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January 2021

Remember when lefties stormed into and occupied a Senate office building in 2018 and the Wisconsin State Capitol in 2011? By Thomas Lifson

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/01/remember_when_lefties_stormed_into_and_occupied_a_senate_office_building_in_2018_and_the_wisconsin_state_capitol_in_2011.html

Mobs breaking into and occupying government buildings are always bad, but when leftists are responsible, a memory hole soon opens and engulfs the media’s recollections.  True conservatives support law and order and peaceful protest for redress of grievances, a sacred constitutional right.  Rights bring with them responsibilities, and strict adherence to the law is a fundamental obligation of those who speak out in disapproval.

The U.S. Capitol is a sacred temple of our democratic republic and ought to be viewed as such, not a target for violence.  Period.  But a little historical perspective is in order in understanding how mob violence directed at official buildings is no monopoly of conservatives or Trump-supporters.

Just over two years ago, the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill was occupied by protestors seeking to block the confirmation of Justice Kavanaugh.  See this video from MSNBC:

JUST IN: Anti-Kavanaugh protesters take over the Hart Senate Office Bldg. atrium on Capitol Hill. https://t.co/jCIbxhTKeu pic.twitter.com/DkOgzngMh4

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) October 4, 2018

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While a Senate office building is not the same as the Capitol itself, the occupants — senators and staffers — were just as intimidated as those who were caught in the Capitol yesterday.

And when it comes to a capitol building itself, the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison was taken over and occupied by protesters battling against right-to-work legislation opposed by government employee unions.

Photo credit: Joe Rowley, CC BY-SA 3.0 license.

The Wisconsin rioters did substantial damage to the state capitol, primarily with graffiti to the white marble.

At the time, I was outraged (as I am outraged by the violation of the U.S. Capitol yesterday), but the mainstream media did not use it as a cudgel to attack unions or leftists.

Kamala Harris Called Riots ‘a Movement’ Last Summer, Said ‘They Should Not’ Stop By Matt Margolis

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2021/01/07/kamala-harris-called-riots-a-movement-last-summer-said-they-should-not-stop-n1310640

Violence is never the answer to resolving conflict, but it’s hard not to see the hypocrisy of the left when they act surprised or condemn what happened at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday.

In June 2020, in the aftermath of the nationwide rioting following the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer, Kamala Harris even gleefully predicted that the rioting wouldn’t end, telling Stephen Colbert, host of “The Late Show,” that they shouldn’t end.

“They’re not going to stop. They’re not going to stop,” she told him. “This is a movement, I’m telling you. They’re not gonna stop. And everyone beware because they’re not gonna stop. They’re not gonna stop before Election Day and they’re not going to stop after Election Day. And everyone should take note of that. They’re not gonna let up and they should not.”

Mitch McConnell lied on the floor of the Senate Wednesday Patricia McCarthy

http://americanthinker.com/blog

The soon-to-be minority leader of the Senate today lied to the American people when he said there was not sufficient evidence of fraud to overturn the election results or the certification votes of the Electoral College.  There are mountains of evidence, especially from the six contested states.  McConnell betrayed the president, his supporters, and his own constituents who only just re-elected him in November.  His recent re-election is probably why he felt comfortable breaking faith with the 74 million Trump-supporters.

He will never be re-elected again.  The same goes for each and every Republican in Congress who is afraid to stand up for what is right and true.  Those are the ones who go to Washington to get rich, not to represent their districts.  God forbid they ruffle the feathers of the media, the propaganda arms of the left.  God forbid they not be invited to the D.C. cocktail parties for swells.  They like being a member of the self-appointed elite.  Once there, they lose all allegiance to “the people.”  The same is now revealed, is true of Mike Pence, the V.P. we all thought was on the side of right.  We were wrong.

Trump was and is different.  He was and is the real deal, a man of and for the people.  Nothing enrages the D.C. elite more than a true believer.  He did things differently, better.  He showed them up.  He made the sick economy explode for everyone.  He secured the border despite the constant pushback from the left.  He engineered four peace deals in the Middle East.  He did rebuild the military and transform medical care for our veterans.  And he has the passionate support of the kind of people the left loathes.

Pelosi Threatens to Do Something Drastic if Pence Does Not Remove Trump Under 25th Amendment By Tyler O’Neil

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/tyler-o-neil/2021/01/07/pelosi-threatens-to-do-something-drastic-if-pence-does-not-remove-trump-under-25th-amendment-n1322449?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=onsite&utm_campaign=582

On Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) threatened to launch into immediate impeachment if Vice President Mike Pence and Trump’s cabinet do not immediately invoke the 25th Amendment to remove the president.

“Yesterday, the president of the United States incited an armed insurrection against America,” Pelosi began, mentioning the pro-Trump mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, leading to the death of four people. “The gleeful desecration of the U.S. Capitol, which is the temple of American democracy, and the violence targeting Congress, are horrors that will forever stain our nation’s history, instigated by the president of the United States. That’s why it’s such a sting.”

“In calling for this seditious act, the president has committed an unspeakable assault on our nation and our people. I join the Senate Democratic leader [Chuck Schumer] in calling on the vice president to remove this president by immediately invoking the 25th Amendment,” Pelosi declared. “If the vice president and cabinet do not act, the Congress may be prepared to move forward with impeachment. That is the overwhelming sentiment of my caucus, and the American people, by the way.”

“Justice will be done to those who carried out these acts, which were acts of sedition and acts of cowardice,” she added.

Rashida Tlaib’s New Capitol Hill Office Neighbor to Fly Israeli Flag By Catherine Smith

https://amgreatness.com/2021/01/07/rashida-tlaibs-new-capitol-hill-office-neighbor-to-fly-israeli-flag/

Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s (D., Mich.) new office neighbor plans to fly an Israeli flag as a statement against Tlaib’s anti-Israel stance, The Washington Free Beacon reports.

The newly sworn-in Republican Congresswoman Rep. Kat Cammack from Florida vowed on Tuesday to place an Israeli flag outside her Capitol Hill office, which is right next door to that of Rashida Tlaib, a renowned critic of Israel with a history of anti-Semitic comments.

“[Tlaib] has some very strong opinions about Israel, and I have some very strong opinions about Israel, so I have made a pledge that I’m going to be planting the flag of Israel outside my door right next to the American flag,” Cammack told a Gainesville, Fla., ABC affiliate. “I think it’ll be very helpful as she walks past it every day.”

Carmack will be using an Israeli flag sent to her by Gators for Israel, an AIPAC-trained campus group at the University of Florida.

“Cammack became the representative for Florida’s Third Congressional District following the retirement of her former boss, Rep. Ted Yoho (R., Fla.), for whom she served for six years as deputy chief of staff. Cammack’s support for Israel and Israeli sovereignty was a major plank of her campaign platform,” according to Free Beacon.

Welcome to a Wilderness of Lies Kurt Schlichter

https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2021/01/07/welcome-to-a-wilderness-of-lies-n2582595?

Well, this is going to be cheery. Have you noticed that everything is a lie and a scam? Everything.

See, the problem starts when our elite realized that it could break the norms and betray the principles that we all thought we were all abiding by without accountability, at least for a little while. The Establishment realized that it can simply not enforce the norms, and then there will be a lag time while the normals continue on as if the norms were still in effect. It’s inertia – this is why you get these sad sack RINOs lecturing us on how we’re subverting the institutions when what we are really doing is pointing out that the institutions have subverted themselves.

It’s willful blindness to the corruption because the weakhearts don’t want to admit there is corruption because that would then require them to act. It’s easier to live on scraps.

As you read this, I expect that we will be hearing how the GOP blew Georgia. Either we lost Tuesday night – no delay in calling it for the commies! – or we’ll enter the endless recounts leading up to the inevitable Dem victory. I hope I’m wrong, but I doubt it. If I am, feel free to mock me for my lack of faith in the system. But then, sometimes you draw a five when you have 16 in blackjack. You just don’t bet on that happening.

I guess this is all necessary. The structures and institutions of American society have all been in place with little real change for nearing a century. Nothing lasts forever though, particularly when they are run by grifty idiots. The disruption caused by the tech revolution has helped speed up inevitable processes of change – you know, the creative destruction we hear about in unwoke economics courses. The institutions we relied on – our churches, the NFL, the political parties – are now focused entirely upon preventing that inevitable change. The lackluster losers who inherited their sinecures in these institutions (not literally but by being adopted into the establishment by going to the right schools) want to maintain a status quo that is great for them and poison for the rest of us.

American democracy died on Capitol Hill By destroying public trust in the Congress and the media, the US establishment set the country on a dangerous course David Goldman

https://asiatimes.com/author/spengler/

No Russian cyberspooks, no Chinese spies, no jihadi terrorists – no external enemies of any kind could have brought as much harm to the United States as its own self-inflicted wounds. I spent last evening taking calls from friends around the world, including a senior diplomat of an American ally who asked me what I thought of the first evacuation of Capitol Hill since the British invaded in 1812. “I’m horrified,” I said. “So is the entire free world,” the diplomat replied.

There are belly-laughs in Beijing this morning. The Chinese government daily Global Times taunted:

The riots taking place in Washington DC, the storming of the US Capitol by hundreds of President Donald Trump’s supporters which ended with four dead, 52 arrested and 14 police officers injured on Thursday shocked the world, and Chinese experts said this unprecedented incident will mark the fall of “the beacon of democracy,” and the beautiful rhetoric of “City upon a Hill” will perish.

The world is watching as US allies feel disappointed when they saw the country that they used to admire descend into a huge mess. Chinese observers said this is a “Waterloo to US international image,” and the US has totally lost legitimacy and qualification to interfere in other countries’ domestic affairs with the excuse of “democracy” in the future.    

It’s actually worse than the Global Times editors think.

If it were only a matter of Trump’s misbehavior, this disaster would be survivable. The trouble is that the popular belief in a vast and nefarious conspiracy has a foundation in fact: Starting before Trump’s term in office his political opponents abused the surveillance powers of the intelligence community to concoct a black legend of Russian collusion on the part of his campaign. The mainstream media, staffed overwhelmingly by Trump’s enemies, slavishly repeated this black legend until large parts of the population refused to believe anything it read in the newspapers or saw on television.

The leadership of the Democratic Party, its allied media, and the Bush-Romney wing of the Republican Party decided to play dirty to expunge an obstreperous, incalculable outsider from the political system. And in doing so, this combination, America’s establishment, destroyed public trust in the Congress and the media. It’s no surprise that two out of five Americans now believe that a vast conspiracy rigged the 2020 presidential elections. 

The Consequences Of The Capitol Assault By Ben Domenech

https://thefederalist.com/2021/01/07/the-consequences-of-the-capitol-assault/

A little over a decade ago, I was tear-gassed for the first time. It was the first day of September in the Twin Cities, and the anti-globalist, anti-war protesters were milling about with giant papier-mache heads of the people they hated. Mark Hemingway was there. My future wife and mother of my child was inside. It was painful. Afterward, I left and set up my laptop at a nearby rooftop bar and had the best Guinness I’ve ever ordered in my life. The reports about the protesters were overwhelmingly sympathetic. These were justified because of the wars. The New York Times said so.

A few years later, I covered Occupy Wall Street, and the tone was similar. These people taking over public parks, shitting all over the place, yelling at each other in circles, and setting up occasional rape tents were to be accepted, because Wall Street exists and is a thing. The sympathy for them was even greater than for the war people because of a lot of guilt about how media is funded. Zephyr Teachout wrote a thing.

Around the same time, there was another form of protest, something very different, which emerged. It was called the Tea Party. It was, unlike the anti-war, anti-globalist, anti-Wall Street folks, a fundamentally dangerous and racist entity, bent on destruction and violence, that threatened the very foundations of representative government and only existed because people couldn’t accept a black president. They were basically the Klan. Alan Grayson said it.

It was odd. In all my years of covering the Tea Party, I never saw them be rude to a cop, even by accident. They were upper-middle-class people who drove up in SUVs. They had no designs on destruction or occupation. Their taxes paid for that park, so they would clean up after themselves. They took pride in it — that they weren’t like the dirty, filthy leftists who left graffiti and literal shit on the ground.

Opinion: Jeremiah Wright and J Street take Georgia By David Isaac

https://worldisraelnews.com/opinion-jeremiah-wright-and-j-street-take-georgia/

It means a rough road ahead for U.S.-Israel relations as the Democratic party has veered increasingly into anti-Israel territory.

It couldn’t be worse news for Israel supporters. Georgia has not only elected its Jeremiah Wright, but also the Jewish candidate who gave him moral cover.

The two Republican incumbents, Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Sen. David Perdue, went down to defeat against Democrat challengers Rev. Raphael Warnock, 51, senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, and Jon Ossoff, 33, a documentary filmmaker.

Democratic control of the executive and legislative branches means a rough road ahead for U.S.-Israel relations as the Democratic party has veered increasingly into anti-Israel territory – a space in which Georgia’s new senators will feel right at home.

None more so than Warnock. As he ran for Senate, a raft of his anti-Israel statements came to light over the years, from his 2008 defense of Rev. Jeremiah Wright to the 2018 accusation he made from the pulpit that Israeli soldiers were “shoot[ing] down unarmed Palestinian sisters and brothers like birds of prey.”

Only last year, Warnock signed a statement comparing Israeli control of Judea and Samara to apartheid South Africa.

NATIONAL REVIEW: JANUARY 7, 2021

Mitch McConnell’s Finest Hour

By The Editors

The Senate majority leader’s statesmanlike actions were worthy of his long and distinguished career.

Who Says A Must Say B

By Richard Brookhiser

He should be impeached and removed from office.

End This Republican Nightmare

By Kyle Smith

The Constitution is clear about the remedy for a president who has become politically untenable: impeachment and removal.

James Lankford’s Abdication of Responsibility

By Mark Antonio Wright

James Lankford had a duty to tell the truth, the whole truth, to Oklahomans, not pander to them.

Ted Cruz Fails the Moment

By Isaac Schorr

This hour was made to be Cruz’s finest, but instead it was his most dishonorable.

Elaine Chao Resigns as Transportation Secretary over Trump’s Handling of Capitol Riots

By Mairead McArdle

Several other high-ranking officials have tendered their resignations in the 24 hours since chaos descended on Washington.

Remove, Impeach, Convict

By Michael R. Strain

This is another all-hands-on-deck moment.

Schumer Says Trump ‘Should Not Hold Office One Day Longer,’ Calls for 25th Amendment or Impeachment

By Tobias Hoonhout

He added that the Capitol breach on Wednesday, “was an insurrection against the United States, incited by the president.”