A second police officer who responded to the riots at the Capitol earlier this month has died by suicide, the D.C. police chief revealed on Tuesday evening.
Jeffery Smith had worked for the Metropolitan Police Department for 12 years and died on Jan. 15—just nine days after thousands of MAGA supporters stormed the Capitol.
Smith is the second police officer to die by suicide after working at the Capitol on the day of the siege. U.S. Capitol Police Officer Howard Liebengood, a 51-year-old who had guarded the government building since 2005, took his own life on Jan. 9....
That's the way with these cults. Ignorant bastards set themselves up for their own demise. And a lot of them go down believing their bullshit to the end. Hilarious.
That's the way with these cults. Ignorant bastards set themselves up for their own demise. And a lot of them go down believing their bullshit to the end. Hilarious.
Two Virginia police officers who photographed themselves inside the U.S. Capitol building during the January 6 riot have been fired. Sergeant Thomas Robertson and Officer Jacob Fracker are also facing federal charges.
Robertson and Fracker were terminated from their jobs with the Rocky Mount police department on Tuesday, according to a statement from the town of Rocky Mount. The two were charged in federal court January 13 with unlawful entry into a restricted area and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, and had been on unpaid leave from their jobs during a town review....
The officers' actions have thrust the central Virginia town of about 1,000 into the national spotlight "in ways that do not reflect our whole community and the people who call Rocky Mount home," the statement said.
Ummm, in 2020 Franklin County, Virginia voted 70.4% for ex-PINO.
Robertson and Fracker, who were off-duty at the time, bragged about storming the Capitol on social media. The social media posts and a selfie of the two standing in front of a statute inside the Capitol, with one of them pointing and the other making an obscene gesture, were cited by federal investigators in a criminal complaint....
Robertson previously told CBS station WDBJ that he and Fracker were at the back of the Capitol building and did not see or participate in any acts of violence.
"We were allowed by Capitol police to be where we were and were given water bottles and told where we could go and where we couldn't," Robertson told the station.
The complaint makes note of Robertson's claims to several media outlets that Capitol police didn't object to their presence inside the building. But it also points to another social media post by Robertson that read: "CNN and the Left are just mad because we actually attacked the government who is the problem and not some random small business ... The right IN ONE DAY took the f***** U.S. Capitol. Keep poking us."
"Robertson made these claims notwithstanding his previous posts that he had 'attacked the government' and 'took the f**** Capitol'," the complaint states....
Lying idiots, typical con small southern town cops. Buh-bye.
... State Bar of Georgia Chief Operating Officer Sarah Coole confirmed that Wood had been asked to undergo a mental health evaluation but declined to comment further.
The development comes weeks after Wood, an Atlanta-based defamation litigator, was banned from Twitter, where he regularly embraced conspiracy theories.
A Delaware state judge earlier this month blocked Wood from representing former Trump adviser Carter Page, calling claims Wood made on Twitter about U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts "too disgusting and outrageous to repeat."
Wood was also fired in January by a Kentucky teenager who sued media outlets over their portrayal of his viral stand-off with a Native American activist in Washington in 2019.
It is unusual but legal for a state bar to ask a lawyer to submit to such an evaluation, said Brian Faughnan, a lawyer in Tennessee who advises lawyers on ethics matters. Such requests are kept confidential, but in this case Wood "waived" that right to confidentiality by posting on social media, he said.
... About 57% of U.S. adults surveyed said Trump bears a lot of responsibility for the violent actions of the rioters, with another 16% saying he bears at least a little responsibility. The survey, published Thursday, found about 25% said the former president is not at all responsible.
White evangelical Protestants, who have been a significant part of Trump’s base, stood apart from other religious groups on this question. Only 23% of white evangelicals said Trump bears a lot of responsibility for the riot, compared to 74% of all Protestants of color who said the same....
In addition to blaming Trump for the riot, many Americans pinned a lot of responsibility on conservative media platforms that spread conspiracy theories and misinformation (57%) and on white supremacist groups (62%). Members of several white supremacist groups were reportedly present at the riot.
White evangelical Protestants again stood out on these questions. Only about 30% placed a lot of blame on conservative media platforms, while 43% placed a lot of blame on white supremacist groups.
PRRI also found an uptick in the percentage of Americans who say Trump’s decisions and behavior as president encouraged white supremacists. About 64% of Americans agreed with that sentiment in January, compared to 57% last September....
It's long past time to list conservative media platforms and White evangelical Protestants as terrorist entities.
I don't know anything about the Air Force. My little section of it was long ago in a galaxy far away and not part of the "real" Air Force. And I don't know anybody who has been in recently, like in the past 3 decades. But I would think the most right wing bunch would be the Marines.
I thought that maybe you'd kept up.
My impressions of the USAF are based on a few scandals, Christian con activities and the AF Academy reputation, but I could be wrong.
Because technically the US became corporation, not an actual country, beginning in 1871...
People are idiots.
Oh my god. This may be, no, This is without a doubt the most extreme of all their goal post moving.
Makes me wish solar hadn't hidden the Q thread.
I wonder what the next goal post will be.
"Trump wasn't inaugurated March 4th like we predicted because he instead ascended to heaven to take over from God"
Oh my God. That bitch (and she is a bitch) is totally clueless.
1) She says she knows what the phrase "It's not over until the fat lady sings" and then fails to give the real meaning, i.e., the opera isn't over until the lead soprano does her final aria.
2) She concludes that the "original" constitutional is the law of the land today, never mind the various amendments since its creation, which were created in accordance with the process laid out in the Constitution.
3) She then goes on to state that "President Trump" has the power to overthrow the Biden presidency, because, you know, the "original constitution" is still in force. Never mind all the totally constitutional amendments to it since 1789.
4) Whatever Kool-Aid she's been drinking should be taken off the market.
Two women were arrested in Pennsylvania on Friday in connection with the storming of the Capitol after federal authorities said one of them boasted in a selfie video about wanting to shoot House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
“We broke into the Capitol. . . . We got inside, we did our part,” Dawn Bancroft said in the video she sent to her children, according to an FBI affidavit filed with the criminal complaint against the women. “We were looking for Nancy to shoot her in the friggin’ brain, but we didn’t find her.”
Bancroft and her friend, Diana Santos-Smith, who was also captured in the video, face three federal charges, including knowingly entering a restricted building or grounds without lawful authority and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, according to the complaint against them.
The FBI arrested the Pennsylvania women after receiving a tip about the selfie, said the criminal complaint.
More idiots busting themselves.
When first questioned by investigators, Santos-Smith initially claimed she and Bancroft never entered the Capitol, according to an affidavit by an FBI agent submitted with the complaint.
Cowardly liar, and another law broken.
When confronted with the video, Santos-Smith admitted they did enter, but assumed it was allowed because she “heard people saying, ‘They’re letting us in,’” noted the affidavit. Both women, however, said they entered, and later exited, the Capitol by crawling through a window that had been broken by rioters, the affidavit noted....
... As some lawyers on Trump’s team pulled back, others were ready to press ahead with suits skating the lines of legal ethics and reason
... the election lawyers squared off against the president’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, over Giuliani’s embrace of questionable legal tactics and conspiracy theories like one that Dominion voting machines had transformed Trump votes into Biden votes.
Ultimately, Trump decided to give Giuliani leadership of the entire legal strategy, making Nov. 12 the day when Trump’s effort to reverse his loss in the courts became an all-out, extralegal campaign to disenfranchise millions of voters based on the false notion of pervasive fraud.
Voting-machine conspiracy theories became intertwined with a supercomputer story pushed in conservative media ...
Trump was enabled by influential Republicans motivated by ambition, fear or a misplaced belief that he would not go too far
Trump was given vital room to run by key Republicans, especially the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, who made an early decision to join his fellow party members in breaking from the tradition of recognizing the victor after the major television networks and The Associated Press called the race.
McConnell feared alienating a president whose help he needed in two Georgia Senate runoffs that would decide his control of the chamber. He also heeded misplaced assurances from White House aides like Jared Kushner that Trump would eventually accede to reality, people close to the senator told The Times....
How did those work out for you, Moscow Mitch?
Texas’ lawsuit challenging election results in 4 battleground states was ghostwritten
... Two-thirds of the country’s Republican state attorneys general, 18 in all, would join an amicus brief, but only after senior officials in several of their offices raised red flags.
“It is most likely that the court will deny this in one sentence,” North Dakota’s deputy solicitor general, James E. Nicolai, wrote in an email to his boss.
On Dec. 11, the court did just that, ruling that Texas had no right to challenge other states’ votes....
The lie was propelled forward by new and more radical lawyers and financiers ...
Women for America First, a little known but highly organized group, helped build a coalition
... The group would help build an acutely Trumpian coalition that included sitting and incoming members of Congress, rank-and-file voters and the “de-platformed” extremists and conspiracy theorists promoted on an early version of its “Trump March” homepage — since deleted but found through the Internet Archive — including white nationalist Jared Taylor, prominent QAnon proponents and Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio....
The Jan. 6 rally effectively became a White House production
... Stockton, the (Women for America First) bus-tour organizer, said that he had been surprised to learn that the protest would include a march from the Ellipse to the Capitol. That march — the prelude to the riot — had not been the plan before the White House became involved.
Yep, this election was so important that they threw parades before and riots after. They were loud and violently in favor of their man, but actually "voting" was a bridge too far.
Trump: “We had the safest border in the history of our country - or at least recorded history. I guess maybe a thousand years ago it was even better.”
Yep, this election was so important that they threw parades before and riots after. They were loud and violently in favor of their man, but actually "voting" was a bridge too far.
I'm not saying these "militia" people aren't dangerous or that they shouldn't be taken as posing a serious threat. But as insurrectionists, they're pretty lame compared to badass people like the ISIS, the Taliban, or for that matter your average middle eastern zealot. Which of these Proud Boys or other "patriots" would be willing to fly a plane into the Capitol building - or wear a bomb in? Or attack the Capitol guards with weapons that would kill and likely get them killed? Not complaining, but the answer seems to be none. Their imaginations were much stronger than they had courage to support.
I'm not saying these "militia" people aren't dangerous or that they shouldn't be taken as posing a serious threat. But as insurrectionists, they're pretty lame compared to badass people like the ISIS, the Taliban, or for that matter your average middle eastern zealot. Which of these Proud Boys or other "patriots" would be willing to fly a plane into the Capitol building - or wear a bomb in? Or attack the Capitol guards with weapons that would kill and likely get them killed? Not complaining, but the answer seems to be none. Their imaginations were much stronger than they had courage to support.
... as insurrectionists, they're pretty lame ... Their imaginations were much stronger than they had courage to support.
Cosplaytriots
They're incompetent fools compared to any activists. No lefties, violent or nonviolent, have as their endpoint milling around taking self-incriminating selfies, letting a goofy "shaman" be their posterboy, committing suicide by climbing through a broken window when a gun is leveled at them, or moving lecterns around.
They had no imagination, only chest-thumping delusions without the brains to back them up, just like the CPFools.
Yep, this election was so important that they threw parades before and riots after. They were loud and violently in favor of their man, but actually "voting" was a bridge too far.
... Stephen Maury Baker, of Garner, was arrested Monday and charged with unlawfully entering a restricted building, as well as “violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.”
There does not appear to be anyone by that name who is registered to vote in North Carolina.
Figures.
According to the charges against him, Baker was part of the mob that broke into the Capitol and began livestreaming it online, including via his YouTube channel called “Stephen Ignoramus.” He repeatedly referred to himself by that name, showed his face on his videos several times from inside the Capitol, and ended one of his streams by saying the cops were forcing everyone out of the building.
“That was so epic,” he said, according to the charges against him. “Historic day.”
The FBI says Baker deleted the videos from his YouTube page at some point between Jan. 6 and Jan. 8, but that it found copies of the videos that had been uploaded to other video sites, as well as by news media organizations....
Baker was identified by multiple witnesses who contacted authorities, the charges say. One witness told authorities he had at least two YouTube channels, although one of them had been banned in December, and the witness was “alarmed by the content ... including advancement of conspiracy theories and mockery of minority groups.”
Currently, the only publicly available videos on the Stephen Ignoramus channel are four hour-long videos of him preaching and playing Christian songs on an acoustic guitar.
... Before her death, Ms Babbitt (of Ocean Beach, California) on Twitter had referenced QAnon conspiracy theories and baseless claims of election fraud. Her last message before she was killed said: "Nothing will stop us ... they can try and try and try but the storm is here and it is descending upon DC in less than 24 hours ... dark to light!”
The civil rights division of the US Attorney’s office for the District of Columbia has opened a probe into the shooting.
The officer was placed on administrative leave and their police powers have been suspended pending the outcome of a joint Capitol Police and Metropolitan Police Department investigation.
At least eight people who were at the Capitol on 6 January have died, including Ms Babbitt, two officers who died by suicide in the wake of the riot, a Capitol police officer who died from injuries from rioters, as well as three rioters who died from medical emergencies, and a man who died by suicide following his arrest for his role in the riots.
Capitol Police union chairman Gus Papathanasiou said nearly 140 officers from Capitol Police and Washington DC’s Metropolitan Police Department were injured.
Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick – who died after he was struck in the head with a fire extinguisher by a mob supporting former president Donald Trump ’s false claims of election fraud – will lie in honour inside the Capitol building’s rotunda this week.
Several videos from the scene where Ms Babbitt was killed show a crowd smashing glass on the door to the House chambers.
Capitol Police officers had drawn their weapons from the other side of the door, where members of Congress and others sheltered under chairs.
Ms Babbitt can be seen falling from a window from the other side of the double doors.
The officer, reportedly a lieutenant, “was essentially serving as a potential last line of defense between the rioters and members of Congress, thus providing some justification” for the shooting, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Efforts to award the lieutenant a Presidential Medal of Freedom and to rename a San Diego school after him are on hold pending the completion of all investigations.
For example:
That said, it may explain why the riot was such a huge tactical, electoral and PR failure. 
How did those work out for you, Moscow Mitch?
