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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The Covid-19 death toll is even worse than it looks

The Covid-19 death toll is even worse than it looks

The Wall Street Journal reports: The recorded death count from the Covid-19 pandemic as of Thursday is nearing 2 million. The true extent is far worse. More than 2.8 million people have lost their lives due to the pandemic, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from 59 countries and jurisdictions. This tally offers the most comprehensive view yet of the pandemic’s global impact. Deaths in these places last year surged more than 12% above average levels. Less…

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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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What do we know about the lives of Neanderthal women?

What do we know about the lives of Neanderthal women?

Rebecca Wragg Sykes writes: The first Neanderthal face to emerge from time’s sarcophagus was a woman’s. As the social and liberal revolutions of 1848 began convulsing Europe, quarry workers’ rough hands pulled her from the great Rock of Gibraltar. Calcite mantling her skull meant that, at first, she seemed more a hunk of stone than a once warm-blooded being, and obscured her decidedly odd anatomy – massive eyes, heavy brow ridges and a low, long cranium. While monarchies fell and…

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McConnell said to be pleased about impeachment; a ‘vote of conscience,’ says Rep. Liz Cheney

McConnell said to be pleased about impeachment; a ‘vote of conscience,’ says Rep. Liz Cheney

The New York Times reports: Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, has told associates that he believes President Trump committed impeachable offenses and that he is pleased that Democrats are moving to impeach him, believing that it will make it easier to purge him from the party, according to people familiar with his thinking. The House is voting on Wednesday to formally charge Mr. Trump with inciting violence against the country. At the same time, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California,…

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How white evangelical Christians fused with Trump extremism

How white evangelical Christians fused with Trump extremism

The New York Times reports: Before self-proclaimed members of the far-right group the Proud Boys marched toward the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, they stopped to kneel in the street and prayed in the name of Jesus. The group, whose participants have espoused misogynistic and anti-immigrant views, prayed for God to bring “reformation and revival.” They gave thanks for “the wonderful nation we’ve all been blessed to be in.” They asked God for the restoration of their “value systems,” and for…

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The alt-right is now the mainstream Republican Party

The alt-right is now the mainstream Republican Party

Benjamin Parker writes: Remember the alt-right? The sludge of white supremacists, misogynists, neo-Nazis, and various chauvinists leaked out of the putrid corners of the internet in the years leading up to Donald Trump’s election. Although their various hatreds, grievances, and conspiracy theories were old, they saw themselves as something new. Their very name placed them in opposition to the status quo. They weren’t the American right, the coalition that included politicians like then-House Speaker Paul Ryan and Sens. Jeff Flake…

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House Democrats briefed on three terrifying plots to overthrow government

House Democrats briefed on three terrifying plots to overthrow government

HuffPost reports: Capitol Police briefed Democrats on Monday night about three more potentially gruesome demonstrations planned in the coming days, with one plot to encircle the U.S. Capitol and assassinate Democrats and some Republicans. On a private call Monday night, new leaders of the Capitol Police told House Democrats they were closely monitoring three separate plans that could pose serious threats to members of Congress as Washington prepares for Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration on Jan. 20. The first is…

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The Capitol rioters weren’t ‘low class’

The Capitol rioters weren’t ‘low class’

Adam Serwer writes: They were business owners, CEOs, state legislators, police officers, active and retired service members, real-estate brokers, stay-at-home dads, and, I assume, some Proud Boys. The mob that breached the Capitol last week at President Donald Trump’s exhortation, hoping to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, was full of what you might call “respectable people.” They left dozens of Capitol Police officers injured, screamed “Hang Mike Pence!,” threatened to murder House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and set…

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FBI report warned of ‘war’ at Capitol, contradicting claims there was no indication of looming violence

FBI report warned of ‘war’ at Capitol, contradicting claims there was no indication of looming violence

The Washington Post reports: A day before rioters stormed Congress, an FBI office in Virginia issued an explicit internal warning that extremists were preparing to travel to Washington to commit violence and “war,” according to an internal document reviewed by The Washington Post that contradicts a senior official’s declaration the bureau had no intelligence indicating anyone at last week’s pro-Trump protest planned to do harm. A situational information report approved for release the day before the U.S. Capitol riot painted…

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