Saturday News: “We Were Wrong, He’s a ‘Fascist'”; “Trump isolated as Twitter cuts him off and some GOP rebel”; “Newspapers Nationwide Demand Removal Of ‘Deranged’ Donald Trump”; “Right-wing extremists vow to return to Washington for Joe Biden’s inauguration”

by Lowell

Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Saturday, January 9.

• Awe and Shock (“How the world reacted to the Trumpist mob that sacked the heart of American democracy.”)
• U.S. foes like China and Iran see opportunity in the chaos of Trump-stoked riot at Capitol (“This an absolute gift for authoritarian leaders whose prime narrative is that democratic systems are weak and unstable”)
• 22 disasters, 262 dead, $95bn in damages: US saw record year for climate-driven catastrophes (It’s only going to get worse unless we slash greenhouse gas emissions ASAP.)
• Pelosi Says Military Chief Assured Her on Trump’s Nuclear Powers (“Speaker calls president ‘unhinged’ in letter to Democrats”)
• The magnificent, righteous anger of Nancy Pelosi (“Her fury is warranted.”)
• Trump faces mounting demands to leave office or face impeachment (“Pressure for his ouster threatens waning tenure, legal jeopardy”)
• Multiple Republicans are considering supporting impeachment, sources say
• McConnell memo outlines how Senate would conduct second trial for Trump if House impeaches
• As riot raged at Capitol, Trump tried to call senators to overturn election
• Job Losses in 2020 Were Worst Since 1939, With Hispanics, Blacks, Teenagers Among Hardest Hit (“Steep losses in leisure and hospitality drove up unemployment across groups already disproportionately affected by economic impact of coronavirus”)
• Senior Trump Official: We Were Wrong, He’s a ‘Fascist’ (Yes, a lot of us figured that out 4+ years ago. Morons.)
• Majority of Americans want Trump removed immediately after U.S. Capitol violence – Reuters/Ipsos poll (“Nearly 70% of Americans surveyed also said they disapprove of Trump’s actions in the run-up to Wednesday’s assault.” Should be 100%.)
• Trump isolated as Twitter cuts him off and some GOP rebel
• Trump’s existential threat: How to keep GOP in line without Twitter
• Twitter takes Trump’s special power away as his isolation grows
• Newspapers Nationwide Demand Removal Of ‘Deranged’ Donald Trump
• Twitter bans Trump’s account, citing risk of further violence (“The suspension amounted to a historic rebuke for a president who had used the social-networking site to rise to political prominence.”)
• All the platforms that have banned or restricted Trump so far (Basically, this happened 4+ years too late.)
• Trump went ‘ballistic’ after being tossed off Twitter (Does Trump ever NOT “go ballistic?” He needs psychiatric help, badly.)
• MAGA World Is Splintering
• Trump’s Tweets Were Never Just Tweets
• The Trashing of the Republic (“The only response to the carnage in Washington is to banish Trump and his traitorous collaborators from civil society.”)
• Trump can and must be prosecuted (“The most serious consequences possible should be pursued.”)
• This Republican Party needs to go the way of the Whigs
• The Inciter-in-Chief (“How surprising can Donald Trump’s recent provocation be when for years he has served as an inspiration to bigots everywhere?”)
• Republican AGs group sent robocalls urging march to the Capitol (Incitement to violence and insurrection?)
• Democrats Ready Impeachment Charge Against Trump for Inciting Capitol Mob
• Trump’s pledge of an orderly transition is as worthless as he is
• Trump suggests building own platform after Twitter ban
• Fired Trump Official’s Ominous Warning: ‘There Will Be More Bloodshed’ Before Inauguration (“Trump ‘has to declare that this was a free and fair election,’ urged Chris Krebs. ‘He still has time to do what’s right.'”)
• Storming The U.S. Capitol Was About Maintaining White Power In America
• Hawley Faces Fierce Backlash From Colleagues, Donors After Capitol Riot
• Resign, Senator Cruz. Your lies cost lives.
• Biden push for new stimulus checks runs into roadblock from key Democratic senator
• Joe Biden’s nominees will put ‘Justice’ back in the Justice Department
• The One Good Thing the MAGA Mobs Smashed? The Trump Kids’ Futures. (“For a while, Ivanka and the failsons looked like the future of the GOP. That all changed Wednesday.”)
• The Demolition of Jared and Ivanka’s Future
• Biden invites Pence to inauguration, calls Trump ‘incompetent’ and says it’s good he won’t attend
• Biden’s Top Hill Allies: We Got This, You Focus on Taking Over
• Fears over Biden inauguration security mount after US Capitol attack (“Security levels being ramped up significantly for Biden’s swearing-in as some warn of ‘persistent challenge over the next months’”)
• The Capitol mob desecrated a historical workplace — and left behind some disturbing artifacts
• Stop Pretending ‘This Is Not Who We Are’ (“This is not who we are” is one of the stupidest things people say. What they probably mean is “This is not who we SHOULD be,” but that’s a very different statement.)
• The Insurrectionists Would Like You to Know That They’re the Real Victims (Yeah, of course.)
• Trump Sympathizers Are Lurking in Law Enforcement
• ‘Inside job’: House Dems ask if Capitol rioters had hidden help
• The Man Who Saw Yesterday’s Coup Attempt Coming Is Only Surprised It Wasn’t Much Worse (“Arieh Kovler knew. ‘On January 6, armed Trumpist militias will be rallying in DC, at Trump’s orders,’ he wrote on Twitter on December 21st…If Arieh Kovler knew, why didn’t everyone else? We all could have, says Kovler, a political consultant with a background in government relations in the U.K. who studies extremist Trump message boards”)
• Trump Having Second Thoughts About That Concession Video (“Some of the president’s most diehard fans refused to believe that Trump would commit to a peaceful transition of power and assumed the video was a ‘deepfake’ hoax.”)
• Right-wing extremists vow to return to Washington for Joe Biden’s inauguration
• The far-right Trump insurgency just scored a huge propaganda coup
• In Capital, a G.O.P. Crisis. At the R.N.C. Meeting, a Trump Celebration. (The R.N.C. is an extremist organization.)
• At party retreat far from D.C. turmoil, Republicans still sing praises of Trump
• Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski calls on President Trump to resign, questions her future as a Republican
• Capitol siege sparked pro-Trump protests nationwide, several statehouses stormed (Arrest them all.)
• FBI focuses on whether some Capitol rioters intended to harm lawmakers or take hostages
• Man Who Broke Into Pelosi’s Office and Others Are Charged in Capitol Riot
• They Were Out for Blood — I can’t stop thinking about the zip-tie guys.
• West Virginia GOP state lawmaker who stormed US Capitol faces criminal charge
• Feds say police found a pickup truck full of bombs and guns near Capitol insurrection as wide-ranging investigation unfurls
• Ben Sasse Rips Trump For Stoking Mob, Calls Josh Hawley’s Objection ‘Really Dumbass’
• Twitter bans Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell in QAnon account purge (Waaaayyyy too late. Still need to crack down BIG TIME on these social media companies.)
• Apple Has Threatened To Ban Parler From The App Store
• Angelo Carusone: Twitter banning Trump now is “a lot like senior administration officials resigning with only days left”
• Kevin McCarthy’s spin on impeachment gives away a big GOP scam (“How Republicans will whitewash their role in the horrors of the past two months.” It will only work if the media lets them get away with it. They’d better f’ing not.)
• YouTube terminated Steve Bannon’s account. He had blood on his hands after months of calling for revolution and violence. (This also took waaaayyyy too long…several years, actually. Why? We need answers.)
• Rush Limbaugh deactivates his Twitter account after President Trump permanently banned
• Williams: The mob insurrection at the Capitol was a symptom of America’s inequity. Let’s use it as a turning point.
• Sen. Mark Warner on Trump’s Permanent Suspension by Twitter: “This is much bigger than one person”; It’s about “an entire ecosystem that allows misinformation and hate to spread and fester unchecked”
• Reps. Luria, Spanberger, Beyer, Wexton, Connolly Sign Letter to U.S. House leadership “to immediately reconvene the House of Representatives to reckon with the assault on our democracy that took place on January 6th”
• Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA08) Statement On The Death Of His Constituent, Officer Brian D. Sicknickch
• Investigations opened into the death of U.S. Capitol Police officer from Virginia after pro-Trump riot
• “What the actual… Using Trump’s campaign logo/colors?? What’s the message here? Trump is King, Trump is Jesus? I’m honestly confused.”
• Dem LG Candidate Hala Ayala Calls For VA GOP Chair to Resign After He “Peddl[es] Conspiracy Theories and Racist [Tropes]” (Anderson falsely implies that pro-Trump Capitol Hill mob was actually infiltrated by “Antifa and other leftist groups”)
• Fauci tells Virginians: Coronavirus is ‘double whammy’ against Black and Latino people (“The nation’s top infectious disease expert said infections are happening at a higher rate among those minority populations, in part because of occupations and living conditions that lend themselves to more person-to-person contact.”)
• Northam — and the Democrats — face an election-year challenge in the vaccine distribution
• Virginia considers year-round schooling for the next school year
• Authorities Monitoring Threats Ahead of Richmond Gun Rally
• Since New Year’s Eve, one person in Virginia has died from COVID every hour as state surpasses 5,000 cases for third straight day
• Friday (1/8) Virginia Data on COVID-19: New Cases Hit 3-Day (+16,004), 10-Day (+47,620) Record Highs
• Schapiro: Trapped in a Trumpian web of their own making (“Republicans wanted to believe that, with Trump taking his leave and Democrats taking over the federal government, it was a matter of time before voters would be rattled by Democratic overreach and reflexively turn to the GOP. That was before this latest Trumpian ignominy — one that seems to link the party with sedition.”)
• ‘None of this lame duck’: Northam will extend legislative session in the face of ‘aggressive’ agenda (“The pandemic continues to rage. A promise to make strides on systemic racism and inequality looms. And he’s got just one year left in office.”)
• Facebook suspends account of Virginia state Sen. Amanda Chase (“The Republican gubernatorial candidate, who bills herself as ‘Trump in heels,’ had posted that rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol were ‘patriots.'”)
• Virginia Senate Democrats call on Amanda Chase to resign
• It’s Time to Expel Amanda Chase from the Virginia Senate (“If there’s one thing we know about fascism from world history, it’s that it cannot be tolerated and must be met with a strong, definitive response.
• Liberty University sues Virginia Gov. Northam, calls financial aid policy discriminatory (“Liberty is accusing Northam and the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia of discriminating against some of its online students by shutting them out of a popular state grant.”)
• Virginia State Police distances itself from coins referencing Fairfax traffic stop, Richmond protests
• Health districts in parts of Northern Virginia, Southwest will begin vaccinating people over 75, front line workers next week
• Two Virginia Residents Face Federal Charges in DC Riot (Only two?)
• Lawsuit: Stop Trump Administration’s Parting Shot at National Forests
• Southwest Virginia lawsuit seeks to stop rollback of protections for all national forests
• For 2nd straight day, Virginia Beach sets record for COVID-19 cases
• Virginia state Sen. Joe Morrissey wins dismissal of electioneering charges (“The three misdemeanor charges stemmed from a 2019 incident where the then-candidate gave doughnuts to election workers.”)
• Chilly 40s into early next week, but probably staying dry