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Is the Trump Coup underway?

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by CometsWin, Nov 10, 2020.

  1. deb4rockets

    deb4rockets Contributing Member
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    >Interesting!
     
  2. Xerobull

    Xerobull You son of a b!tch! I'm in!

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  3. Xerobull

    Xerobull You son of a b!tch! I'm in!

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    #503 Xerobull, Feb 1, 2021
    Last edited: Feb 1, 2021
  4. Xerobull

    Xerobull You son of a b!tch! I'm in!

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  5. Xerobull

    Xerobull You son of a b!tch! I'm in!

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  6. FranchiseBlade

    FranchiseBlade Contributing Member
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    It seems like those could be three separate posts. They are all that significant.
     
  7. Xerobull

    Xerobull You son of a b!tch! I'm in!

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    This thread should be at the top of the D&D daily. It's the most audacious action by any government group or cabal in decades if not centuries.

    Annotated Testimony of William J. Walker, Commanding General of the D.C. National Guard, Before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and Senate Rules and Administration Committees
    Proper names and substantive highlights of this critical March 3, 2021 opening statement—focused on the January 6 insurrection—are bolded in the text below.

    [​IMG]


    “Good morning, Chairman [Michigan senator Gary] Peters and Chairwoman [Minnesota senator Amy] Klobuchar, Ranking Members [Ohio senator Rob] Portman and [Missouri senator Roy] Blunt, and members of the Committees. I am Major General William J. Walker and I serve as the Commanding General for the District of Columbia National Guard, affectionately known as the Capital Guardians. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the events of January 6—a dark chapter in our nation’s history.

    I was sickened by the violence and destruction I witnessed that fateful day and the physical and mental harm that came to the U.S. Capitol Police officers and MPD [the Metropolitan Police Department of D.C.], some of whom I met with later that evening and I could see the injuries they sustained. It is my hope that my recollection of events and presentation of the facts as I know them will help your Committees in its investigation and prevent such tragic events from ever occurring again.

    First, I think it is critical to understand what the D.C. National Guard’s mission was on January 6, to include what civilian agency we were supporting and how requests for support of other civilian authorities were handled.

    On December 31, 2020, the D.C. National Guard [PROOF annotation: later “DCNG”] received written requests from District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser and her Director of D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency Dr. Christopher Rodriguez. The requests sought D.C. National Guard support for traffic control and crowd management for planned demonstrations in DC from January 5 through [January] 6.

    After conducting mission analysis to support the District request, I sent a letter to then Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy, dated January 1, requesting approval. I received approval in a letter dated January 5 from Secretary McCarthy granting support of the MPD with 340 total personnel to include 40 personnel assigned to a Quick Reaction Force.

    {PROOF annotation: Note that it took four days before Trump’s Pentagon responded to the Democratic leadership of D.C., meaning that the District got “approval” for National Guard assistance on one of the very two days it had urgently asked for help on—January 5. Not only did this approval come too late for January 5 aid, it left under 24 hours for aid for January 6 to be readied.}

    The DCNG provides support to MPD, the U.S. Park Police, U.S. Secret Service and other District and federal law enforcement agencies in response to planned rallies, marches, protests and other large scale first amendment activity on a routine basis.

    {PROOF annotation: As previously noted at PROOF, in a January 7 video Stop the Steal organizer Alex Jones claimed that he was in contact with the U.S. Secret Service prior to January 6 about leading the march to the Capitol after Trump’s speech at the White House Ellipse, with the explanation by Jones that then-president Donald Trump himself—as Trump would ultimately declare publicly during his speech at the Ellipse—would be speaking at the event Jones and his “movement” had orchestrated for midday at the Capitol steps. Per Jones, the Secret Service therefore needed to coordinate the logistics of the event. Mysteriously, there is no evidence as yet of the Secret Service at any point contacting other law enforcement agencies to alert them to Trump’s likely presence at the Capitol and the security implications thereof. And yet, beyond Trump’s own public statement on January 6 there is ample evidence that events did indeed unfold as Jones now claims. Jones says he was put in the VIP section of Trump’s audience to more easily be moved to the head of the post-speech march, and so he was; Jones is on video on January 6 repeatedly telling Trump voters that Trump is headed to the Capitol; Jones’ Stop the Steal co-organizer Ali Alexander, who has since repeatedly said he was coordinating with Trump allies in Congress—including Reps. Paul Gosar, Andy Biggs, and Mo Brooks, as well as Trump adviser Kimberly Guilfoyle—appears on video on January 6 having the same belief as Jones that the Secret Service would be bringing Trump to the Capitol. Congress now desperately needs to speak to the Secret Service about these odd discrepancies.}


    (continued next post)
     
    #507 Xerobull, Mar 3, 2021
    Last edited: Mar 3, 2021
    FranchiseBlade likes this.
  8. Xerobull

    Xerobull You son of a b!tch! I'm in!

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    (continued)


    A standard component of such support is the stand up of an offsite Quick Reaction Force (QRF), an element of guardsmen held in reserve equipped with civil disturbance response equipment (helmets, shields, batons, etc.) and postured to quickly respond to an urgent and immediate need for assistance by civilian authorities. The Secretary of the Army’s January 5 letter withheld authority for me to employ the Quick Reaction Force.

    {PROOF annotation: So not only did Trump’s Pentagon take four days to respond to the Democratic officials running D.C.—making it impossible for that response to address the security situation in the Capitol on January 5 and virtually impossible for it to address the security situation on January 6—but it also, when it finally responded, denied the chief request the District’s Democratic leadership had made.}

    In addition, the Secretary of the Army’s memorandum to me required that a “concept of operation” (CONOP) be submitted to him before any employment of the QRF. I found that requirement to be unusual as was the requirement to seek approval to move Guardsmen supporting MPD to move from one traffic control point to another.

    {PROOF annotation: The actions of Trump’s Pentagon were irregular, and consistently irregular in the same direction: making it harder for any assets under the control of the Trump administration to be used to defend the Capitol from a Trumpist assault on either January 5 or January 6.}

    Beginning at 1:30PM [on January 6, 2021], we watched as MPD began to deploy all available resources in support of the Capitol Police. In doing so, the officers began to withdraw from the traffic control points that were jointly manned with D.C. Guardsmen.

    At 1:49PM [on January 6, 2021] I received a frantic call from then Chief of U.S. Capitol Police, Steven Sund, where he informed me that the security perimeter at the Capitol had been breached by hostile rioters. Chief Sund, his voice cracking with emotion, indicated that there was a dire emergency on Capitol Hill and requested the immediate assistance of as many Guardsmen as I could muster.

    {PROOF annotation: It is now clear that when Capitol Police issued an urgent request for help on January 6, there was absolutely no chance help would be forthcoming in any timely fashion—not because of delays on January 6, though there were many—but primarily because of the actions Trump’s Pentagon had taken prior to January 6 in taking so long to respond to Democratic officials in the District and then denying them the sort of aid those officials had every reason to expect. Media’s exclusive focus on January 6 itself continues to be misplaced; so much of what happened on January 6 was inevitable based on what had happened prior to January 6. In particular, the fact that Trump had installed loyalists Kash Patel and Ezra-Cohen Watnick immediately after learning he’d lost the November 2020 election, and that these two men were essentially controlling Trump defense secretary Chris Miller in the days before the insurrection according to Vanity Fair, have produced a significant concern that Trump and his agents coordinated the Pentagon’s refusal of Democratic officials’ urgent pleas both before and during the insurrection.}

    Immediately after the 1:49PM call with Chief [Steven] Sund, I alerted the Army Senior Leadership of the request. The approval for Chief Sund’s request would eventually come from the Acting Secretary of Defense and be relayed to me by Army Senior Leaders at 5:08PM—3 hours and 19 minutes later. We already had Guardsmen on buses ready to move to the Capitol. Consequently, at 5:20PM—in under 20 minutes—the District of Columbia National Guard arrived at the Capitol. We helped to re-establish the security perimeter at the east side of the Capitol to facilitate the resumption of the Joint Session of Congress.

    {PROOF annotation: This is stunning. Commander Walker is saying that had he received approval from the Pentagon at 1:49PM on January 6, he could have had Guardsmen at the Capitol by somewhere between 2:05PM and 2:08PM—in time to quell the worst of the insurrection—but instead he heard nothing from Miller, Patel, and Cohen-Watnick, the Trump Pentagon power center, until 5:08PM. Meanwhile, the boss of Mssrs. Miller, Patel, and Cohen-Watnick, was gleefully watching events from the White House and refusing to contact his men at the Pentagon. There is no chance that Miller, Patel, and Cohen-Watnick would have missed the clear signal from (at the very least) Trump’s silence, if not some White House communication we don’t yet know about: don’t do anything until I tell you. By the time the Pentagon acted, Trump had issued public statements about wanting the insurrectionists to leave the Capitol grounds. It was only then that his men at the Pentagon responded to the urgent pleas for aid from the Capitol.}

    In conclusion, I am grateful for the Guardsmen from the 53 states and territories who supported [the] D.C. National Guard’s OPERATION CAPITOL RESPONSE {PROOF annotation: all-caps in original} and ensured a peaceful transition of power on January 20, [2021]. In particular, I am grateful for the timely assistance of our close neighbors from the Virginia [National Guard], Delaware [National Guard], and Maryland National Guard who augmented our D.C. National Guard forces in establishing a security perimeter.

    I am honored to lead these citizen Soldiers and Airmen—your constituents—many of whom have left behind their families, careers, education and businesses, to ensure the protection and safety of the U.S. Capitol and those who serve in it.

    Thank you again for the opportunity to brief you today. I look forward to any questions you may have.”
     
    #508 Xerobull, Mar 3, 2021
    Last edited: Mar 3, 2021
  9. jiggyfly

    jiggyfly Member

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    This is what I have been waiting for, the who knew what when and why did they wait so long to give permission.
     
    deb4rockets and Xerobull like this.
  10. Xerobull

    Xerobull You son of a b!tch! I'm in!

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    I don't know why this isn't front page news every day. If the shoe was on the other foot, the GOP would be pushing this nonstop.

    New bombshells show Trump's coup threat was real and hasn't passed


    (CNN)A rush of new and shocking behind-the-scenes disclosures about how then-President Donald Trump sought to thwart the Constitution and the will of voters makes a clear case that America came closer to a coup earlier this year than previously known.

    The fresh evidence also shows what many people in Trump's inner circle knew in January: His case to stay in power was meritless, but an unchained commander in chief chose to listen to acolytes pushing wild conspiracies. Some of those who knew the truth refused to speak up, even as American democracy came under attack.
    Just this week, it's been revealed that:

    • Trump had blueprints that the Republicans tried to use to prevent Congress from certifying President Joe Biden's clear and genuine victory, in the form of a memo that laid out a plan for then-Vice President Mike Pence to thwart Biden's Electoral College triumph. The memo was reported in the new book "Peril," by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, and was later obtained by CNN.
    • Trump's own campaign staff knew that outlandish claims of fraud made by the then-President's lawyers were utterly false, according to a report in The New York Times. But they did nothing to stop his dangerous allegations.
    • Trump sent a letter full of false information to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, asking him to start the process of decertifying the 2020 election.
    • "Peril" also contains a passage that shows Trump cared little for truth, what voters decided in November or bedrock constitutional values -- but agonized about his reputation and mused that accepting defeat would brand him as one of history's losers.

    This growing paper trail, which is likely to be of intense interest to the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection, appears to prove Trump's intent to stay in power illegally. The record is beginning to add up to an extraordinary indictment of the ex-President's abuses of power and one of the darkest moments in US history.

    In the fraught days after the election last year and after the Capitol insurrection, many observers were unwilling initially to use the word coup -- aware of the explosive nature of such language. The surreal experience of watching an assault on constitutional guardrails once thought inviolate also was, at times, hard to process. And skeptics of the coup terminology also suggested that Trump's efforts were little more than madcap and incompetent political theater.

    Yet the conspiratorial and at times clownish attempts to overturn the election -- especially by Trump's legal team -- don't make an unprecedented effort to destroy America's democratic traditions any less mendacious.

    The newly disclosed information builds on what was already known about what appears to be an expansive multi-front effort to destroy a peaceful and just transfer of power. The ex-President, for instance, initiated a vast disinformation campaign that has convinced millions of voters the election was stolen, helped by a pliant conservative media pushing his lies.

    Last month, it emerged that Trump had tried to pressure the Justice Department to declare election fraud and leave the business of stealing power to him and his congressional allies. Trump, of course, instigated another aspect often seen in coups against legitimate power -- a mob -- by inciting supporters who invaded the Capitol.

    His corrupt behavior initiated a flurry of new election laws passed in Republican-run states that could make it easier for Trump or a like-minded constitutional arsonist to steal power in the future. And he is endorsing rafts of candidates for state offices like secretary of state, creating a potential pool of local officials who could be minded to interfere in a future election.

    'The real problem for American democracy'

    Perhaps the most concerning aspect of the torrent of revelations is that the danger to American democracy has not passed. It is only accelerating.
    In the letter to Raffensperger, Trump made the absurd request that the official start the process of decertifying the 2020 election. There is no such mechanism to do so. Biden's win has long since been legally and constitutionally ratified. And many of Trump's allegations appear to show that he is now completely convinced of his own lies and propaganda -- a fact that surely raises questions about the mindset of a former President who may be contemplating a future run for the White House.

    But Trump's conduct is already infecting the integrity of the 2022 midterm elections, since he has effectively wielded his robust standing with his party to make acceptance of his election lies a qualification for entry to GOP races. A Trump 2024 run would likely subject democratic values to an even greater assault.

    All of the lies also have a tangible effect. A CNN poll last week, for instance, found that 78% of Republicans do not believe that Biden won last November and is therefore not the legitimate president.

    "The real problem is we have one of the two legacy parties that is completely bought into this and doesn't want to hear anything else but a confirmation of that untruth that has been told and that, I think, is the most dangerous thing facing our democracy," Matthew Dowd, a former strategist for ex-President George W. Bush, told CNN's Erin Burnett on Tuesday.

    The book by Woodward and Costa that was published on Tuesday after days of dripped-out revelations includes a new story about conservative lawyer John Eastman, who came up with a scheme to try to convince Pence to throw out electors from seven states where Republicans falsely claimed election irregularities and to declare Trump the winner during the election certification process that was ultimately disrupted by the insurrection.

    The plan anticipated "howls" from Democrats -- a stunning understatement since the process effectively mandated the stealing of an election. So the memo contained a backup plan for Pence to say that no candidate had reached 270 electoral votes, so the election should be turned over to the House of Representatives, CNN's Jamie Gangel and Jeremy Herb report.

    Such a step would initiate a constitutional tie-breaker in which each state delegation would get one vote. Since the GOP controlled 26 state delegations, a majority could vote for Trump to win the election.

    The plan was met with great skepticism by two of Trump's allies on Capitol Hill, Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Mike Lee of Utah, Costa and Woodward report. But that hasn't stopped the former President and his henchmen from continuing to claim that Pence simply elected not to use power inherent in his office.
     
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  11. Xerobull

    Xerobull You son of a b!tch! I'm in!

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    Continued:

    Of course, that authority does not exist.

    Eastman told CNN that the memo was only a preliminary draft. But that did not stop Trump using it to try to convince Pence to keep him in power or fueling false beliefs inside the conservative movement that Trump is the rightful president. In any event, Pence wrote a letter on the morning of January 6 saying that he did not have the authority to intervene to change the election result, even as Trump said at his pre-insurrection rally that the vice president should have the "courage" to act.

    The antithesis of democracy

    The most stunning aspect of these reports is that Trump and some people around him actually believed that a US election could simply be disregarded if the President didn't like the result -- the very antithesis of democracy.

    While the scheme that Trump preferred did not play out, it most alarmingly appears to sketch a road map under which several states in a future race could prevent the certification of elections to deprive a candidate like Biden of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.

    The New York Times' report said the Trump campaign had already concluded that outlandish claims that voting machines had been interfered with -- which were aggressively pushed by the ex-President's lawyers -- were not true. But the campaign did not apparently feel a civic or moral obligation to say so. Later media appearances by Rudy Giuliani and another pro-Trump lawyer, Sidney Powell, expanded the conspiracy theories -- and Trump weaponized the claims to further his lies about election fraud.

    And in another nugget from "Peril," Costa revealed Tuesday on CNN that Trump had dismissed the idea that his legacy could be best served by accepting his loss, in a conversation with his confidante Hope Hicks.


    "I don't care about my legacy. My legacy doesn't matter. If I lose, that will be my legacy. My people expect me to fight and if I don't, I'll lose them," Trump said, according to the book.

    That attitude -- rooted in a lie and a president's own flawed character -- is what appears to be still motivating Trump's ever more fevered claims of stolen votes, and possibly a new bid to regain power. And it explains why the danger stalking American democracy has far from passed.
     
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  12. Gioan Baotixita

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    Yeah, that’s the way to do it man. America is going up in flame under the currents POS fake president and your focus is still on Trump. Lol
     
  13. Xerobull

    Xerobull You son of a b!tch! I'm in!

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    Are you a real person?

    Trump is a traitor and a current issue. He's the frontrunner for the 2024 GOP Presidential ticket. He literally tried to subvert and take over the government on Jan 6.
     
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  14. bobrek

    bobrek Politics belong in the D & D

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    Fake president? Are you saying Biden didn't win the election?
     
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  15. IBTL

    IBTL Member

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    Acqua di gioan..

    sounds good ..doesn't pass the smell test
     
    Gioan Baotixita likes this.
  16. Gioan Baotixita

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    Lol
     
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  17. Gioan Baotixita

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    Yeah, that’s what I’m saying.

    Went to your neck of the woods this past weekend, had some delish banh mi at Banh Mi Saigon and some ice coffee to wash it all down.
    Man, that was good.
     
  18. Gioan Baotixita

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    No, I’m a Vietnamese bot. Trump is not the current president the last time that I’ve checked. Let it go man, it’s easy, close your eyes and count to three and when eyes are opened, Trump is still not the president.
     
  19. Xerobull

    Xerobull You son of a b!tch! I'm in!

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    By your logic, I could beat you up today, then someone else could beat you up tomorrow. You would then be compelled to forget that I beat you up because only the most recent things in your life matter. It's easy, close then open your eyes.
     
  20. bobrek

    bobrek Politics belong in the D & D

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    Whoa... wait...

    You claim Biden is an illegitimate President. Therefore YOU (and many others) think he is the real President.

    So, on one hand, you say he is the President and on the other you say he isn't. Which is it? Is Biden the legitimately elected President (meaning Trump isn't) or is Biden fraudulently elected (meaning Trump is)
     
    AkeemTheDreem86 likes this.

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