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posted by martyb on Wednesday January 06 2021, @10:01PM   Printer-friendly
from the stock-up-on-popcorn! dept.

2021-01-07 14:44:44 UTC: UPDATE (See below the fold).

Pro-Trump rioters breach the US Capitol on historic day in Congress:

Supporters of President Donald Trump breached the US Capitol on Wednesday while Congress was meeting to certify the Electoral College's votes for president and vice president.

The Capitol has been put on lockdown and the certification vote has been paused. Vice President Mike Pence was evacuated from the building. House and Senate leadership is safe and in undisclosed locations, according to a person familiar with the situation.

Congress' counting of electoral votes is typically little more than an afterthought. But this joint session was expected to be a contentious affair that would last late into the evening and possibly on Thursday. Some Republicans are objecting to the count and delaying the inevitable certification of President-elect Joe Biden's win.

Also at AlJazeera (In Pictures: Pro-trump mob storms US Capitol building) and c|net (Mob storms Capitol forcing halt of election vote count).

[2021-01-06 22:33:53 UTC; UPDATE] NOTE: This is a chaotic time.

The Electoral College votes are currently being confirmed and tallied. Runoff votes in Georgia are being tallied and the results may swing the balance of power in the US Senate. The Georgia secretary of state [has been] relocated from [State] Capitol for security reasons. Mitch McConnell goes off on Trump. Pro-Trump reporter gloats over access to fleeing Hill staffer's computer. And Trump hand-picks replacement for Atlanta's US attorney after surprise resignation.

Let's please try and keep the discussion civil.

Also, please be polite and share your popcorn!

[Updates Begin]:

(1) Fox News reports Biden's Electoral College victory certified -- hours after Capitol chaos:

The U.S. Congress early Thursday certified the Electoral College vote that gave Democrat Joe Biden his presidential victory -- after a day in Washington that was marred by pro-Trump protesters storming the U.S. Capitol.

Vice President Mike Pence, who had announced he would not overturn the will of voters, confirmed the Biden victory at 3:41 a.m. ET.

Lawmakers had returned to the chamber in an act of defiance, with some Republicans who initially vowed to challenge states' results due to voter fraud concerns announcing they'd instead vote to certify.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., called the breach of the Capitol a "failed insurrection," adding that those who "tried to disrupt our democracy" had not succeeded.

(2) President Trump "Responds" via Staffer's Twitter Account after His Account was Suspended:

Dan Scavino 🇺🇸 🦅@DanScavino:

Statement by President Donald J. Trump on the Electoral Certification:

"Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out, nevertheless there will be an orderly transition on January 20th. I have always said we would continue our...

Dan Scavino 🇺🇸 🦅@DanScavino:

...fight to ensure that only legal votes were counted. While this represents the end of the greatest first term in presidential history, it's only the beginning of our fight to Make America Great Again!"

(3) Facebook, Twitter lock Trump's account following video addressing Washington rioters:

  • Twitter and Facebook on Wednesday said they would lock the account of President Donald Trump after he continued to make false claims about the results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
  • Facebook, YouTube and Twitter on Wednesday removed a video by President Donald Trump addressing Washington rioters.
  • Meanwhile, calls are mounting for Twitter and Facebook to suspend Trump's accounts.

(4) The Associated Press has called the results for the Georgia Senate elections: both Democratic candidates defeated their GOP opponents:

With projected victories in the twin races of Warnock and Ossoff, President-elect Joe Biden will have the narrowest majority in the Senate, with both parties holding 50-50 seats apiece, allowing the tie-breaking vote to be cast by Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.

Also at The New York Times.


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  • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday January 07 2021, @07:29PM (5 children)

    by Thexalon (636) on Thursday January 07 2021, @07:29PM (#1096624)

    I'm not prepared to call every single person who waves one ... a white supremacist though.

    I am.

    The Confederacy stood for white supremacy and slavery. They were very open and explicit about it: Their founding documents said that they were trying to leave the USA because they wanted to preserve slavery and that they thought white people were superior to all others. Their politicians gave speeches in support of white supremacy. Their national policies were very much driven by white supremacy.

    And the flag commonly called "the Confederate flag" wasn't actually the flag of the Confederacy, it was a modified version of the flag of one of the armies of the Confederacy, popularized as "the Confederate flag" by the second Ku Klux Klan in the late 1910's and 1920's. It rose in prominence again in the 1950's as a symbol of opposition to the Civil Rights Movement, pushed by the third Klan.

    That's what it means, and the people who take part in terrorist actions waving that flag around know full well that's what it means.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @10:19PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @10:19PM (#1096712)

    So were The Dukes of Hazzard racist KKK members who opposed civil rights? And that's why the flag featured so prominently on their car?

    Or maybe, just maybe, the flag had come to represent different things to different people by the late 20th century, but because one minority used it to represent something bad, the media saw this one minority use and pushed the simple-minded narrative that it could only ever represent the one bad thing.

    Kind of like how slavery-obsessed Americans new to software development cannot comprehend that the term "master" could be used in any other context than historical slavery in the US, and so demand that the term be censored, and that anyone who refuses to do so is racist.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2021, @12:37AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2021, @12:37AM (#1096771)

      I remember an essay by an African-American about how when he was a boy, the hottest toy was a model of the Gen'l Lee, the Moonshine Runner of the Dukes of Hazzard. Seemed to have messed him up, later in life, when he came to understand what the flag on the roof, and the namesake, meant.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2021, @03:54PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2021, @03:54PM (#1097007)

        I remember an essay by an African-American about how when he was a boy, the hottest toy was a model of the Gen'l Lee, the Moonshine Runner of the Dukes of Hazzard. Seemed to have messed him up, later in life, when he came to understand what the flag on the roof, and the namesake, meant.

        Precisely my point - until the moment he was "educated", the flag to him probably just represented a sense of Southern-ness - a shared culture and community. There is no racism inherent in the symbol.

        As a parallel to the Confederate flag, the USA itself also had slavery enshrined in its original constitution (eg. the 3/5ths compromise). So where are the demands to ban the flag of the USA?
        There is no such demand because in the culture of rich white folks with a platform, what the USA flag means now isn't the same as what the USA flag meant then.
        But they will do mental flips and twists to deny that the exact same thing could possibly have happened for the Confederate flag.

    • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday January 08 2021, @04:59PM (1 child)

      by Thexalon (636) on Friday January 08 2021, @04:59PM (#1097032)

      So were The Dukes of Hazzard racist KKK members who opposed civil rights?

      We're talking about fictional characters here, not real people, so we can't do more than speculate. However, if you had the same show, but the Duke boys were black, do you really think that (a) it would have existed in the 1970's as anything other than a 1-time blaxploitation film, and (b) there would be the same sort of "aw shucks" attitude towards the heroes from law enforcement?

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2021, @07:47PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2021, @07:47PM (#1097095)

        who gives a shit, you race traitor cuck?