The US Presidential election prediction thread

[Jim McLean's Ghost]

4 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

I think he understates how the Justice Dept and DoD stood back and let it happen, probably on instructions from Trump. The National Guard didn't get involved until a personal call to the DoD from Pence.

Trump's civillian mob failed their task of getting into congress and killing/taking hostages.  The one woman who died was ex millitary and got popped trying to get to the House Chamber while there were still people in it.

The fact that Congress had enough security so successfully evacuate is not a reason to ignore that the Trump admin stood down the National Guard and rejected a direct call for help. Only after all the Congressional leaders were safe and Pence was on the phone telling them they lost did the National Guard get mobilised.

[KingRocketman II]

1 hour ago, MixuFruit said:

Do you reckon it's a 90s washed up TV hero thing? Him and Dean Cain seem to have gone full Q

fortunately we have Brandon Routh to give some balance to the Kryptonian views.

Also Batman and Superman have  put aside any differences in the true spirit of the Justice League:

 

 

 

 

[Anonapersona]

I see the National has found a spot on CNN.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/07/media/newspapers-around-the-world-washington-dc-riots-trnd/index.html

 

 

[DukDukGoose]

 

[Forest_Fifer]

Everybody is just waiting on his twitter ban to be over

If you mean trump, he has to delete the tweets first, then he still has a 12 hour ban after that.

[NotThePars]

7 minutes ago, MixuFruit said:

Interesting article. I didn't realise Falun Gong are deep in with the alt right now. Makes sense I guess.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/mob-rule-in-the-capitol?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=onsite-share&utm_brand=the-new-yorker&utm_social-type=earned

 

Falun Gong are the mysterious group of assassins you're inducted into in Morrowind

[Sherrif John Bunnell]

While I support your general point, I'm not sure that born-again Christian, hunting advocate and Tomi Lahren-supporter Shawn Michaels is the ideal frontman for your gif game in this scenario.

I like to think that coke and shagging era HBK would be disgusted by what he's become.

[Detournement]

People are over reacting to all this. The actual invasion of Congress is about as relevant as the CHAS and the police station in MN being burned down. As in not at all. Millions of people protested, fought with the police and burned buildings down for a month straight and it changed nothing, a few hundred idiots breaking into a government building for a few hours will do exactly the same.

The US security state is incredibly strong.

[LongTimeLurker]

The optimistic view of what happened at the US Capitol yesterday is that nobody wanted to give Trump an excuse to use Emergency powers after lots of his supporters got shot dead, so they deescalated even though they didn't really want to and they will wait until Biden is safely installed to start visiting the "protestors" that were caught on camera with SWAT team raids over the next few months before going after long prison sentences for them.

The more pessimistic view is that it's a bit like Adolf Hitler's lenient treatment after the Beer Hall Putsch. The apparatus of the American state is riddled with people with far right sympathies, who do not deal with security issues in an even-handed manner. Think it goes without saying that if BLM protestors had tried something like that after a narrow Trump victory there would have been a reenactment of the Massacre of Armritsar and nobody involved would have been posing for a selfie with the cops.

[Jim McLean's Ghost]

3 minutes ago, Detournement said:

People are over reacting to all this. The actual invasion of Congress is about as relevant as the CHAS and the police station in MN being burned down. As in not at all. Millions of people protested, fought with the police and burned buildings down for a month straight and it changed nothing, a few hundred idiots breaking into a government building for a few hours will do exactly the same.

The US security state is incredibly strong.

If the US security state was strong they wouldn't have gotten inside.

Unless of course the US security state is strong and they wilfully stood aside.

If congress hadn't been evacuated as quickly what do you think would have happened to any Senator or Rep caught by the mob? You think they were just going to let them go? There were definitely people there yesterday intent on committing violence but they weren't going to start shooting up the place until they actually got a real target.

[Detournement]

6 minutes ago, MixuFruit said:

Still can't work out why you like these guys

I want the US Empire to end in my life time and would quite like to see all the fash domestic policies that Congress imposes end as well. Anything that weakens the US state is good imo.

This doesn't weaken them directly but is a sign of instability going forward.

[Detournement]

1 minute ago, Jim McLean's Ghost said:

If the US security state was strong they wouldn't have gotten inside.

Unless of course the US security state is strong and they wilfully stood aside.

If congress hadn't been evacuated as quickly what do you think would have happened to any Senator or Rep caught by the mob? You think they were just going to let them go? There were definitely people there yesterday intent on committing violence but they weren't going to start shooting up the place until they actually got a real target.

It's common for the Police everywhere if they are unhappy about they way they are being treated to let crime spiral to remind politicians they can't take them for granted. The mindset of US cops is that they have been too lax on protestors this year and this is obviously a reminder that the politicians need them. Expect a bill expanding police powers very soon.

Do you not think the fact that no one who works at the Capital got hurt by the invaders pretty much proves it was all under control?

 

[Anonapersona]

1 minute ago, Detournement said:

It's common for the Police everywhere if they are unhappy about they way they are being treated to let crime spiral to remind politicians they can't take them for granted. The mindset of US cops is that they have been too lax on protestors this year and this is obviously a reminder that the politicians need them. Expect a bill expanding police powers very soon.

Do you not think the fact that no one who works at the Capital got hurt by the invaders pretty much proves it was all under control?

 

Sure lol, it was all under control.

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

2 minutes ago, Jim McLean's Ghost said:

If the US security state was strong they wouldn't have gotten inside.

Unless of course the US security state is strong and they wilfully stood aside.

If congress hadn't been evacuated as quickly what do you think would have happened to any Senator or Rep caught by the mob? You think they were just going to let them go? There were definitely people there yesterday intent on committing violence but they weren't going to start shooting up the place until they actually got a real target.

Ive actually visited the US Capitol Building before, the rotunda is very impressive and its got a nice wee cafe which does lovely bbq pulled pork, was amazed that after we cleared security we were in having a coffee and lunch before our tour and there were cnn journos and senate staffers in right beside us. The capitol police are as most have said largely older guys doing an airport security like check on things, they’ve clearly been caught with their pants down yesterday and had to withdraw until they could get the swat teams in. They have some plain clothes guys who operate similarly to the secret service for the senate heid yins for close protection. Id say on the whole it was the right response to the circumstances to wait for swat teams, within two blocks of the building youve got the confirmed discovery of two bombs, youve got clearly armed people and some invading the building with handcuffs to take hostages. 
The door the woman was shot trying to go through is to the speakers lobby, which given the nature of the building and the dynamic incident with all that info about bombs and people speaking about revolutions on the media these cops probably at the time protecting the second in line to the presidency who would have been bunkered in their office until extracted, they’ve got all this info in their ears about plans to take hostages, bombs being present and folks being armed and a baying mob trying to storm the door, I get why the guy used his gun. 
If you look at the US legal definition of sedition then those people were absolutely guilty of that and should be prosecuted for it.  

[GNU_Linux]

The reall fallout of all of this is that twitch have removed the pogchamp emote due to the person who'se face it uses having gone down the far right conspiracy nut rabbit hole.

Edited January 7, 2021 by GNU_Linux

[welshbairn]

2 minutes ago, Anonapersona said:

Sure lol, it was all under control.

It was a total coincidence that the response and preparation was a bit on light side compared to the tanks welcoming BLM.

[Anonapersona]

4 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

It was a total coincidence that the response and preparation was a bit on light side compared to the tanks welcoming BLM.

Now that part I 100% agree with. I just don't think this was something that went as planned. Therefore not under control.

[Jim McLean's Ghost]

17 minutes ago, Detournement said:

It's common for the Police everywhere if they are unhappy about they way they are being treated to let crime spiral to remind politicians they can't take them for granted. The mindset of US cops is that they have been too lax on protestors this year and this is obviously a reminder that the politicians need them. Expect a bill expanding police powers very soon.

Do you not think the fact that no one who works at the Capital got hurt by the invaders pretty much proves it was all under control?

 

Hmmm. Strange that they picked this even to let things spiral and not any other protest.

The Capitol police aren't really equipped to deal with a large protest which is why at every other large planned protest the National Guard have been on duty.

No one at the Capitol got hurt because that was what the agitators had planned. They talked about doing this all over the internet, Trump is tweeting to not hurt his friends in Law Enforcement. No one that works there got hurt because the evacuation plan worked and there was no worthwhile target.

When a secret service officer has to shoot an former millary member climbing through a window to get by a barricaded door it seems like things were out of control.

Edited January 7, 2021 by Jim McLean's Ghost

[welshbairn]

Spot the difference. Video's worth a watch.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/28/politics/protest-hearing-washington-dc/index.html

[GordonS]

1 hour ago, MixuFruit said:

Guy who has written a book about coups, quite an interesting thread.

 

 

I agree with that. It's not a coup because it was never an attempt to seize power. It was an attempt to prevent - delay, really - the democratic process that removes their guy from power. I don't think they ever believed they'd get into the building and they had no plan beyond trying. It sounds like they tried to come up with a plan once they were in, but they're too stupid and leaderless to exploit an opportunity like that. If they did, they would have done something like get 100 of them to sit down, hold a debate and then vote on a resolution.

That said, there's no question that many of the police are firmly on their side. We've seen it repeatedly in the past and there was plenty of evidence of it again yesterday, even in a city like Washington. My fear for a long time has been a scenario like a few thousand of these armed loons circling the White House and refusing to let Trump be removed. If that happens I don't believe the police or the FBI would use force to remove them, and I don't know what happens next.