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Category: Politics

GOP in bind over Trump as corporate donations freeze

GOP in bind over Trump as corporate donations freeze

The Hill reports: Republicans are in a bind as they consider how to move on from President Trump, who has passionate support from a large chunk of the party but has become completely toxic in the eyes of more traditional Republicans. Washington Republicans are urging the party to cut ties completely with Trump over his role in the deadly riot that consumed Capitol Hill last week as corporations halt donations. Some say Trump and his brand can have no future…

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Trump will try to make his impeachment about free speech

Trump will try to make his impeachment about free speech

Noah Feldman writes: With the House of Representatives having voted to impeach President Donald Trump for incitement to insurrection, it’s time to start contemplating what Trump’s defense will be in a Senate trial. The answer can be summed up briefly: Trump’s lawyers will argue that Trump did not commit a crime of incitement and that his words were protected by the First Amendment. But wait, you may say, if you can remember Trump’s 2020 Senate trial 12 months ago (so…

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Despite expert warnings, Facebook let the Boogaloo movement grow and become deadly

Despite expert warnings, Facebook let the Boogaloo movement grow and become deadly

The Guardian reports: One hundred days before Dave Patrick Underwood was murdered on 29 May, a group of analysts who monitor online extremism concluded that an attack like the one that killed him was coming. An anti-government movement intent on killing law enforcement officers had been growing rapidly on social media, the analysts at the Network Contagion Research Institute warned. Building on the work of other analysts, the researchers had identified Facebook groups where thousands of members obsessed over the…

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How Facebook incubated the insurrection

How Facebook incubated the insurrection

Stuart A. Thompson and Charlie Warzel write: Dominick McGee didn’t enter the Capitol during the siege on Jan. 6. He was on the grounds when the mob of Donald Trump supporters broke past police barricades and began smashing windows. But he turned around, heading back to his hotel. Property destruction wasn’t part of his plan. Plus, his phone had died, ending his Facebook Live video midstream. He needed to find a charger. After all, Facebook was a big part of…

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How Trump’s worldview is ingrained in state and local Republicans

How Trump’s worldview is ingrained in state and local Republicans

The New York Times reports: In Cleveland County, Okla., the chairman of the local Republican Party openly wondered “why violence is unacceptable,” just hours before a mob stormed the U.S. Capitol last week. “What the crap do you think the American revolution was?” he posted on Facebook. “A game of friggin pattycake?” Two days later, the Republican chairman of Nye County in Nevada posted a conspiracy-theory-filled letter on the local committee website, accusing Vice President Mike Pence of treason and…

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Most House Republicans did what the rioters wanted

Most House Republicans did what the rioters wanted

Zeynep Tufekci writes: January 6, 2021, will surely live in infamy—the day the United States Capitol was stormed by a mob, forcing legislators to evacuate in a rush and leaving five dead, including a police officer. The most dangerous part of that day for the country as a whole, however, was not what happened when the insurrectionists fought their way into the Capitol in the afternoon, but what happened just a few hours later on the floor. After all that…

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The gutted, ‘unnerving’ state of the agencies supposed to keep the U.S. safe

The gutted, ‘unnerving’ state of the agencies supposed to keep the U.S. safe

Garrett M. Graff reports: As the federal government girds against threatened riots in Washington this weekend and possible violence at the inauguration and state capitals across the country, it’s dealing with an unprecedented gap at the top: All of the nation’s top Cabinet departments overseeing the nation’s security are run by acting officials who have been in the job just weeks—or even hours. The acting Defense secretary has been on the job only since the week after the election; the…

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Dozens of people on FBI terrorist watch list came to D.C. the day of Capitol riot

Dozens of people on FBI terrorist watch list came to D.C. the day of Capitol riot

The Washington Post reports: Dozens of people on a terrorist watch list were in Washington for pro-Trump events Jan. 6, a day that ended in a chaotic crime rampage when a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, according to people familiar with evidence gathered in the FBI’s investigation. The majority of the watch-listed individuals in Washington that day are suspected white supremacists whose past conduct so alarmed investigators that their names had been previously entered into the national Terrorist Screening…

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Trump struggles to find lawyers as impeachment trial nears

Trump struggles to find lawyers as impeachment trial nears

Bloomberg reports: President Donald Trump, on the eve of facing a historic second impeachment trial for inciting the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol last week, is having trouble finding a legal team to defend him. Allies of the outgoing president have been canvassing Washington’s legal landscape looking for representation but so far are coming up short. Lawyers who defended him in the previous impeachment trial, including Jay Sekulow and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, have said no this time, according…

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Black cops warned about racist Capitol Police officers for years

Black cops warned about racist Capitol Police officers for years

ProPublica reports: When Kim Dine took over as the new chief of the U.S. Capitol Police in 2012, he knew he had a serious problem. Since 2001, hundreds of Black officers had sued the department for racial discrimination. They alleged that white officers called Black colleagues slurs like the N-word and that one officer found a hangman’s noose on his locker. White officers were called “huk lovers” or “FOGs” — short for “friends of gangsters” — if they were friendly…

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Secret Service warns the Boogaloos Boys are coming to D.C., states

Secret Service warns the Boogaloos Boys are coming to D.C., states

The Daily Beast reports: The Secret Service has issued an intelligence bulletin warning of additional armed protests in Washington before and after the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden—particularly from the Boogaloo Boys—that in some cases it expects to become violent. The Secret Service bulletin, dated Jan. 11, is unclassified but marked not for distribution outside law-enforcement channels, and was obtained by The Daily Beast. The Daily Beast is declining to give specifics for these rallies to prevent insurrectionists from organizing…

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Unidentified lawmakers led ‘reconnaissance’ tours ahead of Capitol attack, colleagues say

Unidentified lawmakers led ‘reconnaissance’ tours ahead of Capitol attack, colleagues say

Politico reports: Rep. Mikie Sherrill said Tuesday that she witnessed colleagues escorting people through the Capitol on Jan. 5 for what she described as “reconnaissance” ahead of the next day’s violent insurrection that left five dead. In a 13-minute Facebook video billed as an address to her constituents about the House’s efforts to hold President Donald Trump accountable for inciting the riot, Sherrill (D-N.J.) included the allegation as part of a call to hold Trump’s allies in Congress accountable as…

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Online police communities are rife with conspiracies and support for the Capitol riot

Online police communities are rife with conspiracies and support for the Capitol riot

HuffPost reports: In the week since a mob laid siege to the Capitol in a stunning display of violence, police officers in D.C. and beyond have struggled to make sense of what happened. The Jan. 6 attack, which claimed the life of one responding officer and preceded the suicide of another, pitted law enforcement against one of its most loyal allies: Trump supporters. Gruesome footage shows rioters in MAGA hats brandishing “Stop the Steal” signs and Trump flags dragging an…

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Invoking the 14th Amendment would hold Trump accountable

Invoking the 14th Amendment would hold Trump accountable

Max Burns writes: There’s a better way to stop President Donald Trump than impeachment and the 25th Amendment — and it’s one that even has some Republican support. Though rarely used and often overlooked, the 14th Amendment could be the key to preventing a president who contributed to a domestic terrorist attack from ever receiving a position of public office again. The president of the United States meets all the criteria for being permanently barred from public office under even…

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‘This isn’t the final chapter’: Analyst warns, again, about rise of right-wing extremists

‘This isn’t the final chapter’: Analyst warns, again, about rise of right-wing extremists

NBC News reports: In April 2009, a senior Homeland Security intelligence analyst named Daryl Johnson wrote an internal report warning that right-wing extremism was on the rise in the United States and that it could lead to violence. The report leaked, and the backlash was swift. Republican lawmakers were furious. Veterans advocates criticized a section raising concerns about service members returning with post-traumatic stress. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano apologized for parts of it, and the unit ultimately was dissolved….

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Biden’s Covid-19 team reconsiders pandemic plan in light of more infectious coronavirus variants

Biden’s Covid-19 team reconsiders pandemic plan in light of more infectious coronavirus variants

STAT reports: President-elect Biden will address growing concerns about new, more transmissible coronavirus variants as he lays out his plans to speed up the sluggish U.S. vaccine rollout in a press conference this week, two of his top Covid-19 advisers confirmed to STAT. Biden was briefed on the variant that first appeared in the United Kingdom, known as B.1.1.7, soon after his Covid-19 advisory board convened an emergency meeting on Christmas Eve to discuss the new strains and the threat…

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