Dept. of Anger and Horror

[kaffy_r]

Tear Gas in the Houses of Congress

Congress is in lockdown. Senate told to evacuate. Trumpistas outside, cheering on their buddies storming Congress. Jesus Fucking Christ. 

Have mercy. 

Comments

[kaffy_r]

My question is why on earth didn't they plan for this? This was no surprise, or shouldn't have been. And as people have said, if this had been an effort by BLM supporters, most of those supporters would be dead. White Trumpistas apparently got a bye, which is no surprise to me.

[maruad]

Calling out the National Guard would put them under Trump's control.

[kaffy_r]

I'm not sure about whether the National Guard would even pay attention to 45.

[maruad]

I hope you are correct. Apparently it was Pence that called out the Guard.

[kaffy_r]

It appears that Pence and Pelosi handled calling out the various cops and military, and didn't even bother talking to Trump.

ETA: yeah, looks as if we both read that news.

[gwenhwyfar1984]

They tried. DC asked for backup support but apparently, the Justice Department declined. D was preparing for this. Like, businesses were boarding up their windows and everything.

[kaffy_r]

One of the many things that has enraged me today is a clip of Capital police opening up the barricades to let these seditious traitors into the Capital building.

And a woman is dead, because they did so. That's on them.

[gwenhwyfar1984]

I saw that. They need to be arrested and tried for treason too.

[kaffy_r]

Agreed.

[beccadg]

Seconded.

[masakochan]

Also the video on twitter showing a cop taking goddamn selfies with some of those assholes.

[kaffy_r]

Yeah, saw this. Almost blew whatever was left of my unblown stack when I saw that.

[maruad]

Great way to have evidence when they use facial recognition software to track the morons down later and arrest them in their homes. That is what I am hoping it is.

[sara]

Yeah, people are like, "Why would they just let these people go?" Because it's a lot more efficient option than shooting all of them, and they have photos.

As someone who works in a capital (not the national one), the public coming and going isn't that big of a deal in and of itself, even when they're disruptive. That's a Tuesday. The public fighting with cops and stealing stuff out of people's offices and so forth? Yeah, law enforcement will be following up on that.

[kaffy_r]

Yeah, law enforcement will be following up on that.

I hope you are right. What bothers me is the lack of preparation. The people at the top of the Capital police should have planned for the absolute worst, even if they thought there was only a 1% chance of the worst happening. That's proper security. And the minute Capital Police leadership heard Trump's incitement, they should have instituted that plan.

At the very least in the aftermath, they should fire a number of their members who went beyond not wanting to amp up the situation, to actually taking selfies with the insurrectionists.

[sara]

I think they're going to be operating in a dynamic environment involving substantial leadership transitions in the Capitol Police over the next year, to put it mildly.

[sara]

Oh, that went even faster than I expected: PBS is saying the chief of the Capitol Police has resigned.

[beccadg]

Somehow I can't muster the least little bit of surprise hearing the DoJ apparently declined. Might have something to do with Barr now being a former Attorney General. *Shakes head.*

[kaffy_r]

The news on Thursday says that Pence, Kamala Harris, their security people, and Pelosi's security police were the ones who called out Virginia military and National Guard members. Only after that did the DOJ free up federal law enforcement. And, as security specialist Malcolm Nance just said on NPR, the disparate police groups - including the FBI, which apparently was the group that helped evacuate the Capital - one of the problems is that too many in the various military/police organizations thought the protestors were "on their side."