Replies to post #427179 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[Zorax]

lol.. trumpanzee jr just happened to be leaving town and took a moment to act like he cared. He was more worried he'd be stopped at the airport.

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.”

[fuagf]

More evidence misrepresentation, disinformation, and lies will play a large part in the
2022 midterms. From the Alan Serwer: Fox News hosts knew--and lied anyway .. in yours

[...]

Trump said to his supporters at the rally that day, “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” and told them to march on the Capitol in the hopes of preventing Congress from certifying Joe Biden's victory. As the mob ransacked the building, the Fox host Laura Ingraham told Meadows, “The president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home,” and warned that “this is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy.” The morning-show host Brian Kilmeade implored Meadows: “Please, get him on TV. Destroying everything you have accomplished.” The prime-time host Sean Hannity urged Meadows to get Trump to “ask people to leave the Capitol.” Subsequently, all three hosts .. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/01/us/politics/antifa-conspiracy-capitol-riot.html .. downplayed Trump’s responsibility for what happened .. https://www.mediamatters.org/january-6-insurrection/fox-news-dont-impeach-trump-january-6-insurrection-youll-just-make-his , or sought to cast blame on others .. https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-allies-ingraham-kilmeade-hannity-trump-call-off-capitol-rioters-antifa , knowingly misleading their viewers. If the rally had been peaceful, if the mob had not been full of Trump supporters, if this were an inside job, then appealing to Trump to stop it would not have made sense.

The texts provide a concrete record of what much of the right-wing media, and Fox News in particular, have since tried to obscure: A violent mob of Trump supporters, incited by falsehoods promoted by right-wing outlets and Trump himself about the election being stolen, sought to overturn the results by force. That violence was but the last desperate effort of a months-long campaign to invalidate the election results by pressuring election officials, state legislators, the Supreme Court, and ultimately former Vice President Mike Pence to use their power to install Trump as president against the will of the electorate.

The messages also highlight Fox News’s unusual relationship with its audience, which involves the conservative media’s most trusted figures consciously lying to their viewers. The texts between Meadows and the Fox News hosts are hardly the only example of the network’s personalities deliberately misleading their audience: From downplaying the deadliness of COVID to making misleading assertions about the effectiveness of the vaccines, to advancing the false claims of voter fraud that helped motivate the riot in the first place, Fox and its satellites have shown little hesitation in exploiting the confidence of conservative viewers who are convinced that the network is one of the few trustworthy outlets in a media landscape they regard with fierce hostility.

The roots of that hostility are worth reflecting on in light of these revelations. Fox News presents itself as a necessary counterweight to the supposed left-wing bias of other media outlets. Its defenders argue that the mainstream media have made so many glaring mistakes, the press can no longer be trusted, and it is therefore natural for Americans to seek alternatives.

The press does make mistakes, sometimes very serious ones—the coverage of the run-up to the invasion of Iraq is a prominent example. Developing stories are often subject to revision as new facts are uncovered, which to some audiences can feel like evidence of carelessness, negligence, or bias. Although the criticism the media face under such circumstances is often harsh, a healthy public skepticism of the press is as important to democracy as a thriving press.

But even errors of fact and framing, ideology or analysis, are different from what Fox News hosts do, which is attempt to get their viewers to believe things they themselves know are false. Fox News is distinct not only from most other broadcasters, but also from conservative magazines and websites whose writers are right-wing but maintain a sense of intellectual independence. Fox News’s symbiotic relationship with the Republican Party makes the outlet roughly as reliable as most politicians, who are more inclined to tell voters what they think they want to hear than what they ought to know.

It’s common to say that conservatives distrust the media, but conservative viewers trust Fox about as much as Democrats trust CNN. The fact that its most popular personalities consciously lie to their audiences has not diminished that trust; it has made Fox the most successful cable-news channel. It is difficult then, to argue that inaccuracy is what has eroded other outlets’ trust with conservatives—the reverse is true. More factual coverage would not strengthen Fox News’s bond with its viewers; it would likely drive them elsewhere. The outlet shapes this demand, but it also bends to it.

A conservative news outlet that sought to compete on accuracy would maintain standards of rigor that would not allow its most famous ambassadors to knowingly lie to their viewers, or it would sanction them for doing so. But Fox News understands that its success depends on maintaining a fantasy world, rather than doing anything to disturb it. This is why some of its most marquee personalities, who shared the same horror as most other Americans at the events of January 6, caked on their makeup, stared into the camera, and lied to the people who trust them the most. What makes Fox News unique is not that it is conservative, but that its on-air personalities understand that telling lies is their job. Their texts on January 6, and their conduct since, leave no other conclusion.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/12/mark-meadows-january-6-texts-fox-news-anchors/621032/

[fuagf]

Trump did not sign an order to deploy 20,000 troops on Jan. 6

"What Republicans Really Thought on January 6"

By JOSH KELETY October 19, 2022

CLAIM: Former President Donald Trump signed an order to deploy 20,000 National Guard troops before his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, but was stopped by the House sergeant at arms, at the behest of Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. While Trump was involved in discussions in the days prior to Jan. 6 about the National Guard response, he issued no such order before or during the rioting. Speaker Pelosi does not control National Guard troops.

THE FACTS: New footage .. https://apnews.com/article/capitol-siege-united-states-presidential-elections-nancy-pelosi-election-2020-3ca391a6ca811b40e490909cbf45c5c9 .. released Thursday of House lawmakers on Jan. 6 has sparked a resurgence of false claims and conspiracy theories about the insurrection.

The videos, recorded by Pelosi’s daughter, showed the congresswoman responding to the attack in real time as she negotiated with governors and defense officials in an effort to get Guard troops to the Capitol. In one clip published by CNN, Pelosi can be heard saying that if Trump showed up she would “punch him out.” Some on social media used the occasion to revive baseless claims that Pelosi had stopped a Trump order for tens of thousands of National Guard troops before the event.

“Trump signed an order to deploy 20,000 Guardsmen on J6. It was refused by the House sergeant at arms, who reports to Nancy Pelosi,” one user wrote Friday on Gettr. The claim also spread on Instagram and Twitter.

“Trump signed an order to deploy 20,000 Guardsmen on Jan 6. It was refused by the House Sergeant at Arms, who reports to YOU,” a Twitter user tweeted at Pelosi on Saturday.

Trump has made similar false claims .. https://archive.ph/tNQ3d .. in the past. As The Associated Press has previously reported .. https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-national-guard-in-dc-c4c8f14643b6254e261aa0be0841e9e2 , Trump was not involved in decision-making related to the National Guard on Jan. 6, and Pelosi did not stand in their way.

Trump did say during a 30-second call on Jan. 5 with then Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller that “they” were going to need 10,000 troops on Jan. 6, according to a statement .. https://oversight.house.gov/sites/democrats.oversight.house.gov/files/Miller%20Testimony.pdf .. Miller provided to a House committee in May 2021.

[Insert: Trump had worked for months to set it up. To use violence to attempt to stop Pence
from fulfilling his constitutional duty. Trump had a good idea of what was going to happen.]

But Miller added that there was “no elaboration,” and he took the comment to mean “a large force would be required to maintain order the following day.” He noted that domestic law enforcement believed they had sufficient personnel.

[Domestic law enforcement didn't know what Trump knew.]

There is no evidence that Trump actually signed any order requesting 10,000 Guard troops, let alone 20,000, for Jan. 6. Reached for comment, a spokesperson for the Department of Defense provided a timeline of the agency’s involvement in preparing for and responding to the attack on the Capitol. The timeline shows no such order, and notes only that on Jan. 3, the president concurred with activating the D.C. National Guard to support law enforcement at the behest of Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser.

National Guard troops were already activated and deployed to checkpoints around Washington before the violence began. When the rioting started, Bowser requested more Guard help, on behalf of the Capitol Police. That request was made to Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, who then went to Miller, who approved it.

The Pentagon said Miller approved the request without speaking with the White House because he had gotten direction from the president days earlier to do whatever he deemed necessary with the Guard.

Neither Pelosi nor the House sergeant at arms could have stopped an ordered deployment of National Guard troops because Congress doesn’t control the National Guard, legal experts say. Guard troops are generally controlled by governors, though they can be federalized, said William C. Banks, a law professor at Syracuse University.

The online claims “make no sense at all,” Banks said, adding, “The House sergeant at arms, he or she is not in the chain of command. Nor is Nancy Pelosi.”

“The speaker was no more in charge of the security of the U.S. Capitol that day than Mitch McConnell,” Drew Hammill, Pelosi’s deputy chief of staff, told the AP in an email.

The AP has previously reported .. https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-235651652542 .. on false claims that Pelosi blocked the National Guard from coming to the capitol on Jan. 6. As the newly released footage showed, she and McConnell, then Senate majority leader, called for military assistance, including the National Guard, during the attack.

The House sergeant at arms does sit on the Capitol Police Board, which also includes the Senate sergeant at arms and the architect of the Capitol. That board opted not to request the Guard ahead of the insurrection, but did eventually request assistance after the rioting had already begun. There is no evidence that either Pelosi or McConnell directed the security officials not to call the guard beforehand, and Hammill said after the insurrection that Pelosi was never informed of such a request.

___

This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP .. https://apnews.com/article/ap-fact-check-ap-verifica-3835460002 .

https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-trump-order-national-guard-156055113284