Treason in the capitol security plan?

 This is an excellent article in Business Insider:  https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-attempted-coup-federal-law-enforcement-capitol-police-2021-1  It details the reasons why there is good reason to suspect that security officials connived to leave the Capitol unprotected.  The primary sources are foreign-based police officials.  From the article:

The French police official detailed multiple lapses they believe were systematic:

1. Large crowds of protesters needed to be managed far earlier by the police, who instead controlled a scene at the first demonstration Trump addressed, then ignored the crowd as it streamed toward the Capitol.
2. "It should have been surrounded, managed, and directed immediately, and that pressure never released."
3. Because the crowd was not managed and directed, the official said, the protesters were able to congregate unimpeded around the Capitol, where the next major failure took place.
4. "It is unthinkable there was not a strong police cordon on the outskirts of the complex. Fences and barricades are useless without strong police enforcement. This is when you start making arrests, targeting key people that appear violent, anyone who attacks an officer, anyone who breaches the barricade. You have to show that crossing the line will fail and end in arrest."
5. "I cannot believe the failure to establish a proper cordon was a mistake. These are very skilled police officials, but they are federal, and that means they ultimately report to the president. This needs to be investigated."
6. "When the crowd reached the steps of the building, the situation was over. The police are there to protect the building from terrorist attacks and crime, not a battalion of infantry. That had to be managed from hundreds of meters away unless the police were willing to completely open fire, and I can respect why they were not."

The French police official said they believed that an investigation would find that someone interfered with the deployment of additional federal law-enforcement officials on the perimeter of the Capitol complex.

It is routine for the Capitol Police to coordinate with the federal Secret Service and the Park Police and local police in Washington, DC, before large demonstrations. The National Guard, commanded by the Department of Defense, is often on standby too.

On Wednesday, however, that coordination was late or absent.

"You cannot tell me I don't know what they should have done. I can fly to Washington tomorrow and do that job, just as any police official in Washington can fly to Paris and do mine," the official said. The official directs public security in a central Paris police district filled with government buildings and tourist sites.

"These are not subtle principles" for managing demonstrations, "and they transfer to every situation," the official said. "This is why we train alongside the US federal law enforcement to handle these very matters, and it's obvious that large parts of any successful plan were just ignored."

The National Guard, which was deployed heavily to quell the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, did not show up to assist the police until two hours after the action started on Wednesday, according to The Associated Press.

Kim Dine, who was the chief of the Capitol Police from 2012 to 2016, told The Washington Post that he was surprised that the Capitol Police allowed demonstrators on the steps of the Capitol. He said he was also mystified that few rioters were arrested on the spot.

Larry Schaefer, who worked for the Capitol Police for more than 30 years, told ProPublica something similar: "We have a planned, known demonstration that has a propensity for violence in the past and threats to carry weapons — why would you not prepare yourself as we have done in the past?"

 

So -- "nice country you have there ..."

 

 

What to Do About Trump Fatigue Syndrome

 Personal note: Snowflake is posting this because he is deeply concerned about the mental health of all those who suffer from TFS.

Most diseases have cures. We should begin our diagnosis with the realization that we no longer inhabit a Republic of political debate but a squalid banality of neo-reality television. This fever of constant outrage will have to be purged or it may kill us all.

by  John Rennie Short

https://hipporeads.com/what-to-do-about-trump-fatigue-syndrome/

I have just been diagnosed with an illness, TFS. It is injurious to long-term health and perhaps too early to say whether it is fatal.

TFS stand for Trump Fatigue Syndrome. It is caused by overexposure to President Donald Trump. Its symptoms include a depressing sense of watching the same drama over and over again. And just like being stuck in a movie theater watching a badly scripted and poorly produced B movie, it begins with feelings of exhaustion then panic with the realization that it may never end.

All diseases have vectors; the carriers of this disease are the mass media of both left and right political persuasion. They cover Trump endlessly became it generates more viewers and listeners. The presentations are suitably tailored to appeal to their respective audiences. Trump the hero of the forgotten Americans on Fox News. Trump the political incompetent on CNN. Trump generates money for the networks whatever their position. He makes news and attracts viewers through constant controversies. The President provides all the tweets, images, talking points, and general mayhem: all the media has to do is to roll the camera and queue the talking head panels. For the mass media Trump is the equivalent of easy money; for the audience the equivalent of empty sugar calories that produce a buzz but not much substance. In the Age of Trump Fascination there’s no need to send reporters on overseas missions, or do deep reporting about what ails the Republic and its peoples. The cheap and easy coverage of Trump allows us to imagine that we are engaged in political debate or critical analysis while in reality we are just party to a flim flam show masquerading as the US presidency.

All diseases have symptoms. For those on the left there is a rising sense of exasperation about what the President does and says. Outrage is continually aroused leading to exhaustion. For those more to the right there is a feeling of resentment against the antipathy to their President. Again, outrage is continually aroused leading to exhaustion.

Some Minds Slowly Awaken Before Going Back To Sleep

Capitalist 'morals': At a gathering of a business advisory group in 2019, 

Tim Cook of Apple told Mr. Trump that it was “an honor” to serve

Someone allegedly said that when a person's paycheck depends on them not understanding something, e.g., denying an obvious reality or fact, it is hard to get them to understand it. That applies to CEOs, who are usually intelligent, highly educated and reasonably politically informed. The New York Times writes:

Many in corporate America endorsed the president’s economic policies, which were good for them and gave him mainstream business credibility. It was “fool’s gold,” one said on Thursday.

Big business struck a Faustian bargain with President Trump.

When he said something incendiary or flirted with authoritarianism, high-minded chief executives would issue vague, moralizing statements and try to distance themselves from a pro-business president who coveted their approval.

But when Mr. Trump cut taxes, rolled back onerous regulations or used them as props for a photo op, they would applaud his leadership and grin for the cameras.

After Wednesday’s events on Capitol Hill, the true cost of that balancing act was plain to see, even through the tear gas wafting in the rotunda.

The executives who stood by Mr. Trump were ultimately among his enablers, bestowing him with the imprimatur of mainstream business credibility and normalizing a president who has turned the country against itself.

“This is what happens when we subordinate our moral principles for what we perceive to be business interests,” said Darren Walker, the president of the Ford Foundation and a board member at Square and Ralph Lauren. “It is ultimately bad for business and bad for society.”  

“I joined because the president asked me to join, and I thought it was the right thing to do as the C.E.O. of a company like Merck,” Ken Frazier, one of the most prominent Black executives in the country, who was the first to quit the councils, said shortly after leaving. “I just felt that as a matter of my own personal conscience, I could not remain.”

But money has a short memory, and it wasn’t long after Charlottesville that Mr. Trump was back in the good graces of corporate America. Just months later, the Trump administration passed a tax overhaul that delivered a windfall to corporations and wealthy individuals.
By lowering corporate taxes, Mr. Trump delivered the business community one of its most coveted prizes, and business leaders lined up to support the effort.  

By 2019, it was as if Charlottesville had never happened at all, and a new business advisory group was formed, this one with the likes of Tim Cook, the chief executive of Apple; Doug McMillon, the chief executive of Walmart; and Julie Sweet, the chief executive of Accenture.  (emphasis added)

What? Moral principles?? Bad for society?? None of has been a problem before, so why it is now? What is different? Is that that the social harm is now so sever and blatant that even CEOs raking in millions from Trump brand politics can no longer deny what has been blatantly obvious for years?

Apparently, what triggered this current spasm of social conscience among some (a few?) powerful business elites is the attempted coup of yesterday. But minds, like money, have short memories. The next radical right GOP candidate who makes a run at demagogue-tyrant will entrance the CEOs with promises of lower taxes and fewer regulations. That will make the social conscience fade back into near non-existence where it usually resides when things are just business as usual.

This brief flash of social conscience is more evidence of why government needs to defend the public interest. The business community can't do it. The stack of cash standing in the way of reality and morality is just too damn big. 

In other words, it's hard to impossible to have a social conscience when your massive paycheck depends on not having one.

A Letter to the Traitors

By email: www.cruz.senate.gov/?p=form&id=16

Dear Senator Cruz,

I write to express my opposition to, and disappointment in, your actions to subvert the 2020 election since November 3. In particular, your participation in the attempted congressional subversion of the election on January 6 and 7 were deeply immoral and frighteningly authoritarian. 

You are educated and intelligent. You know the facts. In view of the facts, how can one rationally explain unjustified support of unfounded allegations of a stolen vote, fraud and/or other widespread irregularities? None of those things exist and you know that. Only false allegations exist. Those unfounded allegations have been rejected at least 60 times in state and federal courts. Apparently, your seditious rhetoric and behavior reflects a burning ambition to run for president. Your false allegations reflect the anti-democratic radical right republican authoritarianism you have come to embrace in your run for power.

It goes without saying that raising the matter of the great shame you should feel for your immoral behavior and rhetoric is futile. You have no shame or morality in you. Your lust for power has swept such weak concerns aside.

Given that sorry state of affairs, when you next run for federal office, I will do everything in my power to oppose you and to support your opponent. Reminding the people of Texas about your unjustified authoritarian actions will be prominent in the criticisms I will publicly level at you.  

You and your despicable authoritarian actions will not be forgotten. Your immoral, authoritarian, deceit-based politics will be called out. You will be opposed by legal means available to me. 

Sincerely,

[Germaine]

San Diego, CA

Email contact info for US Senators is at this link.

Contact info for representatives is messy. Some or most try to limit incoming email by requiring people to put in their zip code as an initial step. Presumably that is used to block correspondence from people outside voting districts. Letters by old-fashioned mail may be the best way to try to contact treasonous representatives.

I plan to write to at least three or four of the senators involved in the attack on the election, Cruz (TX), Hawley (MO), Scott (FL) and Tuberville (AL). Not sure about representatives. The letter will need to be changed to reflect the correct state and for Scott and Tuberville because they may not be planning to run for president in 2024.