Felony Murder and Gen. Rene Schneider
By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | January 14, 2021
Some legal experts are speculating about the possibility that people who participated in the January 6 Capitol melee could be charged with murdering Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick, even though they did not participate in his killing. The felony-murder rule holds that if a person is involved in the commission of a felony in a conspiracy with others, he can be charged with murder even though others in the conspiracy did the killing.
When I read that, I immediately thought about the kidnapping and murder of Chilean General Rene Schneider, who was killed in 1970. In fact, it’s interesting that while the members of Congress and the mainstream press express shock and outrage over recent events in the Capitol, they have long been non-plussed by the shocking and outrageous violence that U.S. government officials instigated and in which they participated in 1970.
Schneider was the overall commander of Chile’s armed forces. He was a man of deep integrity, had a family, and believed that it was the duty of the military to support and defend the constitution of the country.
In the 1970 presidential election, the Chilean people delivered a plurality of votes to a man named Salvador Allende, who U.S. officials reviled because he was a socialist. Like President Kennedy ten years before, Allende was interested in establishing friendly relations with the communist world, including the Soviet Union and Cuba, two official Cold War enemies of the U.S. national-security establishment. Keep in mind that in 1970, the Cold War was still continuing and that the communists were defeating U.S. military and CIA forces in the Vietnam War.
U.S. officials determined that Allende posed a grave threat to “national security” — not only the “national security” of the United States but also the “national security” of Chile. They decided to prevent his accession to the presidency, either through bribes to the Chilean congress or through a U.S.-supported coup that would install a right-wing military dictatorship in the country.
There was one big obstacle to a coup: Gen. Rene Schneider.
The Chilean constitution provided for only two ways to remove a duly elected president from office: by impeachment (and conviction) or through the next election. The Chilean constitution did not provide for a coup as a third way to remove a president from office.
The Chilean congress had been unable to secure enough votes to remove Allende from office through impeachment. That left the next election, which would have meant that Allende would stay in office for the next 6 years.
Schneider’s position was very simple: Since the Constitution did not provide for a coup to remove the president, the military could not act to remove him.
The U.S. national-security establishment’s position was different: While it too favored supporting and defending the U.S. Constitution, it held that there was an implicit exception to the rule, which was: Whenever a country’s president is determined to be a grave threat to the “national security” of his own country, it becomes the the moral duty of the national-security establishment to protect “national security” by removing the president from office. (As I point out in an upcoming article in FFF’s monthly journal Future of Freedom, this mindset has clear ramifications in the Kennedy assassination, which occurred ten years prior to Allende’s election.)
In order to achieve the coup, it was necessary to remove Schneider as an obstacle. Thus, U.S. officials within the CIA and other parts of the U.S. government entered into a conspiracy to kidnap Schneider.
Now, before a go further, I know what some of you are thinking: “Conspiracy theory, Jacob! Conspiracy theory! There is no way that officials of the U.S. government would ever conspire to violently kidnap an innocent man! It’s outrageous that you would even suggest such a thing about our government!”
But the fact is that that this conspiracy did in fact occur, notwithstanding the fervent mindset that some might have to deny its existence. The CIA secretly hired the kidnappers, paid them money, including hush money after the fact, and even smuggled high-powered weapons into the country, which they gave to their Chilean co-conspirators.
When the kidnappers attempted to kidnap Schneider on the streets of Santiago, he was armed and fought back. The kidnappers shot him and Schneider died three days later from his wounds.
The CIA claimed that it never intended to murder Schneider. It said that it just wanted to kidnap him. However, that claim has the word “lie” written all over it. After all, what could they have done with him after kidnapping him? They couldn’t return him, given that would have restored him as the obstacle to the coup. Moreover, if they returned him, he might have been able to lead law-enforcement personnel to the kidnappers and ultimately to the CIA. Thus, it is a virtual certainty that Schneider would have been killed by one of the kidnappers and that the CIA would have dutifully expressed shock.
Nonetheless, enter the felony-murder rule. Kidnapping is a felony. So is conspiracy to kidnap. Under the felony-murder rule, the U.S. conspirators were as responsible for Schneider’s murders as the actual killers.
The CIA and other U.S. officials who participated in the conspiracy tried desperately to keep their involvement in the conspiracy secret. People who suspected their complicity in the plot were undoubtedly labeled “conspiracy theorists.” But investigators in the private sector kept pushing and ultimately the truth came out: The CIA and other U.S. officials had participated in a felony, with the conspiracy taking place in both Virginia and Washington, D.C.
Nonetheless, the Justice Department has never charged any of the conspirators with kidnapping or murder or conspiracy to commit kidnapping and murder. Keep in mind that there is no statute of limitations for murder. But even if a federal grand jury were to return a criminal indictment, it is a virtual certainty that the federal judiciary would immediately dismiss it on grounds of “national security.”
It’s probably worth mentioning that when the family of Rene Schneider sued in federal district court for Schneider’s wrongful death, the federal courts threw them out on their ears, without even permitting them to take depositions that could have determined the full extent of the conspiracy. When it comes to extraordinary measures to protect “national security,” including kidnapping and assassination, secrecy in a national-security state is always paramount.
But that’s the nature of any national-security state: omnipotent power to inflict violence on innocent people with immunity and impunity, even while decrying violence committed by others.
Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics. In 1987, Mr. Hornberger left the practice of law to become director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education.
Trump Impeached Again, Nearly Half the Country Opposed
By Stephen Lendman | January 14, 2021
There’s no ambiguity about Trump’s legion of supporters.
On average, polls show that nearly half of voting-age Americans oppose impeaching Trump and removing him from office.
Yet Wednesday on the House floor, lynch mob “justice” triumphed over the rule of law.
Trump became the first US president impeached twice.
Both times were for politicized reasons with no legitimacy — Wednesday’s process largely along party lines.
Ten Republicans joined with 222 undemocratic Dems.
One article of impeachment falsely accused Trump of “willfully inciting violence against the government of the United States.”
His public remarks and tweets did nothing of the sort. He urged nonviolence on January 6, not the other way around.
Once again on Wednesday from the White House, Trump denounced week ago Capitol Hill violence, urging calm.
The die was cast. Dems out for blood and their establishment media, press agents have been going all-out to deny Trump a second term — along with wanting him defrocked, humiliated, and prevented from holding public office ahead for the wrong reasons, not legitimate ones.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said that the article of impeachment will be sent to the Senate straightaway.
Separately, he turned reality on its head by the following Big Lie on national television, saying:
“The timing was thrust upon us by the actions of the president of the United States (sic).”
“The fact that he is leaving should not divert us from holding accountable behavior which many of us believe is treasonous behavior and criminal behavior (sic).”
At earliest, Senate trial won’t begin until January 19 as things now stand — two days before Trump’s tenure ends.
A two-thirds super-majority is needed for conviction, a high bar to cross, what never happened before in US history.
Will Trump be the US president to be removed from office following impeachment?
If not, will he be convicted by a Senate super-majority post-tenure?
What’s unthinkable based on the fabricated charge of inciting insurrection is unlikely but possible.
That’s the depth to which the state of the nation sank, greater depths likely ahead.
The rule of law died long ago in Washington.
9/11 added an exclamation point.
Made-in-the-USA covid (that’s renamed seasonal flu) and orchestrated Main Street economic collapse last year, continuing with no end of it in prospect, added two more.
Orchestrated by anti-Trump dark forces, last week’s Capitol Hill coup attempt added another.
In response to Trump’s politicized impeachment 2.0, Law Professor Jonathan Turley said the following:
Wednesday’s “snap” impeachment of Trump “dispense(d) with the traditional hearing or inquiry of impeachment.”
“There was no opportunity to debate the language or the implications of the language.”
“(T)he rush to judgment could become a parade of constitutional horribles.”
It’s “ripe for challenge on the Senate floor and even later in the federal courts.”
Impeachment “language… is sweeping and raises serious concerns of this standard for future presidents.”
Trump’s remarks did not rise to the level of “criminal incitement…”
“(T)he Senate should reject the impeachment if on the basis that an impeachment of a former president is unwarranted and likely unconstitutional.”
It’s based on invented reasons, not legitimate ones.
Turley is a sharp Trump critic as am I — for justifiable reasons, not phony ones to satisfy vengeful Dems.
Impeaching Trump twice for politicized reasons — along with seeking lynch mob “justice” against him throughout his tenure — proves conclusively that Dems are self-serving and unfit to lead the nation.
Their involvement in staging a Capitol Hill coup attempt against a sitting president left the state of the nation and rule of law in tatters.
Post-inauguration of unelected Biden/Harris next week, will they declare martial law?
Will tyranny follow on their watch?
A pox on both right wings of the one-party state.
On her website, Sharyl Attkisson posted results of what she called “a recent unscientific poll of more than 640 people,” adding:
“When asked if they generally trust (US) election integrity, 70% said ‘Absolutely no’ and 19% said ‘More no than yes’ for a total of 89% expressing skepticism.”
“Another 6% said they tend to trust election integrity: 2% said ‘Absolutely yes’ and 4% said ‘More yes than no.’ ”
Along with earlier stolen US federal elections since the early 19th century, media-supported Election 2020 theft may have been most brazen of all.
Events post-election, leading up to last week’s orchestrated Capitol Hill coup attempt, Wednesday’s impeachment, and what may follow are proof positive of a nation dismissive of the rule of law.
It’s on a fast track to full-blown tyranny if not challenged by nonviolent mass action in the streets before it’s too late.
Stephen Lendman’s two Wall Street books are timely reading:
How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion, and Class War
Alert: the operation to squash protests in America – PART ONE
By Jon Rappoport | January 14, 2021
The Department of Justice has announced it’s mounting a full-scale operation to arrest and charge people who broke into the Capitol on January 6.
There will be a wide-ranging menu of charges, starting with criminal trespass, and moving all the way to weapons possession, theft of National Security data, assault, and sedition.
The DOJ list of charges is meant to impress the American people.
Of course, an impressive DOJ list could have been leveled against thousands of people who participated in Antifa/BLM-led burning, looting, theft, and assault across the US over the past six months.
But that didn’t happen.
Those violent riots were a form of “insurrection,” but the label was never applied.
And Big Tech never considered banning social media users who planned and supported the riots.
From here on out, people will need to announce quite specifically what they’re protesting against. I’m talking, of course, about protests against the brutal COVID lockdowns.
Because you can be sure the government/media complex will paint such people with the “Capitol-break-in” brush. That’s part of this operation to squash dissent.
On a related note, social media are censoring users, and news media are censoring their own talent, if the issue of the stolen election continues to be raised. However, there is no expiration date on accusations of vote fraud.
Remember, after Trump won the 2016 election, Democrats spent the next three years claiming he didn’t win, but instead was part of a Russian conspiracy that handed him the presidency. Who was censored for saying THAT?
Back to the protests: As I’ve mentioned in prior articles, equating distinct events, and thus turning them into “the same event,” is part and parcel of mind control.
A hundred bereft business owners, who have been driven into bankruptcy by the COVID lockdowns, gathering near a governor’s office to protest, will be equated with “crazy dangerous Trumpers who believe the election was stolen.”
This is no accident. It’s standard operating procedure in the world of intelligence-agency campaigns.
If the CIA wants to maintain a foreign dictator in office, because he makes favorable deals with mega-corporations to loot and plunder his country, they’ll spread vast disinformation about the rebels who want free elections:
“The rebel force threatening to unseat the president is led by the cult of child-killers who have been ravaging families in the countryside…”
Closer to home, imagine something like this: “The group called Citizens for a Free Nation, who showed up at the governors’ mansion last week to protest COVID safety measures, is largely composed of unhinged anti-vaxxers and Trump supporters, some of whom may have attended the January 6 rally at the Capitol, which resulted in an act of insurrection. Police and FBI are investigating…”
Behind it all? A determination to suppress resistance to the COVID lockdowns, aka mass imprisonments.
The Police State knows the months of lockdowns and economic destruction have driven more and more people to the wall. The US population is a dry tinder forest in a season of high heat and no rain.
Controlling the population is a major problem. So those who stand up and visibly break out of jail have to be made into despicable illustrations of Something Else.
What label is at hand? By mere coincidence: INSURRECTIONISTS, “who broke into the Capitol on January 6, the day that will live in infamy.”
That label can now be applied anywhere. It’s a major item on the game board of intelligence-agency operations. When dissenting heads pop up, paint them with it.
Nevertheless, protests are still legal and legitimate. People who run them need to articulate what they’re about, over and over, in very clear fashion.
Americans, who’ve lived with more freedom and security than people in other parts of the world, tend to think their government, when it muscles in, signifies The End and Total Defeat.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Freedom never dies.
It is an eternal quality.
Biden Exploits His Capitol Gains
By Diana Johnstone | Consortiumnews | January 11, 2021
What happened in the Capitol on Jan. 6 was not surprising. It could have been avoided. It could have been prevented if the Democratic Establishment which held onto keys of power throughout Trump’s mandate had truly wanted a smooth presidential transition. For months prior to the election, the elite Transition Integrity Project was spreading the alarm, loudly echoed by liberal media, that Trump would lose and refuse to acknowledge his loss.
There was a simple, obvious way to avoid such a drama. In an article for Consortium News last August, I suggested how this could be done.
“It seems to me that if the Democratic establishment gave priority to a peaceful election and transition, against the possibility that Trump might reject the results, the smart and reasonable thing to do would be to reassure him on the two counts which they suggest might incite him to balk: postal vote fraud accusations and the threat of criminal charges against him. […]
As for postal balloting, it should be conceivable that Trump’s misgivings are justified. […] In an age when anyone can photocopy any document, when mails are slow and when there are many ways in which ballots might be destroyed, such misgivings are not far-fetched. […]
For the sake of domestic peace, why not try to find a compromise? Kamala Harris has introduced legislation to generalize postal balloting. Why not, instead, extend polling time, opening polls not only on the second Tuesday in November but on the preceding Saturday and Sunday? This would provide time to allow voters afraid of Covid-19 to keep distances from each other, as they do when they go to the supermarket. It would reduce the number of absentee ballots, the time needed for counting and above all the suspicions attached to postal voting. But the more wary Trump is of postal voting, the more Democrats insist on making it universal.
It becomes clearer and clearer that hatred of Trump has reached such a pitch, that for the Democratic establishment and its hangers-on, defeating Trump at the polls is not enough. They are practically inciting him to contest the election. Then they can have something more exciting and decisive: a genuine regime change.”
So indeed what we got was something more exciting. Not exactly regime change, because we are seeing instead a powerful reaffirmation of the regime that was really still there during Trump’s largely deformed four-year term. The haste with which his aides and allies desert him in his last hour makes this clear. He was always a president without a team, operating on hunches, rhetoric and advice from his son-in-law and a few insiders who were really outsiders.
But what we are getting is indeed exciting: an alleged “insurrection” supposedly incited by Trump to “steal the election” (which it had absolutely no way of doing). The scenes of disorder have been instantly exploited to plunge him and his followers into an abyss of ignominy, if not criminal proceedings and imprisonment.
More Like Otpor
What happened on Jan. 6 was not an insurrection. Anyone wanting to know what an insurrection is should look up the U.S.-sponsored armed uprising that overthrew duly elected Chilean President Salvador Allende on Sept. 11, 1973. The Capitol disturbance was more like what happened when U.S.-trained “Otpor” militants broke into the Serbian parliament in the midst of that country’s 2000 presidential election and set fire to ballot boxes.
Or check out a particularly pertinent insurrection when truly violent demonstrators took over the Ukrainian Parliament in 2014 and overthrew the government, an event hailed by then U.S. Vice President Joe Biden as a great victory for democracy. Then there was the Hillary-endorsed coup in Honduras, the almost successful attempt to overthrow democracy in Bolivia, the U.S.-backed Guaido farce in Venezuela, etc., etc., etc.
No, an insurrection is not when a large crowd of people who feel their candidate has been cheated vent their indignation by managing to break into “their” parliament with no purpose in mind. Most of the intruders milled about taking selfies with no clear idea what to do next. By world standards, the “violence” on Jan. 6 was very mild indeed, the only gun violence being the fatal shooting of an unarmed Trump enthusiast, Ashli Babbitt, who could easily have been pushed back from her adventurous attempt to climb over a barricade.
The intrusion was so far from carrying out a pro-Trump plan that it had the opposite effect. The immediate political result of the eruption of the undisciplined crowd was to prevent Republican Senators who were so inclined from presenting their arguments against the legitimacy of the November vote. If anything, the action worked in the favor of President-elect Biden.
One might think that in his moment of victory, a true statesman would demonstrate the qualities it takes to lead a nation by offering to bring all people together as fellow Americans. He did quite the opposite.
The very next day after the Capitol happening, in his small fiscal haven home state of Delaware, Biden raged against his opponents as a terrorist mob, no less.
“They weren’t protestors,” he proclaimed. “Don’t dare call them protesters. They were a riotous mob. Insurrectionists. Domestic terrorists. It’s that basic. It’s that simple.”
Trump, said Biden, “has unleashed an all-out assault on our institutions of democracy from the outset, and yesterday was but the culmination of that unrelenting attack.” Trump had poisoned the political environment by using “language that autocrats and dictators use all over the world to hold on to power.”
Biden’s own language certainly sounded less like a magnanimous winner uniting his people than like that used by autocrats and dictators to hold onto power. Trump was trying to “deny the will of the American people,” he said, much as Trump said of him. The whole problem was that “the will of the American people” was far from unanimous.
The Authoritarian Center
So even before his inauguration, President-elect Biden has given us a bitter taste of days ahead. There is to be no sacred unity, but deepened division between The Good (woke liberals), the Bad (Russians and other enemies of Our Democracy) and the Ugly Americans, to be labeled Domestic Terrorists, White Supremacists and fascists.
The authoritarian center, ranging from opportunistic Republicans to The Squad, can rally around the necessary purge of Domestic Terrorists, silencing their communications and getting them properly fired from their jobs.
The Establishment has long been determined to crush Trump. But there is talk of “purging” all his followers as well. Biden is already speaking like a War President, calling for measures to combat the internal enemy such as accompany major wars.
The oligarchic nature of the American War Party is revealed by the haste with which privately owned social media enterprises silence dissent – even the still acting President of the United States. Indeed, who really rules the United States? Is the president only an agent of economic powers whose role is to serve their interests? And the trouble with Trump is that he had not been picked for the job.
Trump managed to appeal to millions of discontented Americans without offering any coherent practical program to replace the War Party with policies capable of transforming the nation into a haven of peace and prosperity. His confusion mirrored the ideological confusion of a population scandalously undereducated in history and political ideas. The illusion that Trump was the leader dissident Americans needed cost Ashli Babbit her life and led thousands of Trump voters into what amounts to a trap. Trump himself was led into the trap.
A completely different approach to politics is needed to restore democracy to America. All appeals to identities and ideologies can only deepen the confusion and divisions, because they prevent people from understanding each other.
The Biden administration appears intent on strengthening such confusion and divisions precisely by recourse to identities and ideologies. I firmly believe that only a scrupulously rational, open-minded, factual and pragmatic approach to clearly defined practical problems could bring peace to the United States, a peace that could favor peace in the world.
From outside the melee, it is easy to define the serious issues that should dominate political debate in the United States. But instead of that, we hear a torrential exchange of insults. The establishment elite cannot stoop to exchange viewpoints with populists denounced as deplorable, racist, misogynist, white supremacist, fascist and now even “terrorist.”
The populists’ unfocused denunciation of the elite describes Wall Street Democrats as “socialists” and veers off into accusations of genocidal vaccination campaigns, occult pedophile rites and Satanism. Instead of anything resembling a clear political division, America is increasingly split by blind, burning mutual hatred.
What American political life needs is not more censorship, but the self-censorship of reason. That is very far away.
‘Modern-day book burners’: Portland bookstore forced to evacuate after protesters demand it pulls book critical of Antifa
RT | January 13, 2021
Powell’s City of Books in Portland, one of the world’s largest independent bookstores, had to evacuate repeatedly after it was besieged by protesters enraged over its plans to sell a book claiming Antifa is “destroying democracy.”
A crowd of protesters flocked to the store on Monday to denounce its decision to distribute a book by a local author, conservative journalist Andy Ngo, known for documenting and highlighting instances of violence associated with Antifa on social media. The owners were forced to evacuate employees and customers out the back door. Later that day, the store announced it would not be putting the book on the shelves, but that it would remain in its online catalogue, along with many books that Powell’s itself deems “abhorrent.”
“While we understand that our decision to carry such books upsets some customers and staff members, we do not want to create an echo chamber of preapproved voices and ideas,” the company said.
However, that concession apparently failed to placate all of the protesters, as a smaller crowd was back at the store the next day, chanting slogans and vowing to force the store out of business if it failed to exercise self-censorship.
“You will lose money every day. Every day that you sell his book, we will shut down this store,” protesters could be heard shouting in footage circulating online.
Powell’s was forced to close early and evacuate customers on Tuesday as well.
Set for release in February, the book – titled ‘Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy’ – chronicles Antifa’s history of violence and its “radical plan to destroy democracy.” It is touted as an in-depth study of the origins and the history of the left-wing movement that features accounts by former supporters, as well as those who fell victim to its violence. The book is said to contain “a trove of documents obtained by the author that he will publish for the first time,” according to Amazon’s description of the tome.
While some critics of the book and the store itself have accused Powell’s of giving a platform to “fascists and racists,” others argued that Ngo had endangered protesters by exposing them, insisting that freedom of speech doesn’t protect the book since it could “incite actions that would harm others.”
Ngo’s supporters, on the other hand, decried the efforts to block the book’s distribution, calling the protesters “modern-day book burners.”
“There are few acts of censorship as overt as a mob deciding which books people should be allowed to read,” wrote author and Reason journalist Robby Soave.
Ngo, who is Asian, came to increased prominence after he was attacked by a mob of Antifa protesters while covering a rally in 2019.
Why Does the US Department of Justice Want to Worsen the Split in the US Population?
By Paul Craig Roberts | Institute for Political Economy | January 13, 2021
The initial charges against those few who entered the Capitol during the Trump rally were “entering a restricted building without permission and engaging in disorderly conduct while inside.” This charge does not carry sufficient punishment for the kind of example the Establishment intends to make of Trump supporters.
Michael Sherwin, the acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, sees a chance for his 15 minutes of fame. He announced in a press conference that he has built a team of national security attorneys to create sedition and conspiracy charges against Trump “rioters who stormed the Capitol.”
Note that excessive language accompanies excessive charges. Whether those who got into the Capitol were let in or broke in, there was no “storming,” and certainly no conspiracy to commit sedition. Sherwin says that he is “treating this just like a significant international counterterrorism or counterintelligence operation.”
Even the videos shown on anti-Trump news sites, such as The Hill, show the “insurrectionists” in the Capitol walking peacefully and keeping within the roped lane. How is this violent insurrection? There are videos making the rounds that show Trump supporters restraining a man who is trying to break a window in the Capitol. It is clear that the Trump supporters regard the person as an Antifa member.
In any demonstration there will be nutcases and provocateurs. To define a peaceful demonstration by the acts of a few is dishonest. Remember, the presstitutes repeatedly called the Antifa and Black Lives Matter riots that looted and burned business areas of Minneapolis, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, Atlanta and other cities “peaceful protests.” When the presstitutes had to acknowledge that there was violence, they blamed it on Trump supporters or white supremacists who had allegedly infiltrated the peaceful protests.
Infiltration does seem to have happened to Trump supporters at the Capitol. According to a report by a person present at the Capitol to film the event that was sent to Professor Mark Crispin Miller at New York University, agitators suddenly appeared with bull horns and provoked Trump supporters to rush up the steps at the back of the Capitol. The relatively few who entered the Capitol apparently entered from the front. Some reports say they were allowed in. Here is the account of the cameraman that I reported on January 7:
“I was in Washington, D.C. today filming the Trump rally and related events. I also ran across your post concerning the Capitol demonstration tonight. Perhaps this short account will help you assess what others are saying in a small way.
“I was also at the Capitol before the crowd appeared setting-up my camera on a stone wall around the perimeter of the back of the capitol (the rear facing Constitution Avenue). Then I waited for President Trump’s speech to end and for supporters to walk-up Constitution Avenue to the Capitol. I was located at the precise location where supporters first rushed up the slope towards the back of the Capitol after casting aside a section of the first Capitol perimeter barrier. Supporters gathered roughly at the center of the back of the capitol, but a circle began to grow around the perimeter as the crowd grew larger. I had no sense that the growing crowd intended to rush the Capitol.
“After a large crowd emerged at the perimeter a man in perhaps his late 30’s or early 40’s showed-up, pacing quickly to his left then to his right before the crowd, and essentially began hurling insults at the crowd challenging their political wisdom. He excoriated the crowd for thinking that their attendance would be taken seriously by members of congress. (Hard to say that he was wrong about that, whoever he was). I cannot recall his precise words, but for a very short period he engaged in a shouting exchange with supporters, and suddenly supporters pushed aside the first barrier and rushed towards the back of the Capitol. Others on the northern edge of the perimeter followed suit. But the first rush was right at the center of the back of the Capitol. I followed the rush to the bottom of the Capitol back steps, and began filming again from atop an inner perimeter stone wall.
“The police, so it appeared, were a little surprised by the rush, and this gave supporters an opportunity to race up the steps. One or two men even made it as far as the steps leading up to the scaffolds on the south side of the Capitol before police arrested them. By this time, five or ten men had climbed to the top of the tall steel tower structure facing the Capitol. Then the police erected and lined-up behind a new barrier perimeter at the foot of the Capitol steps. Police at the top of the Capitol steps aimed rifles down on the crowd (perhaps rubber bullet rifles, I could not tell). The crowd began arguing with police and pressing hard against the new barrier. The police sprayed men pressing directly against the barrier with tear gas from time to time causing them to retreat. “Meanwhile, the men at the top of the tower began rallying the crowd to challenge the new barrier (over bull horns) by filling any gaps between the barrier and the stone wall that I was using as a filming vantage point. Another man worked the crowd with a bull horn immediately in front of me and also encouraged supporters to climb over the inner perimeter stone wall (my filming vantage point) and create a wall of pressure on the new barrier at the bottom of the Capitol back steps.
“After about 30 minutes to an hour I dropped to the bottom of the stone wall to reload my camera when suddenly the barrier gave way and police attempted to fortify it by blasting tear gas into the area between the stone wall and the barrier. I was hit by the gas myself and struggled back over the stone wall in order to breathe. The gas threw many crowd members into a panic. And I was nearly trampled as I struggled to lift my camera and heavy gear bag over the wall after two women began pulling desperately on the back of my coat to pull themselves up and over the moderately high wall in retreat.
“After the second perimeter barrier gave way, the men with the bull horns began working the crowd very hard to fill-up with Trump supporters the steps of the Capitol and the scaffolding on both sides of it. At this point one of the calls, which the men with bull horns repeated from time to time in order to encourage people to climb the Capitol steps was “this is not a rally; it’s the real thing.” Another frequent call was “its now or never.” After about a two hour effort peppered with bull horn calls of this nature the entire back of the Capitol was filled with Trump supporters and the entire face of the Capitol was covered with brilliant small and very large Trump banners, American flags, and various other types of flags and banners.
“Sometime after the rush on the back of the Capitol, people were apparently able to enter the Capitol itself through the front. But I was not witness to anything at the front or inside the Capitol.
“One clearly bona fide Trump supporter who had apparently entered the Capitol himself was telling others emotionally and angrily (including press representatives of some sort, even a foreign newsman) that he witnessed someone inside the Capitol encouraging violence whom he strongly suspected was not a legitimate Trump supporter (apparently on the basis that the man showed no signs at all of Trump support on his apparel). I did not pay that close attention to his claims (for example the precise claim of the violence encouraged) because, naturally, I had not yet read your post and it had not occurred to me that professional outsiders might play a role in instigating particular violent acts in order to discredit the event.
“I overheard one Trump supporter (who followed the rush on the Capitol himself) say aloud, “I brought many others to this rally, but we did not sign on for this” as he watched matters escalate.
“Still, from my seat, I would say that large numbers of very legitimate Trump supporters felt that it was their patriotic duty to occupy the Capitol in light of their unshakable beliefs that (1) the 2020 election was a fraud, (2) that the vast majority of the members of congress are corrupt and compromised, and (3) that the country is in the throes of what they consider a “communist” takeover (although many use the expression “communism” as a synonym for “totalitarianism”). They are also convinced that the virus narrative is a fraud and an essential part of an effort to undermine the Constitution –in particular the Bill of Rights. They have a very real fear that the country and the very conception of any culture of liberty is on the verge of an irreparable collapse. For most (if not a very large majority) rushing the Capitol was a desperate eleventh hour act of partiotism –even of the order of the revolution that created our nation. Some Trump supporters sang the Star Spangled Banner and other patriotic songs as others climbed the Capitol steps. They also demonstrated a measure of respect for the Capitol itself. I saw no attempt by anyone to deface the Capitol simply for the sake of defacing it.
“The incontrovertibly compromised press has called this event a riot. But from what I saw and heard this would indeed be a gross and intentionally misleading oversimplification at best. At least from the standpoint of supporters, if their Capitol event was a riot, then so was the Boston Tea Party. It also seems to me that some professional help (very aware of deep sentiments) might have come from somewhere to make sure that the party happened.”
It was a riot and violent and an insurrection, because that is what the Establishment wants it to be. Overstating what happened turns it into a weapon that can be used against Trump and his supporters as Acting US Attorney Michael Sherwin intends to do.
If Sherwin were to conduct a real investigation, he would probably find that the organized plan he is looking for was an Antifa plan or a plan of some Establishment group to use provocateurs to stampede rally attendees into some action that would discredit Trump and the rally. Of course, this is nothing that Sherwin wants to find.
The violent looters who rampaged through American cities have not been held accountable. Yet the US Justice Department is intent on framing people protesting what they believe was a stolen election as “insurrectionists” with a conspiracy of sedition. If Sherwin and the Establishment he serves had any judgment, they would not throw gasoline on a fire unless they want a bigger fire. It seems that a bigger fire is what they do want.
A bigger fire would help the new domestic terrorism bill that criminalizes dissent. Under this bill, those who challenge Establishment explanations could find themselves charged with terrorism. Law is what prosecutors establish it to be. What is terrorism becomes a subjective judgment and is whatever a prosecutor says it is.
There was no insurrection on January 6, which is puzzling in a way. If tens of millions of Americans believe that their democracy is threatened by a stolen election and nothing was being done about it, who would be surprised if there was an insurrection? It seems to me that everyone but the Establishment and its minons would support such an insurrection.
To charge Trump supporters for something that did not happen, while not charging Antifa for what did happen, is the best way to split the population. Why does Michael Sherwin want to splint the American population?
Conservative Commentator Says AIG Canceled His Insurance Over His Social Media Posts
By Paul Joseph Watson | Summit News | January 13, 2021
Conservative commentator and former baseball star Curt Schilling says that AIG canceled his insurance policy over his “social media profile,” a new level of deplatforming not yet seen.
“We will be just fine, but wanted to let Americans know that @AIGinsurance canceled our insurance due to my “Social Media profile,” tweeted Schilling.
“The agent told us it was a decision made by and with their PR department in conjunction with management,” he added.
While innumerable Trump supporters have lost their Twitter and Facebook accounts due to social media censorship and cancel culture, cases of individuals being cut off by banks and other financial services are now growing too.
The purge has gone beyond the realm of simply silencing people on major platforms for their opinions, but punishing them for expressing them by trying to make their lives unlivable.
Numerous respondents pointed out the obvious – that without insurance it’s impossible to mortgage a home or register a vehicle.
However, other leftists applauded the move and said that Schilling deserved it for his support of Trump.
“You’ve definitely earned it,” remarked one.
“I mean… capitalism right? They calculated the risk and decided your premiums weren’t worth the long term exposure?” added another.
What happened to Schilling is yet another chilling example of how Chinese Communist social credit score system is being implemented in America.
In August 2019, the Communist state bragged about how it had prevented 2.5 million “discredited entities” from purchasing plane tickets and 90,000 people from buying high speed train tickets in the month of July alone.
Whatever is Wrong with Mike Morell?
By Steve Brown | Ron Paul Institute | January 7, 2021
Obama – er, Biden – pushed hard for the removal of Syria’s Assad and engineered US destabilization of Syria partly at the behest of Israel in 2011 and 2014 , in part to allow Israel free reign to annex the Jordan Valley and West Bank, in tandem with Israel’s long-standing annexation of the Golan. Yes, the Israeli Nile-to-Euphrates agenda is alive and quite well, not just among Israel’s 3rd templars, but within Biden’s proto-expansionist regime in the DC wings, too. Now, what’s that again about Russia Russia? Biden’s Russia, Russia? There’s just one problem for the Axis of Evil’s plan going forward: Russia’s continued opposition to the US plan in Syria.
Russia likely anticipated the complete destabilization of the Middle East by the US and its Israeli ally by design in 2014, where Takfiri malign infestation of the region not only threatened Europe, but Russia too, with a further militarist threat to Iran and West Asia. Russia stands in the way of that Imperial agenda, and that’s a big deal for Washington’s elite donor class. Russia also provided succor to Ed Snowden, when the DC shark pit would have crucified him alive; just as the same bloodthirsty pack will crucify Julian Assange too should they ever get their bloody incisors into him.
Now, rather than risk world war, the former US regime chose to tread a fine line with Russia in Syria, although outright war was much closer than the public realized or knew at the time. The current shape-of-things-to-come will test that envelope once more, and in a very big way. By definition, the reappearance of war-criminal and dinosaur Madeliene Albright, to re-blight a thoroughly blighted major media proves that intent. Albright’s abysmal record and advanced years have evidently not prevented her from seeking a new term within the putrefying endless expanse of DC’s Neoliberal cesspool.
Lately the voluble Albright has graced the CIA-corporate-led media to tout all subjects great and small, whether the contagion and failed US foreign policy, to the Balkans and somewhat erratic behavior of others. Apparently the non-apologetic self-acknowledged child-killer is safe for the time being for the DC establishment to trot out again — after all these years — and Albright holds her CIA-surveillance state brief well, even at the tidy age of 83.
Along with Albright and other foreign policy wonks littering the Biden-Harris space (Jen Psaki, Sam Power, and Wendy Sherman etc) Mike Morell’s reappearance has been as inspired and imaginative as his call to murder Russians (with Iranians thrown in for good measure, of course). Which apparently posed no problem for the incorporated CIA-run major media at the time; and whether Morell’s twitter account was ever suspended then for publicly threatening violence, remains unknown.
Notably the recent storming of the US bastille on January 6th caused our dear Mike to lament this failed example of democracy-in-action via a televised CBS news interview on that day, Mike posing that such brazen acts could be an inspiration for anti-American propaganda to be exploited by none other than… er, well, ahem… the Russians and RT! When a not-so-incredulous but mainly pandering CBS co-host pressed Mike about how Russia could possibly be running the Proud Boys to storm the capitol?? … our dear Mike back-pedaled a bit to say, well, like always (but never proven) the Russians definitely did hack Hillary in 2016 and cost her the election. Leaving hosts and viewers alike somewhat baffled, but fortunately the CBS ‘analyst’s’ cum CIA guy’s conversation moved on, saving further embarrassment.
If public consciousness were not just a few milliseconds, the irony of media claims that Trump’s allegations about voter fraud are baseless since proof has not yet been provided, would not be lost on the public, when compared to US intelligence claims that Russian collusion in 2015 cost Hillary the election when no proof or evidential record of that has ever been provided, either. But then again, Morell is a former CIA spy guy and CBS anchor, so that’s just how he rolls…
In closing we are left with one final perplexing and inevitable question: which CIA-led news network will pick up Gina Haspel and Mike Pompeo as news analysts going forward? CBS too? And who is the next Clinton-Obama dinosaur and war criminal to re-appear and pollute the new regime in DC?
For certain, we shall see.
Steve is an antiwar activist and a published scholar on the US monetary system.
Twitter: @newsypaperz
Cheerleading Politicized Impeachment
By Stephen Lendman | January 12, 2021
Big media cheerlead preemptive wars, support corporate predation, and are indifferent toward world peace, equity, justice, the rule of law, and well-being of ordinary people.
They’re press agents for wealth, power and privilege, hostile toward governance serving everyone equitably.
What democracy is supposed to be, they scorn, supporting its fantasy version alone that’s none at all.
The NYT is in the vanguard of proliferating deep state-approved propaganda exclusively on major domestic and geopolitical issues, truth-telling on what matters most banned in its editions.
Managed news misinformation and disinformation drowns it out. All the news it claims is fit to read responsible editors wouldn’t touch.
Times editors, columnists, and correspondents demand Trump’s impeachment and removal from office — for unconstitutional reasons, not legitimate ones.
In its latest edition, the Times editorial board in charge of misinformation, disinformation, fake news, and Big Lies featured in daily editions screamed “Impeach Trump Again.”
A litany of bald-faced Big Lies followed — a longstanding Times specialty.
The Times : “Trump’s efforts to remain in office in defiance of democracy (sic) cannot be allowed to go unanswered, lest they invite more lawlessness from this president or those who follow (sic).”
According to Times fake news, impeaching Trump a second time is for use of constitutionally protected speech.
It’s about politicized revenge for defeating media darling Hillary, wanting him removed from office in defiance of the rule of law.
It’s unrelated to protecting democracy in America that exists in fantasy version alone.
The real thing is banned, along with peace, equity, justice, the rule of law, and governance serving all Americans equitably — notions the Times and other Big Media abhor.
The Times : Week ago Capitol Hill violence “was the culmination of a campaign waged by (Trump and his congressional) allies… to overturn the results of a free and fair election (sic).”
There’s nothing “free and open” about irrefutable brazen fraud and election theft — nor wanting the Trump team’s constitutional right to challenge the diabolical scheme denied.
The Times wants hard evidence of election theft suppressed.
It called legitimate Trump team challenges “farcical,” along with defying reality by claiming that “Joe Biden won fairly (sic).”
He lost. Trump won, politicized impeachment underway and possible conviction after returning to private life.
What’s going on plunged a dagger into the heart of an open, free and fair society, along with the rule of law — supported by Big Media instead of condemning it.
Falsely claiming Trump incited Capitol Hill violence last week by the Times and other Big Media is typical of how they proliferate Big Lies and breach the public trust.
So is calling totalitarian police state USA democratic.
Suppressing legitimate reasons to want Trump held accountable, the Times and other Big Media want him crucified for invented ones.
The Times virtually called Trump’s First Amendment right of free expression “a crime so brazen (sic) that it demands the highest form of accountability that the legislature can deliver (sic),” adding:
“(T)here is no other option but to vote to impeach (him) a second time” — no matter how unlawful and unjustifiable.
The Times disgracefully called remarks made by Trump below “the most un-American speech ever uttered by a president (sic),” saying:
“We will stop the steal. States want to revote. The states got defrauded.”
“They were given false information. They voted on it. Now they want to re-certify.”
If ballot counting is accurate instead of manipulated and corrupted in key swing states, “we become president.”
“We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and-women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them.”
“Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”
“We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated.”
“We fight. We fight like hell. If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
Do any of the above remarks and similar ones urge violence? Clearly not!
Do any of Trump’s above remarks and similar ones in tweets warrant impeachment for inciting insurrection?
The answer is self-evident!
What’s going on by Pelosi/Schumer-led undemocratic Dems is an old-fashioned political lynching.
Supported by the Times and other Big Media, it’s flagrantly unconstitutional without a leg to stand on.
Guilt by accusation is the law of the land in the US, Trump’s illegitimate impeachment virtually certain.
The fate of the nation and few remaining freedoms hang in the balance.
America as it once was long ago, warts and all, is long gone.
Totalitarian police state harshness replaced it — heading toward full-blown tyranny, notably by lynch mob injustice against a sitting president that endangers all Americans.
That’s the deplorable state of the nation today.
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TV Drama Review
Japanese drama projects Japan’s wartime atrocities onto Chinese characters
Global Times | October 25, 2026
By portraying Chinese characters as perpetrators of ruthless violence while casting Japanese Self-Defense Forces (SDF) intelligence operatives as defenders, the season 2 of the Japanese drama Vivant has recently drawn criticism from Chinese netizens, who argue that its depiction turns historical reality on its head while ignoring Japan’s wartime atrocities.
The TBS drama series – a spy suspense story in which an alleged unofficial intelligence unit of the SDF operates across the globe — has attracted a passionate fanbase. Its currently airing season 2 opened with a household rating of 18.8 percent, the highest for a TV drama this year, according toa commentary article by Japanese media Toyo Keizai.
What draws attention is the portrayal of the enemies in the series, the article noted. Scenes in which the Chinese organization subjects kidnapped members of the SDF unit to brutal torture are repeated with unrelenting intensity.
It is rare for Japanese TV dramas to explicitly portray a real-life country as the enemy, the article noted.
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi also made a reference to the drama, saying that she has been recording Vivant and hopes to binge-watch it over the year-end and New Year holidays, according to Japanese media outlets.
China’s CCTV News report on Sunday revealed that the drama features scenes in which Chinese personnel cut off the fingers of and stab Japanese intelligence operatives in the abdomen. Such acts bear striking similarities to the torture inflicted on Chinese nationals by invading Japanese troops during the World War II.
The drama distorts the truth by attributing these atrocities to modern Chinese characters. Beneath the surface, it subtly glorifies Japan’s cross-border overseas operations, blurs the functional boundaries of the SDF and implicitly promotes an expansionist narrative, per CCTV News. … continue
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