“Facebook Purges #WalkAway Movement Page, Thousands of Testimonials Gone
“I have a dozen paid employees. I have dozens of volunteers. ALL BANNED at the same time today. “
“The WalkAway movement was started by Brandon Straka, who left the Democrat party and became a Trump-supporting conservative after the 2016 election.
Straka inspired hundreds of thousands of other Americans who felt the Democrats had moved too far left and also walked away from the party. Now Facebook has purged his page.
Straka’s followers created thousands of videos documenting their personal stories, and now it’s all gone.
Andrew Mark Miller reports at the Washington Examiner:
Conservative #WalkAway Facebook page removed along with hundreds of thousands of videos and followers
Conservative activist Brandon Straka announced that Facebook has removed his page with over half a million followers and also banned members of his team.
“FACEBOOK has removed the #WalkAway Campaign and has BANNED ME and EVERY MEMBER of my team!!!” Straka, founder of the #WalkAway movement, tweeted Friday morning.
“Over half a million people in #WalkAway with hundreds of thousands of testimonial videos and stories is GONE,” he added. “Facebook has banned everything related to #WalkAway.”
Straka also included screenshots of messages from Facebook, including one that said the page was “removed for violating terms of use.”
Straka confirmed to the Washington Examiner that his Facebook group, the business page for the nonprofit group, and his personal account were all shut down Friday morning.
He added that people merely associated with the page were also removed from Facebook.
“Every volunteer, every paid employee, banned,” Straka said.
How can this be perceived as anything other than political?”
————-
But hey, half the R party just keeps rolling over for the fascist scum.
🚨🚨🚨FACEBOOK has removed the #WalkAway Campaign and has BANNED ME and EVERY MEMBER of my team!!! Over half a million people in #WalkAway with hundreds of thousands of testimonial videos and stories is GONE. Facebook has banned everything related to #WalkAway. pic.twitter.com/WxoKu1HpSb
I have a dozen paid employees. I have dozens of volunteers. ALL BANNED at the same time today. Absolute mayhem!! Is this the unity and healing of Joe Biden’s America??? This is horrifying https://t.co/5znsPZYfgC
“Parler CEO Mark Matze said Sunday that the “devastating” Big Tech ban of the right-wing app could put the company out of business, calling it “an assault on everybody.”
His comment came a day after Amazon kicked the booming app off its web hosting services.
“It’s devastating is what it is,” Matze said on Fox News. “They all work together to make sure at the same time we would lose access to not only our apps, but they’re actually shutting all of our servers off tonight, off the internet.”
“They made an attempt to not only kill the app, but to actually destroy the entire company,” he said. “And it’s not just these three companies.
“Every vendor from text message services to email providers to our lawyers all ditched us too on the same day,” Matze said.
On Saturday, Amazon joined tech giants Apple and Google in suspending Parler from its servers, citing an increase in violent content on the site.
The social networking service had become a favorite of right-wingers and supporters of President Trump after popular sites like Twitter and Facebook began blocking or adding disclaimers to some posts, including Trump’s tweets.”
Inflaming emotions isn’t a crime. The president didn’t mention violence, much less provoke it.”
“House Democrats have drafted an article of impeachment that accuses President Trump of “incitement to insurrection.” Acting U.S. Attorney Michael Sherwin said Thursday that his office is “looking at all actors here and anyone that had a role” in the Capitol riot. Some reporters have construed that as including Mr. Trump.
The president didn’t commit incitement or any other crime. I should know. As a Washington prosecutor I earned the nickname “protester prosecutor” from the antiwar group CodePink. In one trial, I convicted 31 protesters who disrupted congressional traffic by obstructing the Capitol Crypt. In another, I convicted a CodePink activist who smeared her hands with fake blood, charged at then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a House hearing room, and incited the audience to seize the secretary of state physically. In other cases, I dropped charges when the facts fell short of the legal standard for incitement. One such defendant was the antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan.
Hostile journalists and lawmakers have suggested Mr. Trump incited the riot when he told a rally that Republicans need to “fight much harder.” Mr. Trump suggested the crowd walk to the Capitol: “We’re going to cheer on brave senators and congressmen and -women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them. Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong.”
In the District of Columbia, it’s a crime to “intentionally or recklessly act in such a manner to cause another person to be in reasonable fear” and to “incite or provoke violence where there is a likelihood that such violence will ensue.” This language is based on Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), in which the Supreme Court set the standard for speech that could be prosecuted without violating the First Amendment. The justices held that a Ku Klux Klan leader’s calls for violence against blacks and Jews were protected speech. The court found that Clarence Brandenburg’s comments were “mere advocacy” of violence, not “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action . . . likely to incite or produce such action.”
The president didn’t mention violence on Wednesday, much less provoke or incite it. He said, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
“The proper conservative response to last Wednesday’s violent entry into the Capitol and vandalism, as well as assaults on law-enforcement, is to identify the guilty parties and ensure they are arrested.
Such deterrence will prevent any future devolution from legal popular protests into thuggery. No constitutional republic can tolerate its iconic heart stormed, breached, and defiled.
Is Some Violence Worse than Others?
Of course, there is no such thing as “good” or “acceptable” violence of either Trump supporters or of the Antifa and BLM sort.
Yet the latter were largely exempt from any consequences for most of the summer—despite Joe Biden’s demagogic implication that the now multibillion-dollar funded BLM was treated harshly in comparison to the rogue Trump rioters.
Do we remember the authorities’ exemptions given to “warlord” Raz Simone and his armed thugs who, with absolute impunity, took over a Seattle “autonomous zone” known as CHOP or CHAZ, where four shootings and two deaths followed? Who exactly destroyed or vandalized thousands of state and federal public monuments—some in Washington, D.C.—and burned and looted hundreds of buildings with impunity?
Those who wrongly demanded to defund the police, now rightly deplore the lack of a Capitol police presence. Their only consistency is their own perceived political self-interest.
Biden himself rarely if ever, without exceptions, outright condemned the atrocious violence of Antifa and indeed contextualized it as an “idea”—a disincarnate entity that apparently could magically also burn and loot.
Again, his inaugural call for unity was quickly superseded by his surreal accusations that the police were racist in not quelling the violence. Yet the problem at the Capitol was not that security was racially selective, but that there was not much security at all. And the lapse was probably not by design as much as sheer incompetence.
The president-elect’s demeanor and furor certainly were not compatible with his media image as the supposedly angelic uniter of the country. Within 24 hours he had gone from blasting the police authorities as racists to the old reductio ad Hitlerum trope of comparing a few Republican senators to Nazi propogandist Joseph Goebbels, in a hysterical rant that descended into incoherent numerology about the bombing of Dresden. I’m sure Xi Jinping and Ayatollah Khamenei were impressed by his historical recollections.
Would that summer candidate Biden had just once said a word on behalf of the victims of Antifa and BLM—more than 700 injured law enforcement officers, billions of dollars in damage, and dozens killed over a summer of hateful violence that also wrecked the lives of thousands of struggling small business owners and their employees. What Kamala Harris said about the violent summer protests was appalling, and she was most worried about bailing out those arrested for street violence. Somehow a summer of hate and destruction earned BLM $10 billion in corporate gifts. Did anyone suggest that CEOs were subsidizing violence by crassly buying protection?
One might add that the D.C. police shooting of an unarmed white female Air Force veteran fortunately did not precipitate the sort of unhinged looting and arson seen a few months ago. And so far, police authorities, to their credit, have had no hesitation in immediately releasing the names and photos of the suspect Capitol intruders. But then again, that was a deterrent modus operandi that also might have curbed Antifa and BLM violence earlier, had it been as well implemented widely against such miscreants.
In the 24 hours after the initial outrage of the unchecked violence in the Capitol, a weird cancel mob formed quickly. Democrats were demanding senators resign who voted against the legitimacy of the electors.
Lawyers who defended Trump were hounded and their firms leveraged to fire them. Book deals of suspect senators were canceled. Resignations were the order of the day.
One would have never remembered that leftist protestors were once with impunity beating on the doors of the Supreme Court to get in during and after the Kavanaugh hearings, as others stormed into the halls of Congress and bullied senators. Still others this June lit up a church in their “mostly peaceful” efforts to enter the White House grounds. Very few Democratic senators then called for calm and to take a step back.
Multimillionaire Michelle Obama, who seems seldom to allow a serious crisis to go to waste, was calling for the complete weaponization of social media and the permanent banning of Trump. A scared Mark Zuckerberg seemed to agree. The multibillionaire had infused $350 million of his own money into key preselected precincts to boost voting turnout in a way the Left in the old days would have called the dark money that undermines democracy.”
“Americans are expected to be aghast at the events in Washington, D.C. on January 6. A vicious mob of revolutionary Trump supporters, we are told, swarmed the nation’s capital and, in an act of insurrection, unlawfully entered the hallowed halls of Congress. Unlike the “fiery but mostly peaceful protests” that were reported over the summer, the media have been quick to claim that this was not a “mostly peaceful” protest (despite the protestors being, by any estimation, mostly peaceful), but the entire event is being categorized as a bona fide riot that had been fueled by Donald Trump’s irresponsible and untruthful rhetoric.
As a matter of scale, we should note that the level of violence and destruction that occurred in Washington since January 6 is some immeasurably tiny fraction of the violence and destruction visited upon cities across America in the orchestrated riots that occurred in the wake of George Floyd’s death. And while the media and its preferred politicians are still actively and outwardly pretending that George Floyd’s death has the slightest thing to do with racist police officers (it doesn’t, and there is not a single compelling shred of evidence anywhere that it does), the media and its preferred politicians are simultaneously pretending that ordinary American taxpayers have no legitimate reason to be expressing their political outrage in Washington.
That’s a contemptible lie.
Just ten years ago, we still lived under the naïve presumption that, in a free republic of the people, by the people, and for the people, the people’s elected representatives should be expected to read and understand legislation before voting laws into existence. You might recall that Nancy Pelosi provided a legendarily poor answer when asked about the contents of the Affordable Care Act, aka, Obamacare. The urgency for this bill was predicated upon a perceived healthcare crisis in America, and the result was an abomination comprising 2,000-plus pages of pork disguised as a healthcare bill for the benefit of the American people. “We have to pass the bill before we find out what is in it,” she aloofly said when pressed, earning much public scorn and perhaps singlehandedly delivering a Republican House later in 2010.
And today, what’s different? As Mark Steyn writes:
The “Covid “relief” bill is 5,593 pages. There is no such thing as a 5,593-page “law” – because no legislator could read it and grasp it. For purposes of comparison, the Government of India Act, which in 1935 was the longest piece of legislation ever drafted in British law and which provided for the government of what are now India, Pakistan and Burma, is 326 pages.
Oh, I’m sure paragons of republican virtue will object that no Indian or Burmese citizen-representatives were involved in that piece of imperial imposition. Well, no American citizen-representatives were involved in the Covid “relief” bill. The legislation was drafted not by legislators, nor by civil servants, nor even by staffers or interns. Instead, a zillion lobbyists wrote their particular carve-outs, and then it got stitched together by some clerk playing the role of Baron von Frankenstein. The “legislators” voted it into law unread, and indeed even unseen, as the Congressional photocopier proved unable to print it: It was a bill without corporeal form, but the yes-men yessed it into law anyway.
What do taxpaying Americans get from this monstrosity of a bill, in a practical sense? Some of them will get $600. Many will receive this payment in the form of a prepaid Visa debit card provided by the Treasury, which somehow seems uncomfortably closer to (or an eerier foreshadowing of, perhaps) the globo-socialist technocracy that Democrats proudly envision than a paper check or a direct payment to a bank account.
But while those $600 debit cards may account of a few pages of the bill, there’s still almost 5,600 others to consider. And since we no longer live under the pretense that bills should be read and understood before voted upon, or have a functioning media to demand such things, it’s been left to curious or patriotic sleuths to discover that billions of dollars from the Treasury are also allocated to countless non-Covid related endeavors in the Covid “relief” bill, like sending millions of dollars to Pakistan for “gender programs.” When such revelations yield expected criticism from the public, propaganda machines quickly go to work claiming that this normal business of lawmaking is just over the heads of those unwashed rubes who, and whose descendants, will have to foot the bill for it.
Calling the venue where these shenanigans regularly take place “the citadel of democracy” or a “light to the world,” as doddering Joe Biden recently did, is bad comedy. Washington has become a dark and dirty den of vipers and predators, sluicing nutrients from taxpayer prey with ever more unsustainable zeal. President Trump regularly characterizes the current state of Washington much more accurately — it’s a swamp.
CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who couldn’t be bothered to criticize the mobs that unleashed an orgy of destruction over a fake news narrative about systemic racism last summer, summed up the position of the media and Democrats, describing the taxpaying Trump supporters in Washington thusly:
Look at them, they’re high-fiving each other for this deplorable display of completely unpatriotic, completely against law and order, completely unconstitutional behavior, it’s stunning… And they’re going to go back, you know, to the Olive Garden and to the Holiday Inn they’re staying at, and the Garden Marriott, and they’re going to have some drinks and they’re going to talk about the great day they had in Washington … They stood up for nothing other than mayhem.
Cooper and the hoi polloi political class wouldn’t be caught dead in such déclassé digs or eateries, of course, but they’re fitting for the middle-class zhlubs who support President Trump, he presumes. His elitist derision perfectly exemplifies the disconnect that has driven hundreds of thousands of Trump-supporting protestors to Washington. The political elites, and the media exalting them, enjoy such lavish lifestyles only because of taxpaying suckers who stay in Holiday Inns and eat at Olive Gardens, yet they believe themselves to be naturally entitled to so much more than we.”
So she seriously ended her letter with “prayerfully”???! This woman is on such an ego trip…how can any thinking person not see the vile person that she is. I am astounded that she wields so much control over so many…
While Pelosi was being tongue massaged by the hacks at CBS last night, she let the truth slip…..
This is about keeping Trump from running again. It’s raw, naked, politics, nothing more.
Tonight, in the first interview with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi since a mob smashed its way through the Capitol, Speaker Pelosi tells Lesley Stahl one motivation for impeaching POTUS is to assure he never runs for the presidency again. https://t.co/GB0n5UOLgKpic.twitter.com/aU6dCSO2BQ
DEVELOPING: Democrats in both the House and Senate are planning to draft legislation to classify MAGA rallies as "domestic terrorist activity" and require the FBI, DOJ & DHS to take steps to prevent such "domestic terrorism." Sen. Durbin is leading effort along with Rep Schneider
“Alan Dershowitz: “The case cannot come to trial in the Senate. Because the Senate has rules and the rules would not allow the case to come to trial until, according to the majority leader, until 1 PM on January 20th an hour after President Trump leaves office. And the Constitution specifically says, “The President shall be removed from office upon impeachment.” It doesn’t say the former president. Congress has no power to impeach or try a private citizen, whether it be a private citizen named Donald Trump or named Barack Obama or anyone else.””
“Dennis Prager: There is no example of the left – not liberals, they value free speech – no example of the left having power and not suppressing speech. It doesn’t exist. The left does not value free speech because free speech is its dire enemy. If people can actually say what is wrong with the left, it crumbles… I think we can predict there will be more and more suppression. If you read a brief synopsis of the Reichstag fire in Germany in 1933. Fire was set to the German parliament a month after Hitler took power. He used the Reichtag fire in order to start killing communists. What we’re having now, and I’m not calling them Nazis, I’m calling them totalitarians, the use of an event to suppress liberty.”
In scanning over some of your comments from last night, I think that some of y’all are still looking at these things through a purely political lens. The slow erosion of our society has been happening over decades, but just now this election season has revealed that there are many bad actors in cahoots with the CCP and other Globalists to fully implement the Great Reset. The Great Coup attempt is on…
It’s all tied together, with the same nefarious figures behind it all – the spying on incoming Pres. Trump; the dossier; Russia, Russia, Russia; ‘impeachment’; the assault on the 1st and 2nd Amendments; censorship; Covid hysteria and shutdowns; stealing the election; refusing to look at the overwhelming evidence of fraud, and not allowing it to get out; corrupt judges; overriding Trump’s veto of the Defense Bill which included dealing with section 230; cancel culture; staging the ‘storming’ of the Capitol; regular cover-ups of misdeeds (i.e. the Biden crime family), a 2nd ‘impeachment’, etc. etc.
Only a few days into 2021 and we can already see and predict how the Big Tech companies (don’t have any connections with them!), big mainstream media such as CBS, CNN, NBC, MSNBC, and Fox are censoring and shutting down the free flow of info. They are also in collusion with the DOJ, CIA, SCOTUS, etc… who can win against those big names in lawsuits now that they have corrupt judges and politicians in their pockets? The path to one-party dictatorship is here… radical, liberal-socialists will soon dictate how Americans live and think! They might very well purge all those who don’t think like them…
However, there’s a lot going on behind the scenes. Do you think that yesterday’s great 40% power outage in Pakistan was a coincidence? What about all that is happening in Italy? Many more huge events will be happening this week, with arrests included.
The way that these incredible things are happening, and the way that certain people have suddenly become so traitorous, reveals that this is all being engaged at a much deeper spiritual level (Eph 6:12). Fear not, however – our lord is a Mighty Warrior! As you navigate all these things, remember that He is always with you, and will never leave you or forsake you.
As I said, It’s a raw, naked political power grab. They’re looking to censor and silence half the country, not just Trump and his cabinet. This cannot be allowed to stand.
“It’s all tied together, with the same nefarious figures behind it all ”
It is indeed Tychicus, and a large % of our own party refuse to see that, or acknowledge it. They seek to get along with the people who would destroy what they hold most dear instead. Anyone who thinks this mob won’t come for your religious freedoms sooner rather than later is delusional.
HRW can tell you that. He speaks freely here, I don’t ever edit or censor him, because he follows the rules. I don’t agree with most of it, but he’s as entitled to speak his mind as the rest of us are, you included. 🙂
“We must be resolute, forthright, and stand like an immovable rock. We must school the left on the concept of federalism. After all, they believed that they could declare themselves “sanctuaries” for illegal immigrants. The left must be taught a firm lesson in the 10th Amendment.
However, what this will require is that Republicans can no longer be “Quislings.” One thing the left, like any bully, relies upon is the lack of intestinal fortitude from us, their political opposition. Their use of fear, intimidation, coercion, threats, and violence (to which they never admit) are the means to their end. The left is playing a very dangerous game of duplicitous hypocrisy. It is evident and unacceptable. We can borrow a page from their Saul Alinsky rule book and let them see what principled American resistance looks like.
No, I am not scared. God did not give me, or you, a spirit of fear. What we do need are leaders who are calm, cool, and collected under fire, and who will not cower to the left. Yes, I am gonna be talking to someone about communication platforms. But, what we currently see from the left is abject totalitarianism, targeting members of the Trump administration to undermine their future livelihood. They are censoring conservatives, which is true fascism. But, with all of this, we must keep a cool head as our planning and execution must be flawless, as we frustrate the left into making tactical, and strategic, errors . . . causing their implosion.
A final word to bolster your spirit:
“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”
Summer soldiers and sunshine patriots stay out of our way. We will let you know when it is safe to come outside. It is time to carpe diem!
“In Capitol Riot Aftermath, People Are Contacting Sen. Josh Hawley’s High School Demanding It ‘Condemn’ The Alumnus”
“Critics of Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley are contacting the all-boys Jesuit high school from which he graduated more than twenty years ago to express their displeasure with the role they claim he played in Wednesday’s riot at the U.S. Capitol.”
The over-reach and backlash/punishment from the left was entirely expected by all of us, wasn’t it? I think I mentioned that on the first day after this happened last week. The next two years will indeed pose many challenges for conservatives and for Christians, who will take some of the accusatory blame for what happened on Wednesday; I suspect we’ll feel the heat.
We have more common ground than not here, folks. But reactions should always be kept in a biblical light first and foremost. We are Christians first. U.S. citizens second.
The political firestorm we find the nation (and the church) in seems to be raging out of our personal, individual human control right now, in this day and week of Jan. 11. Lower personal temperatures may help going forward. I’m working on mine, it’s not easy, admittedly.
This probably will be another week of lashing out from both sides.
~ U.S.—Facing unprecedented efforts from Big Tech to silence their infallible reporting, The Babylon Bee has announced an innovative new format known as “print.” Fans of the newspaper can now receive their news written on an anonymous, untraceable format known as a “newspaper.”
The new technology will be printed with ink on paper and hand-delivered by kids riding bikes–directly to your mailbox.
“We’ve been working hard on this technology for a long time,” said Owner Seth Dillon. “After years of research, we have finally developed a technology and distribution method that Big Tech can’t touch.” … ~
Tech monopolies — FB, Google, Apple, Amazon — have more concentrated wealth & power than any in history. They have used brute force 3 times in 3 months to manipulate US politics: censoring NY Post, banning Trump, destroying Parler.
Ben Sasse is a lying never-Trumper. That piece from Hewitt is opinionated trash.
“HH: Now I am curious about the word incite. It has a legal meaning. I know you’re not a lawyer, but incite means to act with the purposeful intention to cause. That’s why I asked you the question I did. Do you think he intended the mob to break into the Congress?
BS: You are right that I am not a lawyer, so there probably are 15 sub-definitions of incite. But the President had a rally hours before this happened where he is telling them to go to the Capitol and to go wild. This is a part of a pattern. The guy is addicted to division. This is a deep brokenness in his soul. You and I have talked about it multiple times. Donald Trump is a guy who hurts. And I hurt for him at an anthropological and a human level, but at a level of his oath of office to the Constitution, the duty of the president of the United States is to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. And the President is addicted to social media and to television, and to division, and he’s been lying to the American people for eight straight weeks and planned it long before. No matter what was happening in any state, he was going to say the election was being stolen, and the people needed to rise up.”
————
He said no such thing as “go wild” and the rest is just his opinion, which is hateful, like he is.
“BS: But Wednesday morning, he said repeatedly to go wild when you get to the Capitol. And they went to the Capitol, and well, let’s be clearly, Hugh, there are 30,000 people here. The vast majority of them are honorable, freedom-loving people. The vast majority of them, but not all of them.”
——–
The rest is just more of the same Orange Man Bad garbage. Sasse is gross, as are his repeated misrepresentations of the president, yet he preaches his false morality from on high because tools like Hewitt give him a platform for his obvious hate.
“On Thursday, Brian Sicknick, an officer with the US Capitol Police, died from injuries sustained during the storming of the Capitol building. Democratic leaders have presented Sicknick as a martyr of the #Resistance against President Trump and his dangerous supporters.
Reality is more complicated.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi described Sicknick’s death as a reminder of the need to “protect our country from all threats, foreign and domestic.” President-elect Joe Biden suggested that whoever backed Trump supports “an all-out assault on our institutions of our democracy.” The day’s violence, it seems, has become an all-purpose excuse to denounce and silence anyone not sufficiently anti-Trump.
Yet neither Biden nor Pelosi reckoned with an uncomfortable fact: Sicknick was a Trump supporter himself, as his friend Caroline Behringer announced shortly after his death. Far from sharing the views of the #Resistance, he had written letters to his congressman opposing Trump’s impeachment.
Like many Trump supporters who are now being censored, he believed that the system is fundamentally rigged in favor of a narrow elite. He had used fiery rhetoric, even called for regime change in America.
The people who claim to honor Sicknick have elided these facts. Acknowledging them would undermine their effort to label the 75 million Americans who supported Trump as a domestic threat. Already, unelected Silicon Valley billionaires are using Sicknick’s death to justify censorship of views he expressed. Liberals are cheering the limitation of free speech. Leftists are applauding the exercise of corporate power.”
“BS: You are right that I am not a lawyer, so there probably are 15 sub-definitions of incite. But the President had a rally hours before this happened where he is telling them to go to the Capitol and to go wild. This is a part of a pattern. The guy is addicted to division. This is a deep brokenness in his soul. You and I have talked about it multiple times. Donald Trump is a guy who hurts. And I hurt for him at an anthropological and a human level, but at a level of his oath of office to the Constitution, the duty of the president of the United States is to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. And the President is addicted to social media and to television, and to division, and he’s been lying to the American people for eight straight weeks and planned it long before. No matter what was happening in any state, he was going to say the election was being stolen, and the people needed to rise up.”
————
Hewitt plays it up and sells it like Sasse is some authority
Sasse doesn’t deserve the time of day, yet Hewitt gives him a platform for his hatefulness toward the president. It’s obvious, and right in front of you.
It would be helpful if the media policed their own occasionally, then we might not have gotten to where we are now.
The Republican-controlled Senate should censure or better yet expel Kamala Harris for providing encouragement and material support to the violent BLM insurrectionists who burned police stations, government buildings, and businesses from coast to coast throughout 2020.
Madonna confesses to fantasizing about blowing up the White House in 2017. Media: Consider the nuance and context. Trump tells people not to riot in 2021. Media: He's inciting INSURRECTION!!!111!!!
Disorder Brings Authoritarianism
JANUARY 11, 2021 BY GENE VEITH
Mob action, such as the riot at the Capitol, undermines freedom and democracy in two ways.
When citizens join a mob, they lose their individuality and give way to their passions, at the expense of their reason and the restraints of the law. Mob psychology takes away the freedom of both the victims of the riot and the rioters themselves. For this and other reasons, the American founders feared mob rule above all else. (See for example The Federalist Papers No. 9 and No. 10.)
But what truly finishes off freedom and democracy is that riotous mobs provoke a reaction of authoritarianism. Societies must have social order, so when anarchy breaks out, they often lurch to the other extreme, shutting down liberty completely with tyrannical controls.
“It is impossible to read the history of the petty republics of Greece and Italy without feeling sensations of horror and disgust at the distractions with which they were continually agitated,” writes Hamilton, “and at the rapid succession of revolutions by which they were kept in a state of perpetual vibration between the extremes of tyranny and anarchy” (Federalist No. 9). This has been the pattern throughout history, not just with the Greek democracies and the Roman Republic, but with the French Revolution, as the Reign of Terror gave way to Napoleon, and every one of the Communist revolutions, in which popular uprisings to throw off oppression set up police states. Plato in the Republic discusses this phenomenon, observing that tyrannies are an outgrowth of democracy, because an excess of freedom leads to too much slavery.
So it’s little wonder that the Capitol riot has already unleashed the authoritarian mindset. …
________________________
Cheryl, this is what I listened to earlier. Pretty far into the program he describes how horrible it was being in the capitol when it all took place. He is the lawyer who represented Trump during the Russian fiasco and impeachment. He has very strong words about how wrong it was regarding how the capitol was invaded. https://aclj.org/executive-power/breaking-pelosi-introduces-articles-of-impeachment
About Antifa supposedly being bused into D.C. (There is more to the article than just this point, though).
“A rumor has also started that Antifa members were bused into D.C. The rumor appears to have originated with Twitter user Paul Sperry, a journalist who falsely accused National Security Council official Victoria Coates of being the author of the New York Times “Anonymous” op-ed. Sperry cited a “former FBI agent” serving as the source of information for this claim. Ken Kohl, a current official at the Department of Justice, told reporters on Friday: “We have no indication of [Antifa presence at the riot] at this time.” Steven D’Antuono, an assistant director at the FBI, echoed Kohl, telling reporters on a call that there is “no indication” Antifa participated in the riot.
Some also claimed that the D.C. police escorted Antifa buses into the rally. The police department denies having escorted any group, and the video used as proof has been circulating since at least December of last year. It appears to show a protest outside of the Minnesota governor’s home.”
“Debunking the Conspiracy Theories Claiming That Antifa Led the Attack on the Capitol
Right-wing groups were planning online for weeks to protest the electoral vote count.”
“Trump’s Lawyers Surrender in Georgia Despite Giuliani’s ‘Conclusive Proof’ of Election Fraud
Trump attorney Kurt Hilbert claimed he had reached settlement agreements with state officials, which was news to them.”
“During the rally that preceded Wednesday’s deadly attack on the Capitol by enraged Trump supporters, Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal attorney, said he was about to blow the lid off machine-facilitated election fraud in Georgia. That was not true. The next day, President Donald Trump’s lawyers dropped four lawsuits alleging election irregularities and fraud in Georgia, claiming they had reached settlement agreements with state officials, who supposedly had promised to investigate Trump’s outlandish charges. That was not true either.
Those two lies confirm that Giuliani never had any credible evidence to back up his reckless allegations against Dominion Voting Systems, which he claims helped Democrats rig election machines to switch “hundreds of thousands” of Trump votes to Biden votes. That widely promoted conspiracy theory, which on Friday prompted Dominion to sue former Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell for defamation, was at the heart of the grievances underlying Wednesday’s violence. Yet Giuliani now has implicitly admitted it was all a hoax. . . .
Given that Giuliani has had more than two months to back up his “easily provable” claims and has repeatedly failed to do so, you might think the ship has sailed on his reputation. But even if you are a diehard Trump supporter who was hoping the evidence would finally materialize, what happened the next day confirmed once again that there is no rabbit in that hat. Facing a state trial on Friday at which they would have had to put up or shut up, the president’s lawyers abandoned four lawsuits challenging Georgia’s election results. It turned out that Giuliani and his associates did not have the guts to face “trial by combat,” or even combat by trial.”
AJ, I guess you addressed the question I had @1:53 Did the President tell the crowd to go wild? To behave like BLM? Sasse repeats the same phrase several times.
I believe BS may fancy himself presidential material.
If you notice, what’s lacking in all the coverage are any Trump quotes that show what they allege he did. Not one. No videos, tape recordings of his speech, or direct word for word quotes. The 2 quotes Twitter used to justify his banning contained none either.
I challenge anyone to show one that does.
And him calling for people to protest is not a call to violence as the left alleges. It’s BS.
We clearly have differences of opinion on some things here, that may not change.
Meanwhile:
Imagine how helpful it would be if @JoeBiden were to show some grace, call on Democrats to stand down, practice the healing he keeps preaching. Why won't he?
I don’t think Veith ‘blamed’ trump precisely so much as he noted that one bad act is now — predictably — leading to another in reaction to it.
Anarchy isn’t pretty and that’s what we were starting to get a glimpse of on Wednesday. It was under Trump’s watch and he did gather the ‘troops’ in DC. The rest is (sad) history.
Now comes the backlash and the next chapter.
Biden has a lot on his plate, but I’d think toning down the rhetoric might be the best way to go, asap.
“After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter — we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.
In the context of horrific events this week, we made it clear on Wednesday that additional violations of the Twitter Rules would potentially result in this very course of action. Our public interest framework exists to enable the public to hear from elected officials and world leaders directly. It is built on a principle that the people have a right to hold power to account in the open. ”
——-
“Overview
On January 8, 2021, President Donald J. Trump Tweeted:
“The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”
Shortly thereafter, the President Tweeted:
“To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”
We assessed the two Tweets referenced above under our Glorification of Violence policy, which aims to prevent the glorification of violence that could inspire others to replicate violent acts and determined that they were highly likely to encourage and inspire people to replicate the criminal acts that took place at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
This determination is based on a number of factors, including:
President Trump’s statement that he will not be attending the Inauguration is being received by a number of his supporters as further confirmation that the election was not legitimate and is seen as him disavowing his previous claim made via two Tweets (1, 2) by his Deputy Chief of Staff, Dan Scavino, that there would be an “orderly transition” on January 20th.
The second Tweet may also serve as encouragement to those potentially considering violent acts that the Inauguration would be a “safe” target, as he will not be attending.
The use of the words “American Patriots” to describe some of his supporters is also being interpreted as support for those committing violent acts at the US Capitol.
The mention of his supporters having a “GIANT VOICE long into the future” and that “They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!” is being interpreted as further indication that President Trump does not plan to facilitate an “orderly transition” and instead that he plans to continue to support, empower, and shield those who believe he won the election.
Plans for future armed protests have already begun proliferating on and off-Twitter, including a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, 2021.
As such, our determination is that the two Tweets above are likely to inspire others to replicate the violent acts that took place on January 6, 2021, and that there are multiple indicators that they are being received and understood as encouragement to do so.”
——–
So now calling someone an American Patriot is calling them a violent rioter. Their “interpretation” of things is as grossly flawed as their fascist views on censorship.
The “Trump” flags also were worrisome, as Mohler has pointed out in his discussions about the dangers of “the cult of personality” that he believes took over following the November election. It should never be about a person, but about principles. As soon as an individual becomes worthy of flags in a mob, we’re on shaky ground.
“Anarchy isn’t pretty and that’s what we were starting to get a glimpse of on Wednesday. It was under Trump’s watch and he did gather the ‘troops’ in DC. The rest is (sad) history.”
———
Just getting a glimpse? Where the hell you been? For 7 months the left gave you an up close and personal glimpse every single night. It happened again in your state yesterday when the anarchists again attacked Trump supporters.
It happened under his watch?
Yeah in Dem run states where they allowed it, ignoring Trump’s offer to help. Any of that ringing a bell?
Encouraging folks to rally for a cause and protest is about as American as it gets. That’s all Trump did, unlike the Dems I showed above who actually encouraged violence and rioting. See 8:42, 2:31, or 2:35.
Also, see 8:43…….
That’s a pretty messed up “interpretation” of things you have going.
~ The sight of “Jesus Saves” and “God Bless America” signs by those violently storming the Capitol is about more than just inconsistency. It is about a picture of Jesus Christ and of his gospel that is satanic. The mixing of the Christian religion with crazed and counter-biblical cults such as Q-Anon is telling the outside world that this is what the gospel is. That’s a lie, and it is blasphemous against a holy God.
Look around us, five years into this experiment. Every family I know is divided over this personality. Every church I know is too. Friendships are broken, for almost everyone I know. ~
And that’s all the fault of those doing so. That’s not on the believers and other good people, you know, the 99,9% of others who were there.
They weren’t there to mix with QAnon who just happened to show up looking for trouble. Most don’t even know who QAnon is.
————
“It is about a picture of Jesus Christ and of his gospel that is satanic. The mixing of the Christian religion with crazed and counter-biblical cults such as Q-Anon is telling the outside world that this is what the gospel is. That’s a lie, and it is blasphemous against a holy God.”
The only idiot that thinks that is the idiot that already did. Those people did nothing wrong, weren’t with QAnon, and I’m shocked you would agree with someone who would slander them like that. Blasphemous? Really?
The situation in this country looks bleak. We have been here before. The church at Rome to which Paul wrote would see the empire fall a few centuries later. At the time, they seemed pinned against the wall by Caesar and the imperial cult. For many, God seemed to be invisible in the promises he had made to Israel. And yet, Paul presented a gospel in which we “rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and that endurance produces character, and that character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame” (Rom. 5:3-5).
God is not unfaithful to his purposes, Paul wrote, but has always worked through a remnant (Rom. 11). Our hope of salvation starts with repentance, grieving over our own sins (Rom. 6:20-23). And our hope of the future glory in which we will share starts with our groaning by the Spirit, with the creation around us, that this is not the way it is supposed to be (Rom. 8:19-27).
The times look dark, and we are tempted to despair. But, in Christ, we are “more than conquerors” because nothing—not “rulers nor things present nor things to come, nor powers” can ever “separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:37-39). ~
AJ, did I say I agreed with all of that? Wow. I often share links and outtakes from pieces I think are different perspectives that maybe can broaden the conversation.
Civil discourse is a wonderful tool, but not used much these days I realize.
“As more video footage of the attack itself emerged, it became increasingly plain that many in the crowd had come to the event already prepared for violence. Video of men kitted out in tactical gear moving in tandem up through the crowd on the Capitol steps and into the building itself went viral on social media, as did horrific photos of a man leaping through the Senate chamber with flex cuffs in hand.
Unearthed pre-riot posts from pro-Trump forums like social network Parler and Reddit spinoff TheDonald.win show show similar evidence of hardline Trump supporters trading tips and plans for how to smuggle firearms into D.C., which has very restrictive gun laws. “Those coming armed should meet outside the city and then move en masse,” said one commenter on the latter site in a post documented by investigative journalism site Bellingcat. “Too easy to get picked off moving onesies and twosies.” Another replied: “There is not enough cops in DC to stop what is coming.”
Not all such planning was done in such visible public forums, of course. A number of right-wing paramilitary groups participated in the attack, including at least one chapter of the Proud Boys, whose chairman Enrique Tarrio was arrested as he arrived in D.C. several days before the rally.
This isn’t to say that the riot wasn’t in some respects a spontaneous event. . . .”
For the section that this came from, scroll down to “The More We Learn, the Worse It Gets”.
Well, I supppse we shouldn’t be too harsh with each other. This is not just about logic and reason. It’s ‘s also about the emotional turmoil and internal imbalance that traumatic experiences create. Many people are entirely unprepared emotionally for what is likely ahead. Or for what is happening right now for that matter. I’m not sure I am either. Prayer still goes a long way toward helping us in that regard.
I think many of us are prepared for what is likely ahead, we’re not naive.
But if we could keep the discussion on the issues and not call each other idiots, it would be good? lol I realize there’s a whole lot of emotion going on, however.
What Debra said. And yes, we are prepared but really we are not. The change could be far beyond what we have imagined.
Some changes I expect:
no more homeschooling
no more tax exemptions for churches (do we still have those?)
no more freedom of speech
no more freedom of assembly
Puerto Rico becomes a State
Washington DC becomes a State
packed Supreme Court
immigration sky rocketing
over one hundred twenty asylum seekers each year, placed strategically by the US government
censorship of conservative talk radio and any other FCC over seen projects
no breakup of the monopolies like facebook and google
free tuition to universities
new Iranian nuke deal allowing them to have a nuke
Paris Accord on Climate Control
student loan forgiveness
legalization of drugs
shutting down oil drilling
limited border patrol
wasted money on the wall components already in shipment
more children removed from conservative homes for political stance
Obama care
health care to all illegals now made legal
reparations for slavery
reparations to native Americans (not including me)
no need for red State representatives to show up in DC
I am hoping they will go for an amicable divorce and just divide the nation into three parts. Those of us who want to stay as America, following the Constitution, and the blues can go Communist or whatever it is they are shooting for.
Debra, all of us are rightly upset. I doubt you’ll find anyone on this blog (with the possible exception of one Canadian 🙂 ) who is anything close to “happy” about the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. After the chaos of this summer, we all know the potential for what is ahead.
But this summer we kept saying that facts matter, that truth matters, that the rioters many times were being led by emotion and were ignoring inconvenient truths. And many of those summer rioters had very good emotional reasons for fear and anger. (America’s racial legacy is definitely not all peace and love.) We are the people who stand for Truth, who know the Word of God, and who have the Holy Spirit strengthening us. We also know that the “norm” of the Christian life is to face persecution. We need to be prepared for the possibility, and we can’t descend into fighting to protect our way of life even if it means ignoring truth for the sake of emotion.
We need to hold rioters on “our side” to the same expectations that we held for the other side. And we need to be able to hold politics at arm’s length. If we can’t, the church can be in for a very rough ride in the days ahead. We also need to be able to see that being united in Christ is far, far more important than whether or not we respect one particular politician.
To a lot of us, this has been an eye-opening look at the state of the American church–and not a pretty one. The 5:39 Moore link explains it well.
And a friend suggested I research terrorist attacks on our power grid and some rather unsettling warnings from Homeland Security…that certainly hasn’t helped my frame of mind 😔 😳
Post term abortion, anybody?
Grandma getting a bit old?
Seventeen year old too depressed?
Fourteen year old have crooked teeth?
Children a bit inconvenient with the new job?
The other book I’d read a couple years ago — before anything got near this bad — was “Thriving in Babylon: Why Hope, Humility, and Wisdom matter in a godless culture”
Like I said, broad brushing like Veith and Mohler do above is unproductive and dishonest. They slandered the good people who were the vast majority of protesters.
“The 2020 election was very much about who controlled the information and who got to tell the story. The Capitol “Riots” were no different. It’s hard to gauge how many people were truly there for the rally and event that day, in part because the mainstream media outlets would never want to give accurate totals for those numbers. It’s doubtful the scene or event would have made that much of a blip on the news radar that day if the events at the Capitol Building did not take place. Prior to that, CNN and others had little interest in explaining how a “losing” President presided over one of the largest crowds to ever gather at the Washington Monument on Wednesday in January.
I was sandwiched in the middle of a sea of the most people I’m convinced I will ever see in my entire life. An Ohioan – I looked out in every direction and figured the crowd was at least the scope of four to five totally packed Ohio Stadiums in Columbus. That is probably one of the overwhelming themes of a few days in Washington D.C. – there were just so many people. They were at the hotels. They were on the turnpike and at highway rest stops along the way in Trump gear with Trump flags. They were at the rally and split out in two different directions after the speech to head to the Capitol Building.
Ron N. from New York stood in front of us. In between speakers, he told the story of having COVID-19 and doctors telling his wife to get his affairs in order. And then one doctor fought to have Hydroxychloroquine prescribed. Nelson credited it for saving his life.
Sean R. stood to our right and filmed most of the events on his Go Pro. He described what brought him to D.C. His mother received a knock on the door Thanksgiving Day. “She followed the COVID protocols to a T prior to that. She would not leave the house,” he said. “She had seven people over for Thanksgiving and someone told on her. The cops threatened to arrest her. She had a nervous breakdown. She’s still not over it.”
From virus lockdowns, to the medication prescribed for the virus, to the number of people in attendance at a rally or what constitutes a “peaceful protest” versus a “riot”– every event and piece of information is spun, manipulated, or tweaked for an audience today.
What the media will not say is at the rally I saw some of the most beautiful scenes of my life. A crowd of Vietnamese marched through the audience with their yellow and red flags, one man’s face painted red, white, and blue with “Trump” across his forehead during the speeches.
After the speech, we followed an enormous American flag for two miles. When we finally made it to the Capitol Building, you could tell the crowd had already made it past several barriers. Green temporary fencing was on the ground. Metal sections were propped up on various retaining walls as makeshift ladders.
So much of the last year was about the governmental powers that be, Big Tech, and the media trying to manipulate the narrative and the nation – and in that moment they lost control. There were just too many people.
There was a sense where we were standing – looking around at the surrounding crowd and men perched atop buildings – that we were in harm’s way, that police could potentially continue to use tear gas or that if someone wanted to commit an act of violence or “terror,” like a couple weeks prior in Nashville, they could.
The reality is, the atmosphere outside resembled an open air concert or festival more than a “riot.” The “storming” had taken place.
There were rumors a woman had been shot inside.
A man got on a loudspeaker, “Another small announcement folks, Nancy Pelosi’s Office has been breached.” The crowd cheered.
The 6 p.m. curfew was announced.
People sang the National Anthem and said the Pledge of Allegiance as a massive flag that was draped across scaffolding on the Capitol Building waved in the wind. If this was the last dying vestige or gasps of Freedom of the Press, Speech, or the Right to Assembly, I am proud to say I was there to see it.
When we walked back to our hotel, we heard the news.
“Fox news is in there calling us terrorists,” one man said. Chuck Schumer compared the day to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. By morning, articles and videos circulated of Ashli Babbitt’s killing. An unarmed woman, the 14-year Air Force Veteran was painted in many news articles and comment sections with no redeeming qualities – a traitor, terrorist, conspiracy theorist and a loon who “got what she deserved.” There would be no humanizing or gold casket it seemed for Babbitt, who live streamed her walk to the Capitol.
More people should have died. It was a sign of white privilege that more unarmed women weren’t shot and killed, they claimed.
For someone who watched 9/11 unfold on live television, terrorism seems like a mischaracterization of the day and the events. In some instances, protesters appear to be let right into the building, with one officer saying “I disagree with it but I respect it.” Video surfaced that showed Trump supporters calling out members in the crowd and physically stopping them from breaking windows.
In the end, undoubtedly, Trump supporters did enter the building. And undoubtedly, the people who entered the building to some extent knowingly exposed themselves to danger. But “traitors”? Many in the crowd used that word to describe the politicians inside who willfully kicked the can of responsibility down the road when it came to policing the 2020 Election.”
I think also our collective frame of reference in the U.S. — which so long has been friendly to people of faith and the Christian church in general — makes this potential transition we face so difficult.
Our experience is actually not “normal” (based on U.S. history or the modern, western world norm) so this is especially jarring.
Meaning (in my 10:19) that “our” normal is based on very recent, personal history, not really the usual course of things in the world.
We all hope and pray God intervenes in the way we hope He will — to preserve the nation, to provide good and wise leadership — and may we be willing also to contend peacefully for that. But we don’t really know what the future holds, immediate or long-term. Seems we stand at a turning point.
And God is still working and all eyes on Him. Let Him do the “worrying” while we continue to faithfully serve. How that works with people who are led by Him into political concern, I do not know.
Cheryl @9:11 All true. Certainly, those who have killed or maimed or injured another should be held to account. We are not in a literal war, so there is no justification for killing. And I will be very pleased if it never comes to that.
Janice, that is a scary look at what people said in favor of rioting and such this summer when it wasn’t the seat of government that received the threat or perception of a threat. It would be interesting to have a parallel video: one that shows what the conservatives were saying this summer about the danger of mass, emotional crowds. Basically the two sides “switched places” depending on who was involved, and that isn’t a good look for either.
Wandering Views 
The un-American purges by fascist leftists continues……
https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/01/facebook-purges-walkaway-movement-page-thousands-of-testimonials-gone/
“Facebook Purges #WalkAway Movement Page, Thousands of Testimonials Gone
“I have a dozen paid employees. I have dozens of volunteers. ALL BANNED at the same time today. “
“The WalkAway movement was started by Brandon Straka, who left the Democrat party and became a Trump-supporting conservative after the 2016 election.
Straka inspired hundreds of thousands of other Americans who felt the Democrats had moved too far left and also walked away from the party. Now Facebook has purged his page.
Straka’s followers created thousands of videos documenting their personal stories, and now it’s all gone.
Andrew Mark Miller reports at the Washington Examiner:
Conservative #WalkAway Facebook page removed along with hundreds of thousands of videos and followers
Conservative activist Brandon Straka announced that Facebook has removed his page with over half a million followers and also banned members of his team.
“FACEBOOK has removed the #WalkAway Campaign and has BANNED ME and EVERY MEMBER of my team!!!” Straka, founder of the #WalkAway movement, tweeted Friday morning.
“Over half a million people in #WalkAway with hundreds of thousands of testimonial videos and stories is GONE,” he added. “Facebook has banned everything related to #WalkAway.”
Straka also included screenshots of messages from Facebook, including one that said the page was “removed for violating terms of use.”
Straka confirmed to the Washington Examiner that his Facebook group, the business page for the nonprofit group, and his personal account were all shut down Friday morning.
He added that people merely associated with the page were also removed from Facebook.
“Every volunteer, every paid employee, banned,” Straka said.
How can this be perceived as anything other than political?”
————-
But hey, half the R party just keeps rolling over for the fascist scum.
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———–
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Yes it is, but some are too stupid to see it.
“Parler CEO Mark Matze says tech bans are ‘an assault on everybody’”
https://nypost.com/2021/01/10/parler-ceo-mark-matze-tech-bans-are-assault-on-everybody/
“Parler CEO Mark Matze said Sunday that the “devastating” Big Tech ban of the right-wing app could put the company out of business, calling it “an assault on everybody.”
His comment came a day after Amazon kicked the booming app off its web hosting services.
“It’s devastating is what it is,” Matze said on Fox News. “They all work together to make sure at the same time we would lose access to not only our apps, but they’re actually shutting all of our servers off tonight, off the internet.”
“They made an attempt to not only kill the app, but to actually destroy the entire company,” he said. “And it’s not just these three companies.
“Every vendor from text message services to email providers to our lawyers all ditched us too on the same day,” Matze said.
On Saturday, Amazon joined tech giants Apple and Google in suspending Parler from its servers, citing an increase in violent content on the site.
The social networking service had become a favorite of right-wingers and supporters of President Trump after popular sites like Twitter and Facebook began blocking or adding disclaimers to some posts, including Trump’s tweets.”
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Serious question…..
Do we want an actual civil war?
Because that’s where they’re “leading” us.
————
But hey, Unity!
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Branco nails it….
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For the people who don’t get the obvious…..
https://www.wsj.com/articles/no-trump-isnt-guilty-of-incitement-11610303966?mod=opinion_lead_pos6
“No, Trump Isn’t Guilty of Incitement
Inflaming emotions isn’t a crime. The president didn’t mention violence, much less provoke it.”
“House Democrats have drafted an article of impeachment that accuses President Trump of “incitement to insurrection.” Acting U.S. Attorney Michael Sherwin said Thursday that his office is “looking at all actors here and anyone that had a role” in the Capitol riot. Some reporters have construed that as including Mr. Trump.
The president didn’t commit incitement or any other crime. I should know. As a Washington prosecutor I earned the nickname “protester prosecutor” from the antiwar group CodePink. In one trial, I convicted 31 protesters who disrupted congressional traffic by obstructing the Capitol Crypt. In another, I convicted a CodePink activist who smeared her hands with fake blood, charged at then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a House hearing room, and incited the audience to seize the secretary of state physically. In other cases, I dropped charges when the facts fell short of the legal standard for incitement. One such defendant was the antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan.
Hostile journalists and lawmakers have suggested Mr. Trump incited the riot when he told a rally that Republicans need to “fight much harder.” Mr. Trump suggested the crowd walk to the Capitol: “We’re going to cheer on brave senators and congressmen and -women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them. Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong.”
In the District of Columbia, it’s a crime to “intentionally or recklessly act in such a manner to cause another person to be in reasonable fear” and to “incite or provoke violence where there is a likelihood that such violence will ensue.” This language is based on Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), in which the Supreme Court set the standard for speech that could be prosecuted without violating the First Amendment. The justices held that a Ku Klux Klan leader’s calls for violence against blacks and Jews were protected speech. The court found that Clarence Brandenburg’s comments were “mere advocacy” of violence, not “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action . . . likely to incite or produce such action.”
The president didn’t mention violence on Wednesday, much less provoke or incite it. He said, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
——–
Those saying otherwise aren’t being truthful.
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VDH says it’s a power grab, nothing more.
“The proper conservative response to last Wednesday’s violent entry into the Capitol and vandalism, as well as assaults on law-enforcement, is to identify the guilty parties and ensure they are arrested.
Such deterrence will prevent any future devolution from legal popular protests into thuggery. No constitutional republic can tolerate its iconic heart stormed, breached, and defiled.
Is Some Violence Worse than Others?
Of course, there is no such thing as “good” or “acceptable” violence of either Trump supporters or of the Antifa and BLM sort.
Yet the latter were largely exempt from any consequences for most of the summer—despite Joe Biden’s demagogic implication that the now multibillion-dollar funded BLM was treated harshly in comparison to the rogue Trump rioters.
Do we remember the authorities’ exemptions given to “warlord” Raz Simone and his armed thugs who, with absolute impunity, took over a Seattle “autonomous zone” known as CHOP or CHAZ, where four shootings and two deaths followed? Who exactly destroyed or vandalized thousands of state and federal public monuments—some in Washington, D.C.—and burned and looted hundreds of buildings with impunity?
Those who wrongly demanded to defund the police, now rightly deplore the lack of a Capitol police presence. Their only consistency is their own perceived political self-interest.
Biden himself rarely if ever, without exceptions, outright condemned the atrocious violence of Antifa and indeed contextualized it as an “idea”—a disincarnate entity that apparently could magically also burn and loot.
Again, his inaugural call for unity was quickly superseded by his surreal accusations that the police were racist in not quelling the violence. Yet the problem at the Capitol was not that security was racially selective, but that there was not much security at all. And the lapse was probably not by design as much as sheer incompetence.
The president-elect’s demeanor and furor certainly were not compatible with his media image as the supposedly angelic uniter of the country. Within 24 hours he had gone from blasting the police authorities as racists to the old reductio ad Hitlerum trope of comparing a few Republican senators to Nazi propogandist Joseph Goebbels, in a hysterical rant that descended into incoherent numerology about the bombing of Dresden. I’m sure Xi Jinping and Ayatollah Khamenei were impressed by his historical recollections.
Would that summer candidate Biden had just once said a word on behalf of the victims of Antifa and BLM—more than 700 injured law enforcement officers, billions of dollars in damage, and dozens killed over a summer of hateful violence that also wrecked the lives of thousands of struggling small business owners and their employees. What Kamala Harris said about the violent summer protests was appalling, and she was most worried about bailing out those arrested for street violence. Somehow a summer of hate and destruction earned BLM $10 billion in corporate gifts. Did anyone suggest that CEOs were subsidizing violence by crassly buying protection?
One might add that the D.C. police shooting of an unarmed white female Air Force veteran fortunately did not precipitate the sort of unhinged looting and arson seen a few months ago. And so far, police authorities, to their credit, have had no hesitation in immediately releasing the names and photos of the suspect Capitol intruders. But then again, that was a deterrent modus operandi that also might have curbed Antifa and BLM violence earlier, had it been as well implemented widely against such miscreants.
In the 24 hours after the initial outrage of the unchecked violence in the Capitol, a weird cancel mob formed quickly. Democrats were demanding senators resign who voted against the legitimacy of the electors.
Lawyers who defended Trump were hounded and their firms leveraged to fire them. Book deals of suspect senators were canceled. Resignations were the order of the day.
One would have never remembered that leftist protestors were once with impunity beating on the doors of the Supreme Court to get in during and after the Kavanaugh hearings, as others stormed into the halls of Congress and bullied senators. Still others this June lit up a church in their “mostly peaceful” efforts to enter the White House grounds. Very few Democratic senators then called for calm and to take a step back.
Multimillionaire Michelle Obama, who seems seldom to allow a serious crisis to go to waste, was calling for the complete weaponization of social media and the permanent banning of Trump. A scared Mark Zuckerberg seemed to agree. The multibillionaire had infused $350 million of his own money into key preselected precincts to boost voting turnout in a way the Left in the old days would have called the dark money that undermines democracy.”
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Exactly.
“We Will Not Be Lectured by the Violent, Anti-American, Revolutionary Left
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/01/we_will_not_be_lectured_by_the_violent_antiamerican_revolutionary_left.html
“Americans are expected to be aghast at the events in Washington, D.C. on January 6. A vicious mob of revolutionary Trump supporters, we are told, swarmed the nation’s capital and, in an act of insurrection, unlawfully entered the hallowed halls of Congress. Unlike the “fiery but mostly peaceful protests” that were reported over the summer, the media have been quick to claim that this was not a “mostly peaceful” protest (despite the protestors being, by any estimation, mostly peaceful), but the entire event is being categorized as a bona fide riot that had been fueled by Donald Trump’s irresponsible and untruthful rhetoric.
As a matter of scale, we should note that the level of violence and destruction that occurred in Washington since January 6 is some immeasurably tiny fraction of the violence and destruction visited upon cities across America in the orchestrated riots that occurred in the wake of George Floyd’s death. And while the media and its preferred politicians are still actively and outwardly pretending that George Floyd’s death has the slightest thing to do with racist police officers (it doesn’t, and there is not a single compelling shred of evidence anywhere that it does), the media and its preferred politicians are simultaneously pretending that ordinary American taxpayers have no legitimate reason to be expressing their political outrage in Washington.
That’s a contemptible lie.
Just ten years ago, we still lived under the naïve presumption that, in a free republic of the people, by the people, and for the people, the people’s elected representatives should be expected to read and understand legislation before voting laws into existence. You might recall that Nancy Pelosi provided a legendarily poor answer when asked about the contents of the Affordable Care Act, aka, Obamacare. The urgency for this bill was predicated upon a perceived healthcare crisis in America, and the result was an abomination comprising 2,000-plus pages of pork disguised as a healthcare bill for the benefit of the American people. “We have to pass the bill before we find out what is in it,” she aloofly said when pressed, earning much public scorn and perhaps singlehandedly delivering a Republican House later in 2010.
And today, what’s different? As Mark Steyn writes:
The “Covid “relief” bill is 5,593 pages. There is no such thing as a 5,593-page “law” – because no legislator could read it and grasp it. For purposes of comparison, the Government of India Act, which in 1935 was the longest piece of legislation ever drafted in British law and which provided for the government of what are now India, Pakistan and Burma, is 326 pages.
Oh, I’m sure paragons of republican virtue will object that no Indian or Burmese citizen-representatives were involved in that piece of imperial imposition. Well, no American citizen-representatives were involved in the Covid “relief” bill. The legislation was drafted not by legislators, nor by civil servants, nor even by staffers or interns. Instead, a zillion lobbyists wrote their particular carve-outs, and then it got stitched together by some clerk playing the role of Baron von Frankenstein. The “legislators” voted it into law unread, and indeed even unseen, as the Congressional photocopier proved unable to print it: It was a bill without corporeal form, but the yes-men yessed it into law anyway.
What do taxpaying Americans get from this monstrosity of a bill, in a practical sense? Some of them will get $600. Many will receive this payment in the form of a prepaid Visa debit card provided by the Treasury, which somehow seems uncomfortably closer to (or an eerier foreshadowing of, perhaps) the globo-socialist technocracy that Democrats proudly envision than a paper check or a direct payment to a bank account.
But while those $600 debit cards may account of a few pages of the bill, there’s still almost 5,600 others to consider. And since we no longer live under the pretense that bills should be read and understood before voted upon, or have a functioning media to demand such things, it’s been left to curious or patriotic sleuths to discover that billions of dollars from the Treasury are also allocated to countless non-Covid related endeavors in the Covid “relief” bill, like sending millions of dollars to Pakistan for “gender programs.” When such revelations yield expected criticism from the public, propaganda machines quickly go to work claiming that this normal business of lawmaking is just over the heads of those unwashed rubes who, and whose descendants, will have to foot the bill for it.
Calling the venue where these shenanigans regularly take place “the citadel of democracy” or a “light to the world,” as doddering Joe Biden recently did, is bad comedy. Washington has become a dark and dirty den of vipers and predators, sluicing nutrients from taxpayer prey with ever more unsustainable zeal. President Trump regularly characterizes the current state of Washington much more accurately — it’s a swamp.
CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who couldn’t be bothered to criticize the mobs that unleashed an orgy of destruction over a fake news narrative about systemic racism last summer, summed up the position of the media and Democrats, describing the taxpaying Trump supporters in Washington thusly:
Look at them, they’re high-fiving each other for this deplorable display of completely unpatriotic, completely against law and order, completely unconstitutional behavior, it’s stunning… And they’re going to go back, you know, to the Olive Garden and to the Holiday Inn they’re staying at, and the Garden Marriott, and they’re going to have some drinks and they’re going to talk about the great day they had in Washington … They stood up for nothing other than mayhem.
Cooper and the hoi polloi political class wouldn’t be caught dead in such déclassé digs or eateries, of course, but they’re fitting for the middle-class zhlubs who support President Trump, he presumes. His elitist derision perfectly exemplifies the disconnect that has driven hundreds of thousands of Trump-supporting protestors to Washington. The political elites, and the media exalting them, enjoy such lavish lifestyles only because of taxpaying suckers who stay in Holiday Inns and eat at Olive Gardens, yet they believe themselves to be naturally entitled to so much more than we.”
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So she seriously ended her letter with “prayerfully”???! This woman is on such an ego trip…how can any thinking person not see the vile person that she is. I am astounded that she wields so much control over so many…
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While Pelosi was being tongue massaged by the hacks at CBS last night, she let the truth slip…..
This is about keeping Trump from running again. It’s raw, naked, politics, nothing more.
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Fascist pigs.
———-
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https://twitter.com/kashyap9991/status/1347916542076350464
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More crickets from the media hacks…..
https://twitter.com/geordie_di/status/1348332295862710272
———–
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Awwwww…..
Poor babies.
Womp, womp, womp…..
“Alan Dershowitz: “The case cannot come to trial in the Senate. Because the Senate has rules and the rules would not allow the case to come to trial until, according to the majority leader, until 1 PM on January 20th an hour after President Trump leaves office. And the Constitution specifically says, “The President shall be removed from office upon impeachment.” It doesn’t say the former president. Congress has no power to impeach or try a private citizen, whether it be a private citizen named Donald Trump or named Barack Obama or anyone else.””
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Prager gets it.
“Dennis Prager: There is no example of the left – not liberals, they value free speech – no example of the left having power and not suppressing speech. It doesn’t exist. The left does not value free speech because free speech is its dire enemy. If people can actually say what is wrong with the left, it crumbles… I think we can predict there will be more and more suppression. If you read a brief synopsis of the Reichstag fire in Germany in 1933. Fire was set to the German parliament a month after Hitler took power. He used the Reichtag fire in order to start killing communists. What we’re having now, and I’m not calling them Nazis, I’m calling them totalitarians, the use of an event to suppress liberty.”
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I tried to log into my Parler acct this morning…I suppose Big Tech were not kidding…cannot be found now…this is disgusting…
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In scanning over some of your comments from last night, I think that some of y’all are still looking at these things through a purely political lens. The slow erosion of our society has been happening over decades, but just now this election season has revealed that there are many bad actors in cahoots with the CCP and other Globalists to fully implement the Great Reset. The Great Coup attempt is on…
It’s all tied together, with the same nefarious figures behind it all – the spying on incoming Pres. Trump; the dossier; Russia, Russia, Russia; ‘impeachment’; the assault on the 1st and 2nd Amendments; censorship; Covid hysteria and shutdowns; stealing the election; refusing to look at the overwhelming evidence of fraud, and not allowing it to get out; corrupt judges; overriding Trump’s veto of the Defense Bill which included dealing with section 230; cancel culture; staging the ‘storming’ of the Capitol; regular cover-ups of misdeeds (i.e. the Biden crime family), a 2nd ‘impeachment’, etc. etc.
Only a few days into 2021 and we can already see and predict how the Big Tech companies (don’t have any connections with them!), big mainstream media such as CBS, CNN, NBC, MSNBC, and Fox are censoring and shutting down the free flow of info. They are also in collusion with the DOJ, CIA, SCOTUS, etc… who can win against those big names in lawsuits now that they have corrupt judges and politicians in their pockets? The path to one-party dictatorship is here… radical, liberal-socialists will soon dictate how Americans live and think! They might very well purge all those who don’t think like them…
However, there’s a lot going on behind the scenes. Do you think that yesterday’s great 40% power outage in Pakistan was a coincidence? What about all that is happening in Italy? Many more huge events will be happening this week, with arrests included.
The way that these incredible things are happening, and the way that certain people have suddenly become so traitorous, reveals that this is all being engaged at a much deeper spiritual level (Eph 6:12). Fear not, however – our lord is a Mighty Warrior! As you navigate all these things, remember that He is always with you, and will never leave you or forsake you.
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It is indeed NancyJill.
As I said, It’s a raw, naked political power grab. They’re looking to censor and silence half the country, not just Trump and his cabinet. This cannot be allowed to stand.
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“It’s all tied together, with the same nefarious figures behind it all ”
It is indeed Tychicus, and a large % of our own party refuse to see that, or acknowledge it. They seek to get along with the people who would destroy what they hold most dear instead. Anyone who thinks this mob won’t come for your religious freedoms sooner rather than later is delusional.
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https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/first-lady-melania-trump-path-forward/
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https://www.texasgop.org/chairman-wests-monday-message-1-11-21/
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AJ, if my posts are not appropriate, please remove them as I do not wish to offend anyone.
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I censor no one Janice, unless you cuss real bad.
HRW can tell you that. He speaks freely here, I don’t ever edit or censor him, because he follows the rules. I don’t agree with most of it, but he’s as entitled to speak his mind as the rest of us are, you included. 🙂
Your posts are fine. 🙂
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The Colonel nails it.
“We must be resolute, forthright, and stand like an immovable rock. We must school the left on the concept of federalism. After all, they believed that they could declare themselves “sanctuaries” for illegal immigrants. The left must be taught a firm lesson in the 10th Amendment.
However, what this will require is that Republicans can no longer be “Quislings.” One thing the left, like any bully, relies upon is the lack of intestinal fortitude from us, their political opposition. Their use of fear, intimidation, coercion, threats, and violence (to which they never admit) are the means to their end. The left is playing a very dangerous game of duplicitous hypocrisy. It is evident and unacceptable. We can borrow a page from their Saul Alinsky rule book and let them see what principled American resistance looks like.
No, I am not scared. God did not give me, or you, a spirit of fear. What we do need are leaders who are calm, cool, and collected under fire, and who will not cower to the left. Yes, I am gonna be talking to someone about communication platforms. But, what we currently see from the left is abject totalitarianism, targeting members of the Trump administration to undermine their future livelihood. They are censoring conservatives, which is true fascism. But, with all of this, we must keep a cool head as our planning and execution must be flawless, as we frustrate the left into making tactical, and strategic, errors . . . causing their implosion.
A final word to bolster your spirit:
“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”
Summer soldiers and sunshine patriots stay out of our way. We will let you know when it is safe to come outside. It is time to carpe diem!
Steadfast and Loyal,”
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See.
These folks had nothing to do with Hawley’s perfectly legal and patriotic actions, but according to the left, they too must suffer.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/people-contacting-hawleys-high-school-demanding-it-condemn-the-alumnus
“In Capitol Riot Aftermath, People Are Contacting Sen. Josh Hawley’s High School Demanding It ‘Condemn’ The Alumnus”
“Critics of Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley are contacting the all-boys Jesuit high school from which he graduated more than twenty years ago to express their displeasure with the role they claim he played in Wednesday’s riot at the U.S. Capitol.”
———–
That’s fascist BS.
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Excellent podcast by Al Mohler from Thursday — 30 mins long but there’s also a transcript:
https://albertmohler.com/2021/01/07/briefing-1-7-21
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The over-reach and backlash/punishment from the left was entirely expected by all of us, wasn’t it? I think I mentioned that on the first day after this happened last week. The next two years will indeed pose many challenges for conservatives and for Christians, who will take some of the accusatory blame for what happened on Wednesday; I suspect we’ll feel the heat.
We have more common ground than not here, folks. But reactions should always be kept in a biblical light first and foremost. We are Christians first. U.S. citizens second.
The political firestorm we find the nation (and the church) in seems to be raging out of our personal, individual human control right now, in this day and week of Jan. 11. Lower personal temperatures may help going forward. I’m working on mine, it’s not easy, admittedly.
This probably will be another week of lashing out from both sides.
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Hugh Hewitt interviews Ben Sasse. I’m linking to the transcript, but a link to audio is at the top. A really good interview: https://hughhewitt.com/senator-ben-sasse-on-impeachment-and-transition-the-gop-in-minority/
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Meanwhile, from the Babylon Bee:
https://babylonbee.com/news/to-avoid-tech-censorship-the-babylon-bee-releases-innovative-new-print-edition
~ U.S.—Facing unprecedented efforts from Big Tech to silence their infallible reporting, The Babylon Bee has announced an innovative new format known as “print.” Fans of the newspaper can now receive their news written on an anonymous, untraceable format known as a “newspaper.”
The new technology will be printed with ink on paper and hand-delivered by kids riding bikes–directly to your mailbox.
“We’ve been working hard on this technology for a long time,” said Owner Seth Dillon. “After years of research, we have finally developed a technology and distribution method that Big Tech can’t touch.” … ~
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Glenn Greenwald destroys Big Tech.
The thread……
https://twitchy.com/samj-3930/2021/01/11/capitol-planning-largely-done-on-facebook-glenn-greenwald-dismantles-big-tech-for-silencing-parler-in-receipt-filled-thread/
——-
As are those on the right agreeing with it.
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Cheryl,
Ben Sasse is a lying never-Trumper. That piece from Hewitt is opinionated trash.
“HH: Now I am curious about the word incite. It has a legal meaning. I know you’re not a lawyer, but incite means to act with the purposeful intention to cause. That’s why I asked you the question I did. Do you think he intended the mob to break into the Congress?
BS: You are right that I am not a lawyer, so there probably are 15 sub-definitions of incite. But the President had a rally hours before this happened where he is telling them to go to the Capitol and to go wild. This is a part of a pattern. The guy is addicted to division. This is a deep brokenness in his soul. You and I have talked about it multiple times. Donald Trump is a guy who hurts. And I hurt for him at an anthropological and a human level, but at a level of his oath of office to the Constitution, the duty of the president of the United States is to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. And the President is addicted to social media and to television, and to division, and he’s been lying to the American people for eight straight weeks and planned it long before. No matter what was happening in any state, he was going to say the election was being stolen, and the people needed to rise up.”
————
He said no such thing as “go wild” and the rest is just his opinion, which is hateful, like he is.
“BS: But Wednesday morning, he said repeatedly to go wild when you get to the Capitol. And they went to the Capitol, and well, let’s be clearly, Hugh, there are 30,000 people here. The vast majority of them are honorable, freedom-loving people. The vast majority of them, but not all of them.”
——–
The rest is just more of the same Orange Man Bad garbage. Sasse is gross, as are his repeated misrepresentations of the president, yet he preaches his false morality from on high because tools like Hewitt give him a platform for his obvious hate.
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More inconvenient truth…..
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More inconvenient truth….
https://nypost.com/2021/01/10/what-the-left-wants-to-ignore-about-slain-capitol-police-officer/
“On Thursday, Brian Sicknick, an officer with the US Capitol Police, died from injuries sustained during the storming of the Capitol building. Democratic leaders have presented Sicknick as a martyr of the #Resistance against President Trump and his dangerous supporters.
Reality is more complicated.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi described Sicknick’s death as a reminder of the need to “protect our country from all threats, foreign and domestic.” President-elect Joe Biden suggested that whoever backed Trump supports “an all-out assault on our institutions of our democracy.” The day’s violence, it seems, has become an all-purpose excuse to denounce and silence anyone not sufficiently anti-Trump.
Yet neither Biden nor Pelosi reckoned with an uncomfortable fact: Sicknick was a Trump supporter himself, as his friend Caroline Behringer announced shortly after his death. Far from sharing the views of the #Resistance, he had written letters to his congressman opposing Trump’s impeachment.
Like many Trump supporters who are now being censored, he believed that the system is fundamentally rigged in favor of a narrow elite. He had used fiery rhetoric, even called for regime change in America.
The people who claim to honor Sicknick have elided these facts. Acknowledging them would undermine their effort to label the 75 million Americans who supported Trump as a domestic threat. Already, unelected Silicon Valley billionaires are using Sicknick’s death to justify censorship of views he expressed. Liberals are cheering the limitation of free speech. Leftists are applauding the exercise of corporate power.”
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1:53, but isn’t that “shooting the messenger” which you’ve criticized in the past?
OK, back to work and lowering my outrage temperature lol
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DJ,
It’s rife with BS opinion….
“BS: You are right that I am not a lawyer, so there probably are 15 sub-definitions of incite. But the President had a rally hours before this happened where he is telling them to go to the Capitol and to go wild. This is a part of a pattern. The guy is addicted to division. This is a deep brokenness in his soul. You and I have talked about it multiple times. Donald Trump is a guy who hurts. And I hurt for him at an anthropological and a human level, but at a level of his oath of office to the Constitution, the duty of the president of the United States is to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. And the President is addicted to social media and to television, and to division, and he’s been lying to the American people for eight straight weeks and planned it long before. No matter what was happening in any state, he was going to say the election was being stolen, and the people needed to rise up.”
————
Hewitt plays it up and sells it like Sasse is some authority
Sasse doesn’t deserve the time of day, yet Hewitt gives him a platform for his hatefulness toward the president. It’s obvious, and right in front of you.
It would be helpful if the media policed their own occasionally, then we might not have gotten to where we are now.
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The media is a mess, granted. It will probably get worse now. So, fair warning. But this is not new.
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Free speech was never going to be easy.
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There you go.
Turnabout is fair play, no?
Don’t worry, the R’s don’t have the guts…..
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https://twitter.com/kokopatti/status/1348696807849779214
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Good times…..
———-
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From Veith today (and why the reactions we’re seeing, while distressing and even alarming, is not particularly surprising):
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/geneveith/2021/01/disorder-brings-authoritarianism/
_____________________
Disorder Brings Authoritarianism
JANUARY 11, 2021 BY GENE VEITH
Mob action, such as the riot at the Capitol, undermines freedom and democracy in two ways.
When citizens join a mob, they lose their individuality and give way to their passions, at the expense of their reason and the restraints of the law. Mob psychology takes away the freedom of both the victims of the riot and the rioters themselves. For this and other reasons, the American founders feared mob rule above all else. (See for example The Federalist Papers No. 9 and No. 10.)
But what truly finishes off freedom and democracy is that riotous mobs provoke a reaction of authoritarianism. Societies must have social order, so when anarchy breaks out, they often lurch to the other extreme, shutting down liberty completely with tyrannical controls.
“It is impossible to read the history of the petty republics of Greece and Italy without feeling sensations of horror and disgust at the distractions with which they were continually agitated,” writes Hamilton, “and at the rapid succession of revolutions by which they were kept in a state of perpetual vibration between the extremes of tyranny and anarchy” (Federalist No. 9). This has been the pattern throughout history, not just with the Greek democracies and the Roman Republic, but with the French Revolution, as the Reign of Terror gave way to Napoleon, and every one of the Communist revolutions, in which popular uprisings to throw off oppression set up police states. Plato in the Republic discusses this phenomenon, observing that tyrannies are an outgrowth of democracy, because an excess of freedom leads to too much slavery.
So it’s little wonder that the Capitol riot has already unleashed the authoritarian mindset. …
________________________
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Tyranny vs anarchy, it’s feeling like that kind of an argument right now in the nation.
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Did anyone e catch the Jay Sekulow program today? Well worth a listen as he was in the capitol that day and is highly critical of what happened.
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Janice, your 2:54, I can’t find anything like this by googling. What does he criticize? Do you have a link?
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Mohler’s on live now (Medved radio show)
http://player.listenlive.co/35821/en/show/3
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Cheryl, this is what I listened to earlier. Pretty far into the program he describes how horrible it was being in the capitol when it all took place. He is the lawyer who represented Trump during the Russian fiasco and impeachment. He has very strong words about how wrong it was regarding how the capitol was invaded.
https://aclj.org/executive-power/breaking-pelosi-introduces-articles-of-impeachment
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About Antifa supposedly being bused into D.C. (There is more to the article than just this point, though).
“A rumor has also started that Antifa members were bused into D.C. The rumor appears to have originated with Twitter user Paul Sperry, a journalist who falsely accused National Security Council official Victoria Coates of being the author of the New York Times “Anonymous” op-ed. Sperry cited a “former FBI agent” serving as the source of information for this claim. Ken Kohl, a current official at the Department of Justice, told reporters on Friday: “We have no indication of [Antifa presence at the riot] at this time.” Steven D’Antuono, an assistant director at the FBI, echoed Kohl, telling reporters on a call that there is “no indication” Antifa participated in the riot.
Some also claimed that the D.C. police escorted Antifa buses into the rally. The police department denies having escorted any group, and the video used as proof has been circulating since at least December of last year. It appears to show a protest outside of the Minnesota governor’s home.”
“Debunking the Conspiracy Theories Claiming That Antifa Led the Attack on the Capitol
Right-wing groups were planning online for weeks to protest the electoral vote count.”
https://factcheck.thedispatch.com/p/debunking-the-conspiracy-theories?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoxNDU4NjExMCwicG9zdF9pZCI6MzExNjM0NDcsIl8iOiJzMVVnTCIsImlhdCI6MTYxMDM4NjUxMSwiZXhwIjoxNjEwMzkwMTExLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMjIwNjMiLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.x5gxE7gtM1SZ26_6EFPekMgJl4rnQ7HflFeMugoNYg0
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Jay Seculow and his family are Messianic Jews. His brother is a pastor of a church not far from where I live.
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“Trump’s Lawyers Surrender in Georgia Despite Giuliani’s ‘Conclusive Proof’ of Election Fraud
Trump attorney Kurt Hilbert claimed he had reached settlement agreements with state officials, which was news to them.”
“During the rally that preceded Wednesday’s deadly attack on the Capitol by enraged Trump supporters, Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal attorney, said he was about to blow the lid off machine-facilitated election fraud in Georgia. That was not true. The next day, President Donald Trump’s lawyers dropped four lawsuits alleging election irregularities and fraud in Georgia, claiming they had reached settlement agreements with state officials, who supposedly had promised to investigate Trump’s outlandish charges. That was not true either.
Those two lies confirm that Giuliani never had any credible evidence to back up his reckless allegations against Dominion Voting Systems, which he claims helped Democrats rig election machines to switch “hundreds of thousands” of Trump votes to Biden votes. That widely promoted conspiracy theory, which on Friday prompted Dominion to sue former Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell for defamation, was at the heart of the grievances underlying Wednesday’s violence. Yet Giuliani now has implicitly admitted it was all a hoax. . . .
Given that Giuliani has had more than two months to back up his “easily provable” claims and has repeatedly failed to do so, you might think the ship has sailed on his reputation. But even if you are a diehard Trump supporter who was hoping the evidence would finally materialize, what happened the next day confirmed once again that there is no rabbit in that hat. Facing a state trial on Friday at which they would have had to put up or shut up, the president’s lawyers abandoned four lawsuits challenging Georgia’s election results. It turned out that Giuliani and his associates did not have the guts to face “trial by combat,” or even combat by trial.”
https://reason.com/2021/01/10/trumps-lawyers-surrender-in-georgia-despite-giulianis-conclusive-proof-of-election-fraud/?fbclid=IwAR1tjhsMhQMPX6viL23wXxXiejCDVLDtl5PCG0_PyhAUUF16ZQjPfWJ6XQI
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AJ, I guess you addressed the question I had @1:53 Did the President tell the crowd to go wild? To behave like BLM? Sasse repeats the same phrase several times.
I believe BS may fancy himself presidential material.
Debra
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No Debra, he did not.
If you notice, what’s lacking in all the coverage are any Trump quotes that show what they allege he did. Not one. No videos, tape recordings of his speech, or direct word for word quotes. The 2 quotes Twitter used to justify his banning contained none either.
I challenge anyone to show one that does.
And him calling for people to protest is not a call to violence as the left alleges. It’s BS.
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That veith article dj linked blamwd Trump’s speech for the coming authoritarian regime. What jokers. They must have been sleeping throughout 2020.
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We clearly have differences of opinion on some things here, that may not change.
Meanwhile:
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I don’t think Veith ‘blamed’ trump precisely so much as he noted that one bad act is now — predictably — leading to another in reaction to it.
Anarchy isn’t pretty and that’s what we were starting to get a glimpse of on Wednesday. It was under Trump’s watch and he did gather the ‘troops’ in DC. The rest is (sad) history.
Now comes the backlash and the next chapter.
Biden has a lot on his plate, but I’d think toning down the rhetoric might be the best way to go, asap.
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Like I said…..
And even Twitter acknowledges that the tweets were “interpreted” as offensive, and then they assigned motives and words that weren’t there.
https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/suspension.html
“After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter — we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.
In the context of horrific events this week, we made it clear on Wednesday that additional violations of the Twitter Rules would potentially result in this very course of action. Our public interest framework exists to enable the public to hear from elected officials and world leaders directly. It is built on a principle that the people have a right to hold power to account in the open. ”
——-
“Overview
On January 8, 2021, President Donald J. Trump Tweeted:
“The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”
Shortly thereafter, the President Tweeted:
“To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”
We assessed the two Tweets referenced above under our Glorification of Violence policy, which aims to prevent the glorification of violence that could inspire others to replicate violent acts and determined that they were highly likely to encourage and inspire people to replicate the criminal acts that took place at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
This determination is based on a number of factors, including:
President Trump’s statement that he will not be attending the Inauguration is being received by a number of his supporters as further confirmation that the election was not legitimate and is seen as him disavowing his previous claim made via two Tweets (1, 2) by his Deputy Chief of Staff, Dan Scavino, that there would be an “orderly transition” on January 20th.
The second Tweet may also serve as encouragement to those potentially considering violent acts that the Inauguration would be a “safe” target, as he will not be attending.
The use of the words “American Patriots” to describe some of his supporters is also being interpreted as support for those committing violent acts at the US Capitol.
The mention of his supporters having a “GIANT VOICE long into the future” and that “They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!” is being interpreted as further indication that President Trump does not plan to facilitate an “orderly transition” and instead that he plans to continue to support, empower, and shield those who believe he won the election.
Plans for future armed protests have already begun proliferating on and off-Twitter, including a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, 2021.
As such, our determination is that the two Tweets above are likely to inspire others to replicate the violent acts that took place on January 6, 2021, and that there are multiple indicators that they are being received and understood as encouragement to do so.”
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So now calling someone an American Patriot is calling them a violent rioter. Their “interpretation” of things is as grossly flawed as their fascist views on censorship.
That’s total, complete BS.
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The “Trump” flags also were worrisome, as Mohler has pointed out in his discussions about the dangers of “the cult of personality” that he believes took over following the November election. It should never be about a person, but about principles. As soon as an individual becomes worthy of flags in a mob, we’re on shaky ground.
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DJ,
This is utter crap. I’m sorry, but it is.
“Anarchy isn’t pretty and that’s what we were starting to get a glimpse of on Wednesday. It was under Trump’s watch and he did gather the ‘troops’ in DC. The rest is (sad) history.”
———
Just getting a glimpse? Where the hell you been? For 7 months the left gave you an up close and personal glimpse every single night. It happened again in your state yesterday when the anarchists again attacked Trump supporters.
It happened under his watch?
Yeah in Dem run states where they allowed it, ignoring Trump’s offer to help. Any of that ringing a bell?
Encouraging folks to rally for a cause and protest is about as American as it gets. That’s all Trump did, unlike the Dems I showed above who actually encouraged violence and rioting. See 8:42, 2:31, or 2:35.
Also, see 8:43…….
That’s a pretty messed up “interpretation” of things you have going.
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From my link from Moore:
~ The sight of “Jesus Saves” and “God Bless America” signs by those violently storming the Capitol is about more than just inconsistency. It is about a picture of Jesus Christ and of his gospel that is satanic. The mixing of the Christian religion with crazed and counter-biblical cults such as Q-Anon is telling the outside world that this is what the gospel is. That’s a lie, and it is blasphemous against a holy God.
Look around us, five years into this experiment. Every family I know is divided over this personality. Every church I know is too. Friendships are broken, for almost everyone I know. ~
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And that’s all the fault of those doing so. That’s not on the believers and other good people, you know, the 99,9% of others who were there.
They weren’t there to mix with QAnon who just happened to show up looking for trouble. Most don’t even know who QAnon is.
————
“It is about a picture of Jesus Christ and of his gospel that is satanic. The mixing of the Christian religion with crazed and counter-biblical cults such as Q-Anon is telling the outside world that this is what the gospel is. That’s a lie, and it is blasphemous against a holy God.”
The only idiot that thinks that is the idiot that already did. Those people did nothing wrong, weren’t with QAnon, and I’m shocked you would agree with someone who would slander them like that. Blasphemous? Really?
C’mon DJ.
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And Moore ends with this:
~ Hope Starts in Lament
The situation in this country looks bleak. We have been here before. The church at Rome to which Paul wrote would see the empire fall a few centuries later. At the time, they seemed pinned against the wall by Caesar and the imperial cult. For many, God seemed to be invisible in the promises he had made to Israel. And yet, Paul presented a gospel in which we “rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and that endurance produces character, and that character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame” (Rom. 5:3-5).
God is not unfaithful to his purposes, Paul wrote, but has always worked through a remnant (Rom. 11). Our hope of salvation starts with repentance, grieving over our own sins (Rom. 6:20-23). And our hope of the future glory in which we will share starts with our groaning by the Spirit, with the creation around us, that this is not the way it is supposed to be (Rom. 8:19-27).
The times look dark, and we are tempted to despair. But, in Christ, we are “more than conquerors” because nothing—not “rulers nor things present nor things to come, nor powers” can ever “separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:37-39). ~
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Good.
https://twitter.com/getongab/status/1348650975225995265
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AJ, did I say I agreed with all of that? Wow. I often share links and outtakes from pieces I think are different perspectives that maybe can broaden the conversation.
Civil discourse is a wonderful tool, but not used much these days I realize.
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“As more video footage of the attack itself emerged, it became increasingly plain that many in the crowd had come to the event already prepared for violence. Video of men kitted out in tactical gear moving in tandem up through the crowd on the Capitol steps and into the building itself went viral on social media, as did horrific photos of a man leaping through the Senate chamber with flex cuffs in hand.
Unearthed pre-riot posts from pro-Trump forums like social network Parler and Reddit spinoff TheDonald.win show show similar evidence of hardline Trump supporters trading tips and plans for how to smuggle firearms into D.C., which has very restrictive gun laws. “Those coming armed should meet outside the city and then move en masse,” said one commenter on the latter site in a post documented by investigative journalism site Bellingcat. “Too easy to get picked off moving onesies and twosies.” Another replied: “There is not enough cops in DC to stop what is coming.”
Not all such planning was done in such visible public forums, of course. A number of right-wing paramilitary groups participated in the attack, including at least one chapter of the Proud Boys, whose chairman Enrique Tarrio was arrested as he arrived in D.C. several days before the rally.
This isn’t to say that the riot wasn’t in some respects a spontaneous event. . . .”
For the section that this came from, scroll down to “The More We Learn, the Worse It Gets”.
https://morning.thedispatch.com/p/the-morning-dispatch-it-could-have?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoxNDU4NjExMCwicG9zdF9pZCI6MzEyNTAwMjQsIl8iOiJzMVVnTCIsImlhdCI6MTYxMDQxMTE2NywiZXhwIjoxNjEwNDE0NzY3LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMjU1MTkiLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.KrMvjkreSsF8hnrqG4RAc_d-0ScoaJiex1LJwwm16Y0&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share
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Well, I supppse we shouldn’t be too harsh with each other. This is not just about logic and reason. It’s ‘s also about the emotional turmoil and internal imbalance that traumatic experiences create. Many people are entirely unprepared emotionally for what is likely ahead. Or for what is happening right now for that matter. I’m not sure I am either. Prayer still goes a long way toward helping us in that regard.
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I think many of us are prepared for what is likely ahead, we’re not naive.
But if we could keep the discussion on the issues and not call each other idiots, it would be good? lol I realize there’s a whole lot of emotion going on, however.
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And realize that yes, there are differing opinions, even in the church visible, on what happened, what it all means.
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Fox: Trump acknowledged he bears some blame for Capitol riot in conversation with House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy.
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What Debra said. And yes, we are prepared but really we are not. The change could be far beyond what we have imagined.
Some changes I expect:
no more homeschooling
no more tax exemptions for churches (do we still have those?)
no more freedom of speech
no more freedom of assembly
Puerto Rico becomes a State
Washington DC becomes a State
packed Supreme Court
immigration sky rocketing
over one hundred twenty asylum seekers each year, placed strategically by the US government
censorship of conservative talk radio and any other FCC over seen projects
no breakup of the monopolies like facebook and google
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free tuition to universities
new Iranian nuke deal allowing them to have a nuke
Paris Accord on Climate Control
student loan forgiveness
legalization of drugs
shutting down oil drilling
limited border patrol
wasted money on the wall components already in shipment
more children removed from conservative homes for political stance
Obama care
health care to all illegals now made legal
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And if they go for the guns? I suspect their will be unwilling people.
Civil war?
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It’s a bit early for some predictions, I think. I’ll have to get out that book to re-read about how Christians can thrive in Babylon.
And Dreher’s new book, which I only just stared some months ago. He said he didn’t think it would be so relevant so soon.
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*started
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reparations for slavery
reparations to native Americans (not including me)
no need for red State representatives to show up in DC
I am hoping they will go for an amicable divorce and just divide the nation into three parts. Those of us who want to stay as America, following the Constitution, and the blues can go Communist or whatever it is they are shooting for.
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I do think it’s wise to knuckle down specifically in our mutual faith, and the lessons provided in Scripture.
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Christians have endured worse circumstances
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Debra, all of us are rightly upset. I doubt you’ll find anyone on this blog (with the possible exception of one Canadian 🙂 ) who is anything close to “happy” about the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. After the chaos of this summer, we all know the potential for what is ahead.
But this summer we kept saying that facts matter, that truth matters, that the rioters many times were being led by emotion and were ignoring inconvenient truths. And many of those summer rioters had very good emotional reasons for fear and anger. (America’s racial legacy is definitely not all peace and love.) We are the people who stand for Truth, who know the Word of God, and who have the Holy Spirit strengthening us. We also know that the “norm” of the Christian life is to face persecution. We need to be prepared for the possibility, and we can’t descend into fighting to protect our way of life even if it means ignoring truth for the sake of emotion.
We need to hold rioters on “our side” to the same expectations that we held for the other side. And we need to be able to hold politics at arm’s length. If we can’t, the church can be in for a very rough ride in the days ahead. We also need to be able to see that being united in Christ is far, far more important than whether or not we respect one particular politician.
To a lot of us, this has been an eye-opening look at the state of the American church–and not a pretty one. The 5:39 Moore link explains it well.
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Or things may just continue on as they have with us complaining about the President whoever she may be.
Or us merrily going along with our heads in the sand as we are marched off to 1984 or whatever.
Or people could wake up in two years and turn the tide somehow.
Or Christ may return.
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DJ, absolutely. I am just suggesting we all may be in for a wake up call. I would prefer my wake up call with me well founded in Scripture.
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And a friend suggested I research terrorist attacks on our power grid and some rather unsettling warnings from Homeland Security…that certainly hasn’t helped my frame of mind 😔 😳
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Post term abortion, anybody?
Grandma getting a bit old?
Seventeen year old too depressed?
Fourteen year old have crooked teeth?
Children a bit inconvenient with the new job?
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The other book I’d read a couple years ago — before anything got near this bad — was “Thriving in Babylon: Why Hope, Humility, and Wisdom matter in a godless culture”
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Where’s our focus?
Thanks Cheryl, well said.
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~ Ari Fleischer warns Big Tech wrong to believe censorship works: ‘It creates a dangerous underground’
‘This is a slippery slope that leads all of us into a worse place,’ ex-White House press secretary says. ~
https://www.foxnews.com/tech/ari-fleischer-big-tech-censorship-trump-parler
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Like I said, broad brushing like Veith and Mohler do above is unproductive and dishonest. They slandered the good people who were the vast majority of protesters.
https://spectator.org/first-hand-account-trump-riots/
“The 2020 election was very much about who controlled the information and who got to tell the story. The Capitol “Riots” were no different. It’s hard to gauge how many people were truly there for the rally and event that day, in part because the mainstream media outlets would never want to give accurate totals for those numbers. It’s doubtful the scene or event would have made that much of a blip on the news radar that day if the events at the Capitol Building did not take place. Prior to that, CNN and others had little interest in explaining how a “losing” President presided over one of the largest crowds to ever gather at the Washington Monument on Wednesday in January.
I was sandwiched in the middle of a sea of the most people I’m convinced I will ever see in my entire life. An Ohioan – I looked out in every direction and figured the crowd was at least the scope of four to five totally packed Ohio Stadiums in Columbus. That is probably one of the overwhelming themes of a few days in Washington D.C. – there were just so many people. They were at the hotels. They were on the turnpike and at highway rest stops along the way in Trump gear with Trump flags. They were at the rally and split out in two different directions after the speech to head to the Capitol Building.
Ron N. from New York stood in front of us. In between speakers, he told the story of having COVID-19 and doctors telling his wife to get his affairs in order. And then one doctor fought to have Hydroxychloroquine prescribed. Nelson credited it for saving his life.
Sean R. stood to our right and filmed most of the events on his Go Pro. He described what brought him to D.C. His mother received a knock on the door Thanksgiving Day. “She followed the COVID protocols to a T prior to that. She would not leave the house,” he said. “She had seven people over for Thanksgiving and someone told on her. The cops threatened to arrest her. She had a nervous breakdown. She’s still not over it.”
From virus lockdowns, to the medication prescribed for the virus, to the number of people in attendance at a rally or what constitutes a “peaceful protest” versus a “riot”– every event and piece of information is spun, manipulated, or tweaked for an audience today.
What the media will not say is at the rally I saw some of the most beautiful scenes of my life. A crowd of Vietnamese marched through the audience with their yellow and red flags, one man’s face painted red, white, and blue with “Trump” across his forehead during the speeches.
After the speech, we followed an enormous American flag for two miles. When we finally made it to the Capitol Building, you could tell the crowd had already made it past several barriers. Green temporary fencing was on the ground. Metal sections were propped up on various retaining walls as makeshift ladders.
So much of the last year was about the governmental powers that be, Big Tech, and the media trying to manipulate the narrative and the nation – and in that moment they lost control. There were just too many people.
There was a sense where we were standing – looking around at the surrounding crowd and men perched atop buildings – that we were in harm’s way, that police could potentially continue to use tear gas or that if someone wanted to commit an act of violence or “terror,” like a couple weeks prior in Nashville, they could.
The reality is, the atmosphere outside resembled an open air concert or festival more than a “riot.” The “storming” had taken place.
There were rumors a woman had been shot inside.
A man got on a loudspeaker, “Another small announcement folks, Nancy Pelosi’s Office has been breached.” The crowd cheered.
The 6 p.m. curfew was announced.
People sang the National Anthem and said the Pledge of Allegiance as a massive flag that was draped across scaffolding on the Capitol Building waved in the wind. If this was the last dying vestige or gasps of Freedom of the Press, Speech, or the Right to Assembly, I am proud to say I was there to see it.
When we walked back to our hotel, we heard the news.
“Fox news is in there calling us terrorists,” one man said. Chuck Schumer compared the day to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. By morning, articles and videos circulated of Ashli Babbitt’s killing. An unarmed woman, the 14-year Air Force Veteran was painted in many news articles and comment sections with no redeeming qualities – a traitor, terrorist, conspiracy theorist and a loon who “got what she deserved.” There would be no humanizing or gold casket it seemed for Babbitt, who live streamed her walk to the Capitol.
More people should have died. It was a sign of white privilege that more unarmed women weren’t shot and killed, they claimed.
For someone who watched 9/11 unfold on live television, terrorism seems like a mischaracterization of the day and the events. In some instances, protesters appear to be let right into the building, with one officer saying “I disagree with it but I respect it.” Video surfaced that showed Trump supporters calling out members in the crowd and physically stopping them from breaking windows.
In the end, undoubtedly, Trump supporters did enter the building. And undoubtedly, the people who entered the building to some extent knowingly exposed themselves to danger. But “traitors”? Many in the crowd used that word to describe the politicians inside who willfully kicked the can of responsibility down the road when it came to policing the 2020 Election.”
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I think also our collective frame of reference in the U.S. — which so long has been friendly to people of faith and the Christian church in general — makes this potential transition we face so difficult.
Our experience is actually not “normal” (based on U.S. history or the modern, western world norm) so this is especially jarring.
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Meaning (in my 10:19) that “our” normal is based on very recent, personal history, not really the usual course of things in the world.
We all hope and pray God intervenes in the way we hope He will — to preserve the nation, to provide good and wise leadership — and may we be willing also to contend peacefully for that. But we don’t really know what the future holds, immediate or long-term. Seems we stand at a turning point.
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AJ, I completely understand that the vast majority of folks there had no intention of breaking the law.
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… And didn’t break the law.
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And God is still working and all eyes on Him. Let Him do the “worrying” while we continue to faithfully serve. How that works with people who are led by Him into political concern, I do not know.
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Cheryl @9:11 All true. Certainly, those who have killed or maimed or injured another should be held to account. We are not in a literal war, so there is no justification for killing. And I will be very pleased if it never comes to that.
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Janice, that is a scary look at what people said in favor of rioting and such this summer when it wasn’t the seat of government that received the threat or perception of a threat. It would be interesting to have a parallel video: one that shows what the conservatives were saying this summer about the danger of mass, emotional crowds. Basically the two sides “switched places” depending on who was involved, and that isn’t a good look for either.
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