<< “The danger here is the President is saying people are angry out there; people think fraud has been committed. Why? It’s because the President of the United States is putting out a fraudulent statement; a false statement to make people angry and then he can cite the anger as a reason why the vote should be challenged. The same thing applies here as far as the danger that the President might encourage people to commit violence in our streets and then use the violence as a reason to invoke the Insurrection Act. So this is something we have to be very careful about, watching what he does, what he is capable of. And we have seen there is no level too low to which he will stoop in order to stay in power. So he’s been to the people, the people have rejected him; he’s been to the courts, the courts have rejected him; he’s been to the governors, they’ve rejected him and now he’s going to Congress! And I think it’s a very dangerous period of time for us because we know in our transition phase – our transition of power, it’s very dangerous when other countries take advantage of it.”
— William Cohen, former senator and
former Secretary of Defense
Interview on PBS Newshour 2021 Jan 5,
At 34:02 of interview >>
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Right now, it’s noon on Jan 6, and pro-Trump protesters have gathered on the steps of the Capitol and have stormed the Capitol attempting to break in to the chambers. The formal proceedings to count the electoral votes have been disrupted and the newsmedia are covering this protest.
Trump released a video asking the crowds to go home, but he still insisted that the election was stolen. Chris Christy condemned the false statements.
The CBS news crew were cornered by the Trumptians and the crews left under threat, the crowd threw the news equipment in a pile. CBS said the Trumptians were primarily white males.
The newsmedia and legislators are saying this is a shameful day for the United States.
President elect Joe Biden went live on all media and called on Trump to do what’s right and tell the insurgents to go home.
It is now 3 PM PST, 6 PM in DC. Hours ago the mayor of DC declared a curfew starting at 6 PM, anyone still found on the streets would be arrested. Most of the Trumptians have dispersed. The police have cleared the inside. At 14 minutes after 6 PM CBS said that the woman who was shot early in the “siege” has died. I believe that if a death like this occurs, the participants could be indicted for murder, just because they were a part of the siege. It doesn’t matter if they didn’t have a direct involvement in the death.
43 minutes after the hour CBS said most of the insurgents have left the scene. The army will call up 1100 national guardsmen to help with law enforcement and curfew. The House plans on meeting later this evening to complete the counting of the electoral votes. They said it is not a certification because that has already been done; the counting is a formality that make the count official.
The count was completed at 4 AM early the next morning and Biden and Harris were officially president & vice president elects.
A comment I’ve added to
<< It astounds me that people can believe the election was rigged when they are only disputing the results for one part of the election. They had no problem with the Congressional part of the ticket, only the President part when it didn’t go their way. If it really was rigged, wouldn’t the Democrats have picked up more seats in Congress without having to trigger runoffs in Georgia, instead of losing some seats in the House, reducing their majority? But then, why am I trying to convince someone who believes Trump’s false narrative unquestioningly. >>
Elizabeth Strother’s comment
<<
Some of the laws that were broken and that are applicable to today’s insurrection:
1) 18 USC 2383: Rebellion or Insurrection
2) 18 USC 2384: Seditious Conspiracy
3) 18 USC 2385: Advocating overthrow of Government
4) 18 USC § 1752 – Restricted building or grounds (this might be only for President/VP residence, but not sure)
5) 18 USC § 231 – Civil disorders
6) 18 USC § 241 – Conspiracy against rights (member of Congress have rights to do their jobs?)
7) 18 USC § 351 – assault on a member of Congress (if that happened)
8) 18 USC S 371-373 – Conspiracy
9) 18 U.S. Code § 842 – Explosives (the RNC and DNC pipe bombs)
10) 18 U.S. Code 930 – firearms in federal facilities
11) 18 USC 1361 – damage to gov’t property
12) 18 USC 2101 – riots
13) 18 USC 2112, 2114 – robbery/burglary of federal property
Allan Rozenshtein, former DOJ lawyer.
Elizabeth Strother
All federal laws meaning federal prison. That’s a good thing. No parole.
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There have been at least 8 resignations including Elaine Chao, wife of McConnell. There have been condemnations of Trump from members of both parties. Trump asked for the “protest” at the Capitol that turned into the mob storming of the Capitol. Many legislators have called this an insurrection.