you’ll never guess who the real victim of a cop getting his head crushed by an angry mob is https://t.co/YxF8F686rL

— kilgore trout, tucker carlson’s mailman (@KT_So_It_Goes) January 11, 2021

Staffers Begged Melania to Intercede with Trump During Riots — She Refused and Continued Her Photoshoot https://t.co/cBlWT2J4k4 via @NicoleJames

— Linda Girgis MD (@DrLindaMD) January 11, 2021

https://www.newscentermaine.com/article/news/politics/senator-collins-outraged-by-violence-at-capitol-wont-comment-on-impeachment/97-79cc5d9b-0b16-4d5c-933c-64e75a5bdbb0

According to her staff, Maine’s Republican Senator Susan Collins is “outraged” by the violence at the Capitol, won’t comment on impeachment at this point.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/11/politics/house-democrats-impeachment-plans/index.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twcnnbrk&utm_content=2021-01-11T14%3A16%3A20&utm_term=link

House Democrats are formally unveiling their resolution to impeach President Donald Trump on Monday, charging him with “incitement of insurrection” for his role in last week’s riots at the US Capitol.

The single impeachment article, which will be introduced at 11 a.m. ET when the House gavels in Monday, points to Trump’s repeated false claims that he won the election and his speech to the crowd on January 6 before pro-Trump rioters breached the Capitol. It also cited Trump’s call with the Georgia Republican secretary of state where the President urged him to “find” enough votes for Trump to win the state.

“In all this, President Trump gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of Government,” the resolution says. “He threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperiled a coequal branch of Government. He thereby betrayed his trust as President, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.”

The impeachment resolution is Democrats’ first step toward holding an impeachment vote this week to make Trump the first president in history to be impeached for a second time.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told House Democrats on Sunday evening that the House would proceed with bringing an impeachment resolution to the floor this week unless Vice President Mike Pence moves to invoke the 25th Amendment with a majority of the Cabinet to remove Trump from power.

Pelosi said that House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer would seek to take up a resolution from Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland on Monday urging Pence and the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment, and if they were blocked the House would consider the measure on Tuesday.

Democrats are calling on Pence to respond within 24 hours, she said. If that does not happen, Democrats will bring their impeachment resolution to the floor.

Timing of an impeachment vote is still fluid, though the expectation is it would happen on Wednesday.

The impeachment resolution was introduced by Democratic Reps. David Cicilline of Rhode Island, Raskin and Ted Lieu of California.

Cicilline tweeted Sunday evening that the resolution now has more than 200 co-sponsors, nearly all of the Democratic caucus. The resolution would likely go to the House Rules Committee before it’s brought to the floor.

The level of unity in the Democratic caucus is being driven by the visceral reaction to what happened on January 6, when lawmakers had to be evacuated from the House and Senate chambers with rioters banging on the doors outside as the insurrectionists tried to stop the counting of votes to affirm President-elect Joe Biden would become President on January 20.

Pelosi said in an interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes” that she liked the idea of invoking the 25th Amendment “because it gets rid of him,” but explained, “one of the motivations people have for advocating for impeachment” is to prevent Trump from holding office again.

NEW! #AnatomyofCapitolAttack TURN SOUND ON!

I submit this video as evidence in the Impeachment of Donald Trump.

Donald Trump engaged in "violent, deadly and seditious acts" which betrayed his trust as President and endangered the security of the United States. pic.twitter.com/j9nJ1McTIo

— Don Winslow (@donwinslow) January 10, 2021

https://www.salon.com/2021/01/11/america-the-undead-trumps-mob-attacked-a-democracy-already-weakened-by-his-war-on-reality/

I am a working-class Black American. For me this is a declaration of my first allegiances, description of my material realities, and mission statement for how I make my way through the world. Thus, when I reflect upon and look deeply at the images of Trump’s fascist riot and coup attempt, I see another of the many temper tantrums of white supremacy and white entitlement and white aggrievement which have occurred throughout American history. I see the enemies of Black and brown strivers like myself. I see the people who denied Black and brown people the ability to accrue intergenerational wealth and income. I see the people who tried to take away the dignity of Black and brown people — and yet we succeeded over and over again nonetheless. I see the enemies of a better and more inclusive American Dream.

I also see Trump’s favorite president, Andrew Jackson, a literal white supremacist slave driver and a man who led a genocidal campaign against First Nations people. In 1829, Jackson’s populist supporters (of course this version of populism mostly excluded Black people) ran amok in the White House on Inauguration Day. Almost 200 years later, Trump’s fake populist white fascist mob attempted a coup against America’s multiracial democracy by invading the Capitol Building.
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Because images do not exist in isolation but rather in relation to one another, in the rage-filled faces of Trump’s goons I also see the reflections of the Black and brown folks (and white brothers and sisters) in the old Jim Crow state of Georgia who the day before bravely overcame voter suppression, vote theft, voter purges and the coronavirus plague to elect a Black man and a Jewish man to the United States Senate.

Many Black folks were lynched in Georgia during Jim and Jane Crow. A Jewish brother was lynched in Georgia during Jim and Jane Crow too.

Trump’s fascist goons who defiled the Capitol Building and sought out congresspeople to put on trial — and perhaps even execute — were not just attacking the idea of democracy in the abstract, but purposefully trying to smother multiracial democracy.

As such, the Trump mob’s fascist rampage was much more than a political “protest”: it was the physical manifestation of death anxieties about being “replaced” by non-whites. Such fears are the heart of Whiteness since its invention in the 15th century. These anxieties of Whiteness are the fuel which sustain and fuel Trumpism, the Republican Party, and other forms of American fascism and white supremacy both historically and through to the present.

https://thehill.com/homenews/533598-pelosi-acknowledges-criticism-from-ocasio-cortez-younger-members-im-not-dismissing

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in a new interview that she is receptive to the concerns of younger, more progressive members of her caucus and disagrees with assertions she is not grooming political newcomers for leadership roles.

“Why does AOC complain that you have not been grooming younger people for leadership?” reporter Leslie Stahl asked Pelosi during an interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes” that aired Sunday evening, referring to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).

“I don’t know,” the Speaker replied. “You’ll have to ask her … because we are.”

Stahl then commented that Pelosi’s quip was “kind of sharp, kind of dismissive.”

“I’m not dismissing her,” Pelosi responded. “I respect her. I think she’s very effective, as are … many other members of our caucus that the press doesn’t pay attention to. But they are there and they are building support for what comes next.”

https://twitter.com/FirenzeMike/status/1348610857970892800?s=20

The dunk-on-Michael-Tracey-genre is getting really old but it’s more vital than ever that independent voices stand up against a new domestic war on terror. Yet idiocy like calling a deadly mob “drama” seems almost purposely designed to undermine that cause. https://t.co/bpa2XlGxMc

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) January 11, 2021

There aren’t many people willing to stand up against a new war on terror. That means the ones who are willing have an obligation not to make the rest of those who also hold that position look like buffoons and assholes or the whole position gets marginalized. This isn’t a game.

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) January 11, 2021

Too bad there isn’t any video of what happened. Probably all just hysteria.

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) January 11, 2021

If police had opened fire more than they did there’s no telling what could have happened. It’s ok to say this was horrifying and dangerous and also we shouldn’t have a new war on terror.

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) January 11, 2021

https://www.democracynow.org/2021/1/11/trump_impeachment_pelosi_pence

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a New York University historian whose work focuses on fascism, authoritarian leaders and propaganda, says the storming of the Capitol was “a logical result” of Trump’s legitimization and encouragement of right-wing extremism since 2016. “The threat to democracy is not outside our institutions only. It’s coming from inside,” Ben-Ghiat says.

RUTH BEN-GHIAT: So, the events of January 6 are the product of two long-term objectives that Trump has sought, successfully. One is, like all strongmen who arrive on the scene, they legitimize existing extremism and anti-democratic tendencies. They give validation to the worst criminal elements in society. And in fact, many strongmen, including Trump, either come to power with a criminal record or under investigation, so they are criminal elements themselves. So there’s that. The other thing they do is — and Trump did this with the GOP — is they glamorize and legitimize lawlessness. So lawmakers become lawbreakers. And this has happened.

And what is particularly disturbing — and I think we’ll have more of this — there’s an AP investigation that has come out on, you know, who are these participants of the January 6 events. And though it’s tempting to see them as — which is scary enough — as extremists and militia groups, white power, there were Republican donors. There were Republican officials. There were military. There were law enforcement. So this means the threat to democracy is not outside our institutions only. It’s coming from inside.

And this is a logical result of a policy that Trump has followed very resolutely since he started signaling during his campaign to extremist groups, but also made that statement you played at the top of the show about shooting someone. What he was saying, in January 2016, is that he would be — he was above the law, and he was capable of violence, and he would get away with it.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Professor Ben-Ghiat, you tweeted, “Historian of coups and right-wing authoritarians here. If there are not severe consequences for every lawmaker & Trump govt official who backed this, every member of the Capitol Police who collaborated with them, this ‘strategy of disruption’ will escalate in 2021.” If you would elaborate further and end by talking about what is deeply concerning to so many people right now, that this was just a first attack?

RUTH BEN-GHIAT: So, when Trump says this, “Our beautiful” — or, “Our journey is just beginning,” I had already been very worried that this would be — that Trump and the GOP — Trump will act as an outside agitator when he leaves. And this would be a strategy of trying to delegitimize the Biden administration — they’ve already been trying to sabotage it with nonaction on coronavirus, economic misery — but to make America so ungovernable and so difficult to govern, so chaotic, so violent, under Biden and Harris, that it creates more desire for law and order, and in come the Trumps back again, or Trump proxies.

So, I’m very worried that this — there’s already a, quote, “armed march” being planned for January 17th around the nation. And once you legitimize and give a presidential imprimatur to extremism, and once you convince — you plant people throughout federal agencies, you know, you radicalize law enforcement, as Bill Barr, who stepped away but has a huge amount of responsibility for this, it’s very hard to turn this back.