#us capitol lockdown

[evielmostdefinitely]

scorned earth |young!coriolanus snow x capitol!reader|

prompt: the last stop on your honeymoon tour of the districts, leaves coriolanus to show you parts of his past, making new memories with you. based off this ask from the other day :)

contains: smut 18+. dark!possessive!coriolanus. mentions of corio's past. dom/sub dynamics. skinny dipping, semi-public sex. pinvsex. mean-ish!coriolanus.

“Where are you taking me?” You looked around at the tall trees, the sun peaking through the branches onto the moss covered ground. Your hand in Coriolanus’, fingers intertwined, letting him lead you through the thicket of trees. 

“It’s a surprise, my love. I told you.” Coryo’s eyes were bright, daring with excitement. Turning back to look at you over his shoulder, the sun caught in his baby blues, making your heart skip. “You trust me, don’t you?” 

You melted at his words, smiling softly. “Of course, I do.” You whispered, letting him tug you through the forest. “I-I’m just worried about snakes, or bears, or-” 

“-I won’t let them hurt you.” Coryo smiled, squeezing your hand. The pistol resting on his hip offered some comfort to you. “That’s why I’m going first.” 

You’d blame it on the warmth of the day, hot but breezy, as the reason you were so flustered at his words. The heat in your cheeks, tingling up your spine. District Twelve was the last stop on your tour, the last stop on your honeymoon. Coriolanus insisted on showing you around, to some of his favorite spots from his Peacekeeper days. After putting the town on a strict lockdown- you weren’t sure why he did it, but you didn't dare question it- he dragged you out here. 

“This is…” You looked at the water, sparkling from sunlight, and the greenery all around it. 

“Breathtaking isn’t it?” Coriolanus’ arms found your waist, chin tucking over your shoulder. The breeze fell between the two of you, fresh air, not smoggy or stuffy like the polluted city air of the Capitol. 

“It is.” You nodded, hand sliding over his biceps, leaning back into his touch. “How’d you ever find this?” 

Coriolanus paused for a moment, heart skipping a beat at the thought of her. He wouldn’t tell you about her, not now, at least, it was your honeymoon. “We used to come out here on our days off.” He said instead. It wasn’t a complete lie, he supposed. 

“Stay in that cabin, sometimes, when it would rain.” Coriolanus pointed to the cabin, a little more worn than he remembered, a lot colder looking too. 

You turned, smiling at the sight. “That’s… This is very nice.” You grinned, head tilting back to meet his gaze. You looked pretty like this, Coryo decided, under the bright District Twelve summer sun. 

“Would you like to go swimming?” Coryo smiled, hand brushing over your hip, squeezing it gently. 

“Swimming?” You giggled. “In what, Coryo? I didn’t pack any swimwear.” 

“Do you think they have swimwear here?” Coriolanus scoffed lightly, shaking his head at you. “Just go in your undergarments.” 

“Coryo.” You blushed, looking around like there might be others to overhear. It was so improper, you were surprised he even suggested it. 

“Or just go without anything on.” Coryo rasped, his crotch grinding lightly into the fat of your ass. Your body jolted with electric heat, grabbing at his arms. “No one’s out here, darling. I won’t mind.” His breath was hot on the shell of your ear, leaving you shivering at the thought. 

Your hands trembled lightly with excitement, pushing down the straps of your dress, gaze on Coriolanus. He grinned proudly as you stripped, your eyes on him so obediently- just as he trained you to be. You were bare, arms covering your most private parts, standing in front of him on the small dock. 

Coriolanus followed, slinging off his slacks, his shirt, grinning at you with that familiar, wild look in his eyes. It made your heart flutter, his gaze animalistic, roaming all over your body. 

“I’m going to throw you in.” Coriolanus growled playfully, though his eyes were primal. 

“Don’t you dare, Coryo.” You pointed at him, walking back on the creaking dock. “Coriolanus Snow, I swear-” 

Coryo lunged at you, laughing at how you shrilled, your scream bouncing off the trees, the mockingjays echoing it through the breeze. Your bare feet padding against the wood, ass jiggling with your run, taunting him. You skidded to a stop at the edge, whipping around to look over your shoulder. Coriolanus pacing towards you, arms reaching out for you, eyes narrowed with a primal sense that had you reaching your arms out in instinct. 

“Coryo, no!” Your squealing pleas were cut short, his hands on your waist, slinging both your naked bodies into the lake water. 

Cool water plunged around you, hands clawing at Coriolanus even under the murky water. You surfaced, a large gasp of a breath, hands hitting the rippling waters with a panicked fury. You could swim, sure, but not very well, especially not when you were thrown in unexpectedly. 

“I’ve got you, I’ve got you.” Coriolanus hummed, hands pulling you into his wet chest, bobbling with you through the water. You crawled up his back, legs wrapping around his waist, hugging him tightly to you. 

He could feel your heart beating on the back of his chest, your pebbled nipples from the cold water pressing to his back, making his cock lurch with lust. 

“Don’t you dare let go of me.” You hissed, nails digging into his shoulder. “There’s no telling what’s in this water. I can’t even see the bottom.” 

“Oh,” Coryo taunted, chin hooking over his shoulder to grin at you. “Might be a monster, hm? Might come up and bite you.” His fingers pinched the fat of your ass, you squealed in his ear, feet pushing up on his hips, dunking him slightly. 

He sputtered, water, feet kicking steadily under the water to keep you both afloat, wiping the droplets out of his eyes. Your pouting face greeted him once his vision cleared, brows creased in a deep furrow. “That wasn’t funny.” You grumbled. 

“Oh, don’t be pouty with me, darling. I was only teasing.” Coriolanus’ hands found your waist, pulling you around his body so you rested on his hips, legs still tight around him in a vice. “You know I wouldn’t let anything hurt you, petal.” He muttered, cupping your jaw gently. 

It was a rare pet name, but by far your most beloved, which is why Coriolanus used it so sparingly. Only when he was especially in love, when he wanted you to know. 

You ducked into his kiss, your own hands on the back of his head, pulling you closer and closer to him. His lips moving on yours, noses brushing, teeth gnashing in a positively sloppy makeout. It felt exhilarating to be doing this in public, showing such crude affection outdoors, even if no one else was around. 

Coriolanus’ hand on your hip, squeezing gently, sliding under the water up your back to cup your breasts under the water. You giggled breathy into his kiss, legs tightening under the water. Coriolanus tipped you into the kiss, dunking you under the water accidentally. 

You sputtered, coughed at the water invading your nose, glaring back at him. He grinned cheekily, squeezing the fat of your left ass cheek firmly under the water. “Maybe this isn’t the best idea.” He hummed. “Far easier in the bathtub, I’m finding out.” 

You blushed, shoving his shoulder playfully. “So what then? On the banks? Like animals?” 

Coriolanus’ eyes left your gaze, darkening at what he saw past you. You could see the change in them, that crossed over to something sinister and dark, it made your stomach flip with thrill, anticipation. 

“No,” Coryo’s eyes met yours, lips curling in a sinister smile. “I have a better idea.” 

“That’s it, that’s perfect, my love.” Coriolanus grunted, head tipping back into the hardwood of the floors. 

The floorboards squeaked beneath you, with every rise and fall of your hips. Your hair was still damp, as was his, bodies still soft from the water that hadn’t been wiped away. His hands pawed at your breasts, squeezing them with every roll and rise, riding him in the small cabin. 

His mind flooded with memories, memories of before, everytime he looked around. The dark day he didn’t want to remember, a dark time before you. Coriolanus felt guilty, thinking of her while you were on top of him- his wife. So he did what he could to keep his mind from wandering, pawing at your breasts, grabbing at the fat of your ass, but he swore- swore he could hear the mockingjays singing that same song over and over. 

“Wait, just a- hold on, darling girl.” Coriolanus grunted, pressing on your hip to stop you. 

“What?” You panted, chest rising and falling sharply. “What’s wrong?” You muttered, purely lust drunk, your eyes told him so. 

Coryo smiled, cradling your jaw gently, pulling you to him. Your body folded over his, lips on his, kissing him passionately. Coriolanus flipped the two of you, rolling you lightly onto the wooden floor, the floorboards groaning at the shift. His hands cupped under your knees, pressing your thighs forward, letting you hook them over his shoulders while he bottomed out in you, smug at how your eyes rolled back. 

“C-Coryo,” You whimpered at the sudden change of pace, his hips snapping and rolling into you sharply, cock spearing that spongy spot that had your eyes rolling back, mouth falling open dumbly. 

Coriolanus’ pace didn’t stop, fucking you nearly barbarically, at a punishing pace. You hadn’t expected it, truthfully, he normally saved this type of sex for when you’d been bad, when you needed to get fucked like this. Maybe he needed it. Something about District Twelve had him off, but you didn’t pry. 

“Look at me.” Coriolanus growled, hands pushing into your hips, fingertips curling so sharply you knew there would be bruises. 

Your eyes fluttered open, glazed with ecstasy from every punctuating jab of his cock into you. “Who do you belong to?” 

You were confused, mind dwindling away, thoughts following them. Coriolanus tapped your cheek lightly, hard enough to get your attention, eyes snapping obediently back to him. “Answer me.” Coryo repeated through gritted teeth, his pace not letting up, not once. “Who do you belong to?” 

“Y-You.” You shuddered, body rolling with another wave of pleasure, thighs trembling around him. 

“Say it again.” Coriolanus spat, reaching forwards, hand cupping your cheeks, squeezing them between his fingers so your lips puckered. “Who do you belong to?” 

“You, Coryo, you. You- oh!- it’s only you. Only you.” You babbled, tears leaking out of the corners of your eyes as your orgasm consumed you. He didn’t stop, squeezing tighter around your cheeks. 

“You’re all mine. Mine. You belong to me, you got that? Not anyone else.” Coriolanus growled, his thrusts faster now, leaving you no time to recover. You whimpered at the sensation, the sensitivity. 

“You’re never leaving me, either. You got that?” Coryo snarled. Your eyes had glazed, looking at the wood ceiling above him, half heartedly pushing at his arm. 

Coriolanus’ hand pulled your chin back to him, stilling suddenly, still deep inside of you. “Look at me.” He sneered. Your eyes fluttered to him. “You’re not leaving me, ever.” He held your gaze, his wild eyed one peering back at you. 

“Say it.” Coryo demanded. You whimpered, his hips pressing further into you, filling you more- you didn’t even know he still could, you felt so full already. “Say it!’ 

The sheer possessiveness, his tone, a chilling edge that had you shuddering. “I-I’m not going anywhere.” You whispered, voice caught around the lump in your throat. “I’m not going anywhere, Coryo, staying with you.” 

“Forever?” Coryo hated how needy he sounded, but he doubted you noticed, not with the way your lip was trembling, eyes glazed. 

“Forever.” You repeated, squeezing his wrist lightly. “Forever with you. Only you.” 

Coriolanus dropped himself over you, face buried in the crook of his neck to breathe in your sweat soaked scent, rutting into you like a mutt in heat until he was spilling, presseed deep inside of you, milking his load into you. 

The walk back to the train was much slower this time. You clung to Coryo, legs wobbly and unsure, his arms wrapped around your back. It was silent, the chirping of the birds, the breeze floating between the leaves, your only sound. 

Coryo left you later that night, tucked into the bed, pressing a kiss to your head. You didn’t pry as to where he was going, and he was grateful for that. You didn’t ask why he smelled of smoke when he came back, why he was just as ravenous as before, which he was even more thankful for. 

As Coriolanus left you, meeting with the General over the Peacekeepers, leading them back through the thicket, he thought of her. Her smug grin, her in his mother’s shawl, how she’d just left it- left him. He thought he’d never recover after Lucy Gray. Then he met you. How you treasured every gift, only looked at him, craved him the way he did you. 

You wore his mother’s ring with pride, and he knew she’d be pleased with you. 

Which is why he had to kill all of his past before you. 

Kill the woman who wrecked him, the girl who took his heart and shredded it, made it jagged for your hold. 

And as the cabin burned, scorched under the starry night sky, Coriolanus was pleased knowing his last memories of the cabin were with you instead of her. 

Knowing that part of him was ash like the wooden cabin was now, soot mixed with the soil of District Twelve. 

Coriolanus returned back to you, holding you as close as he could in his arms, skin to skin, heartbeat to heartbeat. You were his, and he was yours. Now until forever.

#coriolanus snow #coriolanus snow smut #coriolanus snow x capitol!reader #coriolanus snow x reader #tbosas #coriolanus snow x you #coriolanus snow x oc #coriolanus snow imagine #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #coriolanus snow fic #coriolanus snow x you smut #coriolanus snow x female!reader #coriolanus snow x fem!reader #coriolanus x reader #coriolanus snow fanfiction #tbosbas fic #ficrec #dom!coriolanus snow x sub!reader #dom!coriolanus #coriolanus x you #young!coriolanus snow #president snow #tbosbas x reader #tbosas x reader #peacekeeper!coriolanus snow x reader #peacekeeper!coriolanus snow #tbosbas fanfiction #tbosbas #the hunger games #thg

[periwinckles]

Letters from New Panem - It would have happened anyway

Thump.

If Rye throws that ball to the wall one more time I’m smacking him in the head with it. This is our third day of lockdown and we are all sick of it as is, but there is nothing else we can do. We were told to wait after all. 

On the 74th Reaping day, when all the district was gathered in the main square to send two more children to slaughter the sirens sounded before anything else happened. Alarmed faces everywhere, not knowing what to do. After a couple of minutes, Mayor Undersee ordered everyone home, calling for an instant lockdown, and told us to wait for further instructions by our tv sets. Half an hour later we got a 2 minute report claiming the Capitol had fallen, and the President was dead. We were told to wait for further information. That was 3 days ago.

Thump.

“Rye, knock it off, will ya?” Dad snaps, obviously annoyed. 

Being trapped in your own house is getting on everyone's nerves. First day was easy. We baked as usual, and kept our routine. Second day it was obvious that we wouldn't be able to open the bakery, so no use in baking. Third day and we are considering breaking the lockdown just to get rid of all the excess bread, before it all goes inedible.

“I’m telling ya Dad, Peet and I can sneak around after dark, no one will catch us” Rye is now throwing his tennis ball in his own hand while he makes his case. 

“Besides, everyone has been inside their homes for three days. What if we don't hear anything else from the Mayor, or the capitol for a week? A month? Who knows who might be starving by now?” 

His eyes meet mine at the mention of “starving” and he knows I know who he is referring to. Of course I don't want her to starve, which will inevitably happen if she isn't allowed to leave her house to go hunting. We both come to a silent understanding: today we are distributing that bread after dark, even if my dad doesn't allow it. 

“Just let me think for a second, boys, maybe if we…”

“Dad! DAAAAD!”

Wheat comes running down the stairs to the bakery kitchen, where we are all seated, and all eyes are on him.

“The tv is on again!”

We run up the stairs, bread baskets and tennis ball forgotten on the kitchen table. Mom is already sitting on the couch in front of the tv, her eyes hard on the tv set, as an image of mayor Undersee appears on screen.

“Why is our Mayor on Tv?” The question is out of my mouth before I know it “Have you ever seen him on tv?” I ask my Dad, but only get a silent nod in response, and a hand gesture asking me to be quiet. 

“Dear citizens of Panem

Each district Mayor will read the following statement to their respective district. The Capitol has fallen to the hands of the Rebellion. We are pleased to inform you that said rebellion came to fruition with minimal casualties. That only happened because the rebellion's leaders got classified information that allowed them to take the Capitol without open war. 

We cannot divulge the whole extent of said information. 

What we can and will say is this: The information came in letters that were sent from the future, specifically three years from now. The first time around rebellion happened at the expense of many lives. So the nation of New Panem decided to use time-travel technology to send letters carrying specific information, valuable information that allowed us to be here today.

Many lives were spared this way. But meddling with time lines comes at a price. Each district will have to take certain measures to guarantee that their future isn't completely turned upside down and collapses. Your Mayor will give you further instructions. “

Mayor Undersee lays down the paper he was reading from and reaches down for a handkerchief to clean his forehead. We don't dare to take our eyes from the screen but we all feel the weight in the room. I can't stop wringing my hands, and suddenly I feel the urge to go pick up Rye's tennis ball, just to have something to do with my hands. I never get to it, because Mayor Undersee is already addressing the cameras, this time without a script:

“District twelve

We took a hard blow during the war that was now avoided. According to what the state of New Panem told us, only 856 district 12 citizens survived the war.”

He pauses as if he is just now processing what he just said and we all let it sink down. 856. That’s roughly 10 percent of our population. 

“Out of the 856, only 183 came back to rebuild the district that was completely bombed and destroyed. 

The good news is that 7000 of you are getting a second chance at life. But we need to ask some sacrifices from those 183. You see, we need to have some sort of continuous line, an anchor of sorts, to make sure that the change of events doesn’t create some sort of chain reaction. We need some events to stay the same, to dilute the big change we made. What we pretty much need is for those 183 residents to make their lives as similar as possible to what they are in the alternate timeline. Of course there will be differences. But mainly we need them to do two things: one, they need to stick to district twelve as their main district residency. And second, we need them to marry the same person they married in the original timeline, and produce the same offspring. 

As I speak, peacekeepers left letters at the door of each house, each letter addressed to a resident. In that letter you will find an armband. Come tomorrow, you will resume your life as usual, but every resident will be required to wear their armband visible at all times. If you receive a black armband it means that you were one of the original war casualties. If you receive a white armband it means you survived the war. Red armband means that you were one of the 183 that helped rebuild district 12.

That will be all for now. 

I will see you all tomorrow.”

As soon as he stops talking the tv shuts down and I am running down those stairs, reaching for the bakery door, Rye right on my heels. Exactly as the Mayor said, there are five envelopes waiting for us at the threshold.  

The smile barely registers on my face when I see the red fabric coming out of my envelope, until I lift my eyes to meet the rest of my family. They are all holding black armbands.

#itwouldhavehappenedanyway #fanfiction #everlark #the hunger games #promptseverlark #allwayseverlark

[skywarpie]

The US capitol being on lockdown/evacuated bc of an active shooter that hasn't fired a shot or seen any suspicious activity is hilarious bc imagine if yall cared this much about the other mass shootings in the country

#d.ont reblog #my fbi dude may be watching rn #but like #a bunch of senators panicking like every american school child has to everyday is really fucking funny #the irony

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

The Secret Service warned in December 2020 that the far-right group Proud Boys planned to "kill people" during the January 6, 2021 march to the US Capitol.

That's according to internal emails released for the first time Thursday by the House Select Committee investigating the Capitol riot.

"They think that they will have a large enough group to march into DC armed and will outnumber the police so they can't be stopped," said one email sent a little after 9 p.m. ET on December 26, 2020.

"Their plan is to literally kill people," it continued. "Please please take this tip seriously and investigate further."

The email also noted that the Proud Boys had detailed their plans on a number of right-wing websites and forums.

In addition to the Secret Service, the FBI also warned of violence at the Capitol on the day of then-President Donald Trump's "Save America" rally.

An internal situational report warned on January 5, 2021 that pro-Trump insurrectionists were planning to wage a "war" at the US Capitol the next day, The Washington Post reported last year.

The Bureau's office in Norfolk, Virginia, issued the warning, saying that it "received information indicating calls for violence in response to 'unlawful lockdowns' to begin" on January 6 in Washington, DC, The Post reported.

According to The Post, the FBI report cited an "online thread" that "discussed specific calls for violence," including one that said: "Be ready to fight. Congress needs to hear glass breaking, doors being kicked in, and blood from their BLM and Pantifa slave soldiers being spilled. Get violent. Stop calling this a march, or rally, or a protest. Go there ready for war. We get our President or we die. NOTHING else will achieve this goal."

#us politics #news #business insider #2022 #donald trump #trump administration #capitol riot investigation #capitol riot #proud boys #alt right #insurrectionists #the washington post #fbi #department of justice #us secret service #domestic terrorism

[mariacallous]

On April 14, Eva Vlaardingerbroek told Tucker Carlson’s prime-time show that the Dutch government was opening “insect factories” to force people to eat bugs as “a compliance test” to see how pliable they’d be to state control. “Our politicians know that when they control the food, they control the people,” she said. Vlaardingerbroek, a 26-year-old political commentator from Amsterdam, was an occasional guest on Fox’s Tucker Carlson Tonight, railing against globalism and “elites” and alleging that European governments are using the threat of climate change (which she calls a “so-called” crisis) to “rule by fear.”

Vlaardingerbroek isn’t anything like a mainstream figure in the Netherlands, but the fictional version of her country she draws is useful for Carlson. Her Netherlands—“the pilot country for an organization like the World Economic Forum” and “the tester kid of the 2030 Agenda”—supports his narrative that a liberal takeover of the US would lead to climate lockdowns and compulsory bug-eating. But by elevating fringe characters and encouraging them to repeat or reference unfounded conspiracy theories, Carlson—who was suddenly dumped by Fox News yesterday—has helped bring often dangerous misinformation into the mainstream around the world.

Tucker Carlson isn’t just an American problem. He’s a dark spot tracking across the global internet. His evening slot was Fox’s most watched show, pulling in 3.5 million viewers a night. But clips of his show posted on social media have had a far greater reach, appearing across antivax groups and globalist conspiracy theory groups like QAnon. He has had a particular hold on international far-right movements, which have latched onto Carlson’s amplification of the white supremacist “great replacement” theory—the idea that white people are being deliberately and systematically replaced by non-white people. The narratives he’s pushed have been picked up and amplified by Russian disinformation campaigns across Europe and the US and used as propaganda tools by authoritarians.

“Fox News launders these extreme ideas and brings them into mainstream discussions,” says Bharath Ganesh, who studies online disinformation and hate speech at the university of Groningen in the Netherlands. Far-right groups talk about the great replacement theory in their own circles, he says. “Then Tucker Carlson picks it up, and then it gets pushed out.”

Carlson’s exit came days after Fox News agreed to pay $787 million to settle a defamation suit by Dominion Voting Machines, a polling technology company. Dominion had accused Fox of spreading the lie that its machines had been used to skew the 2020 presidential election results. It’s unclear whether the two events are linked. But Carlson did repeatedly give a platform to proponents of the “big lie” that the election was stolen from then-incumbent Donald Trump. And in the wake of the January 6 insurrection, in which thousands of Trump supporters descended on the Capitol, Carlson defended the rioters, saying the footage showed “peaceful chaos,” after selectively editing down Capitol surveillance footage provided by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Seven people died as a result of the violence, and nearly 140 police officers were injured.

On his show, which had aired since 2017, Carlson spun a story of a US that is relentlessly under attack from the forces of liberalism and “wokeism,” one where immigration, affirmative action, and attempts to confront the country’s history of slavery are a direct attack on white America. 

In many ways, Carlson treated his program as a “mirror” for far-right communities, says Jared Holt, senior researcher on hate and extremism at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank. Holt believes that Carlson’s team was highly attuned to far-right subcultures online, and that the topics Carlson addressed in his show were heavily informed by them. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen conversations happening among reactionaries on Twitter, or among faceless trolls on 4chan, only to see it pop up on Tucker Carlson’s show a day or two after,” he says. In 2020, one of the writers on Carlson’s show was fired for posting racist, sexist, and homophobic content on the 4chan-like message board AutoAdmit.

The ethno-nationalism of Carlson’s content resonates internationally because the online far-right is global, with communities in Europe, Latin America, and Australia overlapping, sharing spaces and stories. Groups in one country will often cherry-pick news stories in another to reinforce broader points. Overplaying the social impact of the influx of Syrian refugees into Europe in 2016, for example, helped build the case for the great replacement theory and support anti-immigration groups in the US and Australia. Such conspiracies can echo back and forth between countries, gathering momentum as they do so. 

Pushing the idea that London—whose popular, left-wing, Muslim mayor is a target of hate on Fox—is in violent chaos and terminal decline helps demonstrate the supposed dangers of liberal rule. But the lie then enters a feedback loop, with UK far-right groups picking up Fox’s coverage and using it to validate their own prejudices.

“Anywhere you see this international far-right movement, you see what we call appropriation,” says Julian Droogan, associate professor of terrorism studies at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. This was most evident during the Covid pandemic, when far-right conspiracy theory groups used the real sense of crisis to drive their own narratives. “It became all about white genocide and a plan to kind of install a liberal world government that was going to undermine white people and so on,” Droogan says.

There is still a significant overlap between white supremacist communities and antivax groups online. Fox and Carlson have a prominent place in Covid disinformation circles too. Screenshots of Carlson appear alongside coronavirus misinformation circulated in the Spanish-language Telegram group Verdades Ofenden (Offensive Truths) with more than 15,000 subscribers. Posts from this channel are regularly circulated in other Spanish-language and Latin America-focused disinformation channels, including those run by a network called Médicos por la Verdad (Doctors for the Truth) . The group was removed from Facebook in 2021 for violating the platform’s Covid misinformation policies. But its several Telegram groups have a combined total of around 98,000 members.

Droogan worked on several studies on the online far-right for the Australian government, following a 2019 terrorist attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, by a white supremacist who had allegedly been radicalized online. He calls Carlson’s reinforcement of the great replacement theory “the most dangerous of his actions.” That theory has been cited as motivation by several white supremacist terrorists, including the perpetrator of the Christchurch shootings.

There is, Droogan says, an implicit violence in the theory, particularly when it’s filtered through a US perspective. American mainstream media, and Fox in particular, gives platforms to people who use conspiracist terminology—including references to “elites” and “globalists” and nods to the “great reset,” like those made by Vlaardingerbroek—in a way that rarely happens on broadcast television in Europe or Australia.

“Terms like ‘race war,’ concepts like accelerationism—to go out there and create societal crises or to exaggerate them to intensify them to create some kind of culminating, purifying violence against all these threats to white identity—these really come out of the American psyche and popular culture,” Droogan says. 

It’s impossible to draw a direct line between content on Tucker Carlson Tonight and political events inside or outside the US. But his place within the information ecosystem means he’s been, at the very least, a passive participant in some startling coincidences.

In June 2022, Carlson interviewed Jair Bolsonaro, then the right-wing president of Brazil, who spent the months running up to the country’s elections in October trying to sow doubt about the validity of the vote. 

“During the interview, [Carlson] was speaking the same language as the far-right in Brazil,” says Bruna Santos, a researcher and activist with the Coalizão Direitos na Rede in Brazil. Santos says Carlson’s focus on anti-communism, skepticism about the Covid pandemic, and concern around “anti-white racism” resonated deeply with Brazil’s far-right. “The external approval coming from the US,” says Santos, reinforces and validates the views of the far-right in the country.

Eduardo Bolsonaro, Jair Bolsonaro’s son, often featured clips from Carlson’s show on his popular YouTube channel, where he has over 1 million subscribers, with translations and subtitles in Portuguese. These clips, as well as others from Carlson’s show, would then circulate amongst the country’s far-right groups, appearing in Telegram channels and WhatsApp groups.

In the lead-up to the Brazilian elections, says Santos, short clips from Carlson’s show were being shared in these groups. “A lot of Carlson’s criticisms of [US President Joe] Biden, or what Biden represents, would be redirected into something that could help Bolsonaro,” says Santos. “And a lot of this comes from YouTube and social media networks, and that’s generally where the conversation starts.”

Then, on January 8, 2023, Bolsonaro supporters tried to storm the presidential palace in Brasilia, after the right-wing populist lost an election runoff to his leftwing opponent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Bolsonaro isn’t the only authoritarian that Carlson has boosted. He’s been a vocal advocate for Viktor Orban, Hungary’s president, who has railed against LGBTQ rights and migration, and who routinely accuses the American financier and bête noire of the far right, George Soros, of interfering in the country’s politics.

“[Carlson] is a celebrated figure in authoritarian countries he championed on his show,” says Matt Gertz, senior researcher at Media Matters for America, a media watchdog group. “He received a glowing reception from Orban, and his Ukraine coverage was touted and promoted by Russian propagandists.”

Carlson has echoed Russian talking points on Ukraine and criticized the US government for supporting the government in Kyiv. Several researchers told WIRED that Fox, and in particular Carlson, have been useful tools for Russia, amplifying narratives about the dangers of liberalism and the impending collapse of Western civilization. When news of his firing broke, Kremlin propagandist Vladimir Solovyov offered Carlson a job.

Yesterday, Vlaardingerbroek posted a picture on Twitter of herself with an arm around Carlson. “Tucker is the best of the best in the industry. He tells the truth like no one else does, in a way no one else can. I stand with him 100%,” she wrote, before retweeting the right-wing conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich, who claimed that Carlson’s firing meant that “the evil ones will try to win and remove him from history, and commence another Armenian-style genocide against all of us.” 

[cogitoergofun]

The payment system Zelle, which is owned by seven of America’s largest banks, has come under extensive fire this year for its apparent refusal to refund thousands of customers who’ve been scammed on its platform. In March, for example, the New York Times profiled several Zelle customers with seemingly legitimate claims for refunds, and in two prominent Capitol Hill hearings, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and other Democrats attacked the CEOs, such as JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon, of the banks that own Zelle for the platform’s alleged mistreatment of consumers.

Despite the banks’ insistence that Zelle scam issues are minimal and their refund policies are adequate, it now seems that Zelle is at least partly willing to compromise. At least three of the nation’s largest banks are working on a plan to refund some Zelle scams, the Wall Street Journal reports this morning (Nov. 28).

According to the Journal, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America are negotiating a system whereby a scammer’s bank would refund the bank of a scammed customer, in circumstances where a scam—as opposed to an error or fraudulent claim—seems likely.

As the growth of payment apps like PayPal, Cash App and Zelle has skyrocketed in the wake of Covid lockdowns, so too have accusations these platforms are increasingly used to steal money from unsuspecting consumers. Warren in particular has singled out Zelle, which she calls “the preferred tool of fraudsters and other bad actors who abuse Zelle’s instantaneous, easy-to-exploit transfers to steal from and defraud consumers.”

[simonalkenmayer]

I just heard something you might want to hear

On January 12, congresswoman Sheryl posted a video saying she had seen yours being given on January 5. She said she would hold them accountable. She said when she saw the tour, during COVID lockdown, she had her chief of staff call to find out what gives.

As a reply, the republicans said “we’ve seen all the security footage, and there’s no tours” not a single MAGA hat had been seen in the footage.

Then Congressman Loudermilk of Georgia, filed a formal ethics complaint against Sheryl, claiming she was the real criminal for making a false allegation.

Last month the J6 committee sent Loudermilk a message that not only had there been at least one tour…Loudermilk had led it.

He replied that it was discrimination because his “totally innocent tour” was wearing MAGA hats

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/06/15/politics/barry-loudermilk-tour-january-6/index.html

[lemonluvgirl]

The Both of Us (Part 2)

of course when I write anything there’s always a follow up request for smut!!!!! So, I wrote a part 2. Part 1 can be found on tumbler here. And the whole thing can be read on AO3 here. Here’s a snippit. I’m not going to post the whole thing because it’s super long. 

My name is Katniss Everdeen. I am seventeen years old. My home is District 12. I was in the Hunger Games. I escaped. The Capitol hates me. Hates us. Peeta is alive. Peeta is safe. We both are. 

Or are we? 

A pain stabs my left temple and I press my hand against it. Right on the spot where Johanna Mason hit me with the coil of wire. The memories swirl as I try to sort out what is true and what is false. What series of events led me to be staying here in the underground beehive known as District 13. 

I am still not fully recovered from the concussion I got when Johanna hit me in the arena. I would be angry with her for it, but well, she’s in the Capitol right now. Along with Annie Cresta and Enobaria and I guess many other victors suspected of involvement in the rebellion. 

It's kind of hard to stay mad at a woman you know is marked for a slow and painful death. 

I look up from my hospital bed, to find Peeta staring down at me with concern. He has a good habit of finding his way to my room whenever I’m not doing well.

“Does it still hurt?” He asks gently, massaging the spot I was touching with two of his fingers. The relief I feel is almost immediate. I sigh. 

“Only sometimes.” I finally mumble, leaning into him, my arm holding onto his bicep. I can feel the corded muscle through his hospital gown. 

It’s significantly thinner than when we first went into the arena, but that’s to be expected with everything we went through. The doctors say our bodies will recover in time. It didn’t escape my attention though that they labeled Peeta and I mentally disoriented. They even gave us matching hospital bracelets to prove it. Finnick has one too, although his has quite a few long and hard to pronounce other words added underneath the first label. 

If someone were to look at Finnick now, he would be almost unrecognizable. Gone is the shining, grinning, Capitol playboy. In his place is a ghost. 

Peeta spent hours just sitting with him while he cried inconsolably the first night we got here. I think about what I would be like if Peeta was trapped in the Capitol and I had no way of reaching him. 

My hand reflexively grip Peeta’s arm tighter, as the rhythm of my heart startles into a sprint and my breaths come out short and choppy. 

“It’s ok Katniss. I’m here.” Peeta tells me in a calm voice. He’s had to remind me of this fact many times since we were rescued. I keep waiting for it to fully sink in. For my mind to accept that we are safe. 

But it's hard. 

After two Hunger Games, feeling safe and accepting the reality that no one nearby is trying to kill us is not as easy as it should be. The doctors here in 13 say that too, is to be expected.

What is not expected is for 13 to go into lockdown mode the day after we arrive. 

What is even more unbelievable is that no one will talk to us, and Haymitch is nowhere to be found when we start asking questions. We overhear some of the nurses talking about bombs. When Peeta and I demand to speak to Plutarch or someone in charge, we are sedated. 

What feels like many hours later, I wake up alone in my room. I am livid. I am even more worried about where they have taken Peeta. I start to get up, but stop when I see who’s sitting in the chair right next to my bed. 

 “Gale,” I whisper.

  “Hey, Catnip.” He reaches down and pushes a strand of hair out of my eyes. One side of his face has been burned fairly recently. His arm is in a sling, and I can see bandages under his miner's shirt. What has happened to him? How is he even here? Something very bad has happened back home.

 It is not so much a question of forgetting Peeta as remembering the others. All it takes is one look at Gale and they come surging into the present, demanding to be acknowledged.

  “Prim?” I gasp.

“She's alive. So is your mother. I got them out in time,” he says.

  “They're not in District Twelve?” I ask.

  “After the Games, they sent in planes. Dropped firebombs.” He hesitates. “Well, you know what happened to the Hob.”

  I do know. I saw it go up. That old warehouse embedded with coal dust. The whole district's covered with the stuff. A new kind of horror begins to rise up inside me as I imagine firebombs hitting the Seam.

  “They're not in District Twelve?” I repeat. As if saying it will somehow fend off the truth.

  “Katniss,” Gale says softly.

  I recognize that voice. It's the same one he uses to approach wounded animals before he delivers a deathblow. I instinctively raise my hand to block his words but he catches it and holds on tightly.

  “Don't,” I whisper.

  But Gale is not one to keep secrets from me. “Katniss, there is no District Twelve.”

~

Read the rest (and the smut) on AO3. 

#everlark #lemonluvwrites #thg #cannon divergence #headcanons

[socialjusticeinamerica]

Friday was a busy day. After having dodged the shootout on Connecticut Ave, I was having dinner nearby this gruesome scene when the first responders raced by. The White House and Capitol went into lockdown during the shooting and the Secret Service waved us away with their sub-machine guns.

The first responders have been quite overworked since Orange Julius bumbled onto the political scene some years ago. Between the Covid and political insanity nobody has had a moments peace. The tourism industry is still hurting and far from normal. Gaining access to elected officials happens only by chance. The White House, Capitol, and SCOTUS, use Covid regulations to keep the public out. Meanwhile the re-opened museums had the mask mandates dropped.

[gauricmi]

Diagnostic Imaging Services Market Driven by Rising Geriatric Population

Diagnostic imaging services refer to imaging tests such as X-rays, CT scans, MRIs, ultrasounds and nuclear medicine tests which help doctors diagnose and treat medical conditions. These services deliver anatomical and functional details of the human body that assists in identifying both acute and chronic conditions including cancer, cardiovascular diseases and orthopaedic disorders among others. The rising global burden of chronic diseases due to growing geriatric population and sedentary lifestyles has increased the demand for diagnostic imaging procedures worldwide.

The Global Diagnostic Imaging Services Market is estimated to be valued at US$ 787.55 Bn  in 2024 and is expected to exhibit a CAGR of 5.7% over the forecast period 2024 to 2031. Key Takeaways Key players operating in the Diagnostic Imaging Services Market Growth are RadNet, Inc., Akumin Inc., Novant Health, RAYUS Radiology, MedQuest Associates, Concordmedical, Lucid Medical Diagnostics, Radiology Partners, Envision Radiology, Capitol Imaging Services, Statim Healthcare, InHealth Group, Global Diagnostic Imaging, an dADM Diagnostics, Inc. These companies are expanding their service offerings and global footprint through acquisitions and partnerships to leverage growth opportunities. The increasing demand for early disease detection and diagnosis is a major factor driving market growth. Diagnostic imaging allows medical practitioners to accurately diagnose conditions in their early stages, enabling timely intervention and effective treatment. This is expected to boost the uptake of diagnostic imaging procedures over the forecast period. The diagnostic imaging services market is also witnessing strong growth in emerging economies due to increasing investments by major market players. Leading companies are establishing diagnostic imaging centers in Asia Pacific and Latin America to tap the high-potential markets in these regions. Advanced healthcare infrastructure and rising medical tourism are facilitating the expansion of global players in developing markets. Market Drivers One of the key drivers fueling the diagnostic imaging services market is the growing geriatric population globally. Older individuals are more prone to developing chronic health conditions like cancer, cardiovascular diseases and neurological disorders. Since diagnostic images play a crucial role in disease diagnosis as people age, rapid population aging is expected to significantly drive the demand for diagnostic imaging procedures in the coming years. It is estimated that around 2 billion people will be aged 60 years and older by 2050. This demographic shift will continue creating high demand for diagnostic imaging technologies. The diagnostic imaging services market is facing various challenges due to the ongoing geopolitical changes across the world. The Covid-19 pandemic has severely impacted the healthcare sector which negatively affected the growth of this market. Reduced patient visits for preventive diagnostic checkups during the lockdowns hampered the market revenue. However, remote radiology practices and teleradiology solutions boosted growth as they help in delivering critical care for non-Covid patients. Nevertheless, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine also poses threats by disrupting supply chains and increasing raw material prices. This may hinder the procurement of advanced medical imaging equipment and limit market expansion.

To withstand such adversities, industry players need resilient supply chain management and should explore new raw material suppliers. They must adopt digital transformation initiatives like blockchain, AI, cloud and optimize operations through predictive analytics. This will make diagnostic workflows efficient while improving patient access to quality healthcare services. Regional collaborations should also be strengthened to expedite cross-border diagnostic tests. With stabilized geopolitics and ongoing medical innovations, the market is anticipated to recuperate and grow at a higher rate in the coming years. In terms of value, North America holds the largest share in the diagnostic imaging services market owing to advanced healthcare infrastructure, rising geriatric population and higher healthcare spending. The Asia Pacific region is poised to become the fastest growing market attributed to increasing investments by public and private players to modernize medical facilities, rising focus on preventive healthcare and growing medical tourism industry. Penetration of affordable diagnostic devices and solutions are stimulating the market growth across developing nations of Asia. Countries like India, China and Japan are rapidly transforming their healthcare infrastructure which would accelerate the APAC market expansion during the forecast period. The diagnostic imaging services market in Europe has substantial presence attributed to availability of reimbursement, technological innovations, skilled radiologists and established regulatory framework. However, the post-pandemic economic recovery in major European countries may impact market revenue in short-term due to budget constraints. Rest of the world region including Middle East, Africa and Latin America present lucrative opportunities for market stakeholders and are estimated to grow at a steady pace in upcoming years on back of infrastructure advancement, investments by emerging economies and healthcare reforms

Get More Insights On This Topic: Diagnostic Imaging Services Market

#Diagnostic Imaging Services Market #Diagnostic Imaging Services Market Size #Diagnostic Imaging Services Market Share #Diagnostic Imaging Services Market Analysis #Diagnostic Imaging Services #Healthcare #Medical Devices

[scolek]

i get up this morning and it looks like something is happening on the news so i ask grandpa "whats going on" and this alzheimers motherfucker goes "same as always" and then the lower third changes and it says "us capitol in lockdown" and like. WDYM SAME AS ALWAYS!!!!

[cyarskaren52]

Chaos inWashington D.C.

LIVEMob Storms the Capitol

Live Reporter Chat

Analysis

Certification Updates

LIVEUpdated 

Jan. 6, 2021, 6:45 p.m. ETJan. 6, 2021, 6:45 p.m. ET

Live Updates: Pelosi Says Congress Will Reconvene; Capitol Is Deemed Secure

Lawmakers will resume counting votes on Wednesday, hours after the Capitol building was cleared. Senators and members of the House had evacuated when Trump supporters disrupted Congress’s debate of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.

RIGHT NOW

Woman who was shot in the Capitol has died.

Here’s what you need to know:

Congress is set to resume counting tonight, Pelosi says, hours after mob takes control of the Capitol.

Biden calls on Trump to go on national television and ‘demand an end to this siege.’

Army deploys D.C. National Guard to Capitol, and F.B.I. mobilizes agents.

Trump openly condones supporters who violently stormed the Capitol.

Jon Ossoff wins in Georgia, ensuring Democrats will control the Senate.

An explosive device is found at the R.N.C., and the D.N.C. is evacuated.

Pompeo condemns violence as world leaders offer strong reactions to the scene in Washington.

Pence rejects Trump’s pressure to block certification saying he ‘loves the Constitution.’

McConnell rebukes Trump for efforts to overturn the election, warning of a ‘death spiral’ of democracy.

Trump supporters are mobilizing at state capitols, too.

Congress is set to resume counting tonight, Pelosi says, hours after mob takes control of the Capitol.

Lawmakers will resume counting Electoral College votes on Wednesday, hours after a mob of Trump loyalists stormed the Capitol, Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said as she vowed that the attack would not “deter us from our responsibility to validate the election of Joe Biden.”

In a letter to colleagues, Ms. Pelosi said she had reached that decision after consulting with her leadership team and a series of calls with the Pentagon, the Justice Department and Vice President Mike Pence. She made no mention of the president.

“We always knew this responsibility would take us into the night,” Ms. Pelosi wrote. “We also knew that we would be a part of history in a positive way today, despite ill-founded objections to the Electoral College vote. We now will be part of history, as such a shameful picture of our country was put out to the world, instigated at the highest level.”

Violence overtook the Capitol on Wednesday afternoon, when a mob of people loyal to President Trump stormed the building, halting Congress’s counting of the electoral votes as the police evacuated lawmakers from the building in a scene of violence, chaos and disruption that shook the core of American democracy.

The sergeant-at-arms, the top security official at the Capitol, announced that the building had been secured around 5:40 p.m.

The unrest prompted Mayor Muriel Bowser of Washington to declare a citywide curfew from 6 p.m. Wednesday night to 6 a.m. Thursday morning. The Army is activating the entire District of Columbia National Guard — 1,100 troops — in response to a request from the mayor, an Army official said on Wednesday.

The chaos began around 2:15 p.m., as the House and Senate debated a move by a faction of Republicans to overturn the election results, security rushed Vice President Mike Pence out of the Senate chamber and the Capitol building was placed on lockdown after angry pro-Trump demonstrators surged past barricades and law enforcement toward the legislative chambers.

For a time, senators and members of the House were locked inside their respective chambers. Images posted on social media showed scenes of supporters violently tussling with the police as at least one person took to the rostrum of the House chamber to declare his support for Mr. Trump. 

A woman, who seemed to be part of the group that stormed the Capitol, can be seen in a video posted on social media being shot inside the building. She was in critical condition with a wound to the neck, The Associated Press reported.

“This is what you’ve gotten, guys,” Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, yelled as the mayhem unfolded in the Senate chamber, apparently addressing his colleagues who were leading the charge to press Mr. Trump’s false claims of a stolen election. 

“This is what the president has caused today, this insurrection,” Mr. Romney furiously said later.

ImageThe police drew guns as a mob forced entry on Wednesday.Credit...J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press

Mr. Biden responded to the violence on Wednesday, saying, “I call on President Trump to go on national television now to fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution and demand an end to this siege.”

2000  ft.

500  m.

The New York Times

In a brief video posted to his Twitter account shortly after 4 p.m., Mr. Trump repeated his baseless claim that “the election was stolen” and spoke in sympathetic and affectionate terms to members of the mob, advising them to “go home,” adding, “We love you.”

The posting came hours after Mr. Trump appeared at a rally in which he exhorted his supporters to go to the Capitol to register their discontent. Earlier in the afternoon, Mr. Trump tweeted statements intended to tamp down on the violence.

“Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement,” he posted. “They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!”

As the clashes intensified, he tweeted: “I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order — respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue.”

Video

The extraordinary day in Washington laid bare deep divisions both between the two parties and within Republican ranks, when the ceremonial counting of electoral votes that unfolds every four years in Congress turned into an explosive spectacle, with Mr. Trump stoking the unrest.

Democratic lawmakers said the Capitol Police had instructed them to take cover on the floor and prepare to use gas masks after tear gas was dispersed in the Capitol Rotunda.

On the other side of the Capitol, Representative Steve Cohen, Democrat of Tennessee, yelled out to Republicans on the House floor: “Call Trump, tell him to call off his revolutionary guards.”

In a scene of unrest common in other countries but seldom witnessed in the history of the United States capital, hundreds of people in the mob barreled past fence barricades outside the Capitol and clashed with officers. Shouting demonstrators mobbed the second floor lobby just outside the Senate chamber, as law enforcement officials placed themselves in front of the chamber doors.

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Pro-Trump Mob Swarms Capitol

Supporters of President Trump swarmed and entered the Capitol in Washington on Wednesday, prompting a lockdown and portions of the grounds to be evacuated.

[banging on door] [yelling] “This way! This way! This way! This way!” “They broke the glass?” “Everybody stay down, get down!” [crowd noise] [shot fired] “Take that House, take it now! Take it now!” [flash bang] [crowd noise] “You ain’t gonna stop us!” [flash bang] [crowd noise]

Multiple lawmakers reported that the Capitol Police had instructed them to take cover on the House floor and prepare to use gas masks after tear gas was dispersed in the Capitol Rotunda of the Capitol. Shortly afterward, the police escorted senators and members of House from the building to others nearby, as the mob swarmed the hallways just steps from where lawmakers were meeting, carrying pro-Trump paraphernalia.

Representative Nancy Mace, a freshman Republican from South Carolina, described seeing people “assaulting Capitol Police.” In a Twitter post, Ms. Mace shared a video of the chaos and wrote, “This is wrong. This is not who we are. I’m heartbroken for our nation today.”

Other Republican lawmakers, locked inside the Capitol, used Twitter to urge the mob to be peaceful. 

“This is a coup attempt,” said Representative Adam Kinzinger, Republican of Illinois. 

And later on Wednesday evening, former President George W. Bush was also among the high-profile Republicans who sharply condemned what he called “mayhem” and a “violent assault on the Capitol.” 

“This is how election results are disputed in a banana republic — not our democratic republic,” he said in a statement. “I am appalled by the reckless behavior of some political leaders since the election and by the lack of respect shown today for our institutions, our traditions, and our law enforcement.” 

“Insurrection could do grave damage to our nation and reputation,” he added. “In the United States of America, it is the fundamental responsibility of every patriotic citizen to support the rule of law.”

In the early afternoon, the police fired what appeared to be flash-bang grenades. Rather than disperse, the demonstrators cheered and shouted, “push forward, push forward.” One person shouted, “that’s our house,” meaning the Capitol. Other people repeatedly shouted, “You swore an oath.” 

As officers and members of the mob clashed outside, lawmakers had been debating an objection to the certification of Arizona electors, ensconced in their respective chambers. Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, warned of a “death spiral” for democracy, while Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, listed a litany of accusations of election fraud with little evidence.

“I don’t recognize our country today, and the members of Congress who have supported this anarchy do not deserve to represent their fellow Americans,” said Representative Elaine Luria, Democrat of Virginia.

Kevin McCarthy, the top Republican in the House urged the people to be peaceful. 

— Nicholas Fandos, Emily Cochrane, Eileen Sullivan, Glenn Thrush, Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Jonathan Martin

Biden calls on Trump to go on national television and ‘demand an end to this siege.’

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‘Our Democracy Is Under Unprecedented Assault,’ Biden Says

President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. called on President Trump to go on television and respond to Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol this afternoon, disrupting the certification of the Electoral College vote.

Our democracy is under unprecedented assault — unlike anything we’ve seen in modern times. An assault on the citadel of liberty, the Capitol itself. I call on this mob to pull back and allow the work of democracy to go forward. You’ve heard me say it before in a different context, the words of a president matter, no matter how good or bad that president is. I call on President Trump to go on national television, now, to fulfill his oath, and defend the Constitution. And demand an end to this siege. It’s not a protest, it’s insurrection. The world is watching. Like so many other Americans, I am genuinely shocked and saddened that our nation, so long the beacon of light and hope for democracy, has come to such a dark moment. Notwithstanding what I saw today, what we’re seeing today, I remain optimistic about the incredible opportunities. There’s never been anything we can’t do when we do it together. So President Trump, step up.

President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. demanded on Wednesday that President Trump call on his supporters to end what Mr. Biden called an “unprecedented assault” on democracy as an angry mob breached the Capitol, delaying the formal certification of the 2020 election and plunging Washington into chaos.

“I call on President Trump to go on national television now to fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution and demand an end to this siege,” Mr. Biden said in brief remarks from Wilmington, Del.

Seeking to tamp down the anarchy that Mr. Trump stoked with angry rhetoric just hours earlier, Mr. Biden urged rioters to abandon what amounted to an armed occupation of the House and Senate. The president-elect denounced Mr. Trump’s refusal to graciously accept defeat, and suggested that the president was to blame for the violence.

“At their best, the words of a president can inspire,” Mr. Biden said. “At their worst, they can incite.”

He added: “This is not dissent. It’s disorder. It’s chaos. It borders on sedition, and it must end now. I call on this mob to pull back and allow the work of democracy to go forward.”

Violent clashes between the police and a pro-Trump mob underscored a grim reality for Mr. Biden: He will not only inherit a country wracked by a pandemic and an economic crisis, but also a political fabric that has been ripped apart by Mr. Trump in ways that have few equals in the nation’s history.

Never before in America’s modern history has the peaceful transfer of power devolved into a physical confrontation inside the corridors of power in Washington, this time egged on by an incumbent president, who on Wednesday morning raged that the election was “rigged” and vowed “we will never concede!”

Unlike Mr. Biden, Mr. Trump remained mostly silent for hours, tweeting only that he hoped his supporters would remain peaceful and eventually saying that the National Guard would be sent to help the police.

Moments after Mr. Biden delivered his remarks, Mr. Trump posted a one-minute video in which he empathized with the rioters because “we had an election that was stolen,” but urged them to “go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order.”

But many of his supporters appeared to dismiss the president’s tweets and video. Protesters waving “TRUMP” flags descended on the Capitol. 

Instead of delivering remarks about his plans to accelerate the country’s economic recovery, the president-elect delivered a forceful call for peace as the National Guard raced to Washington.

“At this hour our democracy is under unprecedented assault,” he said, adding later, “Today is a reminder, a painful one, that democracy is fragile.”

— Michael D. Shear

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Continue reading the main story

Army deploys D.C. National Guard to Capitol, and F.B.I. mobilizes agents.

The Army is activating the entire District of Columbia National Guard — 1,100 troops — in response to a request from Mayor Muriel Bowser of Washington, an Army official said on Wednesday.

The troops are being sent to the D.C. Armory and will be deployed to the Capitol and to other points around Washington, the official said.

In a statement, Jonathan Hoffman, a Pentagon spokesman, said the Guard had been mobilized and the response would be led by the Justice Department. The decision by Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy and Christopher C. Miller, the acting defense secretary, came as protesters breached the Capitol.

Defense and administration officials said it was Vice President Mike Pence, not President Trump, who approved the order to deploy the D.C. National Guard. It was unclear why the president, who incited the protesters to storm the Capitol and who is still the commander in chief, did not give the order.

A Defense official said that 150 D.C. National Guard troops were en route to the Capitol at 5:20 p.m. to back up the police in clearing the area. The troops, the official said, would be wearing protective and riot gear but would not be armed, although that could change if the situation deteriorated Wednesday night. The troops would be stationed around the grounds of the Capitol to re-establish a perimeter.

Mr. Miller said on Wednesday afternoon that he had spoken with Mr. Pence, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senators Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer, and Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland about the protests at the Capitol.

“We have fully activated the D.C. National Guard to assist federal and local law enforcement as they work to peacefully address the situation,” Mr. Miller said. “We are prepared to provide additional support as necessary and appropriate as requested by local authorities. Our people are sworn to defend the Constitution and our democratic form of government, and they will act accordingly.”

Mr. Hoffman noted that the troops were deploying in “support” of federal law enforcement in the district, reflecting Defense officials’ reluctance to send military troops to the Capitol. Defense officials want the authorities in Washington to use the local police and other law enforcement agencies to confront the protesters, with the National Guard troops in support but not in the lead, to avoid the specter of a military battling election protests.

But the tense standoff at the Capitol, and the breach by Trump supporters, led to the decision, officials said.

The F.B.I. also mobilized its officers to reinforce the Capitol Police, a spokesman said.

Bureau agents went to the Capitol grounds on Wednesday to help the police on the scene protect the building and the public. A handful of the F.B.I. agents arrived in camouflage and bearing shields and machine guns late in the afternoon outside the secure location where the senators were being held.

The deployment signaled the growing alarm among federal officials viewing the chaos swirling at the Capitol building on Wednesday.

“The F.B.I. has been deployed to assist our U.S. Capitol Police partners, as requested, in protection of federal property and public safety,” the F.B.I. statement said.

The bureau would not say how many of its agents were deployed to the Capitol. But a former government official said that all F.B.I. agents in the region were alerted earlier on Wednesday that they could be called to downtown Washington.

— Helene Cooper, Julian E. Barnes, Eric Schmitt and Jonathan Martin

Woman who was shot in the Capitol has died.

A woman who was shot inside the Capitol building after it was overrun by a pro-Trump mob has died, Washington, D.C., police officials said on Wednesday.

The woman has not been identified and no information has been released about who may have shot her. Chief Robert J. Contee of the Metropolitan Police Department said earlier that she was a “civilian” and that his officers were leading the investigation.

The woman was pronounced dead at a local hospital, Dustin Sternbeck, a spokesman for the police department, said in an email. Mr. Sternbeck said he did not yet know who shot her or have any other details.

A video posted to Twitter earlier on Wednesday appeared to show a shooting in the Capitol.

The woman in the video seemed to climb onto a small ledge next to a doorway inside the building immediately before a single loud bang is heard. The woman, draped in a flag, fell to the ground at the top of a stairwell. A man with a helmet and a military-style rifle stood next to her after she fell, and shouts of “police” could be heard as a man in a suit approached the woman and crouched next to her.

“Where’s she hit?” people yelled as blood streamed around her mouth.

— Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs

Trump openly condones supporters who violently stormed the Capitol.

President Trump on Wednesday evening openly condoned the violence unfolding at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue after a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol.

“These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long,” Mr. Trump tweeted Wednesday evening, after spending much of the afternoon in the Oval Office watching footage of escalating violence unfolding on Capitol Hill. “Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”

The tweet that appeared to prop up violent protesters as “patriots” and asserted baseless claims about the election outcome came after the president, under public and private pressure from advisers, had offered only a tepid response as the Capitol was breached for the first time in modern history and one woman died after being shot on the Capitol grounds.

Mr. Trump posted the message both on Twitter and his Facebook pages. Facebook removed the post. Twitter first attached a warning label to the tweet that said it made a disputed claim about election fraud before removing it all together, claiming it “violated the Twitter Rules.”

Even as former administration officials and Democratic leaders called on the president to tell the protesters to “go home,” Mr. Trump for hours did little to discourage them from storming the building. Instead, he issued two perfunctory tweets in which he asked them merely to remain “peaceful.”

“Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order — respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue,” he wrote, after shocking scenes of broken windows and waving Confederate flags in the Capitol had been playing on television for hours.

The protesters had made their way to the Capitol at the president’s behest, after attending a rally near the White House, where he baselessly claimed the election results were fraudulent.

It was only hours into the melee, and after an explosive device was found at the Republican National Committee headquarters, that Mr. Trump released a message telling the mob to leave.

“You have to go home now,” he said in a video message filmed at the White House and posted on Twitter. “We have to have peace. We have to have law and order. We don’t want anyone hurt.” Still, the president ultimately offered encouragement to the mob, noting: “We love you. You’re very special,” and “I know how you feel.”

But many advisers around the president were worried that his message in the video was not forceful enough and that some of his supporters would interpret it as encouragement to continue fighting for him.

Alyssa Farah, who resigned last month from her post as the White House communications director, tweeted a more direct message at the president’s supporters.

“Dear MAGA- I am one of you. Before I worked for @realDonaldTrump, I worked for @MarkMeadows & @Jim_Jordan & the @freedomcaucus,” she said, establishing her conservative bona fides. “I marched in the 2010 Tea Party rallies. I campaigned w/ Trump & voted for him. But I need you to hear me: the Election was NOT stolen. We lost.”

Earlier in the day the president had also encouraged his supporters with an alternate message. “We will never concede,” Mr. Trump said at the rally.

At the Capitol, some lawmakers who were taken to secure locations blamed the president for the uprising. “This is what the president has caused today, this insurrection,” said Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah.

Hours after the violence began, the White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, said that the National Guard and other federal protective services were being deployed to the scene, at the president’s direction.

Some former administration officials publicly tried to encourage Mr. Trump to take a tougher stand to quell the escalating chaos, while other allies privately pressed him to do more. “The President’s tweet is not enough,” Mick Mulvaney, the former acting White House chief of staff, wrote on Twitter. “He can stop this now and needs to do exactly that. Tell these folks to go home.”

Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and a senior White House official, tweeted that “the violence must stop immediately,” first referring to them as “American patriots” before amending her statement online and condemning the violence outright.

In a joint statement, Senator Chuck Schumer and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leaders, said, “We are calling on President Trump to demand that all protesters leave the U.S. Capitol and Capitol grounds immediately.”

But Mr. Trump resisted those private and public entreaties to make any outright condemnation of the violence. Instead, his ire was more focused on Vice President Mike Pence, who earlier in the day made clear that he planned to reject the president’s pressure to block congressional certification of Mr. Biden’s victory. Mr. Pence was evacuated from the Senate chamber as the tension escalated.

“Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter.

At the rally earlier on Wednesday, Mr. Trump insisted the country’s elections were worse than those in third-world nations, a statement that would be welcomed by authoritarians in countries that he has cozied up to throughout his four years in power.

He addressed the widely criticized call with Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, which took place on Saturday and a recording of which was made public. In the call, the president urged Mr. Raffensperger to “find” additional votes to allow Mr. Trump to win the state. “People loved that conversation,” the president said.

At one point during the rally, Mr. Trump conceded that the two Republican candidates in the Georgia runoffs on Tuesday, Senator Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, whose Senate term ended Sunday, had lost their races, saying they “didn’t have a shot” as he continued with baseless allegations of electoral fraud and theft.

At other points, he complained that he has no control over the three U.S. Supreme Court justices he appointed. And he complained about the former attorney general, William P. Barr, saying he had liked him, “but he changed, because he didn’t want to be considered my personal attorney.”

He also attacked Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and the party’s third-ranking House leader, who has criticized his efforts to undermine the election, saying she wanted to keep U.S. soldiers in other countries. “The Liz Cheneys of the world” need to be voted out, he said.

Talking about his inability to get his unvarnished statements into news circulation, Mr. Trump falsely declared, “That’s what happens in a communist country.”

— Annie Karni and Maggie Haberman

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Jon Ossoff wins in Georgia, ensuring Democrats will control the Senate.

Democrats took control of the Senate on Wednesday with a pair of historic victories in Georgia’s runoff elections, assuring slim majorities in both chambers of Congress for President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. and delivering an emphatic, final rebuke to President Trump in his last days in office.

The Rev. Raphael Warnock defeated Senator Kelly Loeffler, becoming the first Black Democrat elected to the Senate from the South. And Jon Ossoff, the 33-year-old head of a video production company who has never held public office, defeated David Perdue, who recently completed his first full term as senator.

Both Democrats now lead their defeated Republican opponents by margins that are larger than the threshold required to trigger a recount under Georgia law. 

The Democrats’ twin victories will reshape the balance of power in Washington. Though they will have the thinnest of advantages in the House and Senate, where Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will break 50-50 ties, Democrats will control the committees and the legislation and nominations brought to the floor. That advantage will pave the way for at least some elements of Mr. Biden’s agenda.

Mr. Ossoff’s victory comes at a moment when the nation’s political leadership has been paralyzed by a pro-Trump mob that stormed the Capitol and halted the formal accepting of the Electoral College results by Congress. The day’s extraordinary proceedings — rioting interrupting the peaceful transition of political power — crystallized the campaign the Georgia Democrats ran against their Republican opponents, both of whom pledged to seek to overturn the results of the presidential election to keep Mr. Trump in office. 

The Republicans’ losses in a state that Mr. Biden narrowly carried in November, but that still leans right politically, also amounted to a vivid illustration of the perils of embracing Mr. Trump. He put his diminished political capital on the line with an election eve appearance in Northwest Georgia. And Mr. Perdue and Ms. Loeffler unwaveringly embraced the president throughout the runoff races even as he refused to acknowledge Mr. Biden’s victory and brazenly demanded that Georgia state officials overturn his loss in the state.

The political fallout of Mr. Trump’s tenure is now clear: His single term in the White House will conclude with Republicans having lost the presidency, the House and the Senate on his watch.

Mr. Ossoff and Mr. Warnock won thanks to a frenetic get-out-the-vote push that began immediately after the November election, when no candidate in either race claimed the majority needed to avoid a runoff. Driving turnout among liberals and Black voters in the early-voting period, Democrats built an insurmountable advantage going into election day.

They won thanks to overwhelming margins in Georgia’s cities, decisive victories in Georgia’s once-Republican suburbs and because of lackluster turnout on Tuesday in the rural counties that now make up the G.O.P. base.

— Jonathan Martin, Richard Fausset and Reid J. Epstein

An explosive device is found at the R.N.C., and the D.N.C. is evacuated.

An explosive device was found at the headquarters of the Republican National Committee in Washington and the nearby headquarters of the Democratic National Committee was evacuated after the discovery of a suspicious package on Wednesday, according to three people briefed on the discoveries.

The device that was found at the R.N.C. was a pipe bomb that was successfully destroyed by a bomb squad, according to an official for the R.N.C. 

The package at the D.N.C. has yet to be identified, according to a top Democrat briefed on the matter who was not authorized to speak publicly about it.

The R.N.C. and D.N.C. are headquartered just a few blocks away from the U.S. Capitol, which Mr. Trump’s supporters stormed on Wednesday afternoon soon as Congress had gathered to certify President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory and shortly after the president addressed the crowd near the White House. 

As a mob breached the Capitol, Vice President Mike Pence was rushed from the Senate chamber and the building was placed on lockdown. Shortly after, Mr. Trump tweeted that Mr. Pence “didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done” because he did not try to reject the electors. 

The National Guard for Washington and Virginia was activated Wednesday afternoon to respond to the unrest.

— Katie Benner, Maggie Haberman and Michael S. Schmidt

Pompeo condemns violence as world leaders offer strong reactions to the scene in Washington.

Images beamed around the world of Trump supporters storming and vandalizing the United States Capitol elicited alarm from the nation’s allies — and glee from its critics.

“This is not merely a US. national issue, but it shakes the world, at least all democracies,” said Peter Beyer, the German government’s coordinator for trans-Atlantic affairs.

In France, a member of the European Parliament, Nathalie Loiseau, sounded a warning that evoked the political battles in her own country. “A message to those who find populists amusing or are indifferent to them: This is what they are capable of,” she wrote on Twitter.

Later Wednesday evening, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo condemned the violence and said on Twitter that storming the Capitol was “unacceptable.”

“Lawlessness and rioting — here or around the world— is always unacceptable,” Mr. Pompeo said.

Months after the Black Lives Matter protests put racial tensions and police bias in the United States into the international spotlight, some observers were quick to see the assault in Washington as a further breakdown of law enforcement.

Analysts on Mexican television pointed out that the members of the mob were overwhelmingly white, noting that the police response to Black or Latino protesters would likely have been more violent. Mexican reporters who have covered the United States closely watched in astonishment as their neighbor’s capital city descended into chaos.

“I’m amazed at the lack of preparedness of the Capitol police and D.C. police,” said Carlos Puig, a Mexican television host and newspaper columnist. “I guess the U.S. institutions never thought this would happen to them.”

In Russia, the violence fit neatly into the Kremlin’s propaganda narrative of a crumbling American democracy. Russia’s state-controlled news channel, Rossiya-24, broadcast the chaos at the Capitol as part of a split screen, with one side showing happy Orthodox Christmas festivities in Russia, the other the mayhem in Washington.

And in Israel, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak alluded to President Trump’s angry speechmaking in recent days as an open attempt at incitement.

“A shaky coup attempt on Capitol Hill. Lots of incitement by a defeated president who lost his temper,” Mr. Barak wrote on Twitter. “The lesson is clear: When those who are in charge are allowed to go wild, and those who had to act are paralyzed by fear — even the impossible can happen.”

— Melissa Eddy, Aurelien Breeden, Natalie Kitroeff, Oscar Lopez, Anton Troianovski, David M. Halbfinger, Isabel Kershner and Adam Rasgon

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Pence rejects Trump’s pressure to block certification saying he ‘loves the Constitution.’

Vice President Mike Pence, in a bold statement on Wednesday afternoon, rejected President Trump’s pressure to block congressional certification of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory in the presidential election, claiming that he lacked the “unilateral authority” to decide the outcome of the presidential election.

“As a student of history who loves the Constitution and reveres its Framers,” Mr. Pence wrote in a two-page letter, “I do not believe that the Founders of our country intended to invest the vice president with unilateral authority to decide which electoral votes should be counted during the Joint Session of Congress, and no vice president in American history has ever asserted such authority.”

The letter was released by the White House as Mr. Trump was speaking to a group of supporters at the Ellipse, where over and over he implored Mr. Pence to have “the courage to do what he has to do.”

Mr. Pence does not have the unilateral power to alter the results sent by the states to Congress.

But Mr. Trump, listening to the advice of allies like Rudolph W. Giuliani, his personal lawyer, has been convinced that the vice president could do his bidding. “If Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election,” Mr. Trump said Wednesday, claiming inaccurately that the vice president has “the absolute right to” throw out the election results.

Mr. Pence’s defiance — the first in his four years as a deferential No. 2 — created a remarkable and uncomfortable split screen, as the president continued the public pressure campaign even as Mr. Pence arrived at the Capitol to preside over a joint session of Congress where the Electoral College vote will be certified.

On Tuesday night, after The New York Times reported that the vice president in a private meeting had informed Mr. Trump he did not have the authority to change the results of the election, Mr. Trump released a statement disputing the story. “He never said that,” the statement said. “The Vice President and I are in total agreement that the vice president has the power to act.”

The vice president’s advisers have been eager to find some middle ground where Mr. Pence could mollify Mr. Trump by acknowledging some of his concerns. In the letter, Mr. Pence indicated that he shared the president’s concerns about “integrity of this election” and would make sure that challenges received a “fair and open hearing” in Congress. 

Releasing the letter ahead of his arrival at the Capitol took some of the drama and suspense out of Mr. Pence’s largely ceremonial role, and the swirling questions about how he would play the awkward moment. But his aides expected him to be on the receiving end of the president’s ire for not complying with his wishes. They expected him to underscore his loyalty to the Trump agenda in other ways, over the coming days.

On Wednesday, Kelli Ward, who chairs the Arizona Republican Party, also joined a group of far-right Republicans that petitioned the Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito to grant Mr. Pence the authority to reject some state electors, after lower courts rejected the request. One of the attorneys who wrote the petition is Sidney Powell, a longtime member of Mr. Trump’s legal team.

On Wednesday afternoon, as Mr. Trump’s supporters left the rally and stormed the Capitol with rioters entering the building and Mr. Pence being quickly evacuated from a building that was on lockdown, the president did nothing to quell the disorder that he had encouraged earlier in the day. Instead, he focused his ire on the vice president.

“Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!” he wrote on Twitter.

— Annie Karni

McConnell rebukes Trump for efforts to overturn the election, warning of a ‘death spiral’ of democracy.

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‘The Most Important Vote’: McConnell Rebukes Efforts to Overturn Election

Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, forcefully rebuked President Trump and members of his own party on Wednesday as they sought to reject President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory.

I’ve served 36 years in the Senate. This will be the most important vote I’ve ever cast. President Trump claims the election was stolen. The assertions range from specific local allegations to constitutional arguments to sweeping conspiracy theories. I supported the president’s right to use the legal system. Dozens of lawsuits received hearings in courtrooms all across our country, but over and over … … the courts rejected these claims, including all-star judges, whom the president himself has nominated. If this election were overturned by mere allegations from the losing side, our democracy would enter a death spiral. We’d never see the whole nation accept an election again. Every four years would be a scramble for power at any cost.

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the most powerful Republican on Capitol Hill, forcefully rebuked President Trump and members of his own party on Wednesday as they sought to reject President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory, warning that the drive to overturn a legitimate election risked sending democracy into “a death spiral.”

In a lengthy speech defending his intention to vote against challenges to Mr. Biden’s victory — which he framed as “the most important vote I have ever cast” — Mr. McConnell urged his Republican colleagues ready to follow the president to step back from the brink.

He called some of Mr. Trump’s claims “sweeping conspiracy theories” and implicitly rebuked a dozen or so senators justifying their objections to the results by saying they were merely acts of protest.

“The voters, the courts and the states have all spoken,” Mr. McConnell, the majority leader, said. “If we overrule them all, it would damage our republic forever.”

He added a short time later: “If this election were overturned by mere allegations from the losing side, our democracy would enter a death spiral.”

But even as he spoke, there were signs outside the Capitol that the country was already in the throes of such a vicious cycle. Mr. McConnell, who was the first senator to rise in a debate over objections to electors from the state of Arizona, spoke as thousands of demonstrators massed outside the Capitol, clashing violently with the police and ultimately storming the building where Congress convenes.

Mr. McConnell’s remarks came on a day when he appeared to be headed back into the minority after six years of running the Senate, thanks, at least in part, to Mr. Trump’s relentless election attacks that have badly split the party. But while the president will be leaving office in two weeks, Mr. McConnell, 78, is likely to continue leading his party, and wants to play a crucial role in rebuilding it after years of Mr. Trump.

The intraparty brawl prompted by the election challenges was a situation Mr. McConnell had feared and that had prompted him to initially refrain from recognizing Mr. Biden’s victory for weeks after November’s election, wary of inflaming Mr. Trump’s grievances with his party.

When he did recognize Mr. Biden, his critics argued that the acknowledgment came too late, and that by waiting silently, Mr. McConnell had allowed Mr. Trump to sow dangerous disinformation with millions of Republican voters, drawing the backing of elected officials in his own party.

On Wednesday, Mr. McConnell said he had seen enough.

“It would be unfair and wrong to disenfranchise American voters and overrule the courts and the states on this thin basis,” he said. “I will vote to respect the people’s decision and defend our system of government as we know it.”

— Nicholas Fandos

Facebook bans a page used to coordinate pro-Trump protests after calls for violence.

Facebook banned a page that was being used to organize pro-Trump demonstrations in Washington on Wednesday after direct calls for violence surfaced on the page.

The company said it removed the page, called Red-State Secession, on Wednesday morning. It did not provide any further details on what prompted the action.

In the days leading up to the protests in Washington, members of the group had asked its roughly 8,000 followers to share addresses of perceived “enemies” in the nation’s capital. Those included home addresses of federal judges, members of Congress and other prominent progressive politicians.

Comments left on the page often featured photos of gun and ammunition, along with emoji suggesting that members of the group were planning for violence. One post on Tuesday said people should be “prepared to use force to defend civilization.”

Several comments below the post showed photos of assault rifles, ammunition and other weapons. In the comments, people referred to “occupying” the capital and taking action to force Congress to overturn the election results.

Before it was removed by Facebook, the page directed followers to other social media sites like Gab and Parler that have gained popularity in right-wing circles since the election in November.

— Sheera Frenkel

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Trump supporters are mobilizing at state capitols, too.

As supporters of President Trump breached the nation’s Capitol, hundreds of other Trump supporters across the country gathered at state capitols, in some cases prompting evacuations and law enforcement mobilizations, although none immediately appeared to turn violent.

In Georgia, law enforcement officers escorted Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger out of the State Capitol on Wednesday afternoon as a few dozen Trump supporters outside the building rallied to protest the recent election results.

Chris Hill, the leader of a right-wing militia, said he called some of his “troops” to the statehouse to protest, repeating the false claim that the election was “rigged.” Mr. Hill said he believes the nation is headed toward a civil war.

In New Mexico, a lawmaker reported that the State Police were evacuating the Capitol, while Denver’s mayor instructed city government buildings to close as about 700 people gathered outside the statehouse there. Authorities in Texas shut down the Capitol building “out of an abundance of caution.” In Washington State, protesters broke through the gates surrounding the governor’s mansion. A spokesman for Gov. Jay Inslee said he was in a safe location.

Trump supporters burned an effigy of Gov. Kate Brown of Oregon outside the Capitol there and later fought with counterprotesters. In Arizona, they set up a guillotine, while in Washington State, some gathered outside the Capitol with guns. 

More than 500 people gathered in Lansing, Mich., praying and carrying a mix of flags and guns. 

“We have a restored voice in Michigan,” said Rick Warzywak, one of the organizers of the rally from Atlanta, Mich. “No matter what happens today in D.C., do not be discouraged. We’re going to be in a consistent battle for weeks to come and we’re not going to give up.”

In Sacramento, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California canceled a news briefing on the coronavirus to ensure the safety of his staff, he said in a statement.

Some state capitol buildings have seen volatile demonstrations that have included clashes with the police and arrests in the weeks since the November election.

— Mike Baker, Sean Keenan, Kathleen Grayand Shawn Hubler

Republicans across the government denounce the violence, and in some cases, Trump for encouraging it.

Vice President Mike Pence and other top Republican leaders denounced the violence on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, as President Trump’s efforts to encourage the mob of his supporters to leave peacefully drew criticism for not being forceful enough.

“This attack on our Capitol will not be tolerated and those involved will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Mr. Pence wrote on Twitter. “The violence and destruction taking place at the US Capitol Must Stop and it Must Stop Now.”

Many of the other Republicans who sought to distance themselves from the mob violence on Wednesday had previously tolerated or outright encouraged efforts to subvert the results of the election.

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, the first Republican senator to object to the certification of election results during a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, denounced the storming of the Capitol building on Twitter, insisting that violence “is ALWAYS wrong.” 

He did not, however, withdraw his objections to the results of the election.

“Those storming the Capitol need to stop NOW,” Mr. Cruz wrote. “Those engaged in violence are hurting the cause they say they support.”

Representative Kevin McCarthy, the top Republican in the House and an early supporter of efforts to overturn the results of the election, called the violence on Capitol Hill “unacceptable” and “un-American.”

“I condemn any of this violence. I could not be more disappointed with the way our country looks right now,” Kevin McCarthy said in an appearance on Fox News, adding that he had called on the president to make a statement against the violence. “This is not the American way. This is not protected by the First Amendment. This must stop now.”

Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah and an outspoken opponent of efforts by Republicans to subvert the election results, furiously denounced Mr. Trump for encouraging the chaos.

“This is what the president has caused today,” Mr. Romney said, “this insurrection.” 

In a statement condemning the rioting hours later, Mr. Romney said that lawmakers should not be intimidated by the acts of violence, and he called on Congress to continue certification of the election results.

“We gather today due to a selfish man’s injured pride and the outrage of his supporters who he has deliberately misinformed,” Mr. Romney wrote. “We must not be intimidated or prevented from fulfilling our constitutional duty.”

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser Robert C. O’Brien, top members of Mr. Trump’s national security team, condemned the riots in statements released later in the evening.

“The storming of the U.S. Capitol today is unacceptable. Lawlessness and rioting — here or around the world — is always unacceptable,” Mr. Pompeo wrote.

Other Republican senators swiftly condemned the violence on Twitter.

Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, wrote on Twitter that there was “nothing patriotic about what is occurring on Capitol Hill.” He then pleaded with Mr. Trump to personally call for an end to the mob violence.

“Mr. President @realDonaldTrump the men & women of law enforcement are under assault,” Mr. Rubio wrote. “It is crucial you help restore order by sending resources to assist the police and ask those doing this to stand down. 

Later in the evening, as law enforcement agencies evicted the mob from the building, Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska, condemned the president for encouraging the violence, saying that “lies have consequences.”

“Today, the United States Capitol, — the world’s greatest symbol of self-government — was ransacked while the leader of the free world cowered behind his keyboard,” Mr. Sasse said in a statement. “This violence was the inevitable and ugly outcome of the president’s addiction to constantly stoking division.”

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and a longtime ally of President Trump, also denounced the storming of the Capitol building, demanding criminal prosecution for those who participated, and praised President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. for addressing the violence.

“I could not agree more with President-elect Biden’s statement to the nation. Time to retake the Capitol, end the violence, & stop the madness,” Mr. Graham said on Twitter.Republican members of the House who did not sign on to efforts to dispute the results of the election also vocally criticized the efforts.

“We are witnessing absolute banana republic crap in the United States Capitol right now.” Representative Mike Gallagher, Republican of Wisconsin, said in a videorecorded in his congressional office, where he was sheltering in place. “This is the cost of countenancing an effort by Congress to overturn the election.”

Just days into his first term in Congress, Representative Peter Meijer, Republican of Michigan, denounced Mr. Trump after he posted a video in which he advised members of his mob to “go home” but also spoke in sympathetic and affectionate terms

“Enough. Acknowledge Biden as President-Elect and end this madness,” Mr. Meijer wrote on Twitter. “Violent rioters laid siege to the nation’s Capitol in an act of insurrection unparalleled in modern times. This is not leadership.”

— Chris Cameron

Sent from my iPhone

[debra2007-blog]

THE MANIFESTO Friday, September 1, 2023 Shalom, to you my Friend and Co-Minister in the Great Commission…

Is there an answer, a guide, a blueprint that reveals what we need to know to survive, to stand, and to prevail in view of what's coming in the days ahead? Has it been revealed to us in the appearing of a sign from an ancient mystery playing out in modern times before our eyes?

Could a 3000 year-old calendar of appointed days provide the secret to the most dramatic times of our lives - even ordaining a plague, a national lockdown, days of fire, and the transforming of the Supreme Court?

Could an ancient temple, an ominous prayer, and a mysterious template lie behind the event that overtook Capitol Hill and shook the nation?

Could a child, a river, and a king hold the secret and a princess hold the key to the political, judicial, and cultural changes of modern times?

Could an array of mysteries from the ancient Middle East have converged on Washington DC in a single hour and changed the history of America?

What is yet to happen in the days to come? Can there be revival? Or will there be judgment?

And has God given us a sign, an ancient and critical biblical sign to give us the answer? How must we live and respond to the accelerating apostasy around us? How do we guard our families, our calling, and our lives? If, in days to come, the government should launch a persecution against believers, what do we do? What are the keys and powers God has given us to fight, overcome, and prevail?

Commit this month to live by God's power, God's love, God's Spirit, and God's presence. May God greatly bless you and lead you to higher ground and greater victories!

Your sister and co-laborer in His love and service, Debbie

[blueweaveconsultingblog]

North America Glamping Market Share, Trends, Report 2022-2029

BlueWeave Consulting, a leading strategic consulting and market research firm, in its recent study, estimated North America glamping market size at USD 1.12 billion in 2022. During the forecast period between 2023 and 2029, BlueWeave expects North America glamping market size to grow at a CAGR of 10.67% reaching a value of USD 2.87 billion by 2029. The glamping industry in North America has recently witnessed several notable trends. Travelers looking for distinctive and adventurous lodging are increasingly turning to glamping, which blends the comfort of a hotel with the immersive experience of camping. Eco-friendly and sustainable glamping choices are becoming increasingly in demand, with an emphasis on minimizing ecological damage and environmental preservation. Additionally, themed glamping excursions have become more popular, catering to the unique interests and tastes of tourists. Incorporating technologies, like smart amenities and connectivity, has also become popular in North America's glamping sector, offering guests comfort and convenience. Overall, the market is changing to accommodate the wide range of demands of tourists looking for unique, nature-focused experiences.

North America Glamping Market – Overview

Glamping, a combination of "glamorous" and "camping," is a lavish and affluent way to enjoy the great outdoors. It provides a unique combination of hotel luxuries and camping excitement. Glamping venues have large tents, cottages, yurts, or even treehouses with contemporary conveniences like comfortable mattresses, private toilets, power, and, in some cases, Wi-Fi. Glamping, as opposed to typical camping, offers a hassle-free experience in which travelers may immerse themselves in nature without sacrificing comfort. It has grown in popularity among those looking for a one-of-a-kind and memorable outdoor retreat, providing the ideal combination of adventure and indulgence.

Sample Request @ https://www.blueweaveconsulting.com/report/north-america-glamping-market/report-sample

Impact of COVID-19 on North America Glamping Market

North America glamping market adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in significant challenges and changes within the industry. With travel restrictions, lockdowns, and safety concerns, glamping businesses experienced a sharp decline in bookings and revenue. The temporary closure of camping sites and cancellation of events further exacerbated the situation. However, as the region gradually recovers from the pandemic, the glamping industry is adapting by implementing stringent health and safety measures to ensure customer confidence. Innovative strategies such as contactless check-ins, enhanced sanitation protocols, and flexible cancellation policies are being adopted to revitalize the market and regain traveler trust.

North America Glamping Market – By Age Group

Based on age group, North America glamping market is divided into 18–32 years, 33–50 years, 51–65 years, and above 65 years segments. The 33–50 years age group is often considered a prime demographic for glamping experiences. This segment typically represents individuals who are in their prime working years and may have more disposable income for leisure activities. With a combination of adventurous spirit and financial stability, this age group is likely to be a significant contributor to the North America glamping market's growth and demand for unique outdoor accommodations.

Competitive Landscape

The North America glamping market is significantly competitive. Major companies in the market include The Last Best Beef LLC (The Resort at Paws Up), Conestoga Ranch, Capitol Reef Resort, Ventana Big Sur, an Alila Resort, Westgate Resorts (Westgate River Ranch, Little Arrow Outdoor Resort, Huttopia Adirondacks, The Griffin Ranch, Dunton Hot Springs, Under Canvas, and Village Camp. The companies use various strategies, including increasing investments in their R&D activities, mergers, and acquisitions, joint ventures, collaborations, licensing agreements, and new product and service releases to further strengthen their position North America Glamping Market.

Contact Us:

BlueWeave Consulting & Research Pvt. Ltd

[phone] | [phone] | [phone]

[email protected]

#North America Glamping Market

[rachellately]

Today's Update

Recently, I have discovered that the technology used by London City, The Capitol Building in Washington D.C. and the Vatican is from harvested biosynthesis computers, mostly from Orion, or some they have built.

For example, they are using them in the United States and Israel to make sophisticated chemical and biological weapons that are used on the mass public. What we have seen in the last 15 or so years is a massive uprising in the militaristic use of biowepaons. However, this lesson of using widespread SARS-AIDS Coronavirus variants has become a lesson that the makers learned the very hardest way. Instead of relying on nature and technology suited to a person or a human, the makers of these CRISPR bioweapons inadvertently got infected almost right away and for nearly the entire time we had ourbreaks and lockdowns during 2019 in China and 2020 to 2022 mostly throughout Europe, America, the rest of Asia, and most other well connected global locations that have busy airports.

in 2021 we had the actual lockdown after the 'illuminati' realized their bioweapon had infected them, with SARS-AIDS covid-19.

This variant was mutated, not surprisingly. Originally, the first bioweapon that was released into the public was too deadly and got into rural Wuhan and would have killed nearly the entire population of at least those infected. 19 or so individuals, mostly the workers at the Wuhan biolab in China were killed, all from being vaporized in a van on the street. These deaths all took place in Wuhan in 2019.

Soon after, on January first 2020, the SARS-AIDS bioweapon had mutated fully back into the mutated Avian-SARS flu and we had a regular cold and flu season in late 2020 and for the latter 3 years, until 2022.

Scientists were terrified and puzzled early on to examine this virus, since they learned this SARS virus has an extremely high factor of re-transmitted infections. This means a lot of people are spreading this virus at a high rate of passing the RNA virus to the next host.

Surprisingly, wearing masks in 2021 and 2022, changed the scape of viruses on earth, and studies are still being researched today in 2023 to explain how fast COVID-19 mutated.

I learned that by 2020, there were no viruses with AIDS alelles that infect the respiratory and pulmonary circulatory system. Avian flu is known to try to cross into the cerebral spinal fluid of an animal, almost always birds. But since bioweapons scientists have used CRISPR to enhance the infectivity of SARS-flu to include human, avian and reptilian genetics, for the last 15 or so years, we have had diseases that are transmittable from animals to humans and vice versa.

The real truth about disease is that the viruses, symbiotes like leeches and mosquitos, and viral bacteria are aliens from Orion. All disease is extra terrestrial, as an invention specifically to hurt and oppress humans.

[karen-anti-r-cml]

February 13, 2023: East High School in Denver, Colorado Was Added To The Ever Growing List of School Shooting Locations.

Luis Garcia, Student at and Soccer Player for EHS was Shot and Killed while sitting in a car near the Campus

Garcia's Murder Sparked Student-Led Campaign for Gun Safety Reform., Per NBC affiliate KUSA

February 2023: The School got False Threats of Violence. Per Dr. Alex Marrero, School District Superintendent

Now I'm wondering were the Threats of Violence really False or were the just Delayed.

March 3, 2023: Students Led a Walkout and Went to the State Capitol to Demand Legislative Action. Per KUSA.

Many of the Students wore shirts With the Words...

"Angels Against Gun Violence"

March 22, 2023: Students at East High School in Denver, Colorado are once again dealing with Gun Violence...

At approximately 9:50am 2 School Administrators were Shot, but Thankfully only Wounded by a Student Who Immediately Left the School Thankfully Shooting No One Else.

The Victims are Eric Sinclair, School’s Dean of Culture and Jerald Mason, A Restorative Practice Coordinator in the Dean’s Office, A District Spokesperson Confirmed to CNN.

1 of the Men was in Critical Condition and the other was in Stable Condition with Serious Injuries, per Ron Thomas, Denver Police Chief

"Our students should and must be able to attend school without fear for their safety, their parents deserve the peace of mind that their children are safe in classrooms, and teachers should be able to work safely and without harm," Per Jared Polis, Colorado Governor

Gracie Taub, Co-Lead for EHS's Chapter of Students Demand Action, while waiting for the Lockdown to End wrote and tweeted...

Denver Police Later named Austin Lyle, 17 as the Suspect.

Austin was under a “Safety Plan” and Agreed to be Patted Down Every Morning in Private, Per School Officials

Austin's vehicle was located, a Search was Launched and a body with a Self-Inflicted Gun Shot Wound was found in the woods, near the vehicle. Per Tom McGraw, Park County, Colorado Sheriff

“During the search, a Gun was retrieved, and several shots were fired." Per Chief Thomas

March 23, 2023: The County's Coroner's Office was able to announce the body found is Austin

I can’t even walk outside my house without feeling like I’m gonna die, or I’m gonna get shot,” Per Aubriana Acuna, Student

“We have to be here because we don’t want this to happen again. You don’t want to have to take time out of school just to not be scared and horrified of what just happened to us." Per Beckett Nelson Gardner, Student

March 24, 2023: “We all as educators came into this profession to support [and] help students thrive, and most importantly, provide them an opportunity to succeed, I can acknowledge we failed Austin as a district.” Per Dr. Marrero

We just want to know: Are kids are safe to come back? Our teachers aren’t gonna come back unless they know they’re safe, and I don’t blame them. I will support them. I will picket with them. Teachers are real big part of this because they’re doing the work of the police department now. These are teachers; they aren’t police officers. So, there’s a lot of things that need to change.” Steve Katsaros, Parent