Republicans want the January 6th Insurrection to disappear down an Orwellian memory hole, never to be heard of again. Or at the very least, they want to whitewash it to the point where we see the insurrectionists as little more than tourists who got a little carried away with their enthusiasm. Congressman Andrew Clyde denied that an attempted insurrection had occurred because those at the Capitol were unarmed. He acknowledged that there were some rioters and some acts of vandalism, but he said that to call it an insurrection was a "bald-faced lie." He then bizarrely claimed that the people who entered the Capitol looked like normal tourists.
One of the ways he downplayed the seriousness of this event was by saying the House floor was never breached. Well, maybe it was never breached because he and others barricaded the doors.
The Rep. Clyde news reminded me of this:
UNITED STATES - JANUARY 6: Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., second from top left, helps barricade the House chamber door as rioters disrupt the joint session of Congress to certify the Electoral College vote on January 6, 2021. pic.twitter.com/ewizgiuwLn— Tom Williams (@pennstatetom) May 15, 2021
But let's give Congressman Clyde credit for at least acknowledging there was a riot going on. Meanwhile, there are extreme right-wing sites that are running stories with headlines like INSURRECTION DEBUNKED: New Video Shows Completely Peaceful Protest Inside US Capitol on Jan. 6. And Republican Senator Ron Johnson said "by and large it was peaceful protest, except for there were a number of people, basically agitators, that whipped the crowd and breached the Capitol."
Ron Johnson claims it wasn’t an insurrection and goes on to say by and large it was a peaceful protest pic.twitter.com/E9TVzhNPTS
— Acyn (@Acyn) May 20, 2021
So who were these agitators at the Capitol? A recent Yahoo News/YouGov poll shows that 73% of Republicans think they were left wing protestors like Antifa who committed vandalism in order to make Trump supporters look bad. Of course, this raises the obvious question: If Republicans REALLY believe it was Antifa behind the violence, why have they blocked a bipartisan commission to investigate the events leading up to and including January 6? I am sure they'd LOVE to expose the Antifa scum and be able to back up their case with any emails or texts they may have exchanged amongst themselves while planning the riot. Right? Right????
Wrong. For some reason I'm guessing they don't really believe that the thug who smashed in the window in this next video is part of Antifa.
And they would be right. The guy smashing in the window isn't Antifa. He is actually Proud Boy Dominic Pezzola. Pezzola is now trying to avoid a lengthy jail sentence by saying that Trump inspired him to take action.
And I doubt the Back-the-Blue insurrectionist deniers want you to watch these peaceful Trump supporters and the respectful way they treated the police.
But perhaps most of all, those who deny that there was an attempted insurrection REALLY don't want you to see the angry mob shouting, "HANG MIKE PENCE! HANG MIKE PENCE".
And who can forget Richard "Bigo" Barnett. He was the guy who propped his feet up on Nancy Pelosi's desk and left a note saying, “Nancy, Bigo was here, you bitch” And here's a fun fact the insurrectionist deniers won't mention: Bigo was carrying a ZAP Hike N Strike 950,000 Volt Stun Gun Walking Stick. I'm sure he was carrying this stun gun for a perfectly peaceful reason. I'm not sure what that reason was, but if I found out I'd bet it would be quite shocking.
Oh, and look at the Trump-loving Oath Keepers in this next video. They don't look like tourists to me. But they are quite the fashion plates. I guess you could say they were dressed to kill.
And here's something strange--something you don't see often amongst tourists. It seems there was an alliance between the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers to shut something down. And in late December, Oath Keeper Kelly Meggs allegedly posted that there would be an insurrection on January 6th.
Now THAT's inconvenient for those who want us to believe there was no insurrection. OOPS! Of course, it's always possible that this was a typo. Maybe Meggs was planning on going to an orgy at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and was going to pack Viagra to ensure erection.
Perhaps there is an innocent explanation for the Oath Keepers' behavior. They could have been dressed the way they were for defensive purposes. They reportedly were hoping that Antifa would attack them in the Capitol and had stationed other Oath Keepers nearby with weapons ready to rush in should this happen. Apparently, they planned to use this hoped for clash to give Donald Trump the excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act and prevent the counting of the electoral college votes. But those dirty Antifa commies spoiled their plans by not doing what they were expected to do. Why the Oath Keepers expected Antifa would do anything that could jeopardize the final step in sealing Biden's presidency is unclear.
If you are observant, you will note an apparent contradiction in what I have written. I hinted that the Proud Boys/Oath Keepers wanted to kidnap or kill Mike Pence and Democratic members of Congress in order to halt the vote counting. I also said it looks like the Oath Keepers were hoping for a fight with Antifa to give Trump the excuse to invoke the Insurrection act. If they wanted Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act, why would they attempt to kill Mike Pence and Democratic members of Congress? Perhaps one was plan A and the other was backup plan B. Perhaps those in the crowd who were chanting "Hang Mike Pence!" were not really Proud Boys or Oath Keepers. It is possible that some members of the mob didn't know what others in the mob were doing. All that we can really say is that this is a question worthy of a bipartisan investigation.
And that's not the most important thing worthy of investigation. Was there any coordination between the Proud Boys/Oath Keepers and the White House or people close to Trump? There are tantalizing suggestions that there may have been. On Dec. 12, 2020, Proud Boy leader Enrique Tarrio hinted on Parler that he was at the White House at the invitation of someone. Who? We don’t know.
Here’s a Parler post from Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio pic.twitter.com/1yaRcnwSog
— Chris Megerian (@ChrisMegerian) December 12, 2020
However, a spokesperson at the White House denied that Tarrio had been invited there. So who’s lying? Remember, Trump told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” during his debate with Biden.
Roger Stone’s close relationship with the Proud Boys is well documented. What was he doing hanging out with them at a demonstration the night before the December 12th "Stop the Steal" rally in Washington D.C? And what was he telling the Oath Keepers when he was with them on January 6th, just hours before the insurrection? (Fun fact: Roger Stone had set up a "Stop the Steal" website in 2016 which suggested that Ted Cruz may have won by voter fraud after Cruz had beaten Trump in in the Utah primary. He later used this site to predict that Hillary Clinton would steal the election through voter fraud. This proves that the Stop-the-Steal movement is not a recent organic grassroots movement. It is Trump's modus operandi and Trump would have accused ANYONE who had beaten him in ANY election, whether he had any facts to back it up or not.)
Here is a video of Ali Alexander, a Stop-the-Steal organizer, saying that he and Republican Representatives Andy Biggs, Mo Brooks, and Paul Gosar had developed a plan to put maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting to accept the results of the electoral college. What did he mean by "maximum pressure"? And what did he mean when he said, "we could change the hearts and the minds of Republicans who were in that body hearing our loud war cries from outside"?
And speaking of Paul Gosar, who is Gosar waving to in the crowd at the insurrection? (Gosar appears at 19:38 in the video.)
All of this SCREAMS for a bipartisan investigation--an investigation that the Republicans refuse to have. Why did they block it? Probably for the same reason the Mafia would have blocked the formation of the FBI had they had opportunity to do so.
Update: 7/5/2021: The New York Times produced a 40 minute video that PROVES beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was Trumpanzees who were behind the insurrection, and not Antifa or Black Lives Matter as some conservatives like to claim. I HIGHLY recommend watching this.
At around 1:53 Jason Miller says, " Everyone's going to remember who stands in the breach and fights tomorrow, and who goes running off like a chicken."
Donald Trump incited the mob. Donald Trump told the mob that he would march down to the Capitol with them. Then Donald Trump ran off like a chicken.
Update 7/24/21: When I first wrote this article, I made a big deal of the fact that the insurrectionists brought a gallows which they could use to hang Mike Pence. This, in conjunction with some in the mob chanting, "Hang Mike Pence," provided powerful evidence that Pence was in imminent danger of being hung. It turns out that the gallows was symbolic and not a fully functional unit that could have been used to hang anyone. This somewhat weakens my claim that the insurrectionists were going to hang Pence. It does not change the fact that some of them were yelling, "Hang Mike Pence." Or that Reuters picture editor, Jim Bourg, tweeted that he heard insurrectionists say that they wanted to execute Pence.
I heard at least 3 different rioters at the Capitol say that they hoped to find Vice President Mike Pence and execute him by hanging him from a Capitol Hill tree as a traitor. It was a common line being repeated. Many more were just talking about how the VP should be executed. https://t.co/fxHREouEWF
— Jim Bourg (@jimbourg) January 8, 2021
I have removed all references to the gallows in this article since it was only symbolic of the hatred of at least some in the crowd and could not have been used to hang anyone. I have also swapped out a video of the crowd chanting "Hang Mike Pence" with another video where the chant can be heard more clearly.
I don't want you to leave feeling that you were short changed since I removed references to the gallows. Therefore, I present to you the following video of Elizabeth from Knoxville Tennessee who said she was storming the Capitol because it was a revolution.
Of course, it is possible that most of those on the Capitol did not think they were taking part in an insurrection. Many may have believed they were taking part in a good old-fashioned protest that turned into a riot. It is impossible to know what the majority of those at the Capitol thought at the time. However, it IS safe to say that Elizabeth from Knoxville was not the only one who believed she was participating in an insurrection. Michael Bender, author of “Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost", was interviewing Trump supporters on Capitol Hill on January 6. Saundra Kiczenski didn't make it into the Capitol building, but she was right outside the building when she told Bender,
It just looked so neat,” she said. “We weren’t there to steal things. We weren’t there to do damage. We were just there to overthrow the government.