The Washington Post is reporting that the Army has lied for two weeks that Lt. General Charles Flynn, brother to disgraced and pardoned felon Mike Flynn was involved in the calls from Capitol Hill Police for help to repel the insurrection of Trump’s criminals who attempted to overthrow the government on January 6th.  The Pentagon has now confirmed that Flynn’s brother was indeed in on the calls, and he is now denying that he influenced the decision to delay National Guard response.  Sure.  That’s believable.

Trump just boarded Air Force One bound for Florida to begin his fight to stay out of jail for the rest of his life.  The crowd was sparse, but the Army did give him the 21 gun salute and the band played Hail to the Chief.  During his remarks, he immediately veered off script, which is normal for him.  The written remarks had him wishing Biden and Harris success by name, but he couldn’t bring himself, even now, to even do that.  Instead, he boasted that he stopped the pandemic, took credit for the vaccines, and said he was more popular with veterans than any president in history.  The rest of his speech was his normal self aggrandizing bullshit.  Mercifully, the speech was much shorter than his normal word salad filled diatribes.

His plane is now on the runway.  I hope I never hear his voice again.

You’ll probably recall the videos showing a Metropolitan Police officer being dragged down the steps on the west side of the building and beaten by Trump insurrectionists.  These self-described “patriots” beat this officer with poles of their flags and his own baton.  They stole is ammunition, his radio, and other equipment.  They tased him several times. When they started screaming, “Kill him with his own gun!”, he cried out that he had kids at home.  A few rioters who had not completely lost their souls stepped in and saved his life. He was rescued and sent to the hospital.

The officer’s name is Michael Fanone; he is an undercover narcotics detective who rushed with his partner to the Capitol when he heard about the attack.  For his efforts, he was almost killed by Trump insurrectionists.  He was interviewed today by CNN, and the reporter asked him what he wanted to say to the rioters who saved him from being killed.  His response?

“Thank you, but fuck you for being there.”

El Jefe unilaterally declares this to be the Quote of the Week.

Trump has made a hallmark of his presidency bombastic bloviating and boasting that he’s accomplished what no other president has ever accomplished.  Well, he’s finally right.  By inciting insurrection where the Capitol was attack and sacked, a Capitol Hill police officer was beaten to death, 4 other people died and hundreds of members of Congress and their staff were terrorized, Trump has most certainly accomplished what no other president has done – getting impeached.  TWICE.  In a bipartisan vote where 10 Republicans joined the Democrats, Nancy Pelosi led the race to remove him before he does more damage or gets more people killed.  The Senate, of course, is foot dragging, but with Repubs joining the Dems, the pressure is on for McConnell to do something.  Ball’s in your court again, Mitch.

UPDATE 2: The Boston Globe is reporting that Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley and her husband retreated to her office during the attack and staff barricaded and bolted the door.  When she went to her panic button (every office has one) she found that it had been ripped out.  Capitol Hill Police moved her several times to keep her away from the mob.

UPDATE 1:  New Jersey Rep. Mikie Sherrill told constituents on a live stream last night that she witnessed certain representatives actually giving tours of the Capitol on January 5th that she’s now realized were actually reconnaissance for the attack the following day.  She didn’t name them publicly, but is going to make sure that they are brought to justice along with other complicit representatives as well as Trump.  She does know what she’s talking about, being a Navy helicopter pilot and member of flag staff for a decade.  This story just piles more evidence on the emerging narrative that the attack was most certainly carefully planned and executed from the highest levels of the government.

ORIGINAL STORY: Seth Abramson, a NYTimes bestselling author and analyst for several networks, has compiled over 250 reports on last Wednesday and a seriously disturbing pattern is emerging about what events led to an invasion of the Capitol.  The punch line is that this entire sordid episode was planned and executed with the specific intent of disrupting the certification of the Electoral Vote long enough for violent extremists to actually stop the certification.  I won’t post the entire thread here, but you can read it here on Threadreader.  It is required reading to begin to understand what happened on January 6th.

To set the scene, here were the main players:

Trump
Giuliani
Rep. Biggs (R-AZ)
Rep. Gosar (R-AZ)
Rep. Brooks (R-AL)
Sen. Tuberville (R-AL)
Arizona Proud Boys
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall

Assisted by:

Ali Alexander, far-right activist
Roger Stone, friend and advisor to the president
Paul Manafort, former Trump campaign manager
Donald Trump Jr., son of the president

Roger Stone is in the center of this conspiracy (sound familiar?), is close to the Proud Boys, and coordinated the effort.  Alexander originally organized a “Stop the Steal” rally for January 6.  Stone had coined the term.  The event was eventually combined with another event, “Save America” which had been organized by a Trump dark money group.  Since the election, Trump has raised over $300 million from loyalists for “election defense” but much of the money apparently went to Stone and Manafort to organize the insurrection.  Stone recruited Biggs, Gosar, and Brooks in the house to object to the Arizona electoral vote, and got Tuberville to join in the Senate.

Here’s the money line:  THE ONLY REASON THEY WERE TO OBJECT TO THE ELECTORAL VOTE WAS TO DELAY THE CERTIFICATION LONG ENOUGH TO GIVE THE MOB, LED BY THE PROUD BOYS, TIME TO BREACH THE CAPITOL AND STOP THE CERTIFICATION COMPLETELY. 

Here are the Arizona Proud Boys at the Capitol.  They wore the orange hats to distinguish members during the invasion:

That, boys and girls, is chilling.  Seth Abramson has compiled public data that reveals a narrative that the President of the United States, one US Senator, three US Congressmen, a state attorney general, Trump’s insane attorney, two convicted felons, Trump’s shitbag son, and a violent far right group of extremists hatched a plan IN THE WHITE HOUSE to actually overturn a free and fair election, overthrow the US government, and hand it to Donald Trump, Dictator.  Apparently, idiots like Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley were unwitting accomplices to the overthrow plot just trying to stay on the Crazy Train to 2024.

Read Abramson’s thread.  It will give you cold chills about how close the United States government actually came to collapsing on Wednesday, January 6, 2021.

Mitch McConnell signaled the end of the Trump presidency today by telling associates that he’s “pleased” that the Dems are impeaching Trump and that impeachment will make it easier to purge him from the party.  Said associates immediately leaked the comment to the press.  That’s McConnell’s way of communicating to Trump to pack his shit and get out. Clearly the money stream is drying up due to Trump’s attempted coup last week, and McConnell now sees him as a liability.  Folks, it’s over.

Looking into my Crystal Bourbon Bottle, I predict that Trump will be gone by Friday.  Republican resistance to the impeachment effort in the house is tepid at best, coming mostly from Drooler Caucus, and even McCarthy is backing away from Trump.  Having lost McConnell’s support Trump is toast.  Now it’s just a matter of how Trump leaves, and I predict he will try to resign rather than face a conviction and removal from the Senate.  The thing is, though, to purge Trump, they’ll have to convict, then vote again to disqualify him from holding any other federal offices.

“Turn out the lights, the party’s over…”