Nov 2023 Mod notice:
There may be other, more specific, threads about some aspects of US politics, but this one tends to act as a hub for all sorts of related news and information, so it's usually one of the busiest OTC threads.
If you're new to OTC, it's worth reading the Introduction to On-Topic Conversations
and the On-Topic Conversations debate guidelines before posting here.
Rumor-based, fear-mongering and/or inflammatory statements that damage the quality of the thread will be thumped. Off-topic posts will also be thumped. Repeat offenders may be suspended.
If time spent moderating this thread remains a distraction from moderation of the wiki itself, the thread will need to be locked. We want to avoid that, so please follow the forum rules when posting here.
In line with the general forum rules, 'gravedancing' is prohibited here. If you're celebrating someone's death or hoping that they die, your post will get thumped. This rule applies regardless of what the person you're discussing has said or done.
Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Professional Forum Ninja
Should be noted that this letter is specifically from state Rep. James White, who represents District 19 (Jasper, Onalaska, and northern portions of the Beaumont metro).
I wouldn't be surprised if others shared his views, but this is only one man's letter.
Edited by tclittle on Oct 23rd 2021 at 11:55:41 AM
"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."
I wouldn't be surprised if there was a thinly veiled threat of a response from the federal government stating, "You know, we HAVE forcefully enforced an amendment before, it would be a shame if you forced us to do it again."
"In a move surprising absolutely no one"
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
One dipshit running off his printer won't get the government involved.
Now, if someone actually denies benefits, the federal government will get involved through thr courts. If Texas defies a federal court order, then we might see more direct action - but even then, the likely solution would be something like the aggrieved party being escorted into a bank by US Marshals to transfer money from state bank accounts to theirs.
These kind of people talk a lot but make a point of not doing anything that'll actually get them put in jail. They're not actually Y'all Qaeda.
Texas is really speedrunning fascism, and it's terrifying.
I liked it better when Questionable Casting was called WTH Casting Agency
At this point, Texas might as well become its own country again.
Watch this be prophetic. When do you all bet this comes true?
Edited by SatoshiBakura on Oct 23rd 2021 at 2:02:33 PM
I'm not sure if Texas could really survive being its own country.
I liked it better when Questionable Casting was called WTH Casting Agency
There's actually a CGP Grey video on the topic. In short, Texas could actually survive as a nation in theory. However, it's also 100% illegal for them to secede.
"Any campaign world where an orc samurai can leap off a landcruiser to fight a herd of Bulbasaurs will always have my vote of confidence"
And perhaps more to the point given our esteemed governor's respect for the law, if they couldn't succeed at getting away with it with a bunch of other states in a far more decentralized era, they sure as heck can't pull it off now. I can't believe this even needs saying.
Edited by nrjxll on Oct 23rd 2021 at 1:42:37 PM
x5 Wasn't it just one guy saying this? I wouldn't be surprised if more of them thought this but I'm not sure they'd be willing to risk the federal government coming down on them.
Redmess
According to this week’s poll, Mr Biden’s net approval rating is a dismal minus nine points. Although this is better than Mr Trump’s score of -15 at this point in his presidency, it is far below Mr Obama’s plus six. And support for Mr Biden is deteriorating rapidly. His net approval rating has fallen by more than ten points since his 200th day in office, just over two months ago. Mr Obama’s fell by only four, and Mr Trump’s by just one, over the corresponding period (see left-hand chart).
It is hard to know exactly what accounts for the slump. Some pin the blame on the surge in covid-19 cases and deaths over the summer, fuelled by the highly contagious Delta variant. After all, voters elected Mr Biden in large part because he was seen as better equipped than Mr Trump to tackle the pandemic. Others think Democrats have become disaffected with the president because he has failed to pass key parts of his agenda, including a bipartisan infrastructure bill and a multi-trillion-dollar social-spending package, which would fund health care, education, climate change and other progressive priorities.
Our polling suggests a different story entirely. In fact, voters strongly approve of Mr Biden’s handling of the coronavirus. And his support among Democrats has held fairly steady, even as his net approval among political independents has fallen by 15 percentage points, from minus 10 points to minus 25, over the past two months. A more likely reason for the president’s sagging approval ratings is his low marks on health care (just 37% of respondents approve of his performance) and the economy (39%), the issues mentioned first and third most often by voters as their top concerns (climate ranks second). Among political independents he fares even worse.
Voters’ disappointment on these two fronts may be justified. Mr Biden has failed to get any big health-care reforms passed (in September a House committee rejected his plan to allow Medicare, the government’s health plan for the elderly, to negotiate prescription-drug prices). The public’s chief economic worry is inflation, which is mostly outside the president’s control but which he will still probably be blamed for. It is unlikely that Mr Biden will solve these problems soon. If things do not improve, he may soon end up with worse ratings than even Mr Trump.
In short, the Economist rejects the idea that Biden's low ratings are caused by the covid surge over the summer and Democrat disillusionment, and is instead caused by inflation and a failure to pass big healthcare reform packages.
I think at this point we can safely assume this is not merely a temporary slump due to the Afghanistan withdrawal, but an actual souring of the national mood towards the president.
Optimism is a duty.
Did we not just scour ElSquibbonator for doing this exact thing like two days ago? The only difference is you quoted some of the article.
It's been fun.
Redmess
That's the entire article, actually, and I don't see why we can't discuss this here.
But if no one wants to, that's fine too.
Optimism is a duty.
I thought Squib got dinged because the posts were conveyed to encourage panic. Redmess' isn't.
Redmess
Also, this article is interesting because it suggests a different reason behind the downturn in ratings than most other news stories seem to suggest.
Optimism is a duty.
Biden brings Manchin and Schumer to Delaware to continue negotiations.
Nothing's leaked out yet, but all the reporters are using words like "finalize," so fingers crossed.
"Manchin's comfort level with zero as a final number revealed a stark reality for Democratic negotiators: Manchin can control the final dollar amount."
Translation: we have to cater to the most heartless pieces of shit because the other side has a goddamned conscience.
x8 I don't think even passing a neutered bill is going to help that much.
Disasturbator
who are you responding to?
New theme music also a box
Yeah, if you're responding to someone more than three or four posts up, you should probably quote their post instead of relying on arrows
What's worrisome is the headline I saw that said support for Biden among independents is dropping.
I liked it better when Questionable Casting was called WTH Casting Agency
That's expected, Trump was an abnormality that has tainted perceptions.
But for every other president for as long as it has been recorded there popularity dropped the entire time they were in office, they may have had breif spikes but it was always a general downward trend.
Trump didnt really have that since all that he had was his bedrock in the firstplace.
Edited by Imca on Oct 24th 2021 at 2:23:55 AM
A Seattle Times article on criminal charges filed against Pierce County’s Sheriff for lying about being threatened by a Black newspaper carrier included the possibility of him being added to a "Brady list", prosecutors' list of officers with credibility issues. Now AP has an article that discusses Brady lists further. As with so many other issues in the US, one of the problems is the wide disparity in the way different jurisdictions use them, with
The AP found that prosecutors sometimes don’t even compile the lists and that wide disparities in what offenses land officers on them are prevalent across the country, with excessive force often failing to merit inclusion.
The AP also found that many prosecutors and police unions have gone to great lengths to keep Brady List information from becoming public.
Now, defense attorneys, public defenders, civil rights groups and even some prosecutors are calling for an increased use of Brady Lists and a broadening of the offenses that will land a police officer on them, while police unions are resisting those efforts.
The result, critics say, is a mishmash of policies that vary state to state — and even jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
The Dallas County district attorney’s list contained 192 names, with infractions ranging from making false statements to convictions for theft, assault, and driving under the influence. The Suffolk County, Massachusetts, prosecutor’s list included Boston officers who lied on their timesheets or embezzled funds. Louisiana’s Orleans Parish district attorney tracked officers who committed crimes, lied, or drove dangerously, but not violent arrests.
Dishonesty lands an officer on the list in Detroit, Denver, and Seattle, but using excessive force does not.
The Phoenix district attorney, along with prosecutors in Orange County, Florida, and Los Angeles, were among the few the AP found who include excessive use of force cases on their lists.
When Larry Krasner was elected Philadelphia district attorney in 2017, his staff discovered a “do not call” list of police officers that had been compiled by a previous prosecutor.
The officers had a history of lying, bias, and excessive force and were barred from testifying “absent explicit permission from the highest levels of the district attorney’s office.”
Krasner shared the list with defense attorneys, who used the information to challenge the convictions of people imprisoned by testimony from those officers and has continued to provide timely Brady material to public defenders.
Last month, he asked for the Philadelphia Police Department to be held in contempt for not cooperating with his request for officer disciplinary material.
Kym Worthy, the prosecutor for Wayne County, Michigan, which includes Detroit, also is disclosing Brady List material to defense attorneys and the public “because in an era of criminal justice reform,” she said, “it just makes sense.”
Worthy has compiled a list of officers who have committed offenses involving theft, dishonesty, fraud, bias or bribery, saying officers who commit these crimes have lost their credibility and won’t be called to testify.
St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner also has said she won’t take criminal cases filed by untrustworthy officers and has an “exclusion list” with more than 50 names.
Gascon had partnered with Harris and the police union to establish a “do not call” list that became the model for the state. After he won the Los Angeles election, he sent letters to local law enforcement agencies seeking the names of officers involved in 11 categories of misconduct, including bribery, theft, evidence tampering, dishonesty, and unreasonable force.
The contract between Seattle and its police department, for instance, prohibits releasing disciplined officers’ names. But the Brady Lists sent to the AP by the King County prosecuting attorney included 51 Seattle officers.
Seventeen of those officers had criminal charges filed against them, 26 had sustained findings of dishonesty, six had shown racial bias and one violated the department’s ethics policy.
When Jim McDonnell took over the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, he wanted to share the list of officers accused of misconduct with the prosecutor’s office, but both sides were concerned that a state law — the peace officer’s bill of rights — would prohibit the move.
After the police union filed an injunction to block any sharing, the case went to the state Supreme Court, which ruled in 2019 that prosecutors could be given the list.
There's also a recent ProPublica article that's focused on the NYPD and the problems with their their similar "No Fly List"
That’s because they were among hundreds of officers placed on the Bronx district attorney’s “No Fly List,” a secret roster of officers whose cases are supposed to get an extra level of scrutiny by prosecutors.
The list was created a decade ago amid a sprawling investigation into the city’s biggest police union and its role in helping officers “fix” tickets issued to family and friends for speeding, illegal parking and other traffic offenses. It grew to 664 names and was intended to help prosecutors vet cases that might rest too heavily on officers whose ties to the scandal could raise questions about their conduct and credibility.
Ten years after it was first created, the No Fly List itself remains secret by judicial seal.
But ProPublica has obtained a version of the list. And a review of court records involving 164 No Fly officers still currently on the force shows how one of the most sweeping efforts by prosecutors to flag cops with credibility concerns hasn’t prevented them from jeopardizing cases.
Prosecutors aren’t barred from relying on No Fly officers, and a spokesperson for the Bronx District Attorney’s Office wouldn’t say how many have testified, only that “hundreds” had done so in successful prosecutions. But the prosecutions that failed because of dubious statements by No Fly officers illustrate the conflict inherent in expecting prosecutors to serve as a check on the very officers they need to build cases.
And even as new laws have forced prosecutors and police in New York to begin making public more information about officers’ conduct and credibility, the full picture of a New York Police Department officer’s history is rarely known outside the department.
Until recently, prosecutors could wait until the eve of trial to disclose damaging information about arresting officers to defendants and their lawyers. A 2019 law was intended to speed up those disclosures so that defendants would not be in the dark as they weighed whether to go to trial or agree to a plea deal. But the scope of the disclosure requirement has been challenged in court by prosecutors. And defense lawyers say that they still find themselves frequently making plea deals knowing little or nothing about the history of the arresting officer, and long before a judge might start asking questions.
For the public, even less information is readily available, even with the repeal last year of a state civil service law that had long been used to keep secret officer disciplinary records. The state’s vast court record system can’t be searched by the name of officers involved in a case, making it impossible for the public, and even judges, to readily identify and examine all of the cases involving a particular officer. To identify failed prosecutions that hinged on the credibility of No Fly officers, ProPublica reviewed judicial decisions, press accounts and newly public disclosures from prosecutors.
That’s why the Legal Aid Society wants its defense attorneys to know as much about the officers who arrest their clients as possible before accepting plea deals. For years, the group has worked to track officer credibility by compiling profiles that draw from its own records, as well as court filings, civilian complaints and other sources.
In New York City, where each borough has its own district attorney, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez has gone further than his counterparts in ensuring the integrity of criminal cases and the police officers behind them. His office has publicly blacklisted seven police officers, barring them from testifying, and, earlier this year, it released more than 10,000 documents containing officer misconduct histories.
Most of the city’s other district attorneys have recently released their own internal lists of officers who have been deemed not credible, though only after reporters and lawyers sought them through open records requests and lawsuits.
The No Fly List, though, remains under seal. In 2012, at the request of lawyers for the indicted ticket-fixing officers, a Bronx judge issued a gag order blocking the list from being publicly distributed.
And the fates of the officers involved underscore the reality that the NYPD is almost always the ultimate arbiter of its officers’ conduct. Whether questions about credibility arise from a judge, a prosecutor, a lawsuit or the city’s own Civilian Complaint Review Board, what, if anything, happens to an officer is almost always decided by the NYPD.
NYPD guidelines released earlier this year state that being the subject of disciplinary action “may also have an impact” on future assignments and promotions. But in the NYPD, commanding officers have wide latitude to assign officers to particular units or neighborhoods. And for some promotions, most notably to become a detective, commanders have considerable discretion as well.
Half of the 164 No Fly officers currently on the job were promoted in the decade since they were first flagged, most of them to detective.
Professional Forum Ninja
Rolling Stone separately confirmed a third person involved in the main Jan. 6 rally in D.C. has communicated with the committee. This is the first report that the committee is hearing major new allegations from potential cooperating witnesses. While there have been prior indications that members of Congress were involved, this is also the first account detailing their purported role and its scope. The two sources also claim they interacted with members of Trump’s team, including former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who they describe as having had an opportunity to prevent the violence.
The two sources, both of whom have been granted anonymity due to the ongoing investigation, describe participating in “dozens” of planning briefings ahead of that day when Trump supporters broke into the Capitol as his election loss to President Joe Biden was being certified.
“I remember Marjorie Taylor Greene specifically,” the organizer says. “I remember talking to probably close to a dozen other members at one point or another or their staffs.”
For the sake of clarity, we will refer to one of the sources as a rally organizer and the other as a planner. Rolling Stone has confirmed that both sources were involved in organizing the main event aimed at objecting to the electoral certification, which took place at the White House Ellipse on Jan. 6. Trump spoke at that rally and encouraged his supporters to march to the Capitol. Some members of the audience at the Ellipse began walking the mile and a half to the Capitol as Trump gave his speech. The barricades were stormed minutes before the former president concluded his remarks.
These two sources also helped plan a series of demonstrations that took place in multiple states around the country in the weeks between the election and the storming of the Capitol. According to these sources, multiple people associated with the March for Trump and Stop the Steal events that took place during this period communicated with members of Congress throughout this process.
Along with Greene, the conspiratorial pro-Trump Republican from Georgia who took office earlier this year, the pair both say the members who participated in these conversations or had top staffers join in included Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.), Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas).
“We would talk to Boebert’s team, Cawthorn’s team, Gosar’s team like back to back to back to back,” says the organizer. WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 12: Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) attends a House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing titled The Capitol Insurrection: Unexplained Delays and Unanswered Questions, on Capitol Hill on May 12, 2021 in Washington, DC. The committee will hear testimony about delays in law enforcement response during the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. (Photo by Jonathan Ernst-Pool/Getty Images)
Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) attends a House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing titled The Capitol Insurrection: Unexplained Delays and Unanswered Questions, on Capitol Hill on May 12, 2021 in Washington, DC.
Jonathan Ernst-Pool/Getty Images
And Gosar, who has been one of the most prominent defenders of the Jan. 6 rioters, allegedly took things a step further. Both sources say he dangled the possibility of a “blanket pardon” in an unrelated ongoing investigation to encourage them to plan the protests.
“Our impression was that it was a done deal,” the organizer says, “that he’d spoken to the president about it in the Oval … in a meeting about pardons and that our names came up. They were working on submitting the paperwork and getting members of the House Freedom Caucus to sign on as a show of support.”
The organizer claims the pair received “several assurances” about the “blanket pardon” from Gosar.
“I was just going over the list of pardons and we just wanted to tell you guys how much we appreciate all the hard work you’ve been doing,” Gosar said, according to the organizer.
The rally planner describes the pardon as being offered while “encouraging” the staging of protests against the election. While the organizer says they did not get involved in planning the rallies solely due to the pardon, they were upset that it ultimately did not materialize.
“I would have done it either way with or without the pardon,” the organizer says. “I do truly believe in this country, but to use something like that and put that out on the table when someone is so desperate, it’s really not good business.”
Gosar’s office did not respond to requests for comment on this story. Rolling Stone has separately obtained documentary evidence that both sources were in contact with Gosar and Boebert on Jan. 6. We are not describing the nature of that evidence to preserve their anonymity. The House select committee investigating the attack also has interest in Gosar’s office. Gosar’s chief of staff, Thomas Van Flein, was among the people who were named in the committee’s “sweeping” requests to executive-branch agencies seeking documents and communications from within the Trump administration. Both sources claim Van Flein was personally involved in the conversations about the “blanket pardon” and other discussions about pro-Trump efforts to dispute the election. Van Flein did not respond to a request for comment.
These specific members of Congress were involved in the pro-Trump activism around the election and the electoral certification on Jan. 6. Both Brooks and Cawthorn spoke with Trump at the Ellipse on Jan. 6. In his speech at that event, Brooks, who was reportedly wearing body armor, declared, “Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass.” Gosar, Greene, and Boebert were all billed as speakers at the “Wild Protest,” which also took place on Jan. 6 at the Capitol.
Nick Dyer, who is Greene’s communications director, said she was solely involved in planning to object to the electoral certification on the House floor. Spokespeople for the other members of Congress, who the sources describe as involved in the planning for protests, did not respond to requests for comment.
“Congresswoman Greene and her staff were focused on the Congressional election objection on the House floor and had nothing to do with planning of any protest,” Dyer wrote in an email to Rolling Stone. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene speaks during former President Donald Trump's Save America rally in Perry, Ga., on Saturday, Sept. 25, 2021. (AP Photo/Ben Gray)
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene speaks during former President Donald Trump’s Save America rally in Perry, Ga., on Saturday, Sept. 25, 2021.
Ben Gray/AP
Dyer further compared Greene’s efforts to dispute certification of Biden’s victory with similar objections certain Democrats lodged against Trump’s first election.
“She objected just like Democrats who have objected to Republican presidential victories over the years,” wrote Dyer. “Just like in 2017, when Jim Mc Govern, Jamie Raskin, Pramila Jayapal, Barbara Lee, Sheila Jackson Lee, Raul Grijalva, and Maxine Waters tried to prevent President Trump’s election win from being certified.”
Dyer also suggested the public is far more concerned with issues occurring under President Joe Biden than they are with what happened in January.
“No one cares about Jan. 6 when gas prices are skyrocketing, grocery store shelves are empty, unemployment is skyrocketing, businesses are going bankrupt, our border is being invaded, children are forced to wear masks, vaccine mandates are getting workers fired, and 13 members of our military are murdered by the Taliban and Americans are left stranded in Afghanistan,” Dyer wrote.
In another indication members of Congress may have been involved in planning the protests against the election, Ali Alexander, who helped organize the “Wild Protest,” declared in a since-deleted livestream broadcast that Gosar, Brooks, and Biggs helped him formulate the strategy for that event.
“I was the person who came up with the Jan. 6 idea with Congressman Gosar, Congressman Mo Brooks, and Congressman Andy Biggs,” Alexander said at the time. “We four schemed up on putting maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting so that — who we couldn’t lobby — we could change the hearts and the minds of Republicans who were in that body hearing our loud roar from outside.”
Alexander led Stop the Steal, which was one of the main groups promoting efforts to dispute Trump’s loss. In December, he organized a Stop the Steal event in Phoenix, where Gosar was one the main speakers. At that demonstration, Alexander referred to Gosar as “my captain” and declared “one of the other heroes has been Congressman Andy Biggs.”
Alexander did not respond to requests for comment. The rally planner, who accused Alexander of ratcheting up the potential for violence that day while taking advantage of funds from donors and others who helped finance the events, confirmed that he was in contact with those three members of Congress.
“He just couldn’t help himself but go on his live and just talk about everything that he did and who he talked to,” the planner says of Alexander. “So, he, like, really told on himself.”
While it was already clear members of Congress played some role in the Jan. 6 events and similar rallies that occurred in the lead-up to that day, the two sources say they can provide new details about the members’ specific roles in these efforts. The sources plan to share that information with congressional investigators right away. While both sources say their communications with the House’s Jan. 6 committee thus far have been informal, they are expecting to testify publicly.
“I have no problem openly testifying,” the planner says.
A representative for the committee declined to comment. In the past month, the committee has issued subpoenas to top Trump allies, government agencies, and activists who were involved in the planning of events and rallies that took place on that day and in the prior weeks. Multiple sources familiar with the committee’s investigation have confirmed to Rolling Stone that, thus far, it seems to be heavily focused on the financing for the Ellipse rally and similar previous events.
Both of the sources made clear that they still believe in Trump’s agenda. They also have questions about how his election loss occurred. The two sources say they do not necessarily believe there were issues with the actual vote count. However, they are concerned that Democrats gained an unfair advantage in the race due to perceived social media censorship of Trump allies and the voting rules that were implemented as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Democrats used tactics to disrupt their political opposition in ways that frankly were completely unacceptable,” the organizer says.
Despite their remaining affinity for Trump and their questions about the vote, both sources say they were motivated to come forward because of their concerns about how the pro-Trump protests against the election ultimately resulted in the violent attack on the Capitol. Of course, with their other legal issues and the House investigation, both of these sources have clear motivation to cooperate with investigators and turn on their former allies. And both of their accounts paint them in a decidedly favorable light compared with their former allies.
“The reason I’m talking to the committee and the reason it’s so important is that — despite Republicans refusing to participate … this commission’s all we got as far as being able to uncover the truth about what happened at the Capitol that day,” the organizer says. “It’s clear that a lot of bad actors set out to cause chaos. … They made us all look like shit.”
And Trump, they admit, was one of those bad actors. A representative for Trump did not respond to a request for comment.
“The breaking point for me [on Jan. 6 was when] Trump starts talking about walking to the Capitol,” the organizer says. “I was like. ‘Let’s get the fuck out of here.’ ”
“I do kind of feel abandoned by Trump,” says the planner. “I’m actually pretty pissed about it and I’m pissed at him.”
The organizer offers an even more succinct assessment when asked what they would say to Trump.
“What the fuck?” the organizer says.
The two potential witnesses plan to present to the committee allegations about how these demonstrations were funded and to detail communications between organizers and the White House. According to both sources, members of Trump’s administration and former members of his campaign team were involved in the planning. Both describe Katrina Pierson, who worked for Trump’s campaign in 2016 and 2020, as a key liaison between the organizers of protests against the election and the White House.
“Katrina was like our go-to girl,” the organizer says. “She was like our primary advocate.”
Pierson spoke at the Ellipse rally on Jan. 6. She did not respond to requests for comment.
Both sources also describe Trump’s White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, as someone who played a major role in the conversations surrounding the protests on Jan. 6. Among other things, they both say concerns were raised to Meadows about Alexander’s protest at the Capitol and the potential that it could spark violence. Meadows was subpoenaed by the committee last month as part of a group of four people “with close ties to the former President who were working in or had communications with the White House on or in the days leading up to the January 6th insurrection.”
“Meadows was 100 percent made aware of what was going on,” says the organizer. “He’s also like a regular figure in these really tiny groups of national organizers.”
A separate third source, who has also communicated with the committee and was involved in the Ellipse rally, says Kylie Kremer, one of the key organizers at that event, boasted that she was going to meet with Meadows at the White House ahead of the rally. The committee has been provided with that information. Kremer did not respond to a request for comment.
Both the organizer and the planner say Alexander initially agreed he would not hold his “Wild Protest” at the Capitol and that the Ellipse would be the only major demonstration. When Alexander seemed to be ignoring that arrangement, both claim worries were brought to Meadows.
“Despite making a deal … they plowed forward with their own thing at the Capitol on Jan.y 6 anyway,” the organizer says of Alexander and his allies. “We ended up escalating that to everybody we could, including Meadows.”
A representative for Meadows did not respond to requests for comment.
Along with making plans for Jan. 6, the sources say, the members of Congress who were involved solicited supposed proof of election fraud from them. Challenging electoral certification requires the support of a member of the Senate. While more than a hundred Republican members of the House ultimately objected to the Electoral College count that formalized Trump’s loss, only a handful of senators backed the effort. According to the sources, the members of Congress and their staff advised them to hold rallies in specific states. The organizer says locations were chosen to put “pressure” on key senators that “we considered to be persuadable.”
“We had also been coordinating with some of our congressional contacts on, like, what would be presented after the individual objections, and our expectation was that that was the day the storm was going to arrive,” the organizer says, adding, “It was supposed to be the best evidence that they had been secretly gathering. … Everyone was going to stay at the Ellipse throughout the congressional thing.”
Heading into Jan. 6, both sources say, the plan they had discussed with other organizers, Trump allies, and members of Congress was a rally that would solely take place at the Ellipse, where speakers — including the former president — would present “evidence” about issues with the election. This demonstration would take place in conjunction with objections that were being made by Trump allies during the certification on the House floor that day.
“It was in a variety of calls, some with Gosar and Gosar’s team, some with Marjorie Taylor Greene and her team … Mo Brooks,” the organizer says.
“The Capitol was never in play,” insists the planner.
A senior staffer for a Republican member of Congress, who was also granted anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation, similarly says they believed the events would only involve supporting objections on the House floor. The staffer says their member was engaged in planning that was “specifically and fully above board.”
“A whole host of people let this go a totally different way,” the senior Republican staffer says. “They fucked it up for a lot of people who were planning to present evidence on the House floor. We were pissed off at everything that happened .”
The two sources claim there were early concerns about Alexander’s event. They had seen him with members of the paramilitary groups 1st Amendment Praetorian (1AP) and the Oath Keepers in his entourage at prior pro-Trump rallies. Alexander was filmed with a reputed member of 1AP at his side at a November Stop the Steal event that took place in Georgia. The two sources also claim to have been concerned about drawing people to the area directly adjacent to the Capitol on Jan. 6, given the anger among Trump supporters about the electoral certification that was underway that day.
“They knew that they weren’t there to sing “Kumbaya” and, like, put up a peace sign,” the planner says. “These frickin’ people were angry.”
Edited by tclittle on Oct 24th 2021 at 11:29:31 AM
"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."
Not really that surprising, given Cruz is their rep.
Edited by Pendrake on Oct 23rd 2021 at 9:49:29 AM
Semper Fi. Semper Paratus. Vigilo Confido.