According to a news release, the bill would create a new section of law to protect motor vehicle operators fleeing a riot under a reasonable belief their actions were necessary to protect them from serious injury or death. It also would update language in statute relating to those who are convicted of illegal activity during the course of riots.
Federal prosecutors have “quietly dismissed” 34 of 90 cases stemming from the violent riots in downtown Portland last summer, and many more federal charges are expected to be dismissed soon, KGW8 reported this week. Cases being dismissed include felony charges such as assaults on federal officers, court records show.
h/t Mauser98
A senator had a simple question for the FBI’s counterterrorism chief at a hearing last week about the Capitol riot.
Didn’t the FBI see all those postings by extremists on social media before the event, she asked Wednesday, including promises to “occupy the Capitol” and bring “revolution” to Washington?
“To my knowledge, no, ma’am,” the counterterrorism chief, Jill Sanborn, responded, going on to explain that the FBI can’t monitor “First Amendment-protected activities” without a tip or an open investigation that directs agents to a specific post.
The senator, Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., kept pressing. “So the FBI does not monitor publicly available social media conversations?”
“Correct, ma’am,” Sanborn replied. “It’s not within our authorities.”
Fact check: false. FBI agents have said in court records that they monitor public social media, and the bureau recently signed a $14 million contract with a “threat intelligence” company called ZeroFox “to proactively identify threats to the United States and its interests” on the internet. For years, the FBI has had a similar arrangement with DataMinr, which can flag social media postings of interest to its clients.
In Washington, D.C., Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and their allies have made the calculus that the best hope they have of breaking the rising power of populism in the country is to brand all those who dare oppose them as white supremacists and insurrectionists. To that end they have ringed the Capitol with fences and razor wire and deployed what amounts to an occupying army of National Guardsmen, who spend their days starting blankly at an empty Mall and wondering when they will be allowed to go home and return to their lives.
Inside the government the hunt is on for “extremists,” The military recently declared a standdown in fact on other activities so that commanders could focus the needed attention on the growing danger in the ranks. Joe Biden himself has made known his concern about the threat from veterans and former law enforcement officers.
Meanwhile, in Minneapolis, epicenter of the outbreak of left wing violence that gutted our cities last year, the story is completely different. There, in the real world, the one that Pelosi, her allies and their lackeys in the corporate media cannot quite make go away, the city is bracing for a firestorm as the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin approaches.
Over the last four years, countless anti-Trump stories in the news relied on anonymous sources. The term ‘according to sources’ has become a punchline, and people in media are the only ones who don’t get the joke. They used this dishonest tactic to push the debunked Steele dossier, the Russia collusion lie, and more.
More than half of the cases dropped were “dismissed with prejudice,” which means the case can’t be brought back to court, and at least 11 of the dismissals occurred on or after the inauguration of President Joe Biden.
Representative Eric Swalwell (D-CA) said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” that speeches by former President Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) last week emboldened those who want to take up arms against the U.S. government.
The D.C. National Guard chief on Wednesday told lawmakers he would have “immediately” activated his forces to assist U.S. Capitol Police on Jan. 6 if his authority had not been restricted by the Pentagon.
“I would have sent them there immediately as soon as I hung up,” Commanding Gen. William Walker told lawmakers on the Senate Rules Committee and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee at a hearing evaluating the security breakdown that occurred when a pro-Trump mob attacked the Capitol.
“My next call would have been to my subordinate commanders, to get every single guardsman in this building and everybody that’s helping the Metropolitan Police…to the Capitol, without delay.”
Walker on Wednesday told lawmakers about a Jan. 5 letter from acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller that restricted his ability to deploy the Quick Reaction Force and seek approval from higher ups before moving his National Guard forces.
h/t Mauser98
The riot occurred after a pro-Trump mob overpowered Capitol police and stormed the Capitol building as Congress met to certify President Joe Biden’s victory. The bureau’s designation of the riot as domestic terrorism puts the perpetrators “on the same level as ISIS and homegrown violent extremists,” Wray said.
The draft proposal of recommendations comes just over a month after Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) tapped retired Lt. General Russel Honoré to review security around the Capitol in the wake of a mob of former President Trump’s supporters laying siege to the building in an attempt to prevent the certification of President Biden’s Electoral College victory.
The discovery of a pipe bomb outside the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington on Jan. 6 prompted police to evacuate two congressional buildings, not, as was believed, the attack on the U.S. Capitol, senators heard Tuesday.
In a bombshell new video, the Senate Majority Leader in Michigan, Mike Shirkey, is secretly recorded confessing that the January 6 U.S. Capitol takeover was “staged” in order to secure an impeachment against President Trump.
He went on to claim that, not only was it “pre-arranged”, but Mitch McConnell was “part of it”.
Congressional Republicans seek to turn the impeachment narrative back on Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
On Monday, the top GOP lawmakers on four prominent House committees – Rodney Davis of the Administration Committee, Jim Jordan of the Judiciary Committee, James Comer of the Oversight Committee, and Devin Nunes of the Intelligence Committee – sent Pelosi a letter relaying questions about security measures that were implemented, or perhaps not implemented, before the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol and afterward.
Following Donald Trump’s acquittal, Democrats are considering prosecuting him criminally for the events of January 6 at the Capitol, The Washington Times reported. Democrats and other haters will continue their vendetta against Mr. Trump until he’s bankrupt or dead.
In a quiet but stunning correction, the New York Times backed away from its original report that Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick was killed by a Trump supporter wielding a fire extinguisher during the January 6 melee at the Capitol building. Shortly after American Greatness published my column Friday that showed how the Times gradually was backpedaling on its January 8 bombshell, the paper posted this caveat:
“UPDATE: New information has emerged regarding the death of the Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick that questions the initial cause of his death provided by officials close to the Capitol Police.”
They held out until after the impeachment was over.
h/t Mauser98
