The Committee on House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight has announced that United States Capitol Police video footage from 6 January, 2021 will be made available to the public through two methods, a new online viewing room and in person at the subcommittee’s offices in Washington, D.C.
The public will be able to access the footage via an online public view room on the Committee on House Administration’s website. As an example, here’s a random screenshot from the video file 0126USCS01UpperWestTerrace_2021-01-06_15h29min53s277ms_1.mp4If, in fact, there are over 44,000 hours of video, it’s gonna take a while to screen everything. However, it won’t be long before the coverage of certain times and places has been reviewed.
A judge has acquitted a defendant charged with trespassing at the U. S. Capitol on 6 January, 2021. An official of the Capitol Police admitted under oath that the Capitol Police had admitted people into the building, and Judge Trevor McFadden found that it was reasonable for the defendant to have believe that the Capitol Police had allowed him to enter and that the Department of Justice had failed to prove otherwise.
the verdict could be viewed as a message from McFaddento prosecutors that pursuing criminal charges against nearly every demonstrator who entered the Capitol on Jan. 6 was unwise and that resources should have been trained more intensely on those accused of violence or of conspiring to block the electoral vote count.
In a speech this evening before a mostly empty chamber of the House of Representatives, Joe Xiden described the 6 January brouhaha at the Capitol as “the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.”
None of the American citizens of Japanese ancestry interred during the Roosevelt administration were available for comment.
Breitbart has a piece up about Steve Cohen, the Democrat who represents Memphis in Congress, claiming that the 6 January Capitol disturbance was as bad as the attack on Pearl Harbor.
I knew Steve Cohen when he was an undergraduate at Vanderbilt. He struck me as a lightweight activist wannabe then, but he’s managed to work his way up the Left’s food chain.
The FBI has arrested John Sullivan in Utah on charges relating to his activities in and around the Capitol during the 6 January riot. According to the probable cause affidavit submitted by the FBI for the arrest warrant, Sullivan is the leader of an organization called Insurgence USA through which he organizes protests. (The Insurgence USA website appears to indicate the organization is loosely affiliated with Black Lives Matter.) The affidavit states that Sullivan admitted wearing a ballistic vest and carrying a gas mask during the riot.
The Federalist has posted an eyewitness account by J. Michael Waller of what he saw at the Capitol on the 6th.
A small number of cadre appeared to use the cover of a huge rally to stage its attack. Before it began, I saw from my vantage point on the West Front of the Capitol what appeared to be four separate cells or units:
Plainclothes militants. Militant, aggressive men in Donald Trump and MAGA gear at a front police line at the base of the temporary presidential inaugural platform;
Agents-provocateurs. Scattered groups of men exhorting the marchers to gather closely and tightly toward the center of the outside of the Capitol building and prevent them from leaving;
Fake Trump protesters. A few young men wearing Trump or MAGA hats backwards and who did not fit in with the rest of the crowd in terms of their actions and demeanor, whom I presumed to be Antifa or other leftist agitators; and
Disciplined, uniformed column of attackers. A column of organized, disciplined men, wearing similar but not identical camouflage uniforms and black gear, some with helmets and GoPro cameras or wearing subdued Punisher skull patches.
All of these cells or groups stood out from the very large crowd by their behavior and overall demeanor. However, they did not all appear at the same time. Not until the very end did it appear there was a prearranged plan to storm the Capitol building, and to manipulate the unsuspecting crowd as cover and as a follow-on force.
IMHO, that’s the money quote from Nineteen Eighty-Four. O’Brien says it to Winston Smith during his torture in Room 101.
‘You are a slow learner, Winston,’ said O’Brien gently.
‘How can I help it?’ he blubbered. ‘How can I help seeing what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four.’
‘Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.’
Given the reporting of the events in DC from all the various sources, each pushing its own narrative, I’m not sure if what I’m seeing in front of my eyes is real. There are so few trustworthy sources.
Yesterday in DC was a mess. While it appears that most of the folks participating in the various Stop the Steal gatherings were well-behaved and peaceful, there were exceptions, most notably at the Capitol. Who were the people rioting at the Capitol?
It’s been suggested that the whole thing was a false flag operation designed to turn public opinion against the Stop the Steal demonstrations. While it’s possible that there were leftwing provocateurs in the crowd, it seems that most of the rioters at the Capitol weren’t leftists. I’ve seen the suggestion that they were Alex Jones fans. That may be closer to an accurate description.
I suspect that a substantial number of frustrated Deplorables have looked at the rules that have been applied to Antifa and BLM and have decided that those they should act out under those same rules. The Old Rules required a decent respect for public order and the common good. The New Rules are about grabbing and holding on to power by any means necessary.
Yesterday’s riot reminded me of this scene from the movie Network—
That’s from 1976, a low point during the Watergate/Oil Embargo/Stagflation era. Since then, things got worse and then got better but are now worse again for many Americans. It’s not hard to imagine someone making that speech in 2020.
[Mixed metaphor alert!]
The Left has uncorked several bottles over the past four years, and some rather evil genies are now on the loose. As a result, Our Betters are going have to deal with the corollary of Murphy’s Law that says once you open a can of worms, the only way to recan them is to use a larger can.
Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen. I wish I were wrong.
“What the hell was law enforcement on Capitol Hill thinking by not having secured the Capitol today?” former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta asked on CNBC, calling it one of his great disappointments.
Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), asked Wednesday evening by MSNBC’s Joy Reid if Capitol Police made her feel safe, answered “I did until today.”
Defunding the police was one of the issues Rep. Bush supported during her election campaign last year. Her position on the matter has changed with her point of view. As I noted in a post last July—
While I’m drinking my second cup of coffee this morning, I’m seeing comments on various social media suggesting that one of the things that should happen if blue cities #DefundthePolice is the abolition of security details for elected officials. I doubt that would happen. Indeed, I expect those would be among the very last police details to be cut.
Whether at a local or national level, the whole purpose of being in the Inner Party is to exercise power, and that power is exercised via the Outer Party bureaucracy to keep the Proles in line. The Inner Party will always try to have sufficient resources in place to protect itself and enforce its will, so there will always be a place in the Outer Party for those enforcers. Department A4 of the Gestapo was Protective Services. The KGB had its Close Protective Services directorate.
Outer Party resources may be shifted about, and that may reduce policing of certain activities among the Proles, but the Inner Party will always try to deploy sufficient resources to protect its interests.
Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen. I wish I were wrong.
If, in fact, there are over 44,000 hours of video, it’s gonna take a while to screen everything. However, it won’t be long before the coverage of certain times and places has been reviewed.