Breaking 1-06-21: MAGA terrorist attack on Capitol

This "half of America," sorry, is another FOX creation. In terms of actual %, there are far, far less than 50% of Americans that supported the storming of the Capitol or even supported Trump's bogus claim of election fraud.

Conservative media generates sympathy for those most devoted followers of the president and the president himself. You weren't there on the 6th and I doubt you were even tempted. You're a much more balanced person, seems to me. Sure, you distrust liberals and sympathize with GOP points, a lot, but you knew Trump was not that good a person too. You don't strike me as someone who would devote your thinking to that guy.

Trump was super effective at making the GOP about him and then, as POTUS, making America about him. Any criticism of him, I've pointed out before, became, in his words, an attack on the GOP, and then eventually on "America." FOX is guilty for running with that, growing the cult of personality, marginalizing Republicans who had the spine to stand up to him, and now of telling people that "half of America" is "getting shamed."

I disagree. We want to know fully what happened and who encouraged what. I feel really sorry for the deluded people who stormed the Capitol, but they broke the law, in some cases beat officers of the law, damaged property, etc. They tried to interrupt a presidential election. If there's shaming to be done it's for people trying to gaslight parts of the electorate about that weird, scary day, for people trying to make it seem like it was spontaneous or no big deal. Members of Congress (from both parties) were cowering in fear and the system barely got the electoral ballots moved to safe keeping in time. I'm not sure worse things happen every month, but in any case, let's both hope this **** never happens again for an American election. Given the ongoing denials and rationalizations, I'm not that optimistic. Next time, a smarter politician will have a better, more effective plan, and God help us when that happens.

Cheers.

 

Too late comrade...

Dana Rohrabacher, former O.C. congressman, says he was part of Jan. 6 Capitol march

https://www.latimes.com/california/...ssman-says-he-was-part-of-capitol-march-jan-6

 

Russian TV shows the Jan. 6th attack on the US Capitol a lot and plays it up a lot. Putin has also been talking about it a lot to say that he US system is a failure. Also he talks about those who have been arrested as dissidents that the US is jailing.

 

good lord. nobody is comparing this to 9/11. that being said, what trump and his supporters did on january 6th was more damaging to our democracy than 9/11 was. i never thought i would see a sitting president incite an insurrection against his own government. and i never thought id see so many fellow americans who are willing to go along with what he did.

lets call this what it was. a coup attempt by the sitting president of the united states. he incited his followers to attack our nations capitol in hopes of stopping the certification of an election that HE LOST. his followers stormed our nations capitol, attacked police (blue lives matter, right trumpers?), trashed our capitol and attempted to murder the vice president and sitting members of congress...all because trump lost an election.

when it comes to the health of our democracy this was the biggest tragedy since the civil war. that is not debatable.

trespassing charges for treason and insurrection? trespassing charges for people who assault police officers and threaten to murder the vice president and other government officials. this response of yours reeks of someone who wants to put their political party and trump over the good of the country. move on??? you got to be kidding. would you be saying to "move on" if it was a group of muslims who did this. or a group of BLM/antifa? i highly doubt it.

more whining about "the media". give me a break! the reason the story is lingering so long is because it was a terrorist attack on our nations capitol which was incited by the sitting president. that has never happened in our nations history. and we have a political party and people like you who want us to "move on". i find that pretty outrageous. we should never forget what happened that day and do everything we can to make sure we shut them down and that it never happens again. unfortunately, because of attitudes like yours and most other trumpers i think it will happen again and my fear is that next time the coup attempt will be successful.

those who support trump and what he did on january 6th should be shamed. they have chosen to align themselves with terrorist, insurrectionists and traitors...literal cult members who put one horrible human being over their country, the rule of law, common sense and basic human decency.

 

Still amazed by the effort to minimize what happened in your defense of trump... "trespassing"? This wasn't a few people slipping into the Capital building... perhaps you need to be reminded...

 

Exactly. Trump supporters, both those who participated in an insurrection against the US government and those who hold their nose and look the other way, don't realize how much of a gift January 6 was for dictators like Putin and Xi. The don't recognize the extent to whichTrump undermined American values and alliances abroad. How can we go around the world preaching democracy with a straight face when images of Trump supporters storming the US Capitol, egged on by the then-president, can be referenced by wannabe strongmen?

If the Cold War was a battle of influence between democracy and communism, the new Cold War between the West and East is one of expectations; what nation would cast its lot with an America that requires free elections, human rights, etc. but can't even embody its own ideals and memory-holes an attempted coup within six months when the alternative is aligning with Russia or China who ask for nothing in return other than fealty?

The man is a complete and utter failure of a human being who contradicts every supposed American ideal and these people want more of it? It really goes to show what all of their ranting and raving about "patriotism" was really about.

 

How about arrest her?

 

We don't know, and likely never know exactly what happened. I suspect what happened was the terrorists had broken through to the room the elected officials were in. I also suspect the federal law enforcement officers gave verbal warnings to not breach the room. For whatever reason the woman decided she would be the first one to breach the room and as a result was shot by federal law enforcement.

Again, it was the Capital building, and numerous elected officials were in that room, protected by federal law enforcement. I also suspect it was considered a matter of national security. Which is probably why law enforcement acted as they did and why we will never know exactly what happened.

 

We actually have video of exactly what happened. The room she breached was a hallway that was empty except for law enforcement officers.

There were no elected officials in the room she breached. It wasn't the senate chamber or the house chamber. It was a hallway. It is on video. You can see it.

 

Hallways lead to rooms. That's a meaningless distinction.

In civilian home break-ins it doesn't matter if the burglar breaks into the hallway or room.

The group she was leading had been chanting threats to murder the Vice President of the United States and announced their intent to find elected officials. They had already committed assault with weapons on officers of the law proving they were dangerous.

 

That wasn't possible or safe for the officers. The group had already assaulted officers with weapons and outnumbered the officers. They were violent and dangerous and had superior numbers. Trying to start arresting individuals at that time would have quite possibly been fatal for the officers involved.

 

It matters because this was not the last line of defense. She was not breaking into the senate chamber where there was another barricade guarded by multiple officers with their guns drawn, she was breaking into a hallway where she was outnumbers by officers. There is also no evidence that she was working in concert with anyone that had assaulted law enforcement officers or chanted for anyone to be killed. In fact, there were a number of law enforcement officers in the room she was leaving to crawl through the window into the hall. They were in full combat gear with rifles and the crowd was not interfering with them and they were escorting people leaving the building out down a staircase. None of those guys in tactical gear felt the need to shoot her or anyone else in the crowd.

Home break ins are totally irrelevant to the situation. There is clearly defined precedent that your life is forfeit if you break into someone's home (unless the resident disables you or you flee or something along those lines). There is no such precedent, so far as I know, for the US Capitol, and in fact protesters have entered the Senate Chamber during the certification of election results (exactly what was going on in the Senate Chamber on 1/6/21) and were simply escorted out by the Sergeant at Arms and his staff (there is video of Biden, then presiding over the Senate as VP, calling for the Sergeant at Arms to restore order to the gallery).

I urge you to watch the video. There was every opportunity for the officer to arrest her, and in doing so he would have been blocking the area in front of the window, making it more difficult for anyone else to go through. Maybe there is something that is not apparent in the video going on, but from what I have seen, this looks like a bad shoot. A guy in my office that investigates police shootings agrees that it is a bad shoot, for whatever that is worth.

 

Playing y'all like a fiddle:

 

9/11 united the nation and increased support for the US worldwide. 1/6 divided the nation and diminished support for the US worldwide.

 

We've been through this earlier including the video. The LEO leaving appeared to be making a strategic retreat and not escorting people out. The LEO that shot Babbit wasn't in tactical gear and didn't appear to be armed with anything else but a firearm. Babbitt was with a group of several others who were bashing in a door. As far as the hallway as others have noted that hallway leads to congressional chambers that we know for a fact at that time where being evacuated so it wasn't as the members of Congress and others were just in Chambers. Also while at that moment that Babbitt was shot we don't see others in the hallway. We don't know if that was the case a minute before or after. We don't know what the LEO knew regarding where members of Congress were at that moment. Also as been stated repeatedly she was with a group that had already gone through several lines of defense with no intention to stop.

Just to add, I am fully for a transparent investigation of the what happened on Jan. 6th including the shooting of Ashli Babbitt. It should be done impartially and thoroughly but because the GOP Caucus refused to go along with that we're not going to get it.

 

I don't think this is the same video that SM was referring too but it is another video that sheds more light on the situation.
In this video you see the hallway, which yes appears empty at the time, and you see the handgun of the LEO and his shot at Ashli Babbitt. She appears to not be climbing through the window but next to someone who has bashed through it. That raises a question to me about whether the LEO intended to shoot her or the person next to her.

As soon as the shot is fired and she goes down you see the assault on that door stop. You next see several other LEO force the crowd back and start treating her. What this shows is that the claim that LEO in tactical weren't' just leaving and not engaged with the crowd but were still engaged with the crowd.

 

Officers barricaded the doors of the Chamber of the House of Representatives as the mob tried to break into the room from multiple entrances. Babbitt was shot as she climbed through a broken door into the Speaker's Lobby. The bullet struck Babbitt in the left shoulder, and she later died from her wounds at Washington Hospital Center.
https://www.npr.org/2021/04/14/9874...shooting-of-ashli-babbitt-during-capitol-riot

 

I've watched the video several times. The guys with the tactical gear were focused on their tasks of escorting others. The one that shot her was busy trying to secure the area. There is evidence that she was working in coordination with people that assaulted law enforcement officers. She was with the group of people who had already done that. She and others broke into the building and was using violent force to continue her invasion. It is possible that if she were being tried evidence of her belief in conspiracy theories and videos of her stating her intentions on 1/6/2021 would also be evidence.

As far as being outnumbered by officers that is only true of the first few people into the room. There were more than enough trying to get in to outnumber the officers. Obviously the first person in would be outnumbered. That quickly would not have been the case if the barrier was breached.

Other protesters entering the chamber didn't break into the capitol and assault security with weapons in their attempt to do so. They didn't chant that they were going to murder the Vice President of the United States as these terrorists did. That is exactly what happened 1/6/21. It wasn't a peaceful protest where the Sergeant at Arms could easily remove them.

I am actually grateful for your input and I will recognize that both you and your colleague have more experience, and background on the application of the law in these matters. But I disagree with your selectivity in framing the incident. It seems like you are excluding information and evidence that is important.

 

The video shows up as restricted for me, but I will say that any LEO that might have been leaving might change their priorities once shots were fired and tend to the most pressing situation.

 

Director Wray was hand picked by..... Donald Trump.