“While giving the keynote speech at the Family Leadership Summit in Iowa last year, Tucker Carlson offered an interesting bit of advice to conservative voters more and more alienated from the political class even in the Republican Party.
Carlson offered a number of items, some of which were a bit off the beaten track — support politicians who pursue beauty in public life was one. But perhaps the most salient of his offerings was this: “You need to be really wary of candidates who care what the New York Times thinks.”
Tucker Carlson Discussing Leadership And Need For Voters To Hold Their Politicians Accountable During Speech In Iowa
"You need to be really wary of candidates who care what the New York Times thinks." pic.twitter.com/Qp8Eicc2zd
— The Columbia Bugle 🇺🇸 (@ColumbiaBugle) July 18, 2022
“Carlson’s remarks were mostly intended, people thought, as a shot at Nikki Haley — and rightly so.
But it turns out they hit home most of all with respect to Mike Pence, who made a political brand more than a decade ago as a politician who legitimately couldn’t care less about the propagandist legacy media.
That seems so long ago, doesn’t it?
Over the weekend, Pence showed up at the Gridiron dinner, one of the hoity-toity events in Washington in which the nation’s elite news media figures gather to congratulate themselves for another year of slavery to conventional wisdom and diminution of journalistic ethics and credibility, and sucked up to the audience in ways a John McCain or Mitt Romney would be envious of.
“History will hold Donald Trump accountable for Jan. 6,” Pence told hundreds of journalists at what is typically a jocular white-tie affair. “Make no mistake about it: What happened that day was a disgrace, and it mocks decency to portray it in any other way. President Trump was wrong. His reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day.”
Pence had used similar words to talk about Trump in his book — writing that his former boss’ “reckless words had endangered my family and all those serving at the Capitol.”
But his advisers saw the Gridiron dinner as an opportunity not just to echo those sentiments but to amplify them. They also believed it would help Pence win over his most skeptical audience these days: Washington insiders and journalists who have given him short shrift in the early 2024 primary.
“This was a different audience for him,” said Marc Short, Pence’s former vice presidential chief of staff and his senior adviser.
Pence world has long believed that the former congressman and Indiana governor could occupy the adult-in-a-room 2024 lane, in that he is uniquely positioned to speak truth to power now that he is free of the constraints of the vice presidency.
“Mike is in a different place where he can be sort of free and liberated in ways that I don’t think others in the field are,” Short said. “And so I’m not looking at it as to where he is at this moment. I believe that he’s got a good pathway forward.”
We’ll go ahead and dispense with Marc Short, who’s obviously exactly the sort of failure as a political adviser we’ve come to know and hate in the Republican Party. Now that Pence has taken his advice, it’s only a matter of time before Short resurfaces as the Lincoln Project’s newest associate and we’ll be able to contemplate all of the ways, beyond the obvious contempt for the GOP base, that he might also find similarity with John Weaver.
Or at least Rick Wilson.
Because Mike Pence has immolated himself in the same way that Weaver’s clients John McCain, John Huntsman, and John Kasich turned off their own party’s base: by treating them as America’s biggest problem.
The Politico piece excerpted above even has Pence’s camp quietly modeling him after John McCain, making one wonder just how stupid these people are. Even Mitt Romney generated more excitement in the GOP than McCain did — and thanks to McCain’s flaccid, pathetic 2008 effort, the country has been subjected to the Babylonian captivity that is the Barack Obama political era, which hasn’t just lasted the eight years of Obama’s term but in many ways has continued through Trump’s term and has fully metastasized during the current Obama Redux administration of Joe Biden.
To want to emulate McCain in any way given the destructive shame of his 2008 campaign isn’t just a sign of stupidity but insanity and even perhaps treason.
Mike Pence was not this political eunuch a decade ago. What on earth has happened to him?”
“We truly are living in an alternative universe the founders of this republic would not recognize. It’s bad enough that the America-hating Left seeks to undermine the First Amendment as a means to crush dissent; in conservative circles that is now taken for granted. What is worse is the shameful abandonment of the freedom of the press . . . by the supposed press.
And yet again, America’s corporate media refuses to defend what was once considered a nonpolitical, nonnegotiable right when it comes to ideological differences with the Left.
Consider Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit against Fox News for putting several individuals on air who claimed that rigged voting machines swayed the outcome of the 2020 election.
Here’s the problem: the individuals in question were the president’s lawyers. These lawyers repeatedly stated they had proof that Dominion’s voting machines were rigged to flip votes from Donald Trump to Joe Biden. Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network simply aired the news that the president’s lawyers were making these claims. In some instances, the Fox host allowed the president’s lawyers to make the claims with little push back. In other instances, Fox hosts did push back and demanded evidence, and even suggested they stop making the claims without it. In fact, Fox News invited Dominion representatives to appear on air to give their side of the story, but the company declined all but one invitation. Instead of entering the public debate, Dominion began preparing litigation soon after the election.
Apparently, this caused some debate and discussion within the Fox Corporation, the channels’ parent company, with some executives and employees voicing opinions about the potential damage to the media giant’s credibility. Some at Fox were inclined to believe the president’s lawyers while others were skeptical. That’s hardly unusual in a large news organization when it comes to controversial topics.
Dominion filed its defamation suit in Delaware state court, a clear case of venue shopping as Delaware is Joe Biden’s home state with notoriously liberal judges and jurors who undoubtedly bear animus toward conservative-leaning Fox News. They claim Fox knew the claims were false because Dominion told them so. Essentially, “Our machines weren’t rigged so you have to stop putting the president’s lawyers on the air.” But it turns out even Dominion’s own employees were aware that their machines were highly vulnerable to hacking and manipulation.
Eric Coomer, Dominion’s director of product strategy and security, admitted in an October 2020 email that, “our [expletive] is just riddled with bugs.” The problems with Dominion’s machines were described at length by the corporate media in the run-up to the 2020 election. On September 9, 2020, the Washington Post reported, “election integrity activists say the new [Dominion] voting machines are unaccountable and unverifiable and have many of the same security vulnerabilities as the old ones.”
Of course, the fear then was that Republicans would steal the election by hacking the voting machines. The media was in full “stop the steal” mode when they thought Trump was going to win. Dominion sure wasn’t suing the Washington Post, New York Times, or any of the other legacy media outlets that reported on Dominion’s security problems.
Fox filed a motion to dismiss the case based on the overriding First Amendment issue and the complete lack of damages suffered by Dominion. But it seems there’s a “Fox News exception” to the First Amendment in Joe Biden’s home state and among a corporate media that appears convinced of its invulnerability. And so, Fox is headed to trial in April.
Let’s go back to 1998 when then-President Bill Clinton wagged his finger at America on national TV and lied to us about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Everyone in the White House knew “Slick Willie” was lying. Every Democrat in Congress knew he was lying. Heck, almost everyone in America knew he was lying.
But that didn’t stop the networks from airing his defenders to broadcast the lie. Were the networks supposed to suppress the statements of high government officials who were defending the president in a very public matter? Of course not. Fast forward to 2020: Was Fox News not supposed to air the president’s lawyers who claimed they had incontrovertible proof of rigged machines? Of course not.
How about a more recent case—the entire Russiagate investigation which was based on the bogus Steele dossier? The mainstream “media” knew the dossier was bogus, but they were being told by congressional Democrats and party hacks at the Justice Department and FBI that it was legit and Trump was colluding with the Russians. It turned out to be an absolute lie—a campaign dirty trick funded and played by Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party. Should the networks and newspapers have ignored the story? It was after all news concerning the president of the United States.”
I personally spoke to an MPD officer who confirmed seeing this on January 6. People have a hard time believing anecdotes, but video makes it easier. #wewererighthttps://t.co/48W6ZVD2qX
11 mentioning Trump 3 Mike Pence 2 Fox News 2 Tucker Carlson 1 Ron DeSantis 1 George Santos 1 Alex Jones 1 Silicon Valley Bank pic.twitter.com/0MT8Q0fhgC
The MSM desperately needs Trump to run for president. It’s the only way they become relevant again—well, except for Tucker who stays relevant with news items that are of interest to his viewers. Personally, I dread the sideshow that is our primary season. But what will be will be. :–)
MSNBC, Fox, these are two sides of what is the political opinion coin. I’m not overly familiar w/MSNBC, but I have seen Rachel Maddow a couple times and know some folks online who accept her views as straight news.
Debra has this right, the primary season will likely be a sideshow (topping all others we’ve seen?). How can it get more unhinged? Dread is a good word for it.
The only upside (and yes, I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel for ‘upsides’) is that by the time this is all over, there will be no hidden secrets the Democrats can use against DeSantis in the general election.
That the tear gas used by police caused the police line to fail — half the officers did not have the necessary gas masks — was testified by by MPD Sgt. Mastony in the trial U.S. v. McCaughey in August 2022. He put the time at 2:25. He called for his platoon to fall back after… https://t.co/BOLonkhTEV
— Shipwreckedcrew.substack.com (@shipwreckedcrew) March 16, 2023
They so desperately want and need it to be Trump. They think he’s easier to beat.
So viola’, the Never Trumpers cheerlead for Trump. But only until primaries end, just like last time, and the time before that. They are predictable.
Pretty wild watching every single one of these principled conservative NeverTrumpers become cheerleaders for him with DeSantis lurking. https://t.co/BC5poRTcSo
Tucker Carlson speaking at a Family Leadership Summit? The bar is quite low for leadership. I have very little sympathy for Pence – he made a deal with the devil, its a little late to do a U-turn. However, the chants “Hang Mike Pence” by those nice tourists at Trump’s rally just before they paid a visit to the Capitol probably forced him to rethink his allies.
Fox News lawyers have in the past argued that Carlson, Beck etc are entertainment not news and no rational person would take their programs as factual. Amusingly, judges agreed. Thus I’m quite sure – the different show hosts can’t be sued or it will at the very least be difficult to show damages. Dominion may try to argue the misinformation was deliberate and presented as fact not entertainment. The actual news programs will undergo more scrutiny in that respect. On the other hand, Domnion may be simply teaching the media a lesson in terms of how they report.
As for the hack who wrote the piece AJ cited this morning, the fact the trial is in Delaware is not venue shopping. It’s simple; most US corporations no matter where they are physically present are incorporated in Delaware. Both Dominion and Fox are incorporated in Delaware hence the lawsuit would have to be filed there. Are these writers even trying?
The video you posted has been debunked many times and you’ve posted it here before. It’s highly unlikely there are green deciduous trees in Washington on January 6.
The obsession about Trump may have more to do with the news regarding various court cases involving Trump than Trump himself.
As Debra notes, everybody but the RNC wants Trump to run again. The Democrats think he improves their odds and the media love the eyeballs to the screen he generated.
The millions already fundraised and spent by just DeSantis and Trump and their PACS is obscene. Imagine the positive things that could be accomplished. This alone is an argument for campaign funding reform and repeal of Citizens United.
I found the gas bills listed late last night shocking. I pay 32 cents per cubic metre and pay about $100 a month this winter (a mild winter). Our gasoline prices are usually higher than the US but our utility prices are heavily regulated which might be the difference.
Apparently US prices are by a thousand cubic feet so with a little conversion math, I pay US$6.63 per thousand cubic feet. The lowest price in the US is Idaho at $8.32. California is about $20 and NH is at $27. Wisconsin is listed at $11. (Hawaii is about $50)
“At least two known Antifa members were spotted among the throngs of pro-Trump protesters at the Capitol on Wednesday, a law enforcement source told The Post.
The Antifa members disguised themselves with pro-Trump clothing to join in the DC rioting, said the sources, who spotted the infiltrators while monitoring video coverage from the Capitol.
The infiltrators were recognized due to their participation in New York City demonstrations, and were believed to have joined in the rioting so that Trump would get blamed, the source said.
A Washington Times report initially claimed two other protesters were actually Philadelphia-based Antifa members — citing a retired military officer with access to facial recognition software — but the outlet deleted the article after the software company told Buzzfeed News that the story was “outright false.””
Wandering Views 
“Bye, Mike
Pence completes the transition from valued conservative to irrelevant loser.”
https://spectator.org/bye-mike/
“While giving the keynote speech at the Family Leadership Summit in Iowa last year, Tucker Carlson offered an interesting bit of advice to conservative voters more and more alienated from the political class even in the Republican Party.
Carlson offered a number of items, some of which were a bit off the beaten track — support politicians who pursue beauty in public life was one. But perhaps the most salient of his offerings was this: “You need to be really wary of candidates who care what the New York Times thinks.”
“Carlson’s remarks were mostly intended, people thought, as a shot at Nikki Haley — and rightly so.
But it turns out they hit home most of all with respect to Mike Pence, who made a political brand more than a decade ago as a politician who legitimately couldn’t care less about the propagandist legacy media.
That seems so long ago, doesn’t it?
Over the weekend, Pence showed up at the Gridiron dinner, one of the hoity-toity events in Washington in which the nation’s elite news media figures gather to congratulate themselves for another year of slavery to conventional wisdom and diminution of journalistic ethics and credibility, and sucked up to the audience in ways a John McCain or Mitt Romney would be envious of.
“History will hold Donald Trump accountable for Jan. 6,” Pence told hundreds of journalists at what is typically a jocular white-tie affair. “Make no mistake about it: What happened that day was a disgrace, and it mocks decency to portray it in any other way. President Trump was wrong. His reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day.”
Pence had used similar words to talk about Trump in his book — writing that his former boss’ “reckless words had endangered my family and all those serving at the Capitol.”
But his advisers saw the Gridiron dinner as an opportunity not just to echo those sentiments but to amplify them. They also believed it would help Pence win over his most skeptical audience these days: Washington insiders and journalists who have given him short shrift in the early 2024 primary.
“This was a different audience for him,” said Marc Short, Pence’s former vice presidential chief of staff and his senior adviser.
Pence world has long believed that the former congressman and Indiana governor could occupy the adult-in-a-room 2024 lane, in that he is uniquely positioned to speak truth to power now that he is free of the constraints of the vice presidency.
“Mike is in a different place where he can be sort of free and liberated in ways that I don’t think others in the field are,” Short said. “And so I’m not looking at it as to where he is at this moment. I believe that he’s got a good pathway forward.”
We’ll go ahead and dispense with Marc Short, who’s obviously exactly the sort of failure as a political adviser we’ve come to know and hate in the Republican Party. Now that Pence has taken his advice, it’s only a matter of time before Short resurfaces as the Lincoln Project’s newest associate and we’ll be able to contemplate all of the ways, beyond the obvious contempt for the GOP base, that he might also find similarity with John Weaver.
Or at least Rick Wilson.
Because Mike Pence has immolated himself in the same way that Weaver’s clients John McCain, John Huntsman, and John Kasich turned off their own party’s base: by treating them as America’s biggest problem.
The Politico piece excerpted above even has Pence’s camp quietly modeling him after John McCain, making one wonder just how stupid these people are. Even Mitt Romney generated more excitement in the GOP than McCain did — and thanks to McCain’s flaccid, pathetic 2008 effort, the country has been subjected to the Babylonian captivity that is the Barack Obama political era, which hasn’t just lasted the eight years of Obama’s term but in many ways has continued through Trump’s term and has fully metastasized during the current Obama Redux administration of Joe Biden.
To want to emulate McCain in any way given the destructive shame of his 2008 campaign isn’t just a sign of stupidity but insanity and even perhaps treason.
Mike Pence was not this political eunuch a decade ago. What on earth has happened to him?”
——
Sayonara.
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Which is the part those who favor the MSM just don’t get.
“Dominion’s Lawsuit Against Fox News Is Unfounded
Fox simply did what a good news outlet is supposed to do in the face of a controversial, national story: cover it from all sides.”
https://amgreatness.com/2023/03/13/dominions-lawsuit-against-fox-news-is-unfounded/
“We truly are living in an alternative universe the founders of this republic would not recognize. It’s bad enough that the America-hating Left seeks to undermine the First Amendment as a means to crush dissent; in conservative circles that is now taken for granted. What is worse is the shameful abandonment of the freedom of the press . . . by the supposed press.
And yet again, America’s corporate media refuses to defend what was once considered a nonpolitical, nonnegotiable right when it comes to ideological differences with the Left.
Consider Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit against Fox News for putting several individuals on air who claimed that rigged voting machines swayed the outcome of the 2020 election.
Here’s the problem: the individuals in question were the president’s lawyers. These lawyers repeatedly stated they had proof that Dominion’s voting machines were rigged to flip votes from Donald Trump to Joe Biden. Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network simply aired the news that the president’s lawyers were making these claims. In some instances, the Fox host allowed the president’s lawyers to make the claims with little push back. In other instances, Fox hosts did push back and demanded evidence, and even suggested they stop making the claims without it. In fact, Fox News invited Dominion representatives to appear on air to give their side of the story, but the company declined all but one invitation. Instead of entering the public debate, Dominion began preparing litigation soon after the election.
Apparently, this caused some debate and discussion within the Fox Corporation, the channels’ parent company, with some executives and employees voicing opinions about the potential damage to the media giant’s credibility. Some at Fox were inclined to believe the president’s lawyers while others were skeptical. That’s hardly unusual in a large news organization when it comes to controversial topics.
Dominion filed its defamation suit in Delaware state court, a clear case of venue shopping as Delaware is Joe Biden’s home state with notoriously liberal judges and jurors who undoubtedly bear animus toward conservative-leaning Fox News. They claim Fox knew the claims were false because Dominion told them so. Essentially, “Our machines weren’t rigged so you have to stop putting the president’s lawyers on the air.” But it turns out even Dominion’s own employees were aware that their machines were highly vulnerable to hacking and manipulation.
Eric Coomer, Dominion’s director of product strategy and security, admitted in an October 2020 email that, “our [expletive] is just riddled with bugs.” The problems with Dominion’s machines were described at length by the corporate media in the run-up to the 2020 election. On September 9, 2020, the Washington Post reported, “election integrity activists say the new [Dominion] voting machines are unaccountable and unverifiable and have many of the same security vulnerabilities as the old ones.”
Of course, the fear then was that Republicans would steal the election by hacking the voting machines. The media was in full “stop the steal” mode when they thought Trump was going to win. Dominion sure wasn’t suing the Washington Post, New York Times, or any of the other legacy media outlets that reported on Dominion’s security problems.
Fox filed a motion to dismiss the case based on the overriding First Amendment issue and the complete lack of damages suffered by Dominion. But it seems there’s a “Fox News exception” to the First Amendment in Joe Biden’s home state and among a corporate media that appears convinced of its invulnerability. And so, Fox is headed to trial in April.
Let’s go back to 1998 when then-President Bill Clinton wagged his finger at America on national TV and lied to us about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Everyone in the White House knew “Slick Willie” was lying. Every Democrat in Congress knew he was lying. Heck, almost everyone in America knew he was lying.
But that didn’t stop the networks from airing his defenders to broadcast the lie. Were the networks supposed to suppress the statements of high government officials who were defending the president in a very public matter? Of course not. Fast forward to 2020: Was Fox News not supposed to air the president’s lawyers who claimed they had incontrovertible proof of rigged machines? Of course not.
How about a more recent case—the entire Russiagate investigation which was based on the bogus Steele dossier? The mainstream “media” knew the dossier was bogus, but they were being told by congressional Democrats and party hacks at the Justice Department and FBI that it was legit and Trump was colluding with the Russians. It turned out to be an absolute lie—a campaign dirty trick funded and played by Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party. Should the networks and newspapers have ignored the story? It was after all news concerning the president of the United States.”
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Just gonna leave this here…..
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Obsessed is the word you’re looking for.
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The MSM desperately needs Trump to run for president. It’s the only way they become relevant again—well, except for Tucker who stays relevant with news items that are of interest to his viewers. Personally, I dread the sideshow that is our primary season. But what will be will be. :–)
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MSNBC, Fox, these are two sides of what is the political opinion coin. I’m not overly familiar w/MSNBC, but I have seen Rachel Maddow a couple times and know some folks online who accept her views as straight news.
News, opinion, not the same.
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Debra has this right, the primary season will likely be a sideshow (topping all others we’ve seen?). How can it get more unhinged? Dread is a good word for it.
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Trump is suing DeSantis (aka Ron Sanctimonious, ugh). Or rather his PAC is suing. And so the circus begins. :–/
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-allies-attack-desantis-with-campaign-ethics-complaint-2023-03-15/
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The only upside (and yes, I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel for ‘upsides’) is that by the time this is all over, there will be no hidden secrets the Democrats can use against DeSantis in the general election.
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Once again, it was the Jan^ Clown Committee that doctored and edited footage to push their narrative.
They blamed Trump and doctored the footage when it was actually a response to police firing gas.
Another false leftist narrative dies.
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This is amusing.
They so desperately want and need it to be Trump. They think he’s easier to beat.
So viola’, the Never Trumpers cheerlead for Trump. But only until primaries end, just like last time, and the time before that. They are predictable.
Pay attention.
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All Democrats to boycott Biden border crisis congressional hearing in Texas….
“Cuz it’s political “….well my my my….😳
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Tucker Carlson speaking at a Family Leadership Summit? The bar is quite low for leadership. I have very little sympathy for Pence – he made a deal with the devil, its a little late to do a U-turn. However, the chants “Hang Mike Pence” by those nice tourists at Trump’s rally just before they paid a visit to the Capitol probably forced him to rethink his allies.
Fox News lawyers have in the past argued that Carlson, Beck etc are entertainment not news and no rational person would take their programs as factual. Amusingly, judges agreed. Thus I’m quite sure – the different show hosts can’t be sued or it will at the very least be difficult to show damages. Dominion may try to argue the misinformation was deliberate and presented as fact not entertainment. The actual news programs will undergo more scrutiny in that respect. On the other hand, Domnion may be simply teaching the media a lesson in terms of how they report.
As for the hack who wrote the piece AJ cited this morning, the fact the trial is in Delaware is not venue shopping. It’s simple; most US corporations no matter where they are physically present are incorporated in Delaware. Both Dominion and Fox are incorporated in Delaware hence the lawsuit would have to be filed there. Are these writers even trying?
The video you posted has been debunked many times and you’ve posted it here before. It’s highly unlikely there are green deciduous trees in Washington on January 6.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The obsession about Trump may have more to do with the news regarding various court cases involving Trump than Trump himself.
As Debra notes, everybody but the RNC wants Trump to run again. The Democrats think he improves their odds and the media love the eyeballs to the screen he generated.
The millions already fundraised and spent by just DeSantis and Trump and their PACS is obscene. Imagine the positive things that could be accomplished. This alone is an argument for campaign funding reform and repeal of Citizens United.
LikeLike
I found the gas bills listed late last night shocking. I pay 32 cents per cubic metre and pay about $100 a month this winter (a mild winter). Our gasoline prices are usually higher than the US but our utility prices are heavily regulated which might be the difference.
Apparently US prices are by a thousand cubic feet so with a little conversion math, I pay US$6.63 per thousand cubic feet. The lowest price in the US is Idaho at $8.32. California is about $20 and NH is at $27. Wisconsin is listed at $11. (Hawaii is about $50)
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We paid about a hundred a month too.
But then the leftist idiots took control, stopped production here, and now I pay twice that.
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Sure, keep pretending Antifa wasn’t there.
With photos.
https://nypost.com/2021/01/07/known-antifa-members-posed-as-pro-trump-to-infiltrate-capitol-riot-sources/
“At least two known Antifa members were spotted among the throngs of pro-Trump protesters at the Capitol on Wednesday, a law enforcement source told The Post.
The Antifa members disguised themselves with pro-Trump clothing to join in the DC rioting, said the sources, who spotted the infiltrators while monitoring video coverage from the Capitol.
The infiltrators were recognized due to their participation in New York City demonstrations, and were believed to have joined in the rioting so that Trump would get blamed, the source said.
A Washington Times report initially claimed two other protesters were actually Philadelphia-based Antifa members — citing a retired military officer with access to facial recognition software — but the outlet deleted the article after the software company told Buzzfeed News that the story was “outright false.””
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