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Veterans Day 2022 free meals, discounts and offers
Check out all the Veterans Day discounts for 2022
Veterans Day 2022 is Friday, November 11.
This Veterans Day discounts list will continue to be updated as we learn of more nationally available Veterans Day discounts, meals or other ways businesses and organizations want to give back to Veterans.
These Veterans Day discounts, free meals and other programs are being shared so that Veterans, their families, caregivers and survivors are aware of all resources available to them. Verify with the organization offering.
Veterans Day POSTER | TEACHERS | HISTORY | EVENTS | PAGE
Have a Veterans Day discount to add? Post it on RallyPoint.
https://news.va.gov/109711/veterans-day-discounts-free-meals/
Nov. 11 -- Veterans Day 2022 Parades, Events and More
Communities across the country pull out all the stops to honor their veterans through a variety of programs and events.
Check out the list below to find out how and where you can celebrate Veterans Day in 2022.
Events are in-person unless otherwise noted.
Celebrate Veterans Day by attending an event near you.
https://www.military.com/veterans-day/events.html
https://www.military.com/veterans-day
Veterans Day 2022 free meals, discounts and offers
Check out all the Veterans Day discounts for 2022
Veterans Day 2022 is Friday, November 11.
This Veterans Day discounts list will continue to be updated as we learn of more nationally available Veterans Day discounts, meals or other ways businesses and organizations want to give back to Veterans.
These Veterans Day discounts, free meals and other programs are being shared so that Veterans, their families, caregivers and survivors are aware of all resources available to them. Verify with the organization offering.
Veterans Day POSTER | TEACHERS | HISTORY | EVENTS | PAGE
Have a Veterans Day discount to add? Post it on RallyPoint.
https://news.va.gov/109711/veterans-day-discounts-free-meals/
Nov. 11 -- Veterans Day 2022 Parades, Events and More
Communities across the country pull out all the stops to honor their veterans through a variety of programs and events.
Check out the list below to find out how and where you can celebrate Veterans Day in 2022.
Events are in-person unless otherwise noted.
Celebrate Veterans Day by attending an event near you.
https://www.military.com/veterans-day/events.html
https://www.military.com/veterans-day
Alex Jones now owes $1.4 billion in damages for Sandy Hook defamation lawsuit, judge rules
By Frankie Graziano
Published November 10, 2022 at 2:01 PM EST
Infowars founder Alex Jones is questioned by plaintiff's attorney Chris Mattei during testimony at the Sandy Hook defamation damages trial at Connecticut Superior Court in Waterbury, Conn. Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022.
A former FBI agent and families of eight victims killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school shooting are set to receive an additional half a billion dollars in damages from InfoWars host Alex Jones, a Connecticut judge ruled Thursday.
Jones was ordered by a Connecticut jury last month to pay 15 plaintiffs $965 million for lies he told about the shooting, .. https://www.ctpublic.org/news/2022-10-12/alex-jones-owes-nearly-1-billion-for-sandy-hook-lies-connecticut-jury-rules .. including that the massacre was a government-engineered “false flag” to take guns away from American citizens.
On Thursday, a Waterbury judge ordered him to pay another $473 million in punitive damages.
“Our hope is that this serves to reinforce the message of this case: those who profit from lies targeting the innocent will face justice,” plaintiffs’ attorney Chris Mattei said.
Judge Barbara Bellis awarded two punitive damages in this case: one to cover attorney fees and non-taxable costs for plaintiffs and another for a violation of the plaintiffs’ civil rights under the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act.
Bellis directed Jones to pay the families more than $320 million for attorney fees, plus $1.5 million for non-taxable costs, as well as $150 million for the civil rights violation.
“The record clearly supports the plaintiffs’ argument that the defendant’s conduct was intentional and malicious, and certain to cause harm by virtue of their infrastructure, ability to spread content, and massive audience, including the “infowarriors,” Bellis said in a court filing Thursday.
Bellis acknowledged damages could have been steeper. She opted to go with a “lesser ratio” for the civil rights violation, citing local law and the “substantial” damages award from the jury last month.
Jones’ attorney, meanwhile, characterized the ruling as a “farce.” He said it makes their appeal that much easier.
During the massacre, 20 first graders and six educators were killed.
Eight victims’ relatives and the FBI agent testified during last month's trial about being threatened and harassed for years by people who deny the shooting happened. Strangers showed up at some of their homes and confronted some of them in public. People hurled abusive comments at them on social media and in emails. And some received death and rape threats.
Learn more
Catch up on coverage from last month's defamation trial:
Catch up on coverage from last month's defamation trial:
Verdict: Alex Jones owes nearly $1 billion for Sandy Hook lies, Connecticut jury rules
Trial, week 4: Closing arguments and jury deliberations
Trial, week 3: Mother of teacher killed at Sandy Hook recounts a decade of harassment
Trial, week 2: Plaintiffs' attorneys press Jones on false statements that family members of victims were actors
Trial, week 1: As Sandy Hook families watch, Infowars attorney says victims were not actors
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
https://www.ctpublic.org/news/2022-11-10/alex-jones-ordered-to-pay-473m-more-to-sandy-hook-families
What happened to the RED WAVE ???
Red wave turns out to be a trickle
By David Horsey
Seattle Times cartoonist
It may take a few days to determine which party will be in charge of the U.S. House and Senate, but Tuesday’s election demonstrated one thing clearly:
All those who predicted that a Republican “red wave” would swamp Democrats all across the country now look like dopes.
A heck of a lot of talking heads in the media, both liberal and conservative, have proved to be plain old blowhards. Pollsters look more like carnival fortunetellers than political scientists. And the MAGA legions who gulp former President Donald Trump’s Kool-Aid for breakfast appear bewildered because the man from Mar-a-Lago turned out to be a drag on the Republican vote.
Defending the right to abortion was a big deal for young voters and threats to democracy were concerning to a great many others. Those folks turned out in record numbers to give Democrats a far happier night than most expected. Possibly the happiest person in the country was President Joe Biden. Despite inflation, despite his lagging poll numbers, despite the historical pattern of the president’s party almost always losing scores of congressional seats in midterm elections, Biden comes out of this election in better shape than any Democratic occupant of the White House in decades.
Still, after all the votes are counted, Republicans might end up with a very slim majority in the House and, if they get really lucky, a one-vote majority in the Senate. That would be significant if it happens because even a bare majority is better than being in the minority. Even that result is far from guaranteed, though, because the GOP offered too many kooky candidates and indulged the extremists in their ranks.
As a result, the red wave turned out to be a trickle.
https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/red-wave-turns-out-to-be-a-trickle/
UN weather report: Climate woes bad and getting worse faster
By SETH BORENSTEIN, 2 hours ago
FILE - Women carry belongings salvaged from their flooded home after monsoon rains, in the Qambar Shahdadkot district of Sindh Province, of Pakistan, Sept. 6, 2022.
Earth’s warming weather and rising seas are getting worse and doing so faster than before,
the World Meteorological Organization warned Sunday, Nov. 6, 2022, in a somber note as world leaders started gathering for international climate negotiations in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan, File)
HARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (AP) — Earth’s warming weather and rising seas are getting worse and doing so faster than before, the World Meteorological Organization warned Sunday in a somber note as world leaders started gathering for international climate negotiations.
“The latest State of the Global Climate report is a chronicle of climate chaos,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. “We must answer the planet’s distress signal with action -- ambitious, credible climate action.”
In its annual state of the climate report, the United Nations’ weather agency said that sea level rise in the past decade was double what it was in the 1990s and since January 2020 has jumped at a higher rate than that. Since the decade began, seas are rising at 5 millimeters a year (.2 inches) compared to 2.1 millimeters (.08 inches) in the 1990s.
The last eight years have been the warmest on record, the WMO said in a report that didn’t break new ground but was a collection of recent weather trends, data and impacts in one central place.
“The melting (of ice) game we have lost and also the sea level rate,” WMO chief Petteri Taalas told The Associated Press. “There are no positive indicators so far.”
The only reason that the globe hasn’t broken annual temperature records in the past few years is a rare three-year La Niña weather phenomenon, he said.
The data on sea level and average temperatures are nothing compared to how climate change has hit people in extreme weather.
The report highlights the summer’s incredible flood in Pakistan that killed more than 1,700 people and displaced 7.9 million, .. https://apnews.com/article/floods-pakistan-south-asia-islamabad-25ee9dc0ec7aee6f4f2ef7b557216ee7
a crippling four-year drought in East Africa that has more than 18 million hungry, .. https://apnews.com/article/business-indian-ocean-kenya-africa-droughts-193a7d69a05182455cc163aa59751aeb
the Yangtze River drying to its lowest level in August, .. https://apnews.com/article/china-droughts-economy-chongqing-13e7b32da8113aea92e4f69b4aaf62cd
and record heat-waves broiling people in Europe and China. ..
https://apnews.com/article/london-western-europe-north-sea-weather-461aa7026cc00292aaae5161b9f62fcb
https://apnews.com/article/floods-china-shanghai-weather-heat-waves-4abf4c36226d2bc850f7a57069f8462a
“This latest report from the World Meteorological Organization reads like a lab report for a critically ill patient, but in this case the patient is Earth,” said climate scientist Jennifer Francis of the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Cape Cod, who wasn’t part of the report.
Levels of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide all reached record high levels, with potent methane increasing at a record pace, the report said. .. https://apnews.com/article/climate-science-national-oceanic-and-atmospheric-administration-roses-ae91e7f826e992219f5ba4c1d7598f8d
That means more than just warming temperatures on land. Ice, both Greenland’s ice sheet and the world’s glaciers, are shrinking precipitously, the report said. For the 26th year in a row, Greenland lost ice when all types of ice are factored in. The volume of glacier snow in Switzerland dropped by more than one-third from 2001 to 2022, the report said.
But 90% of the heat trapped on Earth goes into the ocean and the upper 2000 meters (6561 feet) of the ocean is getting warmer faster. The rate of warming the last 15 years is 67% faster than since 1971, the report said.
That ocean heat “will continue to warm in the future – a change which is irreversible on centennial to millennial time scales,” the report said.
Outside experts weren’t surprised by the report and said no one should be.
“What climate scientists have warned about for decades is upon us. And will continue to worsen without action,” said University of Georgia meteorology professor Marshall Shepherd. “Two things must go away: Climate delayism and speaking about climate change impacts in the future tense. It’s here.”
___
Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment
___
Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment
UN weather report: Climate woes bad and getting worse faster
By SETH BORENSTEIN, 2 hours ago
FILE - Women carry belongings salvaged from their flooded home after monsoon rains, in the Qambar Shahdadkot district of Sindh Province, of Pakistan, Sept. 6, 2022.
Earth’s warming weather and rising seas are getting worse and doing so faster than before,
the World Meteorological Organization warned Sunday, Nov. 6, 2022, in a somber note as world leaders started gathering for international climate negotiations in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan, File)
HARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (AP) — Earth’s warming weather and rising seas are getting worse and doing so faster than before, the World Meteorological Organization warned Sunday in a somber note as world leaders started gathering for international climate negotiations.
“The latest State of the Global Climate report is a chronicle of climate chaos,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. “We must answer the planet’s distress signal with action -- ambitious, credible climate action.”
In its annual state of the climate report, the United Nations’ weather agency said that sea level rise in the past decade was double what it was in the 1990s and since January 2020 has jumped at a higher rate than that. Since the decade began, seas are rising at 5 millimeters a year (.2 inches) compared to 2.1 millimeters (.08 inches) in the 1990s.
The last eight years have been the warmest on record, the WMO said in a report that didn’t break new ground but was a collection of recent weather trends, data and impacts in one central place.
“The melting (of ice) game we have lost and also the sea level rate,” WMO chief Petteri Taalas told The Associated Press. “There are no positive indicators so far.”
The only reason that the globe hasn’t broken annual temperature records in the past few years is a rare three-year La Niña weather phenomenon, he said.
The data on sea level and average temperatures are nothing compared to how climate change has hit people in extreme weather.
The report highlights the summer’s incredible flood in Pakistan that killed more than 1,700 people and displaced 7.9 million, .. https://apnews.com/article/floods-pakistan-south-asia-islamabad-25ee9dc0ec7aee6f4f2ef7b557216ee7
a crippling four-year drought in East Africa that has more than 18 million hungry, .. https://apnews.com/article/business-indian-ocean-kenya-africa-droughts-193a7d69a05182455cc163aa59751aeb
the Yangtze River drying to its lowest level in August, .. https://apnews.com/article/china-droughts-economy-chongqing-13e7b32da8113aea92e4f69b4aaf62cd
and record heat-waves broiling people in Europe and China. ..
https://apnews.com/article/london-western-europe-north-sea-weather-461aa7026cc00292aaae5161b9f62fcb
https://apnews.com/article/floods-china-shanghai-weather-heat-waves-4abf4c36226d2bc850f7a57069f8462a
“This latest report from the World Meteorological Organization reads like a lab report for a critically ill patient, but in this case the patient is Earth,” said climate scientist Jennifer Francis of the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Cape Cod, who wasn’t part of the report.
Levels of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide all reached record high levels, with potent methane increasing at a record pace, the report said. .. https://apnews.com/article/climate-science-national-oceanic-and-atmospheric-administration-roses-ae91e7f826e992219f5ba4c1d7598f8d
That means more than just warming temperatures on land. Ice, both Greenland’s ice sheet and the world’s glaciers, are shrinking precipitously, the report said. For the 26th year in a row, Greenland lost ice when all types of ice are factored in. The volume of glacier snow in Switzerland dropped by more than one-third from 2001 to 2022, the report said.
But 90% of the heat trapped on Earth goes into the ocean and the upper 2000 meters (6561 feet) of the ocean is getting warmer faster. The rate of warming the last 15 years is 67% faster than since 1971, the report said.
That ocean heat “will continue to warm in the future – a change which is irreversible on centennial to millennial time scales,” the report said.
Outside experts weren’t surprised by the report and said no one should be.
“What climate scientists have warned about for decades is upon us. And will continue to worsen without action,” said University of Georgia meteorology professor Marshall Shepherd. “Two things must go away: Climate delayism and speaking about climate change impacts in the future tense. It’s here.”
___
Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment
___
Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment
CLINTON DID GET MORE POPULAR VOTES THAN TRUMP
"One that did stand out was that Hillary got more votes than the previous President"
COMING FROM A TRUE FOLLOWER OF LYING TRUMP!
Clinton amassed 65,844,610 votes across all 50 states and Washington D.C., 48.2 percent of all votes cast.
Trump received 62,979,636 votes, 46.1 percent of all votes cast.
According to vote tallies from The Associated Press
The Associated Press announced today that all votes had officially been certified.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=170374139
Hillary Clinton Officially Wins Popular Vote by Nearly 2.9 Million in 2016
ByALANA ABRAMSON
December 22, 2016, 3:35 PM
The now officially-certified votes from the 2016 presidential race show that Hillary Clinton surpassed Donald Trump in the national popular vote by nearly 2.9 million votes.
According to vote tallies from The Associated Press,
Clinton amassed 65,844,610 votes across all 50 states and Washington D.C., 48.2 percent of all votes cast.
Trump received 62,979,636 votes, 46.1 percent of all votes cast.
The Associated Press announced today that all votes had officially been certified.
Clinton had 2,864,974 votes more than Trump, the largest popular vote margin of any losing presidential candidate in U.S. history, according to the AP.
Trump won the presidency by clinching 304 electoral votes, well over the minimum 270 needed. Clinton won 227 electoral votes.
Clinton is the fifth presidential candidate in history to win the popular vote and lose the Electoral College.
The only other time this has happened this century was in 2000, when Democrat Al Gore came up short in the Electoral College but won the popular vote by 540,000 more votes than George W. Bush, the AP reported.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/hillary-clinton-officially-wins-popular-vote-29-million/story?id=44354341
Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers’
The president has repeatedly disparaged the intelligence of service members, and asked that wounded veterans be kept out of military parades, multiple sources tell The Atlantic.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=158096572
CVS and Walgreens agree to $10 billion in tentative deals on opioid cases.
Walmart will also reportedly settle
By Shawn Nottingham, CNN
Updated 9:52 AM EDT, Wed November 2, 2022
"Inside a Killer Drug Epidemic: A Look at America’s Opioid Crisis"
CNN — CVS and Walgreens have tentatively agreed to pay a combined
$10 billion to settle lawsuits brought by states and local governments alleging the retailers mishandled prescriptions of opioid painkillers.
Walmart has also tentatively agreed to pay $3 billion to settle a similar lawsuits, Bloomberg reported, .. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-02/cvs-walmart-walgreens-reach-tentative-12-billion-opioid-pact .. citing sources familiar with the matter. The agreement wouldn’t be finalized until enough states, counties and cities agree to the terms, the outlet said.
CNN has reached out to Walmart for comment.
CVS said if the settlement is reached, .. https://www.cvshealth.com/news-and-insights/press-releases/cvs-health-reaches-agreement-in-principle-for-global-opioid .. it would pay the states nearly $5 billion over 10 years beginning in 2023.
Walgreens said would also pay about $5 billion in remediation payments over the course of 15 years.
“We believe this is in the best interest of the company and our stakeholders at this time, and allows our pharmacists, dedicated healthcare professionals who live and work in the communities they serve, to continue playing a critical role in providing education and resources to help combat opioid misuse and abuse,” Walgreens said.
CVS also said it is looking to curb opioid abuse.
“We are pleased to resolve these longstanding claims and putting them behind us is in the best interest of all parties, as well as our customers, colleagues and shareholders,” said Thomas Moriarty, CVS’ general counsel, in a statement. “We are committed to working with states, municipalities and tribes, and will continue our own important initiatives to help reduce the illegitimate use of prescription opioids.”
US states, cities and counties have filed more than 3,000 lawsuits.. against opioid manufacturers, distributors and pharmacies, accusing them of downplaying the addiction risk and failing to stop pills from being diverted for illegal use.
...embedded links
More than 500,000 overdose deaths over the past two decades – including more than 80,000 in 2021 alone – are blamed on the US opioid crisis, government data show, with an estimated 9.5 million Americans age 12 and older reported in 2020 to have misused opioids, including 9.3 million prescription pain reliever abusers and 902,000 heroin users.https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/26/business/teva-settlement/index.html ..
Meantime, synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl, caused nearly two-thirds of the more than 100,000 drug overdose deaths in the US in the 12-month period ending April 2021 – up 49% from the year before – the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics found.
Opioids are drugs formulated to replicate the pain-reducing properties of opium and include prescription painkillers like morphine, oxycodone and hydrocodone and illegal drugs like heroin and illicitly made fentanyl.
People who become dependent on opioids may experience withdrawal symptoms when they stop using it, and dependence is often coupled with tolerance, meaning users need to take increasingly larger doses for the same effect.
A federal judge in August ruled CVS, Walgreens and Walmart must pay a combined $650.6 million to two Ohio counties for damages related to the opioid crisis. The lawsuit was initially filed in 2018 as part of federal multi-district litigation created that year to address the manifold claims against opioid manufacturers and distributors.
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries in July announced a $4.35 billion proposed nationwide settlement that could resolve thousands of lawsuits over the drugmaker’s alleged role in the US opioid epidemic.
Purdue Pharma – whose OxyContin painkiller has been widely blamed for kickstarting the opioid crisis – and the Sackler families in March announced a settlement with a group of states that would require the Sacklers to pay out as much as $6 billion to states, individual claimants and opioid crisis abatement, if approved by a federal bankruptcy court judge.
And Johnson & Johnson and the three largest US drug distributors – McKesson Corp, Cardinal Health Inc and AmerisourceBergen Corp – finalized a $26 billion nationwide opioid settlement in February.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/02/us/cvs-walgreens-walmart-opioid-settlement
CVS and Walgreens agree to $10 billion in tentative deals on opioid cases.
Walmart will also reportedly settle
By Shawn Nottingham, CNN
Updated 9:52 AM EDT, Wed November 2, 2022
"Inside a Killer Drug Epidemic: A Look at America’s Opioid Crisis"
CNN — CVS and Walgreens have tentatively agreed to pay a combined
$10 billion to settle lawsuits brought by states and local governments alleging the retailers mishandled prescriptions of opioid painkillers.
Walmart has also tentatively agreed to pay $3 billion to settle a similar lawsuits, Bloomberg reported, .. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-02/cvs-walmart-walgreens-reach-tentative-12-billion-opioid-pact .. citing sources familiar with the matter. The agreement wouldn’t be finalized until enough states, counties and cities agree to the terms, the outlet said.
CNN has reached out to Walmart for comment.
CVS said if the settlement is reached, .. https://www.cvshealth.com/news-and-insights/press-releases/cvs-health-reaches-agreement-in-principle-for-global-opioid .. it would pay the states nearly $5 billion over 10 years beginning in 2023.
Walgreens said would also pay about $5 billion in remediation payments over the course of 15 years.
“We believe this is in the best interest of the company and our stakeholders at this time, and allows our pharmacists, dedicated healthcare professionals who live and work in the communities they serve, to continue playing a critical role in providing education and resources to help combat opioid misuse and abuse,” Walgreens said.
CVS also said it is looking to curb opioid abuse.
“We are pleased to resolve these longstanding claims and putting them behind us is in the best interest of all parties, as well as our customers, colleagues and shareholders,” said Thomas Moriarty, CVS’ general counsel, in a statement. “We are committed to working with states, municipalities and tribes, and will continue our own important initiatives to help reduce the illegitimate use of prescription opioids.”
US states, cities and counties have filed more than 3,000 lawsuits.. against opioid manufacturers, distributors and pharmacies, accusing them of downplaying the addiction risk and failing to stop pills from being diverted for illegal use.
...embedded links
More than 500,000 overdose deaths over the past two decades – including more than 80,000 in 2021 alone – are blamed on the US opioid crisis, government data show, with an estimated 9.5 million Americans age 12 and older reported in 2020 to have misused opioids, including 9.3 million prescription pain reliever abusers and 902,000 heroin users.https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/26/business/teva-settlement/index.html ..
Meantime, synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl, caused nearly two-thirds of the more than 100,000 drug overdose deaths in the US in the 12-month period ending April 2021 – up 49% from the year before – the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics found.
Opioids are drugs formulated to replicate the pain-reducing properties of opium and include prescription painkillers like morphine, oxycodone and hydrocodone and illegal drugs like heroin and illicitly made fentanyl.
People who become dependent on opioids may experience withdrawal symptoms when they stop using it, and dependence is often coupled with tolerance, meaning users need to take increasingly larger doses for the same effect.
A federal judge in August ruled CVS, Walgreens and Walmart must pay a combined $650.6 million to two Ohio counties for damages related to the opioid crisis. The lawsuit was initially filed in 2018 as part of federal multi-district litigation created that year to address the manifold claims against opioid manufacturers and distributors.
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries in July announced a $4.35 billion proposed nationwide settlement that could resolve thousands of lawsuits over the drugmaker’s alleged role in the US opioid epidemic.
Purdue Pharma – whose OxyContin painkiller has been widely blamed for kickstarting the opioid crisis – and the Sackler families in March announced a settlement with a group of states that would require the Sacklers to pay out as much as $6 billion to states, individual claimants and opioid crisis abatement, if approved by a federal bankruptcy court judge.
And Johnson & Johnson and the three largest US drug distributors – McKesson Corp, Cardinal Health Inc and AmerisourceBergen Corp – finalized a $26 billion nationwide opioid settlement in February.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/02/us/cvs-walgreens-walmart-opioid-settlement
5 reasons Donald Trump really doesn’t want his tax returns released
THEPO!INT
Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large
Updated 10:22 AM EDT, Tue November 1, 2022
"Trump’s ‘Special Master’ Delay Is Already Backfiring "
(CNN) -- Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Monday to stop the turning over of his tax returns .. https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/31/politics/trump-supreme-court-appeal/index.html .. to a House committee, the latest in a series of attempts by the former President to keep that information from going public.
Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday agreed to put a temporary hold .. https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/01/politics/trump-tax-returns-supreme-court-john-roberts/index.html .. on a lower court’s order requiring the Internal Revenue Service to release Trump’s tax returns to the Democratic-controlled House Ways and Means Committee.
“No Congress has ever wielded its legislative powers to demand a President’s tax returns,” Trump said in his emergency request to the Supreme Court.
Trump broke with recent tradition for presidents and presidential candidates by refusing to release his past tax records, insisting that he was under audit and therefore could not release the returns. He can release them even while he’s under audit. He has also repeatedly insisted that tax returns provide little financial information. (This is also not true.)
Trump’s repeated attempts to keep his tax returns private – over years – begs the simple question: Why? And there are several potential reasons that jump to mind:
1) Trump may not be as rich as he says he is. Not long after Trump launched his presidential campaign in 2015, he said he was worth upwards of $10 billion. Forbes estimated his net worth was less than half that that year. Trump appears to use outlandishly elevated claims of his wealth as proof positive he is smarter (and better) than most people. It’s uniquely possible that a release of his tax returns would take the air out of a balloon that Trump has been blowing up for much of his adult life.
2) He may not pay (or hasn’t paid) his fair share of taxes, despite his claims that he pays “a lot.” We know, thanks to reporting from The New York Times, that Trump paid zero federal taxes in 11 of the 18 years of returns that the publication was able to obtain. And even in 2017, his first year as president, Trump paid just $750 in federal taxes – a paltry sum for someone as wealthy as he is. The Times estimated that “Trump has paid about $400 million less in combined federal income taxes than a very wealthy person who paid the average for that group each year.”
3) The $73 million refund. We learned from the Times’ reporting that Trump applied for a $72.9 million tax refund in 2010. (He claimed large losses that were widely attributed at the time to the decline of his Atlantic City casinos.) The IRS started its audit of the refund in 2011, which was still ongoing as of 2020. It’s uniquely possible that Trump simply doesn’t want to have the refund issue brought back up, for fear he might be on the hook for the amount.
4) Trump may have loans with foreign countries or individuals. We know, via congressional testimony from former Trump confidante Michael Cohen, that the former president was deeply involved in the potential construction of Trump Tower Moscow. And that Cohen lied about that involvement (and how long it stretched) to protect Trump. Donald Trump Jr. reportedly said at a 2008 real estate conference: “In terms of high-end product influx into the US, Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. Say, in Dubai, and certainly with our project in SoHo, and anywhere in New York. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”
5) He might not donate much (or anything) to charity. Trump long used his charitable organization to feather his own nest and collect political chits rather than for any philanthropic purposes. (Trump shut down the charity in 2018.) It’s not at all clear how generous (if at all) Trump has been to other charities over the past few decades. While there is no requirement for wealthy individuals to make large charitable donations, many do. And so, it would be a decidedly bad look for Trump if it looked like his repeated claims of largesse donated to charity wound up being false.
Whatever the reason – or reasons – it’s been clear for the last seven years that Trump is absolutely dead set on keeping his returns private.
Which makes me wonder what he is hiding – still.
This story has been updated with additional information.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/31/politics/donald-trump-tax-returns/index.html
Trump's company 'cheated' tax authorities, prosecutor says at trial
October 31, 2022 4:42 PM CDT Last Updated an hour ago
By Karen Freifeld and Luc Cohen
NEW YORK, Oct 31 (Reuters) - Former President Donald Trump's real estate company cheated tax authorities for 15 years, a prosecutor said on Monday in her opening statement in the Trump Organization's criminal tax fraud trial, while defense lawyers countered that the company's longtime chief financial officer had acted for his own benefit.
The company paid certain executives - including former CFO Allen Weisselberg - in perks such as rent and cars without reporting those benefits to tax authorities, and falsely reported bonuses as non-employee compensation, said prosecutor Susan Hoffinger of the Manhattan district attorney's office.
"This case is about greed and cheating, cheating on taxes," Hoffinger said. "The scheme was conducted, directed and authorized at the highest levels of the accounting department at the company."
The case is one of several legal troubles facing the 76-year-old Trump as he considers another bid for the presidency after losing in 2020. .. https://www.reuters.com/legal/what-legal-woes-does-trump-face-2022-10-20/
Trump has not been charged in the case.
Weisselberg, who has worked for Trump for nearly half a century, in August pleaded guilty to avoiding taxes on $1.76 million in personal income and agreed to testify at trial as part of a plea deal for him to receive a sentence of five months in jail. He paid back nearly $2 million in taxes, penalties and interest, Hoffinger said.
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Both Trump Organization units charged - the Trump Corporation and the Trump Payroll Corporation - have pleaded not guilty. Their lawyers argued on Monday that Weisselberg was not acting on the company's behalf.
"Weisselberg did it for Weisselberg," Michael van der Veen, a lawyer for the Trump Payroll Corporation, said in his opening statement. "Greed made him cheat on his taxes, hide his deeds from his employer, and betray the trust built over nearly 50 years."
Hoffinger said Weisselberg was "a prime beneficiary" of the scheme. But she said he acted as a Trump Organization executive, and that the company benefited by keeping top executives happy and saving on taxes.
Hoffinger said Trump paid for the private-school tuition of Weisselberg's grandchildren, adding that the jury would see checks signed by Trump himself as evidence.
Van der Veen sought to shift blame to accounting firm Mazars, which handled the company's and Weisselberg's tax returns.
Mazars did not immediately respond to requests for comment. In February, the firm dropped the Trump Organization as a client and said financial statements it prepared for the company from 2011 through 2020 should no longer be relied on.
FIRST WITNESS
If convicted, the Trump Organization - which operates hotels, golf courses and other real estate around the world - could face $1.6 million in fines. It could also further complicate the real estate firm's ability to do business.
If convicted, the Trump Organization - which operates hotels, golf courses and other real estate around the world - could face $1.6 million in fines. It could also further complicate the real estate firm's ability to do business.
The trial is expected to last over a month. Twelve jurors must reach a unanimous verdict for conviction on each count of tax fraud, scheming to defraud, and falsifying business records.
She said that when Trump was elected president in late 2016, Weisselberg and the company "had to clean up these fraudulent tax practices" due to concerns about additional scrutiny. The companies stopped paying for its employees' unreported personal expenses, and Weisselberg began paying his grandchildren's tuition himself, Hoffinger said.
Susan Necheles, a lawyer for the Trump Corporation, said it was Weisselberg - not the company - who wanted to clean things up.
The prosecution's first witness, Trump Organization controller Jeffrey McConney, testified that Weisselberg received a portion of his compensation as non-employee bonuses until a certain point.
Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asked him if it stopped around the time Trump was elected.
"I think coincidentally it was," said McConney, who was granted immunity from prosecution because he testified before the grand jury that indicted Weisselberg and the companies.
"Did you say coincidentally?" Steinglass replied. McConney, who prosecutors see as a hostile witness, said yes.
Weisselberg stepped down as CFO when he was indicted but remained on the payroll as a senior adviser. After his guilty plea, he continued to be paid but was put on leave.
The case is separate from a $250 million civil lawsuit filed by New York's attorney general against Trump, three of his adult children and his company in September, accusing them of lying to banks and insurers by overvaluing his real estate assets and Trump's net worth.
Trump also faces a federal criminal investigation into the removal of government documents from the White House when he left office last year. .. https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-supreme-court-rejects-trump-request-over-seized-documents-2022-10-13/
https://www.reuters.com/legal/opening-statements-criminal-case-against-trumps-company-set-monday-2022-10-31/
Elon Musk has taken control of Twitter and fired its top executives
By Donie O'Sullivan and Clare Duffy, CNN Business
Updated 11:53 AM EDT, Fri October 28, 2022
New York
CNN Business
—
The three top Twitter executives whom Elon Musk fired Thursday will walk out the door with about $187 million of Musk’s money.
Former CEO Parag Agrawal, former CFO Ned Segal and former Chief Legal Officer Vijaya Gadde were ousted after Musk took control of the company late Thursday, according to a source familiar with the situation.
They would have received a large chunk of that money even if they had stayed on board under the new ownership – they and other shareholders will receive payouts from Musk after he bought their shares for $54.20 each.
Fired Twitter executives Ned Segal, left, Parag Agrawal, center, and Vijaya Gadde, right, leave the company with $187 million of Elon Musk's money.
. . .
https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/28/tech/elon-musk-twitter-golden-parachutes/index.html
GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE edited
Vital Signs of the Planet
"--Untold human suffering" is in the near future as U.N. warns climate change is pushing Earth closer to extreme warming--"
https://climate.nasa.gov/
What Is Climate Change?
Understanding our planet to benefit humankind
[...]
Explore
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Images of Change
Before-and-after images of Earth
Global Ice Viewer
Climate change's impact on ice
Earth Minute Videos
Animated video series illustrating Earth science topics
Climate Time Machine
Climate change in recent history
Climate Change Resources
An extensive collection of global warming resources for media, educators, weathercasters, and public speakers.
Multimedia
Vast library of images, videos, graphics, and more
Resources
For EducatorsStudent and educator resources
For Kids
Webquests, Climate Kids, and more
https://climate.nasa.gov/
GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE
Vital Signs of the Planet
What Is Climate Change?
Understanding our planet to benefit humankind
[...]
https://climate.nasa.gov/
GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE
Vital Signs of the Planet
"--Untold human suffering" is in the near future as U.N. warns climate change is pushing Earth closer to extreme warming--"
What Is Climate Change?
Understanding our planet to benefit humankind
[...]
Explore
Images of Change
Before-and-after images of Earth
Climate Change Resources
An extensive collection of global warming resources for media, educators, weathercasters, and public speakers.
Links not shown
Global Ice Viewer
Climate change's impact on ice
Earth Minute Videos
Animated video series illustrating Earth science topics
Climate Time Machine
Climate change in recent history
Resources
Multimedia
Vast library of images, videos, graphics, and more
Resources
For EducatorsStudent and educator resources
For Kids
Webquests, Climate Kids, and more
https://climate.nasa.gov/
Trump is not 'man enough' to testify in Jan. 6 probe, Pelosi says
October 24, 20224:10 AM CDT Last Updated 16 hours ago
By Richard Cowan and Katharine Jackson
U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) holds a press conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., September 22, 2022. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo
WASHINGTON, Oct 23 (Reuters) - Former President Donald Trump is too much of a coward to obey a subpoena from the U.S. Congress compelling him to testify to a special committee investigating his role in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested on Sunday.
"I don't think he's man enough to show up. I don't think his lawyers will want him to show up because he has to testify under oath," Pelosi said in an interview with MSNBC.
On Friday, the select committee announced that it had issued the subpoena to Trump, giving him until Nov. 4 to submit a wide range of documents related to his activities before and after the deadly Jan. 6 attack by the former president's supporters. The panel also informed Trump that it wants him to appear for testimony on or about Nov. 14.
Since he lost the 2020 election, Trump has insisted he is the victim of widespread voter fraud, an allegation that has been dismissed by scores of court cases and audits.
Nevertheless, Trump has maintained he did nothing illegal in pressing that case, including on the day of the Capitol riot. He regularly refers to the congressional panel as the "unselect committee" and has accused it of waging unfair political attacks on him.
The violence at the Capitol erupted as Trump supporters attempted to stop Congress from formally certifying Democrat Joe Biden's decisive win in the 2020 presidential election.
Trump and Pelosi have had a long, stormy relationship.
She guided two impeachment proceedings against him and their dislike of each other sometimes was on public display during his presidency.
At the conclusion of Trump's 2020 "State of the Union" speech to Congress, Pelosi disdainfully tore in half a printed copy of that address as she sat behind him during the nationally televised event. That came after Trump arrived at the House podium to begin the speech and refused to shake Pelosi's hand.
The previous year, a White House meeting between Trump and congressional leaders on U.S. policy in Syria erupted in anger when Trump reportedly called Pelosi a "third-rate politician" and later said she was "unhinged."
Outside the White House following the meeting that Democrats stormed out of, Pelosi told reporters Trump had suffered a "meltdown."
'CRIMINAL OFFENSES'
Also on Sunday, Republican Representative Liz Cheney told NBC's "Meet the Press" that Trump likely has committed several criminal offenses that the U.S. Department of Justice potentially can prosecute him on.
"We have been very clear about a number of different criminal offenses that are likely at issue here," said Cheney, one of two Republican members on the select House panel.
"He has demonstrated his willingness to use force to attempt to stop the peaceful transition of power," Cheney said.
She did not lay out specific criminal charges the committee could recommend in an upcoming report following a more than year-long investigation.
Cheney, who lost her Republican leadership role over her criticisms of Trump, as well as her 2022 primary election, said, "We have put on testimony that he admitted that he lost (the 2020 presidential election).
"But even if he thought that he had won, you may not send an armed mob to the Capitol. You may not sit for 187 minutes and refuse to stop the attack while it's underway. You may not send a tweet that incites further violence," Cheney said.
Cheney did not say what the panel would do if Trump refuses to cooperate with the subpoena. If he testifies, she said, "he's not going to turn this into a circus."
https://www.reuters.com/legal/trump-is-not-man-enough-testify-jan-6-probe-pelosi-says-2022-10-23/
International Pano Awards
Alan Taylor October 19, 2022 15 Photos In Focus
The top-scoring panoramic photos entered in the 13th Epson International Pano Awards .. https://thepanoawards.com/ .. have recently been announced. The contest showcases the best work of panoramic photographers around the world. Organizers reported that they received 4,129 entries from 1,197 professional and amateur photographers in 98 countries this year, competing for the top spots in four categories, for several special awards, and for some of the cash prizes offered. Contest organizers were once again kind enough to share some of the winners and top scorers here.
Hints: View this page full screen. Skip to the next and previous photo by typing j/k or ?/?.
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2022/10/winners-2022-epson-international-pano-awards/671784/
Cave Diving Exploration, Second Place, Open—Nature / Landscapes. Underwater cave system on the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico.
Walled, 49th Place, Open—Built Environment. An aerial view of Hong Kong.
Ripples, 12th Place, Open—Nature / Landscapes. Djursland, Denmark.
=========================================
Winners of the 2022 Epson International Pano Awards Highlights the Wide Beauty of Our World
By Sara Barnes on October 7, 2022
From the massive selection, Chinese photographer Jinyi He was awarded the title of 2022 Open Photographer of the Year. One of his most striking pieces from the competition is titled The Vein, and it features a bird’s-eye view of the geological wonder Dushanzi Grand Canyon in Xinjiang, China. “For tens of millions of years, the melting snow water of Tianshan Glacier has torn open the chest of the vast Gobi like a Hummer, and formed this natural landscape under the movement of the Earth's crust and the erosion of wind and rain,” Jinyi explains.
“Veles” by Peter Li (UK) courtesy of the 13th Epson International Pano Awards. 2022 Winner, Open Built Environment / Architecture
Camp for the Sunrise” by William Lekki (U.S.) courtesy of the 13th Epson International Pano Awards. Highest Scoring Smartphone Pano
https://mymodernmet.com/2022-epson-international-pano-awards-contest/
Liz Cheney’s doomsday prediction on a third Trump presidential bid
THEPO!NT Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large
Updated 5:35 PM EDT, Mon October 24, 2022
01:33
Cheney says she will leave GOP if Trump wins 2024 nominaion
https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/24/politics/liz-cheney-donald-trump-doomsday-2024/index.html
CNN
—
Rep. Liz Cheney thinks that if the GOP nominates Donald Trump for president again in 2024, it will be the end of the Republican Party.
Or at least the end of the Republican Party as we currently think of it.
“I think that the party has either got to come back from where we are right now, which is a very dangerous and toxic place, or the party will splinter, and there will be a new conservative party that rises,” Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, predicted during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
"Full Cheney: ‘If Donald Trump is the nominee of the Republican Party, the party will shatter’"
https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/video/full-cheney-if-donald-trump-is-the-nominee-of-the-republican-party-the-party-will-shatter-151311941591
Which is a big deal!
After all, we’ve had a two-party dynamic in this country for a very long time – so the notion that one of the two major parties would splinter into two is something that would make history.
The question then becomes whether Cheney is right.
Start here: There is, without question, a vocal anti-Trump wing within the Republican Party. Cheney, the vice chair of the January 6 committee, is perhaps the best known of that group. But there are, without question, more members of that group, including Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and a few others.
What’s harder to tell is how big of a group that actually is.
The answer depends on what poll you look at.
A recent New York Times/Siena College poll showed that just 1 in 10 Republicans viewed Trump either somewhat or very unfavorably. By contrast, a majority – 56% – in that same poll said they had a “very” favorable impression of Trump.
An AP-NORC poll offers a slightly more optimistic view for the likes of Cheney. Roughly 6 in 10 (57%) of Republicans in that poll said that they wanted Trump to run again for president in 2024, while 43% said they did not. Of course, saying that you don’t want Trump to run again is different than believing that a new party should be formed to accommodate those Republicans who cannot and will not support Trump.
Cheney lost her GOP primary for Wyoming’s sole House seat – badly – to a Trump-backed candidate. Kinzinger is retiring, but would have likely lost had he run again. Of the other eight House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for his role in the January 6, 2021, attack at the US Capitol, six more have either retired or lost their primaries.
In the Senate, Trump is targeting Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the only one of seven Senate Republicans who voted to convict him who is on the ballot this November.
And the 2022 primary season more broadly affirmed Trump’s lasting power within the GOP. Trump-backed candidates won Senate primaries in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, Ohio and North Carolina. (Of J.D. Vance, the Ohio Republican Senate nominee, Trump told a crowd at a rally last month: “J.D. is kissing my ass he wants my support so bad.”)
Trump’s preferred candidates also won GOP primaries for governor in Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. And even in Maryland, a Trump-backed candidate beat Hogan’s endorsed candidate.
It is not too much to say that Trump is trying to purge the Republican Party of dissenting voices. And that it is working. Trump’s record of crushing opposition has led Republican leaders – most notably House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy – to fall in line with Trump, acquiescing to his false claims about the 2020 election.
There are few data points to suggest that a viable new conservative party could emerge – or at least emerge quickly – if Trump does run and win the Republican nomination in 2024.
There are voices and pockets of opposition, yes. But it’s also beyond debate that that group is less powerful today than it was a year ago or two years ago.
That’s not to say that a rival third party – organized around conservative principles – couldn’t emerge at some point down the line. It could – especially if Trump loses in 2024, relegating Republicans to another four years out of White House power.
But the fact remains that, as of today, there is scant evidence that there is a robust group of anti-Trump (or pro-conservative) voices that would form the core of another party in opposition to the current iteration of the GOP.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/24/politics/liz-cheney-donald-trump-doomsday-2024/index.html
Comedy Wildlife - Gallery of Winners and Finalists 2022 Finalists
https://www.comedywildlifephoto.com/gallery/finalists/2022_finalists.php
Trump flaunts his many smoking guns
Oct. 21, 2022 at 3:07 pm Updated Oct. 21, 2022 at 3:07 pm
By David Horsey
Seattle Times cartoonist
This week, U.S. District Court Judge David Carter ruled that email messages between former President Donald Trump and one of his political advisers, attorney John Eastman, must be released to the House Jan. 6 committee because they contain evidence of potential crimes.
Specifically, the messages indicate that Trump knowingly lied about voter fraud in court documents..
"Judge: Trump knew vote fraud claims in legal docs were false"
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation-politics/judge-trump-knew-vote-fraud-claims-in-legal-docs-were-false/
“The emails show that President Trump knew that the specific numbers of voter fraud were wrong but continued to tout those numbers, both in court and to the public,” Carter wrote in his ruling.
That is what is colloquially referred to as a “smoking gun.” It is the kind of clear, damning evidence that investigators finally found in Richard Nixon’s Oval Office tapes during the Watergate scandal. In Trump’s case, though, it is not the only hot weapon.
https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/trump-flaunts-his-many-smoking-guns/
Cheney: 1/6 panel won’t let Trump turn testimony into circus
By HOPE YEN an hour ago
FILE - Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., speaks as the House select committee investigating the
Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, holds a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Oct. 13, 2022.
(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House committee investigating the Capitol riot won’t give Donald Trump the chance to turn a possible live TV appearance of his subpoenaed testimony into a “circus” and “food fight” as lawmakers try to ensure he complies with their demands, the panel’s vice chair said Sunday.
The committee is demanding Trump’s testimony under oath next month as well as records relevant to its investigation. To avoid a complicated and protracted legal battle, Trump reportedly had told associates he might consider complying with the subpoena if he could answer questions during live testimony.
When asked if the committee would consider taking his testimony live, Rep. Liz Cheney on Sunday did not directly respond. She said the committee would not allow Trump’s testimony to turn into a “food fight” on TV — much as was seen, she said, in Trump’s broadcast appearances such as one of his 2020 presidential debates — and she warned that the committee will take action if he does not comply with the subpoena.
“We are going to proceed in terms of the questioning of the former president under oath,” Cheney, R-Wyo., said on “Meet the Press” on NBC.
“It may take multiple days, and it will be done with a level of rigor and discipline and seriousness that it deserves. We are not going to allow — he’s not going to turn this into a circus.”
[....]
For full coverage of the Jan. 6 hearings, go to https://www.apnews.com/capitol-siege
https://apnews.com/article/capitol-siege-donald-trump-liz-cheney-congress-subpoenas-3431b6eadd87abf14111e02c91145e86?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=TopNews&utm_campaign=position_06
Trump Sends January 6th Committee a Note from His Podiatrist
By Andy Borowitz
October 14, 2022
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Minutes after the congressional committee investigating the January 6th insurrection voted unanimously to subpoena the former President, Donald J. Trump responded by submitting a note from his podiatrist.
The foot specialist, Dr. Harland Dorrinson, indicated in the note that Trump’s chronic bone-spur issues, which had been asymptomatic in recent years, had suddenly “been acting up again.”
“This afternoon, Mr. Trump began experiencing unbearable pain consistent with bone-spur inflammation,” the podiatrist wrote. “For this reason, I cannot in good conscience give him permission to testify.”
The podiatrist’s note did not appear to discourage one committee member, Representative Liz Cheney, who volunteered to hoist Trump onto a luggage trolley and wheel him into the hearing room.
https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/trump-sends-january-6th-committee-a-note-from-his-podiatrist
What Republicans Really Thought on January 6
The president turned his back on seemingly everyone.
By Rachael Bade and Karoun Demirjian
October 16, 2022, 6 AM ET
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2022/10/january-6-republican-gop-response-trump-capitol/671752/
Mitch McConnell froze when a Capitol Police officer rushed into the Senate chamber carrying a semiautomatic weapon. The majority leader had been so engrossed in the Electoral College debate happening before him that he hadn’t realized anything was amiss—until pandemonium erupted.
Mere moments before, Mike Pence’s Secret Service detail had subtly entered the room and beckoned the vice president away from the dais where he was overseeing proceedings, a rarity for agents who usually loitered outside the doors. A hum spread through the chamber as staff shut down the debate, whispering to senators that “protesters are in the building.
“This is a security situation,” a security officer said into the microphone on the dais. “We’re asking that everyone remain in the chamber. It’s the safest place.”
Suddenly, armed guards were racing to McConnell, hurriedly escorting him out of the room. With no access to a cellphone or television—neither was allowed in the Senate—McConnell had no idea what was happening, but he certainly had a guess. During a brief break in the January 6 Electoral College proceedings, he had caught a few televised snippets of Donald Trump’s speech at the Ellipse. The outgoing president, who had been spewing falsehoods that the election had been stolen from him, was spinning up his supporters, encouraging the thousands who had come to Washington to take their protest to the Capitol.
Earlier that afternoon, McConnell had once again implored his GOP colleagues to stand down in objecting to the Electoral College. From a lectern in the Senate chamber, he noted that there was no proof of fraud on the level Trump was alleging. And he argued that “if this election were overturned by mere allegations from the losing side, our democracy would enter a death spiral.”
Outside, unbeknownst to McConnell, at least 10,000 Trump supporters were besieging the Capitol. Agitators had broken through a series of flimsy bike racks marking the Capitol’s outer perimeter and begun scaling the sides of the Capitol building, chanting, “We want Trump! We want Trump!”
Capitol Police tried to push them back with riot shields, dispensing tear gas into the crowd. But they were quickly overwhelmed by the swelling mob, which turned their flagpoles—bearing a mix of Confederate, American, Trump, and “Don’t Tread on Me” banners—into makeshift lances and spears.
McConnell’s detail whisked him down to the Capitol basement and through the snakelike tunnels that weaved through the complex. As his staff updated him on the unraveling situation, officers hurried him away to an underground parking garage and shoved him in a car to get him off the property. As McConnell’s SUV pulled away from the Capitol grounds, his aides pulled up pictures and videos on their phones to show their boss the chaos outside.
McConnell was dumbfounded. For the first time in more than two centuries, the Capitol was under siege.
In a small private room off the side of the Senate chamber, Pence was refusing to evacuate. Despite the rioters coursing through the hallways outside, when his Secret Service detail told him it was time, he said no. A few minutes later, Secret Service agents tried again. Once again, Pence refused. “The last thing I want is for these people to see a motorcade fleeing the scene,” he said. “That is not an image we want. I’m not leaving.”
As Pence resisted his Capitol evacuation on January 6, Trump continued to taunt him on Twitter. “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify,” he wrote. “USA demands the truth!”
Two minutes later, Pence’s Secret Service agents stopped giving him a say in the matter. Pointing to the glass panels on the chamber door, they told the vice president they could not protect him or his family there.
“We need to go!” a Secret Service agent said.
The officers managed to get Pence as far as the basement garage of the Capitol before the vice president began protesting his evacuation again. His security detail implored him to at least sit inside the armored limousine they had standing by. Again, Pence adamantly refused.
Standing in the parking garage, Pence turned to his longtime chief of staff, Marc Short, to devise a plan. Trump, by design or by circumstance, wasn’t responding to the chaos unfolding above their heads inside the Capitol. Someone needed to act presidentially and end this madness.
“Get Kevin McCarthy on the phone,” Pence instructed. Short pulled up his cell and pressed the call button.
McCarthy, for his part, was on the phone with Trump. He screamed into the receiver at the president as his detail spirited him away from the Capitol, where protesters had overrun his office. Bombs had been discovered at the Republican and Democratic National Committees, the House minority leader told Trump. Someone had been shot.
“You’ve got to tell these people to stop,” he said.
Trump wasn’t interested. “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” he replied blithely.
When Trump told McCarthy that the rioters must “like Trump more than you do,” the GOP leader fumed. How many times had he bent over backwards to protect the president? How many times had he buried his head in the sand when he knew the president’s actions were wrong? Trump owed him—and all House Republicans—an intervention to stop the attack. Their lives were on the line.
“Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?” McCarthy yelled. Trump told McCarthy that antifa was behind the violence, not his own supporters. McCarthy was aghast.
“They’re your people,” McCarthy said, noting that Trump supporters were at that very moment climbing through his office window. “Call them off!”
As his car sped away from the Capitol, McCarthy tried to come up with a plan. He called the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, begging him to get to the White House and make Trump put an end to the violence. McCarthy began to think about trying to reach Trump via television. Maybe if he took to the networks, he could break through by calling the president out publicly.
Before McCarthy could do anything, his phone rang. It was Pence. McCarthy told the vice president what Trump had just said to him.
This is the story of Republican leaders’ rude awakening on January 6, as they realized that despite their past loyalty to Trump, their party leader would do nothing to save them. GOP leaders had spent four years defending Trump through an impeachment and an endless stream of scandals.
But on the day they needed him most, the president did nothing to help even his loyal rank and file escape violence.
Although Republicans have since rallied behind the former president, that day, the chasm between GOP leaders and Trump could not have been wider. From their lockdown off campus, in a series of previously unreported meetings, McConnell and other GOP leaders would turn to their Democratic counterparts for assistance in browbeating the Pentagon to move the National Guard to send armed troops to the Hill. Together, the bipartisan leaders of Congress, agreed in their conviction that Trump was stonewalling if not outright maneuvering against them, joined forces to do what the president would not: Save the Capitol.
At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, Trump sat in a dining room abutting the Oval Office, watching television coverage of his devotees storming the Capitol. Multiple aides were rushing in and out, begging him to make a public statement calling for peace. “This is out of control,” Pence’s national security adviser, Keith Kellogg, told Trump, imploring him to send a white flag via Twitter. His daughter Ivanka also kept running in and out of the room, pleading with her father to call off the riot. “Let it go,” she pleaded with her dad, referring to the election.
Even Trump’s son Donald Jr., who had urged Trump’s followers to “fight” at the rally that morning, had been alarmed by the chaotic scene at the Capitol. From the airport, before he departed town, he had tweeted, “This is wrong and not who we are. Be peaceful.” He also texted White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, imploring him to get his dad to stop the violence.
“He’s got to condemn this shit ASAP,” he texted. “We need an Oval Office address. He has to lead now. It has gone too far and gotten out of hand.”
Don Jr. wasn’t the only one appealing to Meadows. Fox News personalities such as Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity begged the White House chief of staff to get the president to call off the crowds. Down the hall, Meadows’s staff warned him that Trump’s supporters “are going to kill people.”
Shortly after 2:30 p.m., Trump begrudgingly issued a tweet calling on his supporters to “please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement.” As far as Trump was concerned, the riot was Congress’s problem, he told his aides. It was their job to defend the Capitol, he said, not his. Perversely, the riot had actually buoyed Trump’s hopes that he might be able to strong-arm his way to overturning the election. When the chaos started to unfold, he began calling his GOP allies in Congress—not to check on their well-being, but to make sure they didn’t lose their nerve about objecting to the election results.
Across the Capitol campus, in a large Senate conference room guarded by cops, tensions were reaching a boiling point. The typically even-keeled Mitt Romney was lambasting Josh Hawley, blaming him for triggering the riot by endorsing Trump’s outlandish election objections. Lindsey Graham, Trump’s closest ally in the chamber, flew into a fit of rage at the “yahoos” who had invaded the Hill and screamed at the Senate sergeant-at-arms, who was hiding in the safe room with them.
“What the hell are you doing here? Go take back the Senate!” Graham barked at the chamber’s top security official. “You’ve got guns … Use them!”
Graham only grew angrier upon hearing a rumor that started circulating among Trump allies in the room: that the president was refusing to send in troops to help secure the Capitol. From their lockdown, he tried to call Trump to get clarity. When the president didn’t answer, Graham phoned Ivanka, asking her whether her dad was intentionally keeping the National Guard from responding to the crisis. He couldn’t see any other reason it was taking so long for reinforcements to arrive.
Ivanka assured Graham that this wasn’t the case, but Graham was still furious at Trump’s nonchalant response to hundreds of his followers laying waste to the Capitol. He pressed Ivanka to get her dad to do more. He then called Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, and threatened that Republicans would forcibly remove Trump from office using the Twenty-Fifth Amendment if the president continued to do nothing. Lisa Murkowski was equally shaken as she waited out the violence. The Alaska Republican had been in her private hideaway office in the Senate basement when the riot had begun. All of a sudden, she had heard someone stumbling into the bathroom next to her office and heaving into the toilet. Peeking outside, she saw a bathroom door open and a police officer washing his face in the sink.
“Can I help you?” she asked, surprised. “Are you okay?”
The officer had paused and looked up at her, his eyes red and swollen nearly shut from what appeared to be tear gas.
“No, I’m okay,” he said almost frantically, racing out of the bathroom. “No, I’ve got to get out there. They need my help.”
As she waited out the violence, hoping the marauders wouldn’t find her, Murkowski could still hear the police officer’s retching, playing like a track on repeat, over and over in her head.
A couple of miles away, at a military installation along the Anacostia River, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer were trying to figure out what was going on with the National Guard. The speaker and the minority leader had been evacuated to Fort McNair, along with the other most senior lawmakers in Congress from both parties. Since the moment they’d arrived, they had turned their holding room into a command center for their desperate operation to save the Capitol.
Sitting around a large break room with a leather couch so worn that it was held together with red duct tape, Pelosi and Schumer tried to make sense of the unfolding situation. Pelosi had been ushered away so quickly that she’d left her cellphone on the House chamber dais. Schumer had his antiquated flip phone out and was calling his rank-and-file members and aides, asking for updates. Every few minutes, their Capitol security details hovering in the hall would race into the room with a bit of news. Lawmakers in both chambers had been led to secret holding rooms in the congressional office buildings, though there was no telling if the mob would follow and find them. There were reports that some of the rioters were armed. And a group of Pelosi’s aides had barricaded themselves in a conference room, hiding under a table as rioters yelled, “Where’s Nancy?” and tried to kick down the doors. One of Steny Hoyer’s top aides was calling him frantically, insisting that the leaders clear the Capitol.
A large projection screen had been lowered and tuned to CNN. The leaders gaped as, for the first time, they took in the full scene outside the Capitol. It looked like a war zone—with Congress on the losing side. Outnumbered cops clashed with protesters. Rioters were breaking down doors and shattering windows. Police were getting sprayed with tear gas.
“This is all Trump’s fault!” Hoyer cried out helplessly, to no one in particular. Pelosi agreed. The man who started all of this, she reminded them grimly, still had control of the nation’s nuclear codes.
“I can’t believe this,” she said indignantly. “Have you ever seen anything like this?”
Elsewhere in D.C., the head of the National Guard had put armed troops on buses as soon as the Capitol Police chief alerted him to the riot underway at the Capitol. But he had still not received required orders from the Pentagon to deploy them. Troops in Virginia and Maryland were ready to move, the Democratic leaders were hearing—yet they too had not received the green light.
At 3:19 p.m., just over an hour after the Capitol was breached, the Democratic leaders connected via phone with top Pentagon brass and demanded answers. Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy insisted that his superior, Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, had already approved mobilization of armed National Guard units. But seven minutes later, the besieged House sergeant-at-arms told them the opposite: He was still hearing from D.C. Guard leaders that no such order had been given.
Hoyer was getting a similar message from Larry Hogan, the governor of Maryland, who had 1,000 National Guard troops on standby, ready to move. In a frantic phone call, Hoyer tried to explain to Hogan that the Pentagon had given those troops permission to mobilize—the top Army brass had just told Schumer so. But Hogan protested.
“Steny, I’m telling you, I don’t care what Chuck says,” the governor said. “I’ve been told by the Department of Defense that we don’t have authorization.”
The Democratic leaders looked at one another, alarmed. What the hell was really going on? They asked each other the unthinkable: Could the problem be Trump? Was it possible that the president of the United States was telling the military to stand down—or worse, helping to orchestrate the attack?
Down the hall, Kevin McCarthy was working other channels. Pacing the conference room where GOP leaders were sequestered at Fort McNair, he screamed at Dan Scavino, a top White House aide who often handled Trump’s Twitter account. The tweet Trump had put out around 2:30 p.m. calling for calm was not good enough, McCarthy insisted. They had to do more to stop the violence.
“Trump has got to say: ‘This has to stop,’” McCarthy growled into the phone. “He’s the only one who can do it!”
In the GOP room, McConnell; his No. 2, John Thune; House Minority Whip Steve Scalise; and other GOP lawmakers were also on the phones trying to figure out what was happening. It was clear that McCarthy’s appeals to Trump were falling flat. They would need to find a way to work around the president—the man they had collectively defended for four years—if they wanted to get the National Guard to the Capitol.
The GOP leaders, however, could not figure out who was in charge. They kept returning to basic questions: Who had the authority to order in the troops? Was it the Army secretary? Was it the acting defense secretary? Did they need Trump’s approval?
Since he had arrived at Fort McNair, McCarthy had ordered his aides to get him on as many television networks as possible. He kept darting in and out of the room to take their calls, hoping Trump would be watching one of the channels he was speaking on.
“This is so un-American,” McCarthy said in a Fox News appearance at 3:05 p.m., attempting to shame Trump into acting. “I could not be sadder or more disappointed with the way our country looks at this very moment.”
Adam Serwer: Fox News hosts knew--and lied anyway
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/12/mark-meadows-january-6-texts-fox-news-anchors/621032/
At one point between television hits, McCarthy announced to the room that he had finally won a concession from the White House: Trump, after much begging, had begrudgingly agreed to record a video calling for calm. The news, however, was not particularly reassuring to the Republicans in the room. The president was entirely unpredictable. Would such a video help—or make it worse? they asked each other. And what of the Guard?
Off in the corner, Scalise was scrolling through Twitter on his iPad, looking at images of the Capitol. One photo in particular made him stop short: a rioter rappelling down the wall of the Senate chamber and onto the rostrum where Mike Pence had been presiding. Scalise held his device out so McConnell could see.
“Look, they’re in the Senate chamber,” he said.
McConnell’s face paled.
Since the evacuation, McConnell had been torn between feelings of disbelief and irrepressible anger toward Trump for fomenting the assault. The Capitol had been his home for decades. The members and the staff who worked there might as well have been his family. Yet the president had put them all in mortal danger. McConnell’s aides had been texting his chief of staff, who had accompanied him to Fort McNair, about the situation at the Capitol as it grew more precarious. Rioters were banging on their office doors, claiming to be Capitol Police officers to try to gain entry. Others were scaling the scaffolding outside their windows, trying to peer inside. In the hallway outside their barricaded doors, staffers could hear a woman praying loudly that “the evil of Congress be brought to an end.”
McConnell knew that his aides had been coordinating with Schumer’s office from their lockdown, working their Rolodexes to summon help from the federal agencies. They had been calling and sending cellphone pictures of the chaos to anyone and everyone they knew at the Pentagon and Justice Department. They’d even roused former Attorney General Bill Barr and his chief of staff to use internal channels.
“We are so overrun, we are locked in the leader’s suite,” McConnell’s counsel Andrew Ferguson had whispered to Barr’s former chief from his hiding place, keeping his voice down so as not to be heard by rioters. “We need help. If you don’t start sending men, people might die.”
McConnell knew that appealing to Trump directly would be a waste of time. He hadn’t spoken with the president since December 15, the day McConnell publicly congratulated Joe Biden for winning the election. Trump had called him afterward in a rage, hurling insults and expletives. “The problem you have is the Electoral College is the final word,” McConnell had told him calmly. “It’s over.”
McConnell didn’t bother calling Trump again. Even on the morning of January 6, he purposefully ignored a phone call from the president, believing he could no longer be reasoned with. So when the Capitol came under attack, McConnell focused on getting in touch with military leaders, leaving it to his chief of staff to communicate with Meadows to enlist the White House’s help to quell the riot—if they would help at all.
An FBI SWAT team had arrived at the Capitol campus just as the leaders of Congress were being escorted into Fort McNair. But McConnell knew they would need more manpower to stop the rampage. It was why he called the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, to implore him to help dispatch the Guard. But as far as McConnell could tell, the Guard still wasn’t moving.
As the duty officers at Fort McNair tried in vain to hook up a television so the Republicans could watch the latest scenes of destruction at the Capitol, McConnell huddled with his staff around a telephone, trying to reach the Pentagon. “I have the majority leader on the line,” McConnell’s aide announced, trying to connect her boss with Acting Defense Secretary Miller. They were promptly put on hold, infuriating GOP lawmakers in the room who couldn’t understand why the Pentagon was dodging their inquiries.
Around 3:40 p.m., an hour and a half after the breach occurred, McConnell’s patience gave out. He stormed out of the room and crossed the hall to find Pelosi, Schumer, and Hoyer. “What are you hearing?” McConnell asked his Democratic counterparts as the other GOP leaders followed him into the room. “Do you know what the holdup is with the Guard?”
They didn’t know any more than he did. At a loss, Pelosi and Schumer had just signed off on a joint statement demanding that Trump call for an end to the violence. Everyone knew it was little more than a gesture. It was time to bring the combined weight of all four congressional leaders to bear on the administration.
“Get Miller on the phone,” someone barked.
As aides worked to set up the call, the Republicans who had just entered the room stared at the CNN footage on the projector screen. It was the first time they’d witnessed the enormity of the scenes at the Capitol on anything larger than their phone or tablet screens. The footage rolling in was shocking: Rioters, having ransacked the building, were now taking selfies and cheering. They were stealing historic artifacts as keepsakes; one even carried away the speaker’s lectern, waving with glee at the camera. On one end of the Capitol, protesters were storming the Senate chamber and rummaging through senators’ desks. On the other, insurrectionists were doing the same in Pelosi’s office.
“That’s my desk!” one Pelosi aide blurted out when an image of a man sitting in her chair with his feet propped up by her computer flashed on the screen. “They’re going through my desk!”
Hoyer, still furious, started lecturing Scalise that the riot was the GOP’s fault for enabling Trump.
“This isn’t the time for that,” Scalise retorted. “Right now, we need to get the chamber back, secured and open.”
McConnell, Schumer, and the other lawmakers, meanwhile, stood by awaiting the call. Amid the chaos of the afternoon, two special elections in Georgia had been officially called for the Democratic candidates. That meant Schumer’s party would be taking control of all of Washington—and he would soon be taking McConnell’s job. McConnell had already congratulated Schumer on his forthcoming promotion.
A few minutes later, huddled around a cellphone, the leaders jointly excoriated Miller for his snail-like response to what had all the markings of a coup at the Capitol. It was perhaps the first time since Trump took office that the congressional leaders had presented such a united front. Why hadn’t troops been sent in already? they demanded to know. Where was the National Guard?
“Tell POTUS to tweet, ‘Everyone should leave,’” Schumer insisted, yelling into the device over speakerphone.
“Get help in ASAP,” McConnell said firmly. “We want the Capitol back.”
Miller stammered that Pentagon leaders needed to formulate a “plan” before they moved troops.
“Look, we’re trying,” Miller said. “We’re looking at how to do this.”
His vague answer did not suffice. There was no time to waste, the leaders insisted, as they pressed him to say how soon armed troops would arrive. After demurring several times, Miller finally gave them a partial answer: It could take four hours to get the National Guard to the Capitol, and up until midnight until the building could be cleared.
At that, Schumer lost it.
“If the Pentagon were under attack, it wouldn’t take you four hours to formulate a plan!” he roared. “We need help now!”
Scalise pressed Miller to tell them how many troops they could expect to arrive. When again the secretary declined to answer, Pelosi exploded.
“Mr. Secretary, Steve Scalise just asked you a question, and you’re not answering it,” she said. “What’s the answer to that question?”
But Miller simply dodged again, murmuring that they were trying their best.
That the most powerful nation in the world didn’t have a plan in place to protect its own Capitol from attack was unthinkable to the leaders. And the fact that Miller was refusing to give clear answers appalled them. There was only one other person in Washington who might have more sway than they did. Hanging up on Miller, they reached out to their last hope: It was time to call Pence.
In the parking garage in the basement of the Capitol, Pence listened as the congressional leaders beseeched him to help dispatch troops to the Capitol. As vice president, he had no authority to assume Trump’s powers as commander in chief and give orders to the secretary of defense. But he couldn’t understand why the Guard wasn’t already on its way. Something had to be done.
“I’m going to get off this call and call them, then call you right back,” Pence told the lawmakers, hanging up to dial Miller and Milley.
Next to him, Pence’s brother, Greg, and his chief of staff, Marc Short, were still seething at how cavalierly Trump had abandoned them. They had read the president’s most recent Twitter attack against Pence on their phones in the Senate basement, fuming that in the heat of the riot, the president had chosen to stir up more vitriol about the vice president instead of calling to check on him. Trump’s conspiratorial advisers were also emailing Pence’s team, telling them that the riot was their fault for not helping overturn the election. It was outrageous.
The vice president, however, didn’t have time to dwell on the slights. When they’d first arrived in the garage, he had phoned McCarthy and McConnell, then Schumer and Pelosi, to make sure they all were safe. He didn’t bother dialing Trump. Short, however, angrily called Meadows to tell the White House that they were okay. And in case he or anyone else was wondering, Short added, “we are all planning to go back to the Capitol to certify the election tonight.”
Meadows didn’t object. “That’s probably best,” he replied.
At the White House, aides were gradually giving up hope that the president would do anything useful to restore order at the Capitol, though by mid-afternoon, the pressure on Trump to act was relentless. Republican lawmakers; longtime Trump allies, including Barr and former Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney; and conservative influencers such as Ann Coulter reamed him publicly. Even former President George W. Bush had issued a reprimand. Trump ignored all of them.
As they worked the phones, Pence’s staff heard that a high-level meeting had been convened at the White House to discuss the chain of command and how to get the National Guard moving. The fact that the administration could not figure out who was in charge as the Capitol was overrun was beyond alarming—though, in the estimation of Pence and his team, Trump at any point could have picked up the phone and forced the Pentagon to move faster. That he hadn’t, they all agreed, spoke volumes. And because of that—and the Hill leaders’ desperation—Pence knew it was time for him to step up.
At 4:08 p.m., Pence called the acting defense secretary and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Mustering his most commanding tone, he gave an order that was technically not his to issue.
“Clear the Capitol,” he said. “Get troops here. Get them here now.”
Back in lockdown at Fort McNair, McConnell was issuing orders of his own.
“We are going back tonight,” he insisted to Pence and Pentagon officials on a 4:45 p.m. phone call with Hill leaders. “The thugs won’t win.”
The vice president’s order to the military seemed to have finally snapped things into place. Pence had let congressional leaders know that armed Guard troops were on the way. It would take another half hour for them to arrive.
McConnell had always delighted in good political combat. But when the votes were in, he believed in accepting outcomes with dignity. There was no dignity in what had happened that day—only embarrassment for the Republican Party. And McConnell was just that: embarrassed. Trump didn’t even have the decency to be sorry. That afternoon, as congressional leaders joined forces across party lines to get reinforcements to the Capitol, the president had been egging on his supporters.
“These are the things and events that happen when a sacred land-slide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “Remember this day forever!”
Even in the video he released calling for “peace,” Trump praised his followers for revolting against a “fraudulent election,” calling them “very special” and adding, “We love you.”
It was too much for McConnell to stomach. After the senator had spent four years trying to accommodate the president’s demands, Trump had threatened his Capitol, and McConnell was finally done with him.
Congress had to certify Biden as the next president, and they had to do it that night, in prime time, he insisted. The whole country had to know that Trump had lost, and that his gambit to cling to power had failed.
There was one major impediment to McConnell’s plan. Capitol Police were saying the building would not be secure enough to welcome lawmakers back that night. They had to sweep the chamber for bombs and ensure that no straggling rioters were hiding in a bathroom—and there was no way to do that quickly. Defense officials had even suggested busing lawmakers to Fort McNair to certify the election that night from the military base.
To McConnell, waiting until morning was entirely out of the question. He knew that the vice president and other leaders had his back. They were just as adamant as he was that Trump’s flunkies would not push Congress out of its own Capitol. Pence had even offered the Capitol Police his own K-9 unit to help sweep the building faster.
Given the sensitivity of the discussion, the congressional leaders had gathered in a smaller space down the hall, away from the probing eyes and ears of aides and other lawmakers who had joined them at Fort McNair. Within minutes, Pelosi had lit into the military brass, accusing them of ignoring the blaring warning signs of coming violence in the days before the attack.
“Were you without knowledge of the susceptibility of our national security here?” Pelosi demanded of Miller, her patience dwindling.
From the January/February 2022 issue: A party, and nation, in crisis
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/01/republican-party-america-democracy-in-crisis/620839/
“We assessed it would be a rough day,” Miller said. “No idea it would be like this.”
For a brief, resolute moment on January 6, the GOP’s leaders were prepared to do whatever they needed to do to bring Trump to heel. Pence acted that day to restore peace. Party affiliation made no difference to Republican leaders as they worked with Pelosi and Schumer to save their rank and file.
But these flashes of defiance were fleeting. Mere days later, when Democrats moved to impeach Trump for inciting the riot, Republicans balked. Both McCarthy and McConnell voted against impeachment, and Pence, whose aides had steamed about Trump while in hiding, barred his staff from testifying at Trump’s second trial. In the months since, GOP leaders have done their utmost to bury the truth of what happened that day—leaving Republican voters with the distinct impression that Trump and his followers did nothing wrong. Meanwhile, as the country contends with the protracted consequences of their whiplash, Trump is plotting a return to the White House.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
This article has been adapted from Rachael Bade and Karoun Dimirijan’s new book, Unchecked:
The Untold Story Behind Congress's Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump.
his article has been adapted from Rachael Bade and Karoun Dimirijan’s new book, Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congress's Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump.
Unchecked - The Untold Story Behind Congress's Botched Impeachments Of Donald TrumpRachael Bade and Karoun Demirjian, William Morrow
Rachael Bade is the co-author of Politico Playbook, and co-author of Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congress's Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump.
Karoun Demirjian is a national security reporter at The Washington Post and the co-author of Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congress's Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2022/10/january-6-republican-gop-response-trump-capitol/671752/
Republicans Own This Insurrection
Responsibility for the storming of the Capitol extends well beyond Trump.
President Trump is the architect of this insurrection, but so are his acolytes.
Donald Trump has been deformed and deranged for much of his life.
It has been the pattern of his life to lie and to cheat, to intimidate and hurt others, to act without conscience, to show no remorse, and to make everything about himself.
[...]
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=160771491
Long list of Trump’s dirty deeds leaves no doubt about Jan. 6
Oct. 14, 2022 at 3:26 pm Updated Oct. 14, 2022 at 6:33 pm
David Horsey By David Horsey
Seattle Times cartoonist
Now that the members of the House Jan. 6 committee have brought their series of hearings to a grand climax with a subpoena of former President Donald Trump, what have we learned?
For one thing, we have learned there is a long list of Trump’s White House lawyers and staffers who were appalled by his willful inaction on the day he unleashed a mob to storm the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to halt the formal count of electoral votes that would make Joe Biden president. Most of the damning testimony against Trump came from those people, all of them Republicans.
From those witnesses and from other evidence, much of it lying in plain site on video, we learned that the push to overturn the election was premeditated and, from the start, directed by Trump:
INSURRECTION INVESTIGATION ---
Filmmaker provides CNN never-before-seen footage of Jan. 6 attack
CNN's Jim Acosta speaks to British filmmaker Alex Holder about exclusive new footage he shared with January 6 committee and CNN.
06:35
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2022/10/16/alex-holder-jan-6-capitol-insurrection-acostanr-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/
Jarring new footage, evidence Trump knew he lost:
Key takeaways from the latest Jan. 6 hearing
Video footage of Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other congressional leaders making calls for help on Jan. 6 was among the highlights of the Jan. 6 committee's final hearing before the election.
Oct. 13, 2022, 5:14 PM CDT
By Scott Wong and Sahil Kapur
WASHINGTON — While President Donald Trump was refusing to call off the mob of his supporters attacking the Capitol, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and other congressional leaders leaped into action to try to retake control of the sprawling complex.
They called the secretary of Defense and the acting attorney general and urged them to send help. They called the Democratic governors of neighboring Virginia and Maryland to send National Guard troops and other police. And they got on the phone with Vice President Mike Pence to figure out how they could return to the Capitol that same night and finish certifying Joe Biden’s election victory.
“Oh my gosh, they’re just breaking windows, they’re doing all kinds of … they said somebody was shot. It’s just horrendous, and all at the instigation of the president of the United States,” a distraught but composed Pelosi says on a call to Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam in a video clip played during the Jan. 6 committee's hearing on Thursday.
“I’m gonna call up the effin’ secretary of DOD,” Schumer says in another video clip.
The jarring footage was among the highlights of Thursday's hearing — the last for the Jan. 6 committee before the midterm elections — which featured a deep dive into Trump's mindset as the events unfolded and ended with the panel voting unanimously to subpoena the former president for documents and testimony.
Here are some of the key takeaways:
Congressional leaders scramble for safety
'[...]
Trump privately knew he had lost
Publicly, Trump insisted he was being robbed of an election he won. Privately, he was conceding that he had lost, people close to him told the committee.
After the Supreme Court turned down his election case, Trump was "livid," according to a U.S. Secret Service email obtained by the committee, an observation that was echoed in testimony by former Trump aides.
Alyssa Farah Griffin, then head of White House strategic communications, told the Jan. 6 panel she popped into the Oval Office "maybe a week after the election was called" to check on Trump.
"He was looking at the TV and he said, 'Can you believe I lost to this effing guy?'" Farah Griffin said.
[...]
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/jan-6-hearing-takeaways-jarring-new-footage-evidence-trump-knew-lost-rcna52176
IF YOU LIKE FACTS....HERE THEY ARE....
In four years LYING President Trump made 30,573 false or misleading claims
The Fact Checker’s database of the false or misleading claims made by President Trump while in office.
Updated Jan. 20, 2021
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claims-database/?itid=lk_interstitial_manual_9