story.html
January 9, 2021
Trump's Maga insurrectionists were perverse US civil war re-enactors
Sidney Blumenthal
The warped history the Trump mob thought it was conjuring was actually just a costume drama of militant ignorance
Sat 9 Jan 2021 06.33 EST
(Guardian) “Big protest in DC on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” Donald Trump tweeted on December 19, a week after his would-be Brown Shirt followers rioted in the streets of Washington to protest the “stolen” election. When Der Tag – the climactic day of battle arrived – Trump assembled his true believers on the South Ellipse at the White House for a “Save America” rally, waving them up Pennsylvania Avenue as his army to nullify the congressional certification of electoral college votes in the presidential election.
Near the steps of the Capitol, as Trump’s shock troops prepared themselves for the assault on the citadel, they built a bare but dramatic monument to their revenge fantasy: wooden gallows with steps leading up to a swinging noose. Smashing their way through the windows and doors of the Capitol, they rampaged in a mad dash, breaking furniture, slashing paintings and looting offices. One of the invaders roamed through the corridors carrying a large Confederate flag, the first and only time that emblem of the Slave Power has ever appeared inside the Capitol.
Just two weeks earlier, on 21 December, at the request of the commonwealth of Virginia, the statue of Robert E Lee that the state had given as a gift to the Congress in 1909 to represent it in Statuary Hall was replaced with one of Barbara Rose Johns Powell, who as a teenager had integrated Virginia’s public schools. Trump’s rabble had first rioted in 2017 in defense of another statue of Lee, in Charlottesville, Virginia, after the city council had voted to remove it.
....(snip)....
In a valentine to the vandals of the Capitol, Trump proclaimed, “We love you,” and, “You’re special.” The rabble was a mélange of true believers in conspiracy theories, paranoid delusions and twisted history. For the QAnon followers, their presence at the Capitol was the moment when the storm of the rapture would bring about the revelation of Trump’s final plan and his restoration to perpetual power. It was the culmination of Trump’s promise for apocalyptic change. For neo-Nazis, carrying flags with abstract versions of broken swastikas, and tattooed latter-day Klansmen, it was a stand for racial supremacy. Charging the gates of the Capitol was storming the gates of heaven. Or, alternatively, it was a heroic last-ditch defense of Trump’s bunker from the onslaught of hordes of impure infidels led by Joe Biden. ...........(more)
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/09/trump-maga-us-american-civil-war
Trump's Maga insurrectionists were perverse US civil war re-enactors
Trump's Maga insurrectionists were perverse US civil war re-enactors
Sidney Blumenthal
The warped history the Trump mob thought it was conjuring was actually just a costume drama of militant ignorance
Sat 9 Jan 2021 06.33 EST
(Guardian) “Big protest in DC on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” Donald Trump tweeted on December 19, a week after his would-be Brown Shirt followers rioted in the streets of Washington to protest the “stolen” election. When Der Tag – the climactic day of battle arrived – Trump assembled his true believers on the South Ellipse at the White House for a “Save America” rally, waving them up Pennsylvania Avenue as his army to nullify the congressional certification of electoral college votes in the presidential election.
Near the steps of the Capitol, as Trump’s shock troops prepared themselves for the assault on the citadel, they built a bare but dramatic monument to their revenge fantasy: wooden gallows with steps leading up to a swinging noose. Smashing their way through the windows and doors of the Capitol, they rampaged in a mad dash, breaking furniture, slashing paintings and looting offices. One of the invaders roamed through the corridors carrying a large Confederate flag, the first and only time that emblem of the Slave Power has ever appeared inside the Capitol.
Just two weeks earlier, on 21 December, at the request of the commonwealth of Virginia, the statue of Robert E Lee that the state had given as a gift to the Congress in 1909 to represent it in Statuary Hall was replaced with one of Barbara Rose Johns Powell, who as a teenager had integrated Virginia’s public schools. Trump’s rabble had first rioted in 2017 in defense of another statue of Lee, in Charlottesville, Virginia, after the city council had voted to remove it.
....(snip)....
In a valentine to the vandals of the Capitol, Trump proclaimed, “We love you,” and, “You’re special.” The rabble was a mélange of true believers in conspiracy theories, paranoid delusions and twisted history. For the QAnon followers, their presence at the Capitol was the moment when the storm of the rapture would bring about the revelation of Trump’s final plan and his restoration to perpetual power. It was the culmination of Trump’s promise for apocalyptic change. For neo-Nazis, carrying flags with abstract versions of broken swastikas, and tattooed latter-day Klansmen, it was a stand for racial supremacy. Charging the gates of the Capitol was storming the gates of heaven. Or, alternatively, it was a heroic last-ditch defense of Trump’s bunker from the onslaught of hordes of impure infidels led by Joe Biden. ...........(more)
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/09/trump-maga-us-american-civil-war
Profile Information
Gender: MaleHometown: Detroit, MI
Member since: Fri Oct 29, 2004, 12:18 AM
Number of posts: 77,066
