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The Capitol Police have come under intense scrutiny after a violent pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol to stop Congress from certifying the electoral votes for President-elect Joe Biden. Despite repeated assurances to lawmakers that the Capitol’s law enforcement was adequately prepared to control the crowd, the insurrectionists broke through barricades wielding firearms, lead pipes, and chemical irritants; infiltrated the House chamber; and ransacked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) office. The violence left five—including a member of Capitol Police—dead. Only 14 arrests by Capitol Police were made.
Progressive activists were quick to note discrepancies in the way Capitol Police had arrested and used force against protestors during previous largely peaceful demonstrations. On social media, side-by-side comparisons of the heavy military and police presence outside the Capitol during the summer’s racial justice uprisings and the relatively paltry presence onsite Wednesday sparked outrage. “No one can tell me that if it had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesting yesterday, they wouldn’t have been treated very, very differently than the mob of thugs that stormed the Capitol,” Biden said in a video on Thursday. […]
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TOP COMMENTS • RESCUED DIARIES
QUOTATION
“If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States.”
~~Henry A Wallace, “Wallace Defines American Fascism,” April 9, 1944
TWEET OF THE DAY
BLAST FROM THE PAST
At Daily Kos on this date in 2006—On Saving This Government:
I must save this government if possible. What I cannot do, of course I will not do; but it may as well be understood, once for all, that I shall not surrender this game leaving any available card unplayed. ~~Abraham Lincoln
When Lincoln said that, it was a Civil War which threatened to divide our country. Today, there isn’t a war between citizen and citizen, but between citizen and government. Why? Because the Bush administration has attacked the interests of the American people, squandered its fortune, and caused so many to die in war. Today’s divide is not between North and South, but between the people and its government, a government which has proved over the last few years that it is created by and for the powerful rather than the citizenry of these United States.
There are times when a certain form of governance becomes toxic, where those in the public trust act not as civil servants, but as self-serving politicos. We are living in such a time.
The Congress no longer belongs to ordinary Americans; it belongs to the lobbyist who can cut the largest check. The Presidency no longer leads, but misleads. And the Judiciary (specifically the Supreme Court) is set to belong to the most vile, extreme, and un-American element of our society.
Democrats can either surrender this government to a party which seeks to destroy it, or we can take Lincoln’s advice and play our available cards. To those who say filibusters–judicial, Patriot Act, etc–are too politically costly, I say that failure to filibuster is conceding that this nation isn’t worth fighting for. Instead of worrying that we will be labeled “obstructionist,” I say we filibuster Alito, filibuster the Patriot Act, filibuster time and time again until this crazy government comes to a screeching halt. Enough is enough. The list of scandals is overshadowed only by the list of names of the 2,190 whose deaths have yet to be honored by this administration
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