MAGA Protestors Break Into Capitol Hill

Just like the title says, a couple hours ago, Wednesday afternoon, MAGA protestors marched towards the Capitol building, proceeded to storm the Capitol Hill police holding the line outside, and broke into Capital Hill itself.

Here's Trump's speech timestamped at 2:15:00 right at the end where he told his supporters to march toward the Capitol in order to persuade the weak Republicans not on board with overturning the Electoral College votes.

Here's a small gallery of the self-proclaimed "patriots" trespassing into the Hill, Senate chamber, and attempting to breach the House chamber.

Gallery

The Army activated the National Guard and Virginia is sending 200 State Troopers and other National Guard to go assist in DC and DC mayor instituted a 6pm curfew.

Yeah shit's pretty wild. As much as I'm enjoying the chaos on display because this is the kind bullshit the GOP has allowed to fester under an unrestrained Trump for 4 years, I just hope nobody gets hurt. Never thought I would see this happen outside of some unstable third-world country. What a time we live in.

@finaldasa@sweep Sorry can a mod please move this to Off-Topic, my bad.

@colourful_hippie: Got it.

FYI to everyone else trust me when I say we will happily lock this thread if replies begin to violate our community rules or veers off topic.

I don't have any comments suited to polite company with regards to all of this but it sure is interesting to see the level of response here compared to certain other events this past year.

Additionally, there will be no tolerance for repeating unsubstantiated claims about the elections and their results. Likewise, generalized calls for violence will not be tolerated as well.

What gets me is that video of police just opening that gate up to these insurrectionists. What the fuck. Also whatever happened to the rubber bullets and tear gas? I know someone got shot, but why let it escalate to that point. Did they run out of rubber bullets?

@warofart: Maybe they think it would be rude to their guests.

Someone has already been shot in the chest, from my understanding, and they found a bomb at the RNC and a suspicious package at the DNC.

I didn't know about this until the last quarter of my workday. I was knee deep in, well, stuff, when I found a moment to take 5. I decided to check the Georgia election and instead spent the next several minutes with my mouth agape as I checked several news sites to make sure this was actually happening.

I can believe that there are enough MAGA terrorists - that's what these are - to surround the capital building, but what I can't believe is that there aren't enough policemen around to repel them. Like, you'd think there would be something resembling a small well-armed, well-trained army around this place, especially at a moment like this, but seemingly not.

In better news - both of Georgia's Senate seats have now gone to Democrats, which means that Mitch McConnell is now the Senate Minority Leader, which means he can't block every bill that might actually help somebody. This means that, yes, for the next two years, Democrats control everything except the Supreme Court. Which means that they might actually get something done. Or they might flop about like a wet noodle, who knows.

This in contrast to how BLM protestors were treated boils my blood more than anything else this last year to be honest.

Apparently you can invade capital hill, hold the building, trash it, place bombs, cause the evacuation of congress and halt the election process from being completed and be met with a "Go on home, you rascals, before you hurt yourselves or the police, but remember I love you guys. Oh and it's all a fraud being stolen from me" by the guy in charge.

I'm going to have to just tune out for a bit. The ridiculousness of this is too much for me to handle right now.

@efesell: They don't wanna make family dinner awkward by finding out daddy arrested his cousins.

Fuckin.. You kids get on outta here 'for I have to call your mother .. ass policing methods.

Four years of instigation by conservative politicians and pundits combined with social media companies who cared only about the dollar have brought us here. A press obsessed with "both sides" and writing fluff pieces on racist voters helped.

I can't believe it's actually come to this. I mean... that isn't true. You could see this coming a mile away. I'm still stunned. I hope no good person gets hurt in these dipshits treasonous terror acts. Stay safe, duders, all your loved ones and your democracy.

Also secondary but still causing me to fuckin' see red is the response from republicans as they were locked down and then evacuated being like "This...this is violence!"

Like, I know the fires have been stoked for years in the making. I know these domestic terrorists are utterly rotten folks. Even so, to see so many that have bought into the lies and rhetoric, who think that this coup is a reasonable course of action, and are blind to the irony that this antithetical to the idea of the will of the people... it fucking hurts.

The silver lining, as faint as it is at this point, is that the Democrats are set to take the Senate majority. You'd better believe I'm going to contact my representatives and hold them to task. I just hope that they'll make some meaningful policy changes.

@finaldasa: Thank you!

They just didn't have the numbers. It's only the Capitol Police on location at the time when they got rushed. They purposely made space for these people to come in to avoid getting trampled.

If there's any mistake that was made besides our "Dear Leader" who directed people to go to Congress, it's that there wasn't a larger law enforcement coordination to be prepared in advanced for something like this.

@colourful_hippie: is there no autonomy in the Capitol Police? Do all orders have to come from papa Trump? I call collusion.

Completely agree. It's incredible how 1 man helped by a legion of political enablers and a unrestrained social media megahorn could so quickly change the nation's culture in less than 4 years to just have it all culminate into this steaming pile of shit on display for everyone and the entire world to see.

I will give no benefit of the doubt to the police here, not one shred.

@warofart: They are autonomous. Clearly unprepared, but autonomous. They answer to Congress not the executive branch. Still doesn't excuse them for not coordinating with other law enforcement to be better prepared for potential chaos but I can understand why they would back off.

Remember when an actual peaceful protest was tear gassed so that Trump could take a photo op holding up a Bible like an alien who had never heard of one before.

Just thought of that, can't imagine why.

@warofart: Not sure about that exactly, but remember that Washington, DC is not a state and is not actually in any state. From a quick search and check of Wikipedia: "The MPD has a unique role in that it serves as a local police department, with county, state and Federal responsibilities, and is under a municipal government but operates under Federal authority. They are responsible for operating the District's sex offender registry, approving all applications for motorcades, protests, demonstrations and other public events, and maintain the District's firearm registry.^[9]"

The president is also the commander-in-chief of the DC arm of the National Guard, while in the states the governors are the C-in-C of their respective National Guards. Due to DC not having a governor, the Secretary of the Army has to approve NG requests from the mayor of DC,

Edit: Here is an article on the NG being deployed tonight that mentions the above.

Washington, DC should be admitted into the Union as the 51st state.

Don't let anyone call them protesters, they are domestic terrorist attempting a coup, just because they won't succeed doesn't absolve them of what they are trying to do. We also can't ignore how complicit the police are in this too, for fucks sake some of them are taking selfies with them.

Trump tweeted out some BS video asking people to keep the peace and go home while simultaneously claiming that he won in a landslide. Twitter won't let me share the tweet because it may incite violence.

Stay strong, US, and stay safe.

As far as I can tell, they're letting most of these people just file out and walk away.

Big shock all around.

Watching this develop throughout the day reminds me of watching the 2016 election. Watching Trump getting elected made me afraid, I was scared of what the future would bring. As time went on it seemed more and more like Trump would be an incompetent president rather than a dangerous one, and we'd just have to endure. But what's been happening today is exactly the kinda things I was afraid of back then.

@colourful_hippie: Yeah, the Trump video response to this is absurd. To paraphrase Trump, “Look Capitol Hill rioters, the election was stolen so I’m not going to denounce your viewpoint or any part of this specifically, but please go home if it’s not too much trouble.”

Terrorists. MAGA Terrorists.

Yeah this part is pretty bullshit. Sounds like only a handful of people got arrested. They should at the very least be rounding up the people inside the building. Ridiculous.

Scumbag terrorists.

sounds like there were 13 arrests made? (according to dutch news, think that number is mentioned by the NY Times as well, but i'm not subscribed to it.)

That's what gets me. BLM protests get un-badged black-bag operatives w/ get riot gear and Colt M4 carbines. A protest by white neo-Nazis gets the capital police w/ radio and taser.

@onemanarmyy: Yup, 13 is the current number out there.

Ridiculous. What if it was minorities pulling this coup shit?

@monkeyking1969: Doesn't help that Trump has the power to send those kinds of people across the country while not having to care about letting DC prepare itself due to the unique situation the DC Gov is in.

So here's the thing, these terrorists are going to get what they want. The bipartisan response to this will be a crackdown on civil unrest including BLM and anything else that can be labeled "Antifa". The people who committed and instigated these crimes won't face any consequences, it'll be people 2 years from now trying to push back against injustice.

Gee, couldn't be because they're white, could it? Nah, couldn't be.

If it were BLM storming the capitol we'd be counting # of them killed and not counting # of them arrested. This is some real tragic and infuriating bullshit I hope is not forgotten as long as the US exists.

From CNN's live blog on the riots five minutes ago:

President Trump is now defending the actions of his supporters who stormed and vandalized the Capitol.

“These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away," he tweeted.

Trump concluded the tweet, rather stunningly, with “Remember this day forever!” There is no proof of widespread election fraud and the election was not stolen from Trump.

At the end of the tweet, Trump also called on the rioters to “go home with love & in peace.”

Trump continues to prove that his superpower is shamelessness.

@rejizzle: Sadly, I think this is the correct assessment. I also see the establishment democrats pulling the "let history judge them" on Trump and the senators who instigated this, and using this as an excuse to once again not pull the trigger on any social policies by reasoning that it would cause even more division. They've been determined to Hugenberg it up for a long time and I don't think they'll stop here.

I apologize, but I just can't help but be cynical about the state of the United States (as an outside observer) and even the world right now.

Great way to defuse the situation.He managed to escalate the language from that BS video he sent.

Jack Dorsey can go fuck off if he doesn't have the balls to ban this treasonous worm after Jan 20th when the presidential privileges excuse evaporates.

A security official claimed that the Capitol is now secured.

Wonder if there'll be a lot less Repubs willing to make that sham "symbolic" vote for treason now after what happened. I know the number won't be zero but McConnell was prescient to say barely 30 minutes before the riot invasion that this vote is more than just making some sort baseless symbolic action, that it carried great danger. Too bad this guy was willing to facilitate our "Dear Leader" for 4 years though.

Twitter appears to be removing Trumps tweets so I guess the line for Twitter is Fomenting Terrorism.

If Twitter and Facebook do not take steps to permenantly suspend Trump's Twitter account, they should be held equally as responsible for everything that has and will happen. There is no plausible deniability, no "but free speech" to hide: This fucker directed a failed coup using your platform. Something needs to be done.

Yeah, I read McConnell's statement soon after he made it and agreed with everything he said. But as you say, he enabled Trump for four years. Still a scumbag, he's just better than most at judging the way the wind is blowing.

Still utterly baffled that you can join in an insurrection attempt and walk away a few hours later with nothing but a few memories, a participation trophy photograph or two, and a pat on the back tweet by the president.

Oh, don't worry. Ted Cruz has yet to reach his final form.

McConnell's statement is to be expected, Rats are supposed to be good with sinking ships.

Turtles as well, I would assume?

@frytup: Well yeah that's obvious, despite having his wife insulted and his father called the Zodiac Killer by Trump he still kisses his ass in some delusional attempt to court the MAGA crowd. At this point he would sell his kids for any MAGA cred.

@atheistpreacher: That and turtle boy didn't miss a beat to do a "both sides" dig at Dems for what he called similar EC objections in past Congresses.

Twitter deleted the video and tweet. Took long enough.

Don't give McConnell too much credit, he still managed to "both sides" it while calling out his colleagues.