Election 2020: The End of the Beginning or the Beginning of the End?

 Mostly well aged material, starting with John Sexton at Hot Air realizing that On Second Thought, There’s No Proof Rioters Were Intended To ‘Capture And Assassinate’ Anyone as Feds walk back claim that Capitol rioters sought 'to capture and assassinate' officials And Sarah Hoyt at  Insty, the shock and horror  as NYT journo shocked to discover that ‘regular humans’ use zip ties for ‘legal’ purposes. THESE ARE NOT NORMAL PEOPLE:  RATIO ALERT: Wait until they hear about duck tape! The hardest part of the ordeal for AOC was being confined with her Republican colleagues. WaPoo, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says she feared GOP lawmakers would lead rioters to her: ‘I thought I was going to die’. Stacy McCain, Democrats and the Media (But I Repeat Myself) Are Trying to Destroy America

This is why the phrase “white supremacy” is being slung around so promiscuously by Democrats and their media allies, as if anyone who didn’t vote for Joe Biden is a violent neo-Nazi skinhead:

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said Friday on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” that she could not stay in the secure location with Republican members of Congress during the Capitol Hill riots because they sympathize with white supremacist cause.
Maddow said, “Let’s talk about that in terms of members of Congress and congressional staff as well. You are saying that you didn’t feel safe going to that extraction point because you believe, knowing them, that there were members of Congress you didn’t trust not to betray your location and put you in danger in that way. Can you talk a bit more about that, why you believed that, if what you believed about that, what you know about that is something that should be part of the investigation? Or is it part of the investigation that’s been announced into whether members of Congress are complicit here?”

(Note well that Maddow and Ocasio-Cortez are tag-teaming here. Without any actual evidence, Maddow asks Ocasio-Cortez about “whether members of Congress are complicit” in the Jan. 6 riot.)
. . .
AOC said “white supremacist” three times in about 10 seconds. If you are one of the 74 million Americans who voted to reelect President Trump, AOC is calling you a “white supremacist.” By this, she means, you are a potential terrorist. Every Republican voter should be fired from their job and sent to prison — that is what AOC and Democrats have in mind.

There will be no liberty — no First Amendment protection of free speech, no right to dissent — in the one-party regime that Democrats are preparing to implement. Joe Biden and the Democrats have in mind nothing less than the destruction of America as we know it.

Althouse, "A Capitol Police lieutenant was suspended for wearing a MAGA cap during the Jan. 6 riots but told his colleagues he did it to get fellow officers out of harm's way." Technically, probably a violation of the Hatch Act. But he should be rewarded for quick thinking. Fox, Capitol riot participants claim USCP officer said, 'It's your house now': complaint. Capitol Police haven't exactly covered themselves in glory.

Gila's Place, Photojournalist for CNN-NPR Jade Sacker embedded with BLM/Antifa leader John Sullivan during siege on US Capitol while cheering “We Did It!” after inciting riot (video). Truly an objective journolist, eh? And then (from Nick Arama at Red State) Judge Releases Left Wing Agitator John Sullivan Without Bail Against the Pleas of the Prosecutors. At least they could have made NPR or CNN post their bail. The Right Scoop, WATCH: Group caught on video PLANNING riot at Capitol

At Not The Bee, Buffalo Guy from the Capitol riots is exactly 427% crazier than we thought. I won't break my resolution not to repeat tweets so I won't embed the tweet with his video, but yeah, he's pretty weird. Andy McCarthy at NR, Capitol Riot Prosecutors Run a Big Risk in Pursuing a ‘Sedition’ Case

It is likely to be very difficult, though, to prove that people on the Capitol grounds were in an organized conspiracy to use force against the United States and its government. If there are groups within the mob that did scheme a violent attack, and the evidence against them is convincing, it could well be worth it to charge them with seditious conspiracy. It would be a profound mistake, though, to bring weak cases if the point is to sustain a narrative of sedition and insurrection. The siege is a blight on our proud history of peaceful transitions from one president to the next. There must be accountability, and that cause would not be served by a raft of acquittals.

At da Week, Walter Matthew looks at  Where do riots come from?

As I write this, the party that spent 2019 employing Tea Party rhetoric about Lincoln and the Founding Fathers during the last impeachment craze has now rediscovered the tropes of Bush-era neoconservatism. MSNBC hosts are discussing "de-Baathification" and a new Patriot Act is almost certainly on the horizon. Democrats have once again become the Party of Order. Washington, D.C., is under martial law, which means thousands of National Guardsmen reading Atlas Shrugged or sleeping under the same statues protesters would have been allowed to destroy only a few weary months ago. Joe Biden's inauguration will become what President Trump once fantasized about: a military event, a quasi-fascistic spectacle of raw power, like the proclamation of a new emperor by a detail of leering praetorians.

This is the sort of thing people usually protest.

Althouse finds a prosecutor shocked, shocked to find politics in politics. In  "If you took the fact out that he is the president of the United States and look at the conduct of the call, it tracks the communication you might see in any drug case or organized crime case. It’s full of threatening undertone and strong-arm tactics."

Said Michael J. Moore, the former United States attorney for the Middle District of Georgia, quoted in "Atlanta Prosecutor Appears to Move Closer to Trump Inquiry/The Fulton County district attorney is weighing an inquiry into possible election interference and is said to be considering hiring an outside counsel" (NYT).

Pelosi is playing games with impeachment timing, again, Nancy Pelosi’s waiting games prove ‘boot Trump’ movement is just another political ploy. A rush to impeach, and then sit on the impeachment she knows is going nowhere. I guess it wasn't that important after all. Huff Po cited at Hot Air, Franklin Graham Compares Pro-Impeachment GOPers To Judas, then from Karen Townsend at Hot Air, Katie Couric: GOP Lawmakers Have To Be ‘Deprogrammed’, Applauds Trump’s Impeachment. I give Franklin Graham and Katie Couric equal weight; none. Joe Hildebrand, News AU: Dumb decision Trump haters will regret

The move by the US political and corporate establishment to ban Donald Trump from public office and social media is so breathtakingly stupid and potentially dangerous you could be forgiven for thinking it was orchestrated by Trump’s hard line supporters themselves – were they not also so breathtakingly stupid and potentially dangerous.

Indeed, its staggering folly can be exposed with just two words: What then? . . .

Fox, Bill Maher defends Trump supporters: Let's not confuse '5,000' Capitol rioters with '74 million' voters "Seventy-four million people are not self-deporting and neither are we," Maher told his audience"

'Shipwreckedcrew' from Red State, The Beginning of the End of Liz Cheney's Political Career in Wyoming -- She Sees It Coming

This has been a work in progress for several years, and Liz Cheney has long been destined to leave the ranks of GOP elected officials with the Trump coalition and its policy agenda in the ascendency. She is a NeverTrumper at heart — as are many elected GOP officials, particularly in the Senate. But they all desired to hold on to their elected positions long enough to outlast the Trump Presidency. That is why so many in the Senate sat by and watched Joe Biden be coronated by the media and Big Tech when everyone connected to the Senate as an institution knows Biden was one of the dumbest individuals EVER to have been a Senator and is currently well on his way to full dementia.
. . .
Last November Cheney won re-election with 68% of the vote, while Pres. Trump carried Wyoming with 69% — Cheney ran 8000 votes behind him. The beneficiary of those 8000 votes was the libertarian candidate on the ballot, who drew 10,000 votes. Another conservative third party candidate in Wyoming drew 8000 votes that Cheney did not get.

Last week Cheney became one of 10 GOP House members to vote for the impeachment of President Trump. That should not be surprising because she is a descendant of the Bush-Cheney wing of the GOP — which Pres. Trump trashed in 2016 and throughout his Presidency. She has also long associated herself with some of the most prominent voices in the “NeverTrump” movement. After supporting Fred Thompson’s Presidential campaign in 2008, when he dropped out she moved over to work for Mitt Romney — in January when there were still several other candidates she could have chosen.

In 2020 Cheney had a primary challenger who received 25% of the vote in the race against her. Her opponent was a life-long blue-collar oil field worker with no political experience. Based on the margin in that race, a challenger in 2022 would need to flip only 25,000 votes to beat Cheney in the primary. There are 5 statewide elected officials besides the three federal officeholders in Wyoming — all Republicans.

In the aftermath of her vote for impeachment, the Wyoming GOP issued a statement denouncing her vote. . . .

I'm OK with that. Politicians kids ought to be forced into honest work. I'd like to see her working in fracking.