Daily thread - United States 2021 transition of power - January 9

Another related Justice.gov press release from today:
Three Men Charged in Connection with Events at U.S. Capitol

Jacob Anthony Chansley, a.k.a. Jake Angeli, of Arizona, was charged with knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority, and with violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds. Chansley was taken into custody today.

It is alleged that Chansley was identified as the man seen in media coverage who entered the Capitol building dressed in horns, a bearskin headdress, red, white and blue face paint, shirtless, and tan pants. This individual carried a spear, approximately 6 feet in length, with an American flag tied just below the blade.

Adam Johnson, 36, of Florida, was charged with one count of knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority; one count of theft of government property; and one count of violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds. Johnson was arrested yesterday and is currently in custody.

It is alleged that on Jan. 6, 2021, Johnson illegally entered the United States Capitol and removed the Speaker of the House’s lectern from where it had been stored on the House side of the Capitol building. A search of open sources led law enforcement to Johnson, who is allegedly seen in a widely circulated photo inside the Capitol carrying the lectern.

Derrick Evans, 35, of West Virginia, was charged with one count of knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority; and one count of violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol Grounds. Evans was taken into custody Friday.

It is alleged that on Jan. 6, 2021, Evans, a recently elected member of the West Virginia House of Delegates, streamed live to his Facebook page a video of himself joining and encouraging a crowd unlawfully entering the U.S. Capitol. In the video, Evans is allegedly seen crossing the threshold of the doorway into the U.S. Capitol and shouting, “We’re in, we’re in! Derrick Evans is in the Capitol!”

(will add more replies with more press releases as they come out)

Axios has got a running list going of what various internet platforms are doing to Trump's accounts, statements from them, and some context: All the platforms that have banned or restricted Trump so far

Buzzfeed has a story from the point of view of two of the Capitol police:

Two Black officers told BuzzFeed News that their chief and other upper management left them totally unprepared and were nowhere to be found on the day.

The officer even described coming face to face with police officers from across the country in the mob. He said some of them flashed their badges, telling him to let them through, and trying to explain that this was all part of a movement that was supposed to help.

“You have the nerve to be holding a blue lives matter flag, and you are out there fucking us up,” he told one group of protestors he encountered inside the Capitol. “[One guy] pulled out his badge and he said, ‘we’re doing this for you.’ Another guy had his badge. So I was like, ‘well, you gotta be kidding.’”

Another officer, a newer recruit, echoed these sentiments, saying that where he was on the steps to the rotunda on the east side of the Capitol, he was engaged in hand-to-hand battles trying to fight the attackers off. But he said they were outnumbered 10 to one, and described extraordinary scenes in which protesters holding Blue Lives Matter flags launched themselves at police officers.

“We were telling them to back up and get away and stop, and they’re telling us, they are on our side, and they’re doing this for us, and they’re saying this as I’m getting punched in my face by one of them … That happened to a lot of us. We were getting pepper sprayed in the face by those protesters, I'm not going to even call them protestors, by those domestic terrorists,” said the officer.

The West VA state rep that was arrested for his role in the riots has resigned

Feds say police found a pickup truck full of bombs and guns near Capitol insurrection as wide-ranging investigation unfurls

An Alabama man allegedly parked a pickup truck packed with 11 homemade bombs, an assault rifle and a handgun two blocks from the US Capitol building on Wednesday for hours before authorities ever noticed, according to federal prosecutors.

Another man allegedly showed up in the nation's capital with an assault rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition and told acquaintances that he wanted to shoot or run over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, prosecutors said.

The revelations are some of the most unsettling details federal prosecutors have made public this week as they detail the extent of the arsenal available to aid pro-Trump rioters who stormed the Capitol. Other individuals have been accused of taking guns and ammunition onto Capitol grounds and more charges are expected to come as a wide-ranging investigation unfurls.

The details about the weapons cache in the pickup truck were contained in federal documents charging Lonnie Leroy Coffman of Falkville, Alabama, with federal offenses. A bomb squad detected the arsenal during the scramble to secure the federal complex after it was overrun by pro-Trump rioters and other bombs around Washington, D.C., were found.

Update to the "mysterious" FBI raids yesterday in Tennessee:
Source: FBI raids on Tennessee lawmakers stems from laundering of campaign finance money

Friday morning, FBI agents went through homes and offices of Former speaker of the house Glen Casada, Representative Robin Smith, Representative Todd Warner, and other staff.

A federal law enforcement source tells FOX 17 News the investigation is into the laundering of campaign finance money toward a dark money company that ran ads against Todd Warner’s opponent Rick Tillis. Warner went on to beat Tillis in the Aug. 2020 election for Tennessee’s new District 92 House representative.

Speaker Cameron Sexton told reporters he learned about this investigation shortly after becoming speaker of the house, but would not specify when exactly. He announced that he’d put staff members involved on paid leave today, but when FOX 17 News asked why just today when he’s known about this for some time, we got no response.

Apple is removing Parler from the App Store

Apple is removing Parler from the App Store, following accusations that the social media app was fostering calls to violence ahead of, and following, the raid on the US Capitol. As of this writing, the app still appears on Apple’s store, but we’re expecting that to change momentarily.

Now that Apple’s decision is final and the app is being removed, Apple says it’s sent the following statement to Parler as well:

To the developers of the Parler app,

Thank you for your response regarding dangerous and harmful content on Parler. We have determined that the measures you describe are inadequate to address the proliferation of dangerous and objectionable content on your app.

Parler has not upheld its commitment to moderate and remove harmful or dangerous content encouraging violence and illegal activity, and is not in compliance with the App Store Review Guidelines.

In your response, you referenced that Parler has been taking this content “very seriously for weeks.” However, the processes Parler has put in place to moderate or prevent the spread of dangerous and illegal content have proved insufficient. Specifically, we have continued to find direct threats of violence and calls to incite lawless action in violation of Guideline 1.1 - Safety - Objectionable Content.

Your response also references a moderation plan “for the time being,” which does not meet the ongoing requirements in Guideline 1.2 - Safety - User Generated content. While there is no perfect system to prevent all dangerous or hateful user content, apps are required to have robust content moderation plans in place to proactively and effectively address these issues. A temporary “task force” is not a sufficient response given the widespread proliferation of harmful content.

For these reasons, your app will be removed from the App Store until we receive an update that is compliant with the App Store Review Guidelines and you have demonstrated your ability to effectively moderate and filter the dangerous and harmful content on your service.

Regards, App Review Board

Here is the Washington Post story about the sequence of events in the Capitol:

Inside the Capitol siege: How barricaded lawmakers and aides sounded urgent pleas for help as police lost control

At 2:11 p.m. on the Senate side, Vice President Pence sat in the chair of the presiding officer when aides started motioning to Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) that he had to replace him. The vice president hurried out a door.

At that moment, one floor below, rioters had crashed through windows and climbed into the Capitol and clashed with police, including a lone Black Capitol police officer who tried to prevent them from ascending toward the Senate chamber.

A video captured by Igor Bobic, a congressional reporter for HuffPost on the scene, shows the officer trying to hold back a few dozen rioters who push him back and up the steps leading almost directly to the chamber.

For almost a minute, the officer held them back — at the exact moment that, inside the Senate, police were frantically racing around the chamber trying to lock down more than a dozen doors leading to the chamber floor and the galleries above.

“Second floor!” the officer yelled into his radio, alerting other officers and command that the mob had reached the precipice of the Senate.

Had the rioters turned right, they would have been a few feet away from the main entrance into the chamber. On the other side of that door, had they made their way into the Senate, were at least a half-dozen armed officers, including one with a semiautomatic weapon in the middle of the floor scanning each entrance for intruders.

Instead, the group — all White men — followed the Black officer in the other direction and met a group of police in a back corridor outside the Senate.

At 2:16 p.m., Bobic tweeted a photo of a half-dozen police confronting the protesters.
According to the contemporaneous notes of a Washington Post reporter inside the chamber, it was mere seconds of a differential: “2:15 p.m., Senate sealed.”

Here is a tweet with a bit more detail:

The officer initially scopes out the door, sees it's not guarded, and tries to block the way. More rioters pour up the stairs after them, and the officer seems to go with a new strategy – he shoves the first rioter, pissing him off, and then leads the whole mob the other way.

(The Washington Post article says it was guarded, though?)

Does anyone have any recommendations how to stop doomscrolling?

You'd think I'd eventually run out of things to react to, but they keep making more.