Putin hates to see democracy succeed as intended. He likes for Western democracies to fail and be rife with disasters, chaos, corruption and scenes like we had on Wednesday. Why? So can hold up the United States as an example to unhappy Russian citizens and proclaim, "See, what we have here is better than what the US has... Democracy doesn't work." And here we have an example of the President being punished for doing wrong. That is the exact example Putin doesn't want Russian citizens to see, because it might give them ideas. It might send them out into the streets to say, "We want a mechanism like the US has to hold Putin responsible for creating a hell on earth."

Remember, Putin just signed into law a decree that he is immune from any and all prosecution for any and all crimes for the rest of his life.

Impeachment is the opposite of that (at least symbolically).

are so often predicated by this kind of thinking: If I can't have her, nobody can have her.

And it makes people like this so dangerous, to the extreme of treating an entire nation this way, as when Hitler signed the so called Nero Decree ordering subordinates to destroy Germany as the allies closed in, and commenting that Germans didn't deserve to survive the war because they had let Hitler down (by this time Hitler had decided he would commit suicide if the Red Army advanced on Berlin, so it represented a death wish for all of Germany).

"Trial by combat". I don't care too much about Rudy's explanation. It seemed to mean: "We lost every case we brought in the courts of law, so let's use our fists and weapons to get what we want."

Honest to God, that entire day, starting from the speeches to the attack on the Capitol, reminds me of footage I've seen of the "protests" in the lead up to the Yugoslav wars of the 90s, with Slobodan Milošević working Serbians into a blind fury over totally fabricated stories of Kosovo Albanians committing atrocities against Serbs. It really has that same flavor.

I was just reading about the "three plans" being considered by his goons and trying to absorb this. Everybody should check out those stories.

This has to stop. These plots have to be prevented, and the seditionists prosecuted to the maximum allowed by the law and driven back into the fringes.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/democrats-briefed-plot-overthrow-government_n_5ffd29a4c5b691806c4bf199

If we don't beat this back totally and immediately, we are not using good sense and defending ourselves and our country against a lethal domestic enemy.

Also, purge all the politicians who participated in this. We must find a way to do it. If we don't/can't do it now, we will never do it.

One thing I didn't mention in my post, but should have, is that I still have questions about how the F.B.I. finally "found" and arrested Ghislaine Maxwell a week or so after a tabloid wrote an article revealing where she was hiding out.

The F.B.I. claims it found her by surveilling her phone activity, but if that's true, they let her run around for over a year.

It's another instance of the F.B.I. abruptly acting after another entity made something public.

I actually like Chris Wray and have a lot of faith in the F.B.I., but some recent developments have given me pause.

Thanks again for your input.

this. I mean, I hope they didn't learn about this from the Friday Twitter press release, which seemed to be the first that most news organizations learned about this.

Those of us who read a lot of journalism and watch the #OSINT on Twitter seem to know when these things are coming. I usually hate those posts that say, "Who is surprised by this?" but honestly, this is a bit ridiculous since the domestic terrorists have been explicit and crystal clear in their intentions with respect to threats, locations and dates.

I bet the Southern Poverty Law Center could have told them all of this.

Sorry, this is just the way I strongly feel right now. No disrespect to the FBI (I'm an avid fan, especially of the BSU)

He scored successes, with some help, in Hungary, the UK (Brexit/UKIP) and has supported the dismantling of democracies in Poland, Italy (attempted), Spain (attempt underway) and, Anne Applebaum claims, in Brazil. All the NATO hate is a Russian export, too, as well as the distrust of the EU. He also assists the Christian Nationalists with their agenda to reject Western democracy and replace it with a "Christian State."

The internet is much cheaper than nuclear weapons.

Sources: The Road to Unfreedom by Timothy Snyder
Twilight of Democracy by Anne Applebaum
Unholy by Sarah Posner

...like my scumbag of a congressman.

Reps. Paul Gosar, Andy Biggs credited in video with organizing Trump crowd in DC on day of riot

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona/2021/01/10/paul-gosar-andy-biggs-credited-video-organizing-trump-crowd-dc/6603721002/

Seize the phones of all arrested protesters and see who sent them directions, sketches or schematics of the offices. How the f*ck did they know how to find Clyburn's office, and some of the other hard-to-find offices?

has a conflict of interest over cases involving overthrowing our government?

Unbelievable times, my dearest DU friends.

was seeded at the highest levels of state and federal government.

We need a 9/11 Commission style deep dive into this travesty.

If we don't punish this to the extreme, we are suicidally stupid.