Wednesday, January 6, 2021

BIDEN'S BANKSTERS FEARFUL OF LOOMING REVOLUTION THAT WILL FIND THEM IN THE GROUND - In other words, the capitalist state has emerged front and centre as the guarantor and facilitator for the looting of society by the financial oligarchy, whose interests it defends.

ALL THESE BANKSTERS KEPT THEIR HEADS AND DID QUITE NICELY UNDER THE BANKSTER REGIME OF LAWYER BARACK OBAMA, LAWYER JOE BIDEN AND LAWYER ERIC HOLDER.

AS ATTORNEY GENERAL OF CALIFORNIA, LAWYER KAMALA HARRIS MADE SURE THAT WELLS FARGO AND 'FORECLOSURE KING' STEVEN MNUCHIN WERE PROTECTED FROM PROSECUTION. BOTH HAVE BEEN VERY GENEROUS TO HARRIS. 

THESE BANKSTER KNOW WHO TO BUY BEFORE THEY START PUMPING IN CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS AND SPEECH FEE BRIBES.

Big Banks on Wall Street Condemn Protesters at U.S. Capitol

Violent protesters, loyal to President Donald Trump, storm the Capitol, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. It's been a stunning day as a number of lawmakers and then the mob of protesters tried to overturn America's presidential election, undercut the nation's democracy and keep Democrat Joe Biden from replacing Trump …
AP Photo/John Minchillo
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The nation’s biggest banks on Wall Street are condemning protesters, who breached the United States Capitol on Wednesday and oppose the certification of the 2020 presidential election results by Congress.

Billionaire and million CEOs of Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and JP Morgan Chase each made statements denouncing protesters who stormed the Capitol building in opposition to Congress certifying election results for President-elect Joe Biden.

“Today’s appalling events in our nation’s capital underscore the urgent need for all Americans to unite behind one of our most cherished principles: the peaceful transfer of power that has happened without interruption since our country’s founding,” Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said in a statement.

“We must move forward together peacefully, respectfully, and with a singular, shared focus on our American ideals,” Moynihan continued. Moynihan is worth an estimated $80 million.

Likewise, Citigroup CEO Michael Corbat, who made $24 million in 2019, said he is “disgusted” with the protesters and said the “scenes are very difficult to watch…”

“I pray this situation can be resolved without further bloodshed,” Corbat said.

JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, worth $1.4 billion, similarly condemned the protesters in a statement.

“I strongly condemn the violence in our nation’s capital. This is not who we are as a people or as a country. We are better than this. Our elected leaders have a responsibility to call for an end to the violence, accept the results, and, as our democracy has for hundreds of years, support the peaceful transition of people,” Dimon said. “Now is the time to come together to strengthen our exceptional union.”

Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon, worth more than $100 million, wrote that “our democracy has built a reservoir of goodwill around the world that brings important benefits for our citizens.”

“Recently, we have squandered that goodwill at an alarming pace, and today’s attack on the U.S. Capitol does further damage,” Solomon continued. “It’s time for all Americans to come together and move forward with a peaceful transition of power. We have to begin reinvesting in our democracy and rebuilding the institutions that have made America an exceptional nation.”

In the 2020 presidential election, Wall Street’s biggest banks spent about $74 million to get Biden elected against President Trump. Since then, Biden has stacked his transition team with big business and Wall Street insiders.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder

In DC, Oligarchy Beats Democracy Every Time

A much higher share of the American public believes that the U.S. government is lying about its knowledge of UFOs than telling the truth about the 2020 presidential election.  How's that for credibility?  

The Big Government–Big Tech–Big Media machine that is invested in removing Donald Trump from office is so confident in its position that it keeps shouting, "There's nothing to see here," and every day, there's more and more to see.  Data scientists with weighty reputations allege that over forty thousand votes for Trump were likely deleted or switched to Biden in Georgia, and they allege that over four hundred thousand votes were removed from Trump in Pennsylvania in addition to the commonwealth's inexplicable reporting of two hundred thousand more ballots cast than people who voted.  In Wisconsin, the state Supreme Court has ruled that two hundred thousand votes were likely illegal but insists that none be purged until each ballot is individually investigated — a remedy that makes it easy to cast a fraudulent vote but quite difficult for Wisconsin to remove it.  These are just a few of the latest examples of 2020's election catastrophe.  

The number of fraudulent votes in play here is huge.  A political class that devotes itself to the religion of science should be overwhelmed by the mathematical evidence for fraud in the 2020 election.  Yet it turns out that even science can be discarded when it proves that Donald Trump won re-election.  Americans are supposed to pretend none of this is real, forget everything they've seen, and accept a Biden presidency as legitimate.  

Meanwhile, former secretaries of defense have begun threatening Trump administration officials for contesting election fraud.  Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have eagerly joined Democrats to condemn Republican lawmakers for having the temerity to acknowledge increasingly clear proof of widespread vote manipulation in battleground states.  And still no courtroom in the country has permitted any election dispute to be heard on the merits (despite the media narrative claiming otherwise).

If truth were on the side of the government cabal "installing" Biden in the White House, wouldn't the installers welcome debate over the election irregularities for the whole country to see?  Wouldn't rigorous examination of data anomalies dispel doubts about 2020?  Why must the same people who insist that Biden won also work so hard to conceal the evidence that he did not?  And if sunlight is still the best disinfectant for corruption, then why are judges, governors, and former defense secretaries all demanding darkness?

Romney, Ryan, and other pro-Biden Republicans are so upset that anybody would dare challenge suspicious election results that they've deemed legislative debate "dangerous for democracy."  If by "democracy" they mean "rule by the people," then it is quite peculiar that we must silence the objections of a hundred million or more American citizens in order to preserve the people's power.  If half the country believes that the 2020 election was filled with so many voting irregularities and so much provable ballot fraud that nothing about it should stand, does respect for democracy demand that millions of Americans keep their mouths shut?  Silencing the American public in order to preserve democracy sounds a lot like amputating a man's head so that his body stays healthy.  Can it really be true that democracy requires elected representatives to ignore the voices of their constituents and to cease representing them?  If so, defending democracy sure is a tricky business!

Likewise, where were all these former secretaries of defense who now insist that fighting election fraud is a threat to democracy when our country was under attack from within these last four years?  They never sounded worried for democracy when it was established that the Intelligence Community and FBI leadership spied on Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.  They never expressed a belief that democracy was at risk when the former director of the CIA lied to the world for years about a Russia collusion hoax and accused President Trump of being a compromised asset of a foreign enemy.  The FBI, the CIA, and politically biased special prosecutors nearly took down a sitting president, and the illustrious defenders of democracy said nary a word.  

To this day, those same paragons of virtue see nothing strange about Joe Biden using his office to collect checks from China and Ukraine, when a less esteemed onlooker might say Biden's family is severely compromised by foreign powers.  Is democracy threatened if the future president is paid directly by communist China?  Apparently not.  Biden's financial quid pro quo with our nation's adversaries didn't bother democracy-lovers in D.C. in the slightest; what bothered them was the possibility that President Trump might effectively expose it before the 2020 election.  They were so concerned about that possibility that fifty of them signed their names to the lie that the Biden family corruption was nothing but Russian disinformation.  For former intelligence and defense officials concerned that the truth about Biden would ruin his presidential bid, the only way to protect democracy was to engage in a campaign of propaganda meant to influence the outcome of America's "free" election.  When foreign nations meddle in our elections with disinformation, we call it an "attack," but when former intelligence chiefs and generals deliberately do so themselves, they are celebrated by the media as heroes.  Protecting democracy sure does require a lot of anti-democratic fixes!

When all these "democracy-defenders" demand that Americans smother their own common sense in the interests of preserving democracy, it sure seems that it is actually democracy they most fear.  If millions of Americans reject the 2020 presidential election as the product of massive fraud, then how could the American people's demand for free and fair elections constitute anything but "democracy in action"?  On the other hand, if a few hundred officials in D.C. insist on rejecting the concerns of the people, then aren't they abandoning any pretense of "government by the people" in favor of rule by an elite few?  Of course they are.

Democracy's biggest defenders in D.C. would be called oligarchs in any other country.

When our D.C. oligarchs claim that something in the United States is a "threat to democracy," what they mean is that the institutions providing the oligarchy legal immunity and power over the people are in danger.  Exposing and eradicating documented electoral vote fraud sustains healthy, democratic institutions, but exposing how corrupt the 2020 election was threatens the oligarchy's hold on those same institutions.  

Just as Marxist Democrats must enslave the people in order to set them free, the oligarchs ruling from D.C. must ignore the public's grievances in order to strengthen the "democratic system."  It's an arrangement that can last only until enough Americans recognize it as the lie it is.  It's also why fewer and fewer Americans believe anything our government has to say. 

Image via Max Pixel.


The class dynamic of the massive Wall Street speculation

As 2020 draws to a close, the essential class dynamic and objective logic of the global capitalist system have never been more starkly revealed.

Billions of people around the world confront the escalating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the destruction of millions of jobs, impoverishment, including in some cases the threat of starvation, and the destruction of a viable future for a whole generation of youth. Yet the ruling financial oligarchy is benefiting to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars.

Trader on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

The year is ending amid the greatest economic contraction since the Great Depression of the 1930s. But Wall Street, leading the way for stock markets around the world, is finishing the year at a record high.

When the economic and financial effects of the pandemic began to become apparent in March, Wall Street and global markets plunged. But the US Federal Reserve and the government, together with central banks and governments around the world, stepped in to organise the greatest bailout of the financial oligarchy in history, pumping more than $10 trillion into the financial system.

In the US, the Fed issued a virtual blank cheque to Wall Street, committing itself to purchase all classes of financial assets so that the siphoning of the wealth of society into its upper echelons could continue unabated.

Since its fall in mid-March, the S&P 500 index has risen by 66 percent. But this is only a partial expression of what has taken place, as the stocks of dozens of companies have risen at a much faster rate. Tesla shares are up by 691 percent so far this year, fuel cell company Power Plug shares have increased by more than 1,000 percent, Zoom Communications is up 451 percent.

Vaccinations for COVID-19 are underway in the US and Britain, which could provide important breakthroughs in the medical fight against the virus. But the rollout in the US is already being described as a “mess.”

At the same time, a new class of billionaires is emerging, their fortunes propelled by the rise in the stocks of companies associated with the development of vaccines and their utilisation. Shares of Moderna, one of the companies involved in the development of a vaccine, have risen by 532 percent.

When governments and central banks launched their multi-trillion-dollar bailout operations, they claimed the extraordinary measures were necessary to save the economy. This fraud has been exposed. The sole concern of the ruling oligarchy was not the health and economic well-being of the mass of the population, but that of the financial markets.

Consequently, no effective measures were taken to deal with the pandemic, which would have involved the lockdown of non-essential businesses and the payment of income to workers and their families, coupled with the application of stringent safety measures at essential businesses that remained open.

Rather, the commencement of the bailout operation was accompanied by a homicidal return to work drive amid the open advancement of the policy of so-called “herd immunity,” ensuring the spread of the virus so as to ensure that the supply of surplus value from the labour of the working class was not interrupted. This entailed the normalisation of mass death under the slogan coined by the New York Times’s Thomas Friedman: “The cure can’t be worse than the disease.”

There is no limit to the supply of money to financial markets, but even meagre assistance to workers and their families is the subject of debate and delays in the US. Elsewhere, even limited emergency measures are now being withdrawn.

The provision of money by the Fed and other central banks to provide the backing for corporate debt has provided a bonanza for major banks. The largest banks around the world have raked in close to $125 billion in fees for underwriting corporate debt and the raising of new equity, as companies seek to raise cash in order to ride out the effects of the pandemic.

What has been described as a “very robust year for underwriting of both debt and equity” has been possible only because of the knowledge that the Fed and other central banks are ready to step in with further assistance should this prove necessary. This has already been factored in, with JPMorgan’s strategy team expecting the provision of a further $5 trillion in 2021.

The guarantee by the Fed that it will do everything in its power to ensure the continued rise of Wall Street has led to an orgy of speculation, via so-called margin debt, in which affluent investors borrow money against their existing holdings to buy more shares of stock.

Last month investors borrowed a record $722.1 billion against their investment portfolios, beating the previous high of $668.9 billion recorded in May 2018. Margin debt is regarded as risky because if stock prices fall the investor must meet a margin call from the brokerage firm from which he has borrowed, either by supplying cash or by selling the stocks underlying the loans, with the potential to trigger a broader sell-off.

Reporting on this milestone, the Wall Street Journal warned it was an “ominous one” because margin debt records were followed by the stock market crashes of 2000 and 2008. But notwithstanding the warning signs, the speculation continues because of the well-founded belief that the Fed stands ready to intervene.

As the chief global investment officer of Guggenheim Partners, Scott Minerd, recently commented to the Financial Times, the pandemic has “completely reworked” the so-called “free market” economic system, replacing it with cycles of “increasingly radical monetary intervention” and the “socialisation of credit risk.”

In other words, the capitalist state has emerged front and centre as the guarantor and facilitator for the looting of society by the financial oligarchy, whose interests it defends.

The present social order resembles nothing so much as the Ancien Régime of France on the eve of the revolution of 1789. Confronted with a deep-seated crisis rooted in the irresolvable contradictions of the economy over which it presided, the ruling elite, organically incapable of reform, had to be swept away in order for society to progress.

Likewise, the present situation has created the objective conditions for a massive class confrontation in which the working class is posed with the task of abolishing the reactionary and outmoded capitalist order and establishing a socialist system, in which human need, not profit and greed, forms the foundation of the economic order.

But that outcome, necessary for human progress, depends on the decisions made by workers and youth to take up the challenge before them by joining and building the revolutionary party to lead the struggles now about to explode.

Millions face economic and social disaster as Wall Street celebrates

The United States economy contracted at a staggering annual rate of 32.9 percent between April and June, the sharpest fall in US history. The actual three-month decline of 9.5 percent dwarfed the worst single quarter since such statistics were first collected more than 70 years ago.

It would be difficult to overstate the scale of the economic calamity that has devastated the lives of tens of millions of working people and their families. CNBC noted, “Not the Great Depression nor the Great Recession nor any of the more than three dozen economic slumps over the past two centuries have ever caused such a sharp drain over so short a period of time.”

The only comparable economic disruptions in modern history are those caused by world war or societal collapse. If one calculates the overall drop in US gross domestic product (GDP) for the first six months of 2020, it comes to 11 percent—approaching the percentage decline in the Russian economy in all of 1992, the worst of the depression years that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The claims of the Trump administration about a “V-shaped” recovery have no more validity than the US president’s ravings about treating coronavirus by injecting bleach. There are significant signs that after an easing of the downward economic curve in June, due to widespread state-ordered reopenings, the ensuing resurgence of the pandemic means a new plunge.

On Thursday, the Labor Department reported that 1.43 million new claims for unemployment benefits were filed last week, the 19th straight week that new claims have exceeded one million. After declining for months, new claims have risen over the last two weeks.

The number of workers claiming continuing unemployment benefits also rose from 16.1 million to 17 million for the week ending July 18. In addition, 830,000 new claims were filed for federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, which covers self-employed, gig workers and others who do not qualify for traditional jobless benefits.

Under these conditions, the $600-a-week federal supplement to state unemployment benefits is running out today for an estimated 20 million workers. Overnight, millions will see their incomes cut by two-thirds, from an average of $921 a week in May to about $321 a week. In some states, the theft of this lifeline will be even worse. In Oklahoma, jobless aid will be cut by 93 percent to $44 a week.

It is a measure of the precarious situation American workers faced even before the pandemic that the weekly supplemental assistance and the paying out of a one-time $1,200-per-person “stimulus” check led to a 45 percent increase in US personal income in the second quarter. Seventy percent of those who returned to work in June suffered an income loss by doing so.

Last week, the moratorium on evictions expired for about 18 million renters—more than a third of the 44 million total US renter households—who live in buildings with mortgages backed by the federal government. With rent bills accumulated over the last four months now due, housing advocates predict a “tsunami” of evictions, with half a million households in Los Angeles alone threatened.

Millions in the US are also going hungry. According to a US Census Bureau survey, food insecurity last week reached its highest reported level since May, with almost 30 million Americans reporting they had not had enough to eat at some point in the seven days through July 21.

After handing trillions to Wall Street and major corporations through the bipartisan CARES Act signed by President Trump in late March, the US Congress is denying the most basic necessities to millions of people. Both the Republicans and the Democrats are deliberately using the specter of poverty, homelessness and starvation as a means to force reluctant workers back into dangerous factories and workplaces in order to resume the flow of corporate profits.

While the economy collapses and tens of millions face hunger, homelessness and destitution, the upper crust of American society have never had it so good. Fueled by the massive injection of money from the Federal Reserve, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has risen by 42 percent since its low point in late March, and the Nasdaq by 54 percent. Wall Street largely shrugged off the news that the US economy shrank by $1.8 trillion in the second quarter, with the Dow off slightly while the Nasdaq was up.

Even as the death toll surpasses 155,000 in the US and the pandemic rages out of control in Florida, Texas, California and other states, the ruling class is gorging itself. US billionaires, whose wealth increased by 80.6 percent between 2010 and 2020, are seeing another windfall, with another 20 percent increase—a rise of at least $565 billion—since the pandemic began.

The world’s richest man, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, has seen his net worth rise $74 billion since the beginning of 2020 to an estimated $189.3 billion. On a single day last week, his personal fortune rose $13 billion after a positive Wall Street forecast led to a rise of his 57 million shares of Amazon stock to $3,232.49 per share. Bezos, who could become the world’s first trillionaire at this rate, is now personally worth more than the market valuation of giants such as Exxon Mobil Corp., Nike Inc. and McDonald’s Corp.

Due to the $200 billion increase in the value of Tesla stock—selling at $1,487.49 per share at the end of the trading day on Thursday—Elon Musk’s net worth has tripled since the pandemic, pushing past the $74 billion mark and making him the fifth-richest person in the world. On July 21, Musk qualified for a stock option payout worth a record $2.1 billion, his second jackpot since May due to Tesla’s 275 percent rise in share values this year.

Both Bezos and Musk have been at the forefront of the drive to force workers to work in their warehouses and factories without basic protections, even as the number of workers who die and are infected in their facilities continues to rise. There is a brutal logic to this: the working class must be forced to pump out the profits needed to pay for the massive increase in government and corporate debt that has been used to fuel the irrational stock market bubble and their personal payouts.

The billionaires have escaped to their private islands, luxury apartments and yachts while the US records one COVID-19 death every minute and the vast majority of the population faces unprecedented social distress. Last Saturday night, the super-rich partied in the Hamptons, less than 100 miles from New York City, where nearly 23,000 people have perished from the deadly disease. Partygoers spent between $2,500 and $25,000 per person for a concert featuring Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon, “who, in addition to running one of the largest and most powerful investment banks in the world,” CNN reported, “is also a part-time electronic dance DJ who goes by the name D-sol while spinning records at clubs in New York and Miami.”

The social catastrophe produced by the pandemic is not a failure of modern medicine, but a failure of capitalism as a social order. COVID-19 did not pose a challenge unfamiliar to medical science; on the contrary, it had been predicted for decades and the necessary countermeasures studied and refined. But the outbreak of the pandemic posed a challenge that the profit system proved incapable of addressing in a humane and rational way. Capitalism has led the working class, and all humanity, into disaster.

The first half of 2020 was characterized by the incompetent, negligent and criminal response to the pandemic by the ruling class. The second half will be dominated by the response of the working class in the US and internationally. Millions of workers, including teachers opposing the reckless rush to reopen schools, are coming into a direct political battle against the Trump administration and both capitalist parties. This struggle must be armed with a clear understanding that the protection of lives and livelihoods requires a revolutionary struggle to expropriate the private fortunes of the super-rich, establish workers’ power, and carry out the socialist reorganization of economic life to meet the needs of the vast majority, not the wealthy few.

PUT TRUMP IN CHAINS AND WE END ALL THREATS TO DEMOCRACY - When we really needed all hands on deck in Georgia, Trump was a wrecking ball. He went down to Georgia and insulted everyone, refusing to talk about anything but himself. ANN COULTER

 

Ann Coulter: Election’s Over. Here’s the Truth About Trump.

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Now that the Georgia runoffs are over, let’s talk about Donald Trump.

When we really needed all hands on deck in Georgia, Trump was a wrecking ball. He went down to Georgia and insulted everyone, refusing to talk about anything but himself.

Based on his rally speech this week, Trump apparently thinks he won the November election because there was a red wave for everyone except him. How else could all those Republicans win congressional seats on his “coattails,” while he lost?

There are other ways to interpret the election results, such as that Trump didn’t have any “coattails.” In Texas, for example, Trump won, but Sen. John Cornyn got more votes — the first time a Texas senator has bested a Republican president in a couple of decades.

Maybe Americans are terrified of the Democrats, but also sick of Trump.

From the moment the election was over, Democrats were single-mindedly focused on winning the Georgia runoffs. By contrast, Republicans indulged in their usual circular firing squads, while Trump kept the base distracted with his petulance about the November election. (Yes, the Democrats cheated. They always cheat. Maybe somebody should have done something about it before the election.)

With Republicans facing these two crucial runoffs, Trump was too narcissistic to care about anything but his personal issues, and he busily set landmine after landmine for the candidates.

After Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue had triumphantly voted for the coronavirus relief bill, Trump began attacking it as a “disgrace” and ridiculing the paltry $600 individual payments.

Let’s see, who had negotiated this “disgrace” again? Trump’s own Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin. But Trump was too busy denouncing the November election to pay attention to the negotiations.

For a week, Trump pretended he wasn’t going to sign the bill. In the end, he signed it, but waited so long to do so that instead of Georgia voters receiving their checks days before the runoff, they’ll be getting their checks sometime later this week.

Fantastic.

Then Trump launched vicious attacks on the (admittedly ridiculous) Georgia governor and secretary of state, blaming them for his loss in the state. Republicans needed every vote in this election, and surely there are some Georgians who prefer those guys to Trump. But Trump forced Loeffler and Perdue to choose between him and their own elected Republican leaders.

It also didn’t help that we’re in the middle of another COVID surge. You can’t blame Trump for the coronavirus, a gift from China to the entire world. Trump did better than most world leaders, especially with Operation Warp Speed.

The usual problem with Trump is that he’s all talk, no action. He talked about the massive fraud that would ensue with mail-in ballots … but did nothing. He talked about “LAW & ORDER” as cities burned to the ground … but did nothing. He talked about the wall … but built only about a dozen miles of it.

With COVID, it was the reverse. Trump did the right things, but wouldn’t shut up. Worst of all, he talked to Bob Woodward.

To Woodward: I could curl your toes with some of the stories about this virus! See, I get these briefings every morning …

An hour later to the public: It’s gonna be great. This will be over by Easter.

That’s not a strong leader rallying the country. It’s a con artist telling you to put all your money on a stock that’s about to tank. Worst of all, it shows you who he is that Trump so desperately wanted Woodward to like him and was stupid enough to think he could win him over.

For all that, Trump had it all! He won the presidency by running on wildly popular issues that no other candidate would touch. He had devoted followers. For the first two years of his presidency, he had a Republican House and Senate.

     Oh grief that Earth’s best hopes rest all with Thee!

Trump could have been a massively popular president and won reelection comfortably, if only he’d kept faith with his voters. Even people who abhorred him would have had to say, I thought he was a coarse vulgarian, but he was right about China ripping us off, he was right about the border, and he was right about standing up to crazy woke culture.

The 2020 election should have been like Ronald Reagan’s 1984 reelection (49-state landslide). Like Trump, Reagan ran on popular issues left on the ground by other candidates — primarily his vow to destroy the Soviet Union and reignite the economy by slashing government.

But — and here’s the big difference — Reagan kept his promises. 

Not Trump! Instead — in the greatest bait-and-switch in American history — he promptly turned his presidency over to nimrods Jared and Ivanka, while he watched TV and tweeted. Suddenly, the populist hero was replaced with two idiots, who were all about being friends with the Kardashians and sucking up to Goldman Sachs.

Why don’t we have a wall? Why didn’t Trump impose a tax on remittances to make Mexico pay for it? Why are American workers still training their cheap labor replacements?

Answer: Stephen Miller, Trump’s crucial immigration aide during the 2016 campaign, survived his first year in the White House only by convincing Ivanka he was working on “Women’s Issues.” He spent his remaining three years with his nose up Jared’s butt.

We knew about the hucksterism. There was no warning about the kids.

The Republican Party’s only hope is to become a populist party, but without a shallow, narcissistic ignoramus as its head.

What is the point of being slavishly loyal to a person who is loyal to no one (except his numbskull kids)? Trump has sold out everyone who was ever faithful to him — Jeff Sessions, Kris Kobach, Chris Christie, Milo Yiannopoulos, Gavin McInnes, the Proud Boys, Corey Lewandowski, Steve Bannon, Rudy Giuliani, and, of course, his own voters.

Half of the betrayed are still desperately seeking Trump’s favor by signing onto the futile “Stop the Steal” effort. Not good enough for the administration! But good enough to humiliate themselves in Trump’s final days in office. At the first Stop the Steal rally in Washington, Trump didn’t even show up. He went golfing.

Give up the cult of personality, Trumpsters, or at least find someone with a better personality.


Supporters of President Donald Trump climb the west wall of the the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

CNN’s Tapper: Trump, Hawley, Cruz ‘Unleashed’ the ‘Definition of Sedition’ – We Are Watching Attempted ‘Bloodless Coup’

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CNN anchor Jake Tapper reacted to the unfolding chaos at the U.S. Capitol, Wednesday when protesters breached the barricades and stormed the Capitol Building.

Tapper said that President Donald Trump, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) are unleashing “sedition.”

Tapper said, “The definition of sedition is to try to overturn the rule of law through force, and that is what we are witnessing. Trump supporters, who have been lied to by Trump and his minions, individuals like Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, lied to by MAGA media, have been incensed and outraged and they are now resorting to physically trying to storm the Capitol to stop the constitutional process of electors being counted for the person who won the election, Joe Biden, the president-elect. That is what’s going on. That is what we are witnessing. And there are a lot of people who are complicit in this. It will not succeed. Joe Biden will be sworn in on January 20, but at some point, you have to ask yourself if you’re Josh Hawley or Ted Cruz or Matt Gaetz or either of the Murdochs, you have to ask yourself, what am I doing? What am I creating here? What have I unleashed? This is the United States of America and we’re watching protesters try to undermine the course of an election, a constitutional process, through force, by storming the United States Capitol?”

He added, “We are watching an attempt at sedition. We are watching an attempt at a bloodless coup in the United States, Trump supporters, stopping the constitutional process, the counting of electors.”

Follow Pam Key On Twitter @pamkeyNEN

Photos: Thousands of Protesters Storm Capitol Hill to Protest the 2020 Election

Supporters of US President Donald Trump protest inside the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in Washington, DC. - Demonstrators breeched security and entered the Capitol as Congress debated the a 2020 presidential election Electoral Vote Certification. (Photo by ROBERTO SCHMIDT / AFP) (Photo by ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images)
ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images
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Protesters stormed Capitol Hill Wednesday to protest the results of the 2020 presidential election and the Joint Session of Congress to certify the electoral results.

Photographers captured the pandemonium in the House and Senate chambers as protesters swarmed into the building and clashed with Capitol Hill police.Photos: Trump Supporters Storm Capitol Hill to Protest the Election

U.S. Capitol Police try to hold back protesters outside the U.S. Capitol, Wednesday, January 6, 2021. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

TOPSHOT – Supporters of US President Donald Trump protest outside the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in Washington, DC. – Demonstrators breeched security and entered the Capitol as Congress debated the a 2020 presidential election Electoral Vote Certification. (Photo by ALEX EDELMAN / AFP) (Photo by ALEX EDELMAN/AFP via Getty Images)

Supporters of US President Donald Trump gather on the West side of the US Capitol in Washington DC on January 6, 2021. – Demonstrators breeched security and entered the Capitol as Congress debated the a 2020 presidential election Electoral Vote Certification. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP) (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)

Trump supporters try to break through a police barrier, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington. As Congress prepares to affirm President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, thousands of people have gathered to show their support for President Donald Trump and his claims of election fraud. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Trump supporters try to break through a police barrier, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington. As Congress prepares to affirm President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, thousands of people have gathered to show their support for President Donald Trump and his claims of election fraud.(AP Photo/John Minchillo)

WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 06: Protesters supporting U.S. President Donald Trump break into the U.S. Capitol on January 06, 2021 in Washington, DC. Congress held a joint session today to ratify President-elect Joe Biden’s 306-232 Electoral College win over President Donald Trump. Pro-Trump protesters entered the U.S. Capitol building during demonstrations in the nation’s capital. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 06: Protesters supporting U.S. President Donald Trump break into the U.S. Capitol on January 06, 2021 in Washington, DC. Congress held a joint session today to ratify President-elect Joe Biden’s 306-232 Electoral College win over President Donald Trump. Pro-Trump protesters entered the U.S. Capitol building during demonstrations in the nation’s capital. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Protesters interact with Capitol Police inside the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC. Congress held a joint session today to ratify President-elect Joe Biden’s 306-232 Electoral College win over President Donald Trump. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Capitol Hill police drew guns in the House chamber to keep protesters at bay as reports noted that shots were fired.

U.S. Capitol police officers point their guns at a door that was vandalized in the House Chamber during a joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 06: A protester is seen hanging from the balcony in the Senate Chamber on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Images also showed clouds of smoke within the building.

Supporters of US President Donald Trump protest inside the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, in Washington, DC. – Demonstrators breeched security and entered the Capitol as Congress debated the 2020 presidential election Electoral Vote Certification. (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

Supporters of US President Donald Trump enter the US Capitol as tear gas fills the corridor on January 6, 2021, in Washington, DC. - Demonstrators breeched security and entered the Capitol as Congress debated the a 2020 presidential election Electoral Vote Certification. (Photo by Saul LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

Supporters of US President Donald Trump enter the US Capitol as tear gas fills the corridor on January 6, 2021, in Washington, DC. – Demonstrators breeched security and entered the Capitol as Congress debated the a 2020 presidential election Electoral Vote Certification. (Photo by Saul LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

A police officer has eyes flushed with water after a confrontation with demonstrators, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington. As Congress prepares to affirm President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, thousands of people have gathered to show their support for President Donald Trump and his claims of election fraud.(AP Photo/John Minchillo)

Other images showed Trump supporters sitting in the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

A supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump sits inside the office of U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi as he protests inside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, January 6, 2021. Demonstrators breeched security and entered the Capitol as Congress debated the a 2020 presidential election Electoral Vote Certification. (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

Protesters enter the U.S. Capitol Building on January 06, 2021, in Washington, DC. Congress held a joint session today to ratify President-elect Joe Biden’s 306-232 Electoral College win over President Donald Trump. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump enter the U.S. Capitol’s Rotunda on January 6, 2021, in Washington, DC. Demonstrators breeched security and entered the Capitol as Congress debated the 2020 presidential election Electoral Vote Certification. (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

People shelter in the House gallery as protesters try to break into the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Police with guns drawn watch as protesters try to break into the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

U.S. Capitol Police try to hold back protesters outside the east doors to the House side of the U.S. Capitol, Wednesday, Jan 6, 2021. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Supporters of US President Donald Trump protest inside the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in Washington, DC. – Demonstrators breeched security and entered the Capitol as Congress debated the a 2020 presidential election Electoral Vote Certification. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 06: Protesters gather outside the U.S. Capitol Building on January 06, 2021 in Washington, DC. Pro-Trump protesters entered the U.S. Capitol building after mass demonstrations in the nation’s capital during a joint session Congress to ratify President-elect Joe Biden’s 306-232 Electoral College win over President Donald Trump. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

Supporters of US President Donald Trump protest inside the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in Washington, DC. – Demonstrators breeched security and entered the Capitol as Congress debated the a 2020 presidential election Electoral Vote Certification. (Photo by ROBERTO SCHMIDT / AFP) (Photo by ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images)

Trump supporters clash with police and security forces as they storm the US Capitol in Washington, DC on January 6, 2021. – Thousands of Trump supporters, fueled by his spurious claims of voter fraud, flooded the nation’s capital protesting the expected certification of Joe Biden’s White House victory by the US Congress. (Photo by Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP) (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

Police gather near tear gas as supporters of US President Donald Trump protest outside the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in Washington, DC. – Demonstrators breeched security and entered the Capitol as Congress debated the a 2020 presidential election Electoral Vote Certification. (Photo by ROBERTO SCHMIDT / AFP) (Photo by ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images)

People shelter in the House gallery as protesters try to break into the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Protesters gesture to U.S. Capitol Police in the hallway outside of the Senate chamber at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, near the Ohio Clock. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Protesters gesture to U.S. Capitol Police in the hallway outside of the Senate chamber at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, near the Ohio Clock. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 06: A protester holds a Trump flag inside the US Capitol Building near the Senate Chamber on January 06, 2021 in Washington, DC. Congress held a joint session today to ratify President-elect Joe Biden's 306-232 Electoral College win over President Donald Trump. A group of Republican senators said they would reject the Electoral College votes of several states unless Congress appointed a commission to audit the election results. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 06: A protester holds a Trump flag inside the US Capitol Building near the Senate Chamber on January 06, 2021 in Washington, DC. Congress held a joint session today to ratify President-elect Joe Biden’s 306-232 Electoral College win over President Donald Trump. A group of Republican senators said they would reject the Electoral College votes of several states unless Congress appointed a commission to audit the election results. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)


They've Had Enough: Trump Supporters Storm Capitol Hill, Clash with Police

Matt Vespa
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Posted: Jan 06, 2021 1:23 PM
They've Had Enough: Trump Supporters Storm Capitol Hill, Clash with Police

Source: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

[See Updates]

Trump supporters have breached the Capitol and are outside the Senate chamber. Both chambers of Congress have recessed and are taking the proper security precautions.

Trump responds:

Reports of an armed standoff outside the House chamber. Tear gas has been deployed in the rotunda. 

Shots fired inside the Capitol. Someone has been shot. Police have reportedly taken back the Senate side. 

The woman who was shot inside the Capitol has died.

***Original Post***

As Congress debates the 2020 Electoral College vote, legions of Trump supporters descended into the nation’s capital for the Save America rally, which was addressed by President Trump. Now, they’re marching on Capitol Hill—and pandemonium has broken out. Capitol Police are besieged and overwhelmed. The Madison building has been evacuated. Elijah Schaffer of the Blaze captured one melee. This is an increasingly dangerous situation. 

Right now, the Senate and House are debating for up to two hours the Electoral College results of Arizona after an objection was lobbed by congressional Republicans. We can expect this to happen at least three times today. 

Our own Julio Rosas is on the ground as well, capturing Trump supporters rushing the Hill.

Outside, however, it’s devolving into a straight-up fight club. 

UPDATE: Multiple congressional offices either evacuated or issued shelter-in-place orders. Reports of a suspicious package also coming in right now.

UPDATE II: Julio Rosas is in the thick of it. Flashbangs deployed by police. US Capitol is on lockdown.