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In both cases, the U.S. intervened with the initial prospect, perhaps naïvely, of restoring stability after a flashpoint—the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, in 1982, or the rise of ISIS, in Syria and Iraq, in 2014—and of then building on it in broader efforts toward peace. When the going got tough, however, the U.S. retreated from both countries. And chaos erupted.

During the past week, Trump has scornfully dismissed the Middle East—a region with “a lot of sand”—for its endless wars. “They’ve been fighting for a thousand years. Let them fight their own wars,” he said in a joint press conference with the Italian President last week. “That’s the way it is.”

The twin retreats have also included feelings of betrayal—both the betrayal by the Commander-in-Chief of his own military on the ground and the betrayal by those forces of the people they had been deployed to help.

In both cases, the winners were the same—Russia, Iran, Syria, and extremist movements, Geraghty said.

Both U.S. withdrawals also enhanced prospects for jihadism generally. After the U.S. pullout in Lebanon, Hezbollah gained ever wider ground, launching attacks from Israel to Kuwait. It has since become the most powerful militia in the region, with tentacles in Iraq, Yemen, and Syria, where its forces have fought alongside the Assad regime for the past eight years. With the U.S. withdrawal from Syria, the Kurds have lost their partners in the five-year war against ISIS. They alone don’t have the bandwidth to deal with the aftermath, with twenty thousand to thirty thousand ISIS fighters still waging an insurgency across Syria and Iraq.

Sanders said Israel must sit down with the Palestinians and negotiate peace. And, in a direct assault on Israel’s current extremist government, he said the $3.8 billion of aid the US gives to Israel annually should be made conditional on it respecting human rights and democracy.

We believe in democracy. We will not accept authoritarianism or racism and we demand that the Israel government sit down with the Palestinian people and negotiate an agreement that works for all parties

3.8 billion is a lot of money, and we cannot give it carte blanche to the Israeli government, or for that matter to any government at all. We have a right to demand respect for human rights and democracy.

He said that Israel needs “a radical intercession in Gaza to allow for economic development, a better environment and to give people hope there.”

absolutely inhumane. It is unacceptable. It is unsustainable.”

All of the candidates spoke in favor of peace, but Sanders was the most explicit and clear in supporting Palestinian rights and holding Israel’s government accountable for its policies that have undermined the peace process.

Both South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Elizabeth Warren also suggested leveraging US aid to push Israel toward peace with the Palestinians, but not in explicit terms.

, Sanders is helping to redefine more accurately the tenor of the debate over Israel’s policies. Many politicians and activists who have challenged Israeli policies or criticized the actions of the Israeli government have been denounced as being “anti-Semitic.” Sanders, however, is Jewish. “I think being Jewish may be helpful in that regard. It is going to be very hard for anybody to call me, whose father’s family was wiped out by Hitler and who spent time in Israel, an anti-Semite,” Sanders said.

What J Street, Sanders and the Palestinians who attended this week’s convention are doing is significantly altering the substance of the debate that is taking place in America over Israel’s policies.

It is very possible that a new, more moderate political party led by Benny Gantz will soon take over in Israel. While many note that Gantz is not moderate enough, the fact is that, despite his rhetoric, he is moving away from Netanyahu’s extremism to a more moderate agenda.

If Sanders were to be elected president in 2020, we would be assured of a substantive change in US foreign policy toward Israel.

His approach would be more action than empty rhetoric, which was the case during the Obama administration.

Win or lose in 2020, Sanders will have contributed significantly to redefining the debate over Israel and Palestine to one that is more accurate, realistic and fair.

One way European allies could help in Iraq, he said, was to provide ballistic missile defense systems at bases that house troops from the American-led coalition that has been fighting the Islamic State.

About 200,000 United States forces are stationed abroad, a similar number to when President Trump took office with a promise to conclude the nation’s “endless wars.”

The Pentagon says that the overhaul of African deployments will be followed by one in Latin America and that drawdowns will occur in Iraq and Afghanistan, as it has outlined in recent months.But the killing of General Suleimani, which has sharply exacerbated tensions between Washington and Tehran, could undermine the Pentagon’s plans. Since that killing, it has sent thousands of additional troops to the region to protect against possible strikes from Iran.

Perhaps the most frightening of this year’s many apocalyptic books is The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells. Its chapter titles read: Heat Death. Hunger. Drowning. Dying Oceans. Unbreathable Air. Wildfire. Plagues. Economic Collapse. Climate Conflict. It’s intended to be a forecast of the planet’s near future that will shock readers out of their complacency. But during the 2010s almost all the disasters that the book names have already started to happen.

As one of the New Optimists’ favourite sources, the website Our World in Data, had to admit this year: “In some aspects the data suggests the world is getting worse.”

the awareness that much of modern life – air travel, car travel, eating meat, shopping, using plastics – has malign consequences has grown from a minority preoccupation in the 1970s into an everyday topic.

Sometimes in the 2010s, it has felt as if the whole world we have made, from the tiniest exhaust particle to the most sprawling conurbation, is toxic.

Nowadays, the fear is almost universal. The creation of social media networks over the last decade and a half, starting with Twitter in 2006, and the conversion of traditional media into non-stop news services, have made awful events seem relentless and impossible to ignore. We have become perpetually anxious.

In a working world that requires quick switches between inactivity and activity, that values powers of endurance, caffeine is a vital drug. In many British town and city centres during the 2010s, otherwise emptied out by online commerce, cafes proliferated, replacing shops and pubs as the busiest indoor spaces.

When people say “It is what it is”, they are rarely challenged. Instead, they are usually heard in respectful silence. In a difficult world, fatalism and stoicism are useful qualities.

Another coping mechanism is escape. Possibly the most revealing leisure activity of the 2010s is shutting yourself away with a TV series: typically a drama set in another country or another era, with an addictive, slowly resolved plot, many characters, elaborate settings, and enough episodes to allow for watching in binges. In an age of squeezed incomes, TV dramas are worlds you can explore on the cheap.

During the decade, it became cooler than usual in Britain to eat comforting things: bread, cakes, pies, even grilled cheese sandwiches. The Great British Bake Off, first broadcast in 2010, made cooking with lots of carbs and sugar respectable again

Clothes have become more cocooning: enormous puffer jackets, scarves the size of small blankets, fleeces and woolly hats. In the 2000s, clothes and silhouettes were leaner and more formal – tight suits, skinny trousers – as if people expected to seize exciting new opportunities, or at least to work in offices. In the 2010s, social mobility has stalled, and many of the jobs being created – and often taken by middle-class graduates – involve zero-hours contracts and outdoor work

“It is what it is.” Usually, it means: “I’m learning to live with something negative” – a personal setback, a wider injustice, difficult circumstances. It’s a mantra for an age of diminishing expectations, when many people no longer assume – unlike their postwar predecessors – that they will become richer than their parents, and live in an ever more sophisticated or just society, on an ever more hospitable planet

Another way to cope with the 2010s has been to work obsessively on yourself. From the 1950s to the 1990s, being young in the west was often associated with lounging around, or rebelling, or living for the moment. But in the 2010s being young often means relentlessly working and studying, polishing your public persona, and keeping fit

Yoga, marathons, triathlons – it’s not hard to see their renewed popularity over the last decade as an effort by people, conscious or otherwise, to hone themselves for a tougher world.

this self-optimisation can be measured, and compared with the efforts of others, as never before. This process has created a new hierarchy, particularly within the American middle class, but increasingly in its European counterpart, too, which privileges the leanest people, the most punishing exercise classes, the most body-conscious brands of workout clothes.

finally, the harsher world of the 2010s has also prompted many people to undergo a more private, less visible toughenin

They have got used to walking past the decade’s casualties in the street, and not giving them much thought. In the 2010s, as in Victorian times, if you want an untroubled mind, it doesn’t pay to look at the world around you too hard.

the difficulties since 2010 of so many previously dominant value systems – capitalism, centrism, traditional conservatism, white male supremacy – have opened up space for new political movements, at a rate not seen since the 1960s.

the 2010s have reacquainted voters with the idea that politics can be about big promises and fundamental choices.

the 2010s have also brought a renewed realisation that culture is political – after decades when most creative people and cultural critics avoided that conclusion. Literary and art prizes now regularly go to people whose work is overtly political, such as Margaret Atwood

Although prizes are inherently elitist, they are now also increasingly expected to promote greater equality in society as a whole. It is a contradiction characteristic of the decade’s politics, where a greater awareness of the injustices suffered by many social groups, and sometimes a greater willingness to redress them, co-exists with an intensifying individualism – with a growing preference for letting people self-identify and respecting each person’s particular life experience

In 2012, Mark Fisher said that Britain was suffering from “depression economics and boomtime politics”: the disengagement prompted by the relatively comfortable 1990s and 2000s was lingering on, despite the reopening of so many economic issues by the financial crisis. Seven years later, apathy remains a habit for many Britons

digital technology, far from enabling more creativity, had actually made it both harder and less essential for artists. Instead of coming up with new ideas, they could now roam the internet’s infinite archives, and build careers out of clever hybrids and pastiches of previous forms.

Pop culture from the 1990s, in particular, such as the cosy TV series Friends, has become hugely popular again. In our often backward-looking society, “Time itself seem[s] to become sluggish,” wrote Reynolds, “like a river that starts to meander”

So you might step back and say Republicans should be happier with this system overall than Democrats are. But grassroots Republicans are as frustrated and disillusioned with this and as grassroots democrats

The problem is the way the system amplifies the power of the extremists.

if you think about the consequence of the inequality in the Senate and the consequence of the inequality in funding, those two things together pretty clearly benefit Republicans. When you think about voter suppression, the most dramatic examples that we see are examples that benefit Republicans. But the gerrymandering example is not benefiting either Republicans or Democrats.

We could change the way campaigns are funded, or at least the business model of how campaigns are funded, by adopting some version of public funding for national campaigns.

The second thing Congress can do quite easily is, using its power under the Constitution, it can ban partisan gerrymandering in the states.

The hardest problem to change, constitutionally, is the electoral college. I think that there’s that interpretation of the power of the states to allocate their electors proportionally at a fractional level. I think that’s constitutionally possible.

We’re not going to solve that, in the sense that we’re going to get to a place where we all know the same stuff. We need to think about solving it without trying to get everybody to the right place. We need alternatives to everyone being in the right place.

That’s why I talked about things like the civic juries that can help people decide issues

We should be really concerned that we fix the underlying causes of this, so we don’t produce a weakening of the commitment of the public to our democracy.

Bilateral relations remained fraught over the last few months of the year. Islamabad issued constant broadsides against New Delhi for its continued security lockdown in Kashmir. By year’s end, an internet blackout was still in effect. Then, in December, India’s parliament passed a controversial new citizenship law that affords fast-track paths to Indian citizenship for religious minorities—but not Muslims—fleeing persecution in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan.

This means Afghanistan is unlikely to have a new government in place for at least another few months, and even longer if the final results are different from the initial ones and require a second vote. Due to winter weather in Afghanistan, a runoff likely wouldn’t occur until the spring. Without a new government in place, it beggars belief that Afghanistan could launch a process to establish an intra-Afghan dialogue, much less negotiate an end to the war.

The two nuclear-armed nations will enter 2020 just one big trigger event away from war. The trigger could be another mass-casualty attack on Indian security forces in Kashmir traced back to a Pakistan-based group, or—acting on the threats issued repeatedly by New Delhi in 2019—an Indian preemptive operation to seize territory in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. 

First, what Trump is doing for Israel for domestic consumption is not aimed at nor impressing American Jews. It is aimed, as is everything, at securing his right-wing base, which is disproportionately white and evangelical.

the far left’s dual loyalty and other anti-Semitic tropes (e.g. controlling the U.S. government by political money) are morally disgraceful and ludicrously misdirected at Jewish Americans. For better or worse, American Jews aren’t motivated by Israel. They are, however, greatly offended by anti-Semitism, whether it comes from the right or left, and will expect both political parties to drum out anti-Semites.

On the other hand, power also means having the ability to manipulate human beliefs, thereby getting lots of people to cooperate effectively.

large-scale cooperation depends on believing common stories. But these stories need not be true. You can unite millions of people by making them believe in completely fictional stories about God, about race or about economics.

The dual nature of power and truth results in the curious fact that we humans know many more truths than any other animal, but we also believe in much more nonsense

When it comes to uniting people around a common story, fiction actually enjoys three inherent advantages over the truth. First, whereas the truth is universal, fictions tend to be local. Consequently if we want to distinguish our tribe from foreigners, a fictional story will serve as a far better identity marker

The second huge advantage of fiction over truth has to do with the handicap principle, which says that reliable signals must be costly to the signaler

If political loyalty is signaled by believing a true story, anyone can fake it. But believing ridiculous and outlandish stories exacts greater cost, and is therefore a better signal of loyalty.

Third, and most important, the truth is often painful and disturbing. Hence if you stick to unalloyed reality, few people will follow you

What’s true of the Nazis is true of many other fanatical groups in history. It is sobering to realize that the Scientific Revolution began in the most fanatical culture in the world. Europe in the days of Columbus, Copernicus and Newton had one of the highest concentrations of religious extremists in history, and the lowest level of tolerance.

The ability to compartmentalize rationality probably has a lot to do with the structure of our brain. Different parts of the brain are responsible for different modes of thinking. Humans can subconsciously deactivate and reactivate those parts of the brain that are crucial for skeptical thinking

Even if we need to pay some price for deactivating our rational faculties, the advantages of increased social cohesion are often so big that fictional stories routinely triumph over the truth in human history.

Scholars have known this for thousands of years

The most powerful scholarly establishments in history — whether of Christian priests, Confucian mandarins or Communist ideologues — placed unity above truth. That’s why they were so powerful.

In November, the F.B.I. arrested a young man in New Jersey, who was suspected of recruiting on behalf of The Base and of advocating violence, including the killing of black people with a machete.

On Wednesday, Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia declared a state of emergency and announced a temporary ban on weapons on the grounds of the State Capitol ahead of the rally. Thousands of protesters are expected to converge in Richmond on Monday to protest proposed restrictions on gun purchases by the Virginia Legislature.

Protesters were expected to descend on the State Capitol on Monday, which is a federal holiday for Martin Luther King’s Birthday.

Consider a few milestones on the way to the sacking of the Capitol

One big step happened in February, when every Republican senator other than Mitt Romney voted against convicting the president on impeachment charges despite clear evidence of his guilt. Susan Collins famously justified her vote by hoping that Trump had “learned his lesson.” What he actually learned was that he could abuse his power with impunity.

Another big step came in the spring, when armed protesters, with Trump’s encouragement, menaced Michigan authorities over Covid-19 restrictions.

Again, the lesson was clear: Right-wing activists can get away with threatening elected officials, even when this includes brandishing weapons in public spaces.

Then came Trump’s unprecedented refusal to accept electoral defeat. Many Republicans joined him in trying to reject the will of the voters — almost two-thirds of House Republicans voted against accepting Pennsylvania’s electors after the Trumpist riot.

But even those who didn’t actively join his attempts to stage a coup tried to let Trump and his followers down easy. McConnell waited more than a month before accepting Joe Biden as president-elect. One senior Republican said to The Washington Post, “What is the downside for humoring him for this little bit of time?” Well, now we know the answer.

Finally, what happened on Wednesday? A Trumpist attack during the confirmation of Biden’s victory was completely predictable. So why was security so lax? Why were there hardly any arrests?

What we know suggests that the people who were in charge of protecting Congress failed to do so because they didn’t want to be seen treating the MAGA mob as the danger it was.

And once again the attempt to appease fascists will surely end up encouraging them. So far, the lesson for Trumpist extremists is that they can engage in violent attacks on the core institutions of American democracy, and face hardly any consequences

After the failure to protect Congress, how can we be sure there will be adequate security during the presidential transition? Not long ago such concerns might have seemed paranoid, but now they seem utterly reasonable.

So what can be done? It’s time to stop appeasing the fascists among us. Law enforcement should seek to arrest as many of the participants in Wednesday’s attack as possible

And anyone who tries to violently interfere with the transfer of power should also be arrested.

Finally, there needs to be an accounting for whatever crimes took place during the past four years — and does anyone doubt that Trump allies and associates engaged in criminal acts? Don’t say that we should look forward, not back; accountability for past actions will be crucial if we want the future to be better.

the Department of Defense is aware of "further possible threats posed by would-be terrorists in the days up to and including Inauguration Day."

Layers of security, standoff distancing and tactical teams on standby will be used to minimize violence near the inaugural events, he said, adding that the biggest concerns should be an active shooter scenario, vehicle ramming and the deliberate targeting of critical infrastructure.

More than 6,000 members have already been mobilized in the wake of the Capitol being stormed by pro-Trump rioters to work in 12-hour shifts on Capitol grounds and work traffic control points throughout the city.

Plans for future armed protests, including a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, began proliferating on and off Twitter last week, the social media company said.

"Trump WILL be sworn in for a second term on January 20th!!," said a commenter on thedonald.win, a pro-Trump online forum, on Thursday, the day after the siege. "We must not let the communists win. Even if we have to burn DC to the ground."

"Law enforcement was ill prepared for an event the entire country knew was coming, and one that POTUS had been signaling for weeks," said Brian Harrell, former DHS assistant secretary for infrastructure protection. "The normal 'layers of security', with each inner layer being tougher to breach, was nearly non-existent. It's shocking, that in a post 9/11 world, we witnessed the 'people's house' be breached and ransacked with ease."

"I will tell you that given the events of this last week that this inauguration preparation has to be different than any other inauguration," Bowser said in an interview with CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday.

Washington State Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee announced Friday that he was mobilizing up to 750 members of the National Guard to provide security for the beginning of the state's legislative session, which starts Monday.

The inauguration is designated as a National Special Security Event, which allows for greater federal security cooperation and law enforcement resources.

"You're going to see immediate improvement, fully aggressive posture by the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice as well, because we accept violence from no one," he said in an interview on Fox News Thursday.

Experts warn that the calls for violence, which circulated ahead of Wednesday's siege of the Capitol, have intensified ahead of Inauguration Day.

"We fully expect that this violence could actually get worse before it gets better."

"It's to show that a relatively small number of people can actually take over the system. It's supposed to be a rallying cry for -- 'join us, or you are now the enemy.'"

"We could start to see a lot of lives lost because of the moment that occurred on Wednesday, so very, very concerned about the cascading effects," the former official said. "It's a very concerning moment."

On Saturday afternoon, an unlawful assembly was declared in San Diego after protesters clashed and threw objects at police officers. According to tweets from the San Diego Police Department, protesters threw rocks, bottles and eggs at officers shortly after they were asked to leave the area. The tweets also said that pepper spray was being dispersed from the crowd toward the officers.

On the same day as the siege in Washington, DC, the Texas State Capitol building and grounds were closed to the public "out of an abundance of caution,"

At the Pentagon, officials are assessing whether there is a need to bolster the number of National Guard forces to as many as 13,000 guardsmen for President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration, according to a defense official with knowledge of the planning. Prior to the US Capitol breach, the estimated need called for approximately 7,000 guard troops.

"In light of the most recent insurrection activity, the state cannot tolerate any actions that could result in harm, mayhem or interruption of function of democratic institutions," Inslee said Friday evening. In addition to Guardsmen, the governor says a "large number of Washington State Patrol troopers will be on hand."

"Some of the online rhetoric has called for protests at all 50 capitols plus DC," the official said. "FBI in particular has been continuing to put our threat assessments and we are at the state level as well."

Vice President Mike Pence -- who has sought to keep a safe distance from the more inflammatory claims and behavior of fellow Republicans while subtly egging them on when it suits him -- has also welcomed congressional Republicans' challenge

"All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state."

"There's nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you've recalculated," Trump told Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger

The announcement Saturday from Republican senators and senators-elect cut deeper and, framed in a maddening circular logic, argued that Congress should commission an "emergency 10-day audit" of results from "disputed states" because of the volume of "allegations of voter fraud, violations and lax enforcement of election law, and other voting irregularities."

The group's citation of a poll that underscores voters' distrust in the election process ignores Trump's role in ginning up an increasingly paranoiac strain of conservatism

The process in his state, which the President won, had met a "high bar," he insisted, before suggesting that other states had a responsibility to "restore" the confidence that the leaders of his own party had spent so much time trying to break.

Notably, none of the officials who signed the Saturday statement, nor any of what could be as many as 140 allies in the House, have suggested that the election fraud that so concerns them might have also affected their own races.

Trump again attacked Raffensperger Sunday morning, before their phone call became public, complaining in a tweet that the Georgia Republican had not turned up evidence of nonexistent voter fraud.

Trump has called on Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, also a Republican, to resign after repeated recounts of the presidential vote there confirmed Biden's narrow win.

Kemp is one of a handful of Republicans to speak out against Trump's behavior. Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, who is retiring in 2022, has also been critical of his GOP colleagues' rhetoric and, on Saturday, responded to the new announcement with a sharp rebuke of the senators involved.

Biden's success in Pennsylvania, Toomey concluded, said little about the election process and could be "easily explained by the decline in suburban support for President Trump and the President's slightly smaller victory margins in most rural counties."

The vice president, through Justice Department lawyers, pushed back against a lawsuit filed by Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert and Arizona Republicans that sought to give Pence the power to effectively dump the electoral college results and hand reelection to Trump. The suit was dismissed, for a lack of standing, by a federal judge on Friday night.

"Vice President Pence shares the concerns of millions of Americans about voter fraud and irregularities in the last election," Pence chief of staff Marc Short said in a statement. "The Vice President welcomes the efforts of members of the House and Senate to use the authority they have under the law to raise objections and bring forward evidence before the Congress and the American people on January 6th."

"They could not and would not give credence to what they know is not true," Biden said. "They knew this election was overseen, it was honest, it was free and it was fair. They saw it with their own eyes, and they wouldn't be bullied into saying anything different."

Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with the Democrats and was Biden's toughest competition in the 2020 party primary, called the effort "pathetic" and its aims "unconstitutional."

"What all of this comes down to is that Donald Trump and right wing extremists are refusing to accept the will of the people and the fact that Trump lost the election," Sanders said in a statement. "In their contempt for democracy, they are using lies and conspiracy theories about 'voter fraud' in an attempt to overturn the election results."

American protesters wanted to overturn an election; Germany’s wanted to overturn a set of policies. And most importantly, while some far-right populist politicians backed the Berlin demonstrations, they did not have the support of the country’s leader.

What connects the protesters on both sides of the Atlantic is a deep distrust in officials and a belief in conspiracy theories. In fact, many in both countries believe in the same conspiracy theories. The QAnon conspiracy theory, which holds that President Trump will defend the world from a vast network of Satanists and pedophiles, is shockingly popular with many in Germany’s anti-lockdown movement, as it is with the president’s fiercest partisans at home.

The similarity that struck me most, however, was how aimless and lost some of the rioters both in Berlin and Washington appeared to be once they had reached their target

Is this their revolution? A bunch of selfies?

It seems like protesters on both sides of the Atlantic long for some sort of control, and want to assert their power over legislative headquarters that they see as representative of their oppression. But all they get in the end is a cheap social media surrogate

Political compromise, and ultimately, reconciliation, starts with recognition. But real-world politics cannot follow those who become believers in their alternate realities. A different strategy is needed.

Instead, to protect our democracies, we must watch them, contain them, and take away their guns.

“One Boogaloo movement follower indicated the building with the snipers would need to be blown up in order to protect Boogaloo fighters in the event of a gun battle during the event,” the report states. Another planned to “put colored duct tape on the back of his body armor to appear as law enforcement and cause confusion.”

“Boogaloo movement supporters believe an impending insurgency against the government is forthcoming and some believe they should accelerate the timeline with armed, anti-government actions leading to a civil war,” explained the alert issued by the FBI Minneapolis field office in December. 

The anti-government militia members arrested in October for allegedly plotting to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer are also believed to have been tied to the boogaloo movement. 

“The idea behind it was to have a huge showing of firearms and...for it to take place all across the U.S.,” Holt told Yahoo News, adding that “this is among the first major national events that has come out of the boogaloo movement.”

“This is a boogaloo movement organized call to arms that’s been spreading with increasing velocity outside of its usual communities,” said Holt, noting that he’s recently observed flyers for the Jan. 17th rallies circulating among many militia groups online, as well as “some run-of-the-mill Trump supporting groups and, interestingly enough, re-open protest.” 

“I feel like the FBI and DHS completely fell down on the job before the sixth…which was embarrassing, frankly, given all the stuff that was on the web,” she said. “So I’m glad that they’re taking this seriously, because they need to.”

About 6,000 National Guard troops from six states have already arrived in Washington, Gen. Daniel Hokanson, the chief of the National Guard Bureau, said Monday; by this weekend, that number is expected to have grown to 10,000.

The officials said they were particularly worried about multiple active-shooter situations flaring up simultaneously.

Far-right extremist groups continue to plot online. Nearly 400 people had joined a private group online dedicated to what is being billed as the Million Militia March, an event scheduled to take place in Washington on Jan. 20. Commenters have debated bringing baseball bats and body armor.

General Hokanson pushed back against complaints from Gov. Larry Hogan, Republican of Maryland, that the Pentagon was slow to respond to his request that Maryland National Guard troops be deployed last Wednesday.

General Hokanson insisted that Defense Department officials responded to the Hogan request Wednesday afternoon, and the first of the Maryland troops were not ready until 11 p.m. that day, with the bulk of them not deployed until 9 the next morning.

Social media’s scale and searchability is such that anybody looking to believe almost anything can quickly and easily find what seems like evidence to support that belief, then push it out to a wider and wider circle. In the past few days, factions of political factions have coalesced around cherry-picked pieces of reality or fondly held bits of delusion.

It should be simple: antifa or “patriots”? The choice between claiming responsibility and passing it off is an ideological line in the sand for each person who makes it. At the same time, the online MAGA world’s stutter step in this moment illustrates just how flexible reality can appear online, particularly in the thick of a breaking news event. And particularly in the hands of people who don’t care what the truth is, and are interested only in whether it can serve them.

As she marched through Washington, D.C., on Wednesday afternoon, an Instagram parenting and travel blogger who goes by @thatboldmama asked her followers why they were mad at “Americans fighting back,” insisting that “storming the US Capitol is NOT violent.” She seemed surprised to be receiving pushback. By yesterday morning, she was fully on board with the antifa theory, and sharing posts about how the event must have been staged. When I reached out to her, she referred me to one of her posts: “Don't let the news media FOOL you,” she wrote. “It was a great day until NON Patriots breached” the Capitol.

Another source familiar with Packer described him as an "off-beat" character who has expressed frustrations with the government, though this source did not recall Packer ever talking about President Donald Trump or false allegations of voter fraud.

Virginia court records show that Packer has a criminal history that includes three convictions for driving under the influence and a felony conviction for forging public records. In 2016, he was charged for allegedly trespassing, though that case was dismissed.

Cyrus R. Vance Jr., is investigating his dodgy finances. Trump knows he could face charges as soon as he leaves office — and he won’t be federally pardoned.

The pandemic will still be raging, but Trump, who has consistently downplayed it and tragically mismanaged it, will feel absolutely no obligation to contain it.

He will be wounded, afraid and dangerous.

“The broader pool of potential extremists has grown during Covid, with Americans at home and online, consuming vast quantities of propaganda and disinformation. So even if a relatively small percentage of people might actually mobilize to violence, the milieu from which they will emerge has metastasized significantly. The November election is increasingly perceived as a ‘winner-take-all’ contest, with no room for those who don’t identify with a specific side.”

upswing in the past few months in the number of Americans — both Democrats and Republicans — who said they think violence would be justified if their side loses the upcoming presidential election.”

has repeatedly told his supporters that the only way he can lose is if the election is stolen from him.

he said the Supreme Court will help secure a victory for him if he’s not declared the winner on election night: “If we win, if we win on Tuesday or, thank you very much Supreme Court, shortly thereafter.”

Trump doesn’t care if he “wins” ugly or unfairly, a win is a win. He doesn’t care if it could rip this country apart because he has never cared about the health and stability of the nation.

The Washington Post reported in early October that “the Justice Department is planning to station officials in a command center at F.B.I. headquarters to coordinate the federal response to any disturbances or other problems with voting that may arise across the country.”

“In a show of just how volatile the situation seems to the industry, 120 representatives from 60 retail brands attended a video conference this week hosted by the National Retail Federation, which involved training for store employees on how to de-escalate tensions among customers, including those related to the election. The trade group also hired security consultants who have prepped retailers about which locations around the country are likely to be the most volatile when the polls close.”

The attack — the latest sign that spiraling violence in the Afghan countryside has made its way to the capital — followed a suicide bombing on Oct. 24 at an educational center in western Kabul. More than 40 people, most of them high school students from the Shiite Hazara ethnic minority, died in the attack, for which the Islamic State claimed responsibility.

The Islamic State has staged numerous high-profile attacks in Kabul in recent years, often striking government postings and Shiite Muslims at schools, places of worship and other easily infiltrated — or “soft” — targets.

Over the past three years, concerted U.S. and Afghan military campaigns beat back the Islamic State’s offshoot in Afghanistan, hemming in what remained of the extremists in the country’s mountainous east.

Islamic State tactics have often mimicked those introduced by the Taliban, especially the Haqqani network, a group known for its ruthlessness, criminal networks and close ties to Al Qaeda.

The attack on the university followed the deadliest month in Afghanistan for civilians since September 2019, according to data compiled by The New York Times. At least 212 people were killed in October, and, according to recently released United Nations data, about 2,100 Afghan civilians died and 3,800 were wounded in the first nine months of the year.