American Election

**griffin** · 13th January 2021, 09:57 PM

The next 24 hours will be interesting, as the House votes on Impeachment, and fearing for their lives has already persuaded some Republicans in the House to support the measure... so we'll see how many jump the trump wagon. (probably not a huge amount though, as about 150 of the 200 Republican House members were supporting trump's bid to block the Senate from officially recognising Biden as the next President... even after their lives were being threatened by rioters who were intent on capturing or killing both Democrat and Republican politicians if Biden was officially recognised)

I've been watching the US news programs on SBS, and the more they investigate the storming of the Capital Building, the worse it gets... with people who have been arrested being found to have posted up intentions of taking hostages and even killing politicians live in front of cameras, as well as organising this days before the event in the event it was considered "necessary to keep their president in power" (and trump spent an hour firing up these people to believe that they had to act now, before the Senate took their country away from them)... and with more footage from the day shows up, we see gear/equipment being brought in by the rioters that was police and military grade.
People were assaulting police while holding "blue lives matter" flags... showing that they had no interest in supporting police, but were just using it to undermine the Black Lives Matter movement.

And we keep hearing more about federal agencies that did know about the day turning violent (the FBI had internal memos of internet chatter about intentions of people in the crowd to be violent), but with so many federal agencies and oversight agencies gutted by trump of their leadership (removing anyone willing to investigate him), the resources were limited and slow to react.
Meanwhile, of the limited number of police on site (despite everyone knowing that something would happen that day), so many of them were willing to not stand in the way of the rioters, or even supported them... something that wouldn't have happened if it was a crowd of black people walking towards the Capital Building (and we saw how there was thousands of military and police deployed when it was a BLM march... something positive that wanted to bring about equality, not undermine it like this attempt to undermine democracy).

Putting it simply, it will be remembered in history as the day that one branch of the American government (the Executive) rallied its troops & supporters, to launch an assault on another branch of the government (the Legislature), with the intention of capturing the Capital Building to force the elected members to submit to the will of the President. The Capital Building hasn't been over-run by a hostile force for over 200 years, and an insurrection of people against their elected Congress last occurred during the American Civil War in the late 19th century.

And the people online behind the more militaristic elements of that insurrection last week, are also intending to target Legislative buildings in all US states, on or before inauguration day, if trump is not allowed to remain as president... so the next 7 days could see even worse things happen in America, and with trump supporters now openly abusing and threatening Republican politicians in public, I wouldn't be surprised if there are a few more irrational trump supporters willing to take a few pot-shots at Biden during the inauguration ceremony to earn praise from their beloved leader (it was probably a good thing that the post-ceremony parade was cancelled due to covid, as I doubt Biden would make it all the way to the end alive).

(one thing I heard today that was amusing - it was claimed that trump has now accepted that he can't pardon himself, so has refused to give out pardons to anyone else... if he can't have one, no one can. (we'll see if this is true, if he pardons anyone in the next week, other than family members)

**griffin** · 14th January 2021, 09:58 AM

Vote has now occured in the House, 10 Republicans crossed the floor to support it. It might not be many out of the 207 in the House, but it is the most ever from the same party as an impeached president. So he has that record, as well as being the first to be impeached twice.

Impeachment is like the laying of charges (done in the House), with the trial being held in the Senate... which won't happen until later in the year.
(Needs two thirds to vote guilty to have him convicted, which would prevent him from running again... but I doubt they will get 17 Republican senators to vote guilty)