Group items tagged

Right after the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, dozens of U.S. companies announced they would halt political donations to the 147 Republican lawmakers who voted to overturn Donald Trump’s presidential election loss. Two months later, there is little sign that the corporate revolt has done any real damage to Republican fundraising.

If anything, the biggest backers of Trump’s false election-fraud narrative - such as Missouri Senator Josh Hawley and Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene - have been rewarded with a flood of grassroots donations, more than offsetting the loss of corporate money. And contributions from both small donors and rich individuals looking to fight the Democratic agenda have poured into the party’s fundraising apparatus.

Interviews with Republican operatives, big-money donors and fundraisers revealed little apprehension that corporate outrage over the Jan. 6 Capitol riots would damage the party’s fundraising for the 2022 congressional elections.Dan Eberhart, a major Republican fundraiser, said he had predicted for years that Trump’s support would collapse. He believed the Capitol insurrection would be the tipping point.“The data is the opposite,” Eberhart said. “You are seeing a hardening of support for Trump … I think there will be no shortage of money.”

One of the veterans charged in the Capitol insurrection worked in the Marine Corps unit responsible for transporting the president and operating his helicopter, Marine One, according to Pentagon records.

Military records obtained by CNN show that John Andries served in the Marine Corps from 2004 to 2009 and was assigned to the Marine Helicopter Squadron One, the unit responsible for transporting the president

It is not immediately clear to CNN whether he ever had any direct contact with former President George W. Bush or former President Barack Obama while serving in the helicopter unit, which requires higher security scrutiny for members.

their last-ditch effort may only temporarily stall the effort and underscores how the deadlock in Washington is making it easier for Republicans to act on Donald Trump's election fraud lies to stack the deck in future votes.

The Lone Star State drama came after the GOP-led Senate in Washington blocked an independent commission into the January 6 insurrection and attack on American democracy last week and after House Republican leaders failed to meaningfully punish Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene for comparing mask wearing to the Holocaust.

The Texas imbroglio may be the first sign of a more aggressive counterattack against Republican restrictive voting bills that are proliferating from Texas to Florida and Arizona to Georgia as well as many other states.

Online conversation among Trump supporters and QAnon followers on new and emerging social media platforms is creating concern on Capitol Hill that President Donald Trump's continued perpetuation of the falsehood that the 2020 election was stolen could soon incite further violence, three congressional sources tell CNN.

"It's a great day when we start seeing evidence of the plan coming together! He just told us it won't be long now," wrote another.

Trump's comments to right-wing media outlets in recent weeks have played directly into the false belief among some of his supporters that he will be reinstated as president in the coming months.

Former Vice President Mike Pence said Thursday night that he doubts that he and former President Donald Trump will ever see "eye to eye" over the Jan. 6 insurrection led by a mob of pro-Trump supporters at the U.S. Capitol.

In a speech to a Republican group in New Hampshire, Pence called Jan. 6 "a dark day in the history of the United States Capitol,

Pence was at the Capitol that day to oversee the counting of electoral votes, a normally ceremonial task that was interrupted by the Trump supporters, some of whom shouted "Hang Mike Pence," and forced lawmakers and the vice president to evacuate.

The mother of fallen US Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick says she was disappointed that Senate Republicans blocked a bill Friday to create a bipartisan commission to investigate the January 6 insurrection after what she described as "tense" meetings with many GOP senators on Thursday.

Gladys Sicknick and her son's girlfriend Sandra Garza said they were clinging to hope that they could change the minds of senators opposed to the independent commission, but were still not surprised at the ultimate outcome.

Sicknick, Garza, Capitol Hill Police Officer Harry Dunn and DC Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone met with more than a dozen Republican senators Thursday ahead of the Senate's vote Friday on creating a commission to investigate the January 6 insurrection. They had requested meetings with all 50 GOP senators.

The Justice Department on Tuesday asked to drop the Capitol riot case against defendant Christopher Kelly of New York, in one of the first moves to resolve one of the hundreds of federal cases related to the insurrection.

In January, Kelly was accused of entering the Capitol and obstructing Congress, after a confidential source told the FBI he was posting on Facebook about the riot.

"The government and defense counsel have discussed the merits of the case, and upon reflection of the facts currently known to the government, the government believes that dismissal without prejudice at this time serves the interests of justice," prosecutors wrote in a filing on Tuesday.

A Trump supporter accused of storming the US Capitol and heckling police officers for "protecting pedophiles" previously served jail time after being convicted in the statutory rape of a 14-year-old girl, according to court records reviewed by CNN and lawyers involved in the cases.

Federal prosecutors say Sean McHugh of Auburn, California, fought with police as they fended off the massive mob of Trump supporters outside the Capitol on January 6. During the scuffle, McHugh was recorded by police body-worn cameras heckling the officers with a megaphone

McHugh was convicted in 2010 on a state charge of unlawful sex with a minor, according to California court records reviewed by CNN and lawyers involved in McHugh's cases. McHugh was sentenced to 240 days in jail -- though he served less -- and got four years of probation.

In an interview on conservative talk radio, Sen. Ron Johnson, one of former President Donald Trump’s strongest supporters, said he didn’t feel threatened by rioters violently storming the Capitol. Instead, he said, he might have been scared if the participants were Black Lives Matter or Antifa supporters — a comment with strong racial overtones.

I knew those were people that love this country, that truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break the law, and so I wasn't concerned,”

"Now, had the tables been turned — Joe, this could get me in trouble — had the tables been turned, and President Trump won the election and those were tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and Antifa protesters, I might have been a little concerned," Johnson said.

Two hours after the Capitol was breached, as supporters of Donald Trump pummelled police and vandalised the building, Vice-President Mike Pence tried to assert control. In an urgent phone call to the acting defense secretary, he issued a startling demand.“Clear the Capitol,” Pence said.The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, and House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, were making a similarly desperate appeal, asking the army to deploy the national guard.“We need help,” Schumer said, more than an hour after the Senate chamber had been breached.At the Pentagon, officials were discussing reports that state capitals were facing violence in what had the makings of a national insurrection.“We must establish order,” said Gen Mark Milley, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, in a call with Pentagon leaders. But order would not be restored for hours.

The Pentagon document was obtained by the Associated Press. It adds another layer of understanding about the fear and panic while the insurrection played out, lays bare the inaction by Trump, and shows how his refusal to call off his supporters contributed to a slowed response by the military and law enforcement.

With Trump not engaged, it fell to Pentagon officials, a handful of senior White House aides, the leaders of Congress and Pence, holed up in a secure bunker, to attempt to manage the chaos.

Selective pressures have consistently sculpted human minds to be “tribal,” and group loyalty and concomitant cognitive biases likely exist in all groups

The human mind, Clark and her colleagues wrote,was forged by the crucible of coalitional conflict. For many thousands of years, human tribes have competed against each other. Coalitions that were more cooperative and cohesive not only survived but also appropriated land and resources from other coalitions and therefore reproduced more prolifically, thus passing their genes (and their loyalty traits) to later generations. Because coalitional coordination and commitment were crucial to group success, tribes punished and ostracized defectors and rewarded loyal members with status and resources (as they continue to do today).

We conclude that tribal bias is a natural and nearly ineradicable feature of human cognition, and that no group — not even one’s own — is immune.

Parler, the messaging app favored by far-right activists, has filed a lawsuit against Amazon Web Services alleging anti-trust and breach of contract. The company is seeking a temporary restraining order to prevent Amazon from removing Parler from its servers.

Amazon had told Parler it would suspend its account at 11:59 p.m. PT Sunday. The website has been offline since that deadline passed.

"Over the past several weeks, we've reported 98 examples to Parler of posts that clearly encourage and incite violence,"

Sixty-one: That's the number of arrests Washington, DC, police made the day rioters laid siege to the Capitol in protest of President-elect Joe Biden's electoral victory.

More have been arrested since, and several jurisdictions are now involved in hunting down the supporters of President Donald Trump who invaded and ransacked the Capitol during a joint session of Congress to affirm Biden's win.

Yet during an episode described as insurrection and an attempted coup, police made only 61 "unrest-related" arrests that day -- and only about half of those were on Capitol grounds,

“Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass,” said Mr. Brooks, Republican of Alabama. “Are you willing to do what it takes to fight for America? Louder! Will you fight for America?”

Hours later, urged on by President Trump at the same rally, rioters stormed the Capitol, where Congress was meeting to formalize Mr. Biden’s election, chanting “Hang Mike Pence,” threatening to shoot Speaker Nancy Pelosi and forcing lawmakers to evacuate the building in a scene of violence and mayhem.

But a handful of Mr. Trump’s most loyal allies in the House had gone even further in the days and weeks before the riot, urging their supporters to come to Washington on Jan. 6 to make a defiant last stand to keep him in power.

Vice President Pence says he won't invoke the 25th Amendment against President Trump, days after violent pro-Trump extremists breached the U.S. Capitol.

"I do not believe that such a course of action is in the best interest of our Nation or consistent with our Constitution," Pence writes. He says the amendment is "not a means of punishment or usurpation," and that invoking it would "set a terrible precedent."

Still, the resolution is likely to pass the Democratic-controlled House. Trump "widely advertised and broadly encouraged" the protests that led to last week's violence, the resolution argues, and then ignored calls to condemn his supporters' actions swiftly. It also cites his repeated efforts to delegitimize the presidential election results with false claims of widespread voter fraud.

The vote came exactly one week after the Capitol was breached by an angry mob of Trump loyalists.

In 2019, not a single Republican voted in favor of impeachment. House Republican leaders said they would not formally lobby members of the party against voting to impeach the president this time. Here are the Republicans who voted to impeach on Wednesday.

Not holding the president accountable for his actions would be “a direct threat to the future of our democracy,” he said.

For anyone who has covered political turmoil across the wreckage of the former Soviet Union over the past three decades, the mob that stormed the Capitol in Washington on Wednesday looked shockingly familiar, down to the dress code and embrace of banners trumpeting seemingly lost causes.

In fervor and style, the mob resembled the ragtag bands that seized control of the Parliament building in Moscow in 1993, clamoring for the revival of the Soviet Union.

Ersatz military gear — camouflage jackets, old boots, black wool hats and bandannas — were much in evidence back then, as were the flags of long-dead and, we all assumed, safely buried causes.

Only 13 months after the House first impeached President Donald Trump, lawmakers were back on Wednesday voting to impeach Trump an unprecedented second time for a US president. During the debate on the resolution, which charges that Trump incited a violent insurrection against the government on January 6, some of Trump's allies were still using many of the same arguments they did a year ago to criticize Democrats and defend Trump's actions.

Rep. Tom McClintock said that Trump's remarks at the Washington, DC, rally that preceded the Capitol insurrection were overly confrontational and sometimes inaccurate

"But what did he actually say? His exact words were: 'I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.' That's impeachable? That's called freedom of speech," McClintock said.

Donald J. Trump on Wednesday became the first American president to be impeached twice, as 10 members of his party joined with Democrats in the House to charge him with “incitement of insurrection” for his role in egging on a violent mob that stormed the Capitol last week.

It accused Mr. Trump of “inciting violence against the government of the United States” in his quest to overturn the election results, and called for him to be removed and disqualified from ever holding public office again.

The top House Republican, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, conceded in a pained speech on the floor that Mr. Trump had been to blame for the deadly assault at the Capitol. It had forced the vice president and lawmakers who had gathered there to formalize Mr. Biden’s victory to flee for their lives.

To many, the costumes at the "Stop the Steal" riot seem ridiculous. "We spend $750 billion annually on 'defense' and the center of American government fell in two hours to the duck dynasty and the guy in the Chewbacca bikini,"

But when we actually read the T-shirt slogans and interpret the symbols — especially given the history of groups like the Ku Klux Klan — what the Capitol insurrectionists wore becomes more consequential and a lot more menacing.

When the Ku Klux Klan started in the mid-1860s, Klansmen did not wear the white hoods and robes we imagine them in now. They had no uniform. As historian Elaine Frantz explains in her essay "Midnight Rangers: Costume and Performance in the Reconstruction-Era Ku Klux Klan," the early Klansmen wore something far more similar to the hodgepodge we saw on display at the Capitol last week: animal horns, fur, fake beards, homemade costumes that drew on traditions of carnival or Mardi Gras, masks, pointy hats, polka dots.