09-18-2021, 10:23 AM
There has been much talk on the Hard Right about a rally today on behalf of so-called political prisoners from the Capitol Putsch.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The fence around the Capitol is back up. The District of Columbia’s police department is at the ready. The U.S. Capitol Police have requested assistance from nearby law enforcement agencies including the National Guard.
The Capitol Police are taking no chances as they prepare for Saturday’s rally at the Capitol in support of rioters imprisoned after the violent Jan. 6 insurrection. They’re working to avoid a repeat of the pre-inauguration attack.
Persistent attempts to rewrite the narrative of the violence and panic of the day, and the increasing volatility behind the lie that the 2020 election was stolen have made it impossible to predict what may happen this weekend. After all, law enforcement was only expecting a free speech protest the day Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in an effort to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s victory.
Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger said at a news conference Friday it was difficult to say whether threats of violence for the Saturday event are credible, but “chatter” online and elsewhere has been similar to intelligence that was missed in January.
A permit for the protest allows 700 people. Manger said he believes the most likely possibility for violence will involve clashes between the protesters and counter-protesters. Police are also preparing for the possibility that some demonstrators may arrive with weapons.
On Saturday morning, police were already working to separate the handful of Trump supporters and counter-protesters who had arrived hours before the rally was supposed to kick off. Hundreds of law enforcement officers were being brought into the city and were gearing up at a staging area as large dump trucks and cement barricades lined the streets around the Capitol, outside of the fenced area.
......
Congress is out of session and no lawmakers were expected to be in the building Saturday. Biden was in Delaware for the weekend.
Many commenters on online platforms like Telegram that are popular with the far right disavowed the rally, saying they believed law enforcement was promoting the event to entrap Trump supporters. Some urged their followers not to attend an event they said was secretly organized by the FBI.
At the same time, however, some commenters continued to promote rallies planned in cities and state capitals across the country.
Online discussion before Jan. 6 was intense. But that type of chatter hasn’t been replicated so far on social media, with hashtags promoting the event gaining little traction.
https://apnews.com/article/prisons-violence-capitol-siege-law-enforcement-agencies-us-national-guard-4dd5188eeb846965b88073f549982974
WASHINGTON (AP) — The fence around the Capitol is back up. The District of Columbia’s police department is at the ready. The U.S. Capitol Police have requested assistance from nearby law enforcement agencies including the National Guard.
The Capitol Police are taking no chances as they prepare for Saturday’s rally at the Capitol in support of rioters imprisoned after the violent Jan. 6 insurrection. They’re working to avoid a repeat of the pre-inauguration attack.
Persistent attempts to rewrite the narrative of the violence and panic of the day, and the increasing volatility behind the lie that the 2020 election was stolen have made it impossible to predict what may happen this weekend. After all, law enforcement was only expecting a free speech protest the day Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in an effort to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s victory.
Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger said at a news conference Friday it was difficult to say whether threats of violence for the Saturday event are credible, but “chatter” online and elsewhere has been similar to intelligence that was missed in January.
A permit for the protest allows 700 people. Manger said he believes the most likely possibility for violence will involve clashes between the protesters and counter-protesters. Police are also preparing for the possibility that some demonstrators may arrive with weapons.
On Saturday morning, police were already working to separate the handful of Trump supporters and counter-protesters who had arrived hours before the rally was supposed to kick off. Hundreds of law enforcement officers were being brought into the city and were gearing up at a staging area as large dump trucks and cement barricades lined the streets around the Capitol, outside of the fenced area.
......
Congress is out of session and no lawmakers were expected to be in the building Saturday. Biden was in Delaware for the weekend.
Many commenters on online platforms like Telegram that are popular with the far right disavowed the rally, saying they believed law enforcement was promoting the event to entrap Trump supporters. Some urged their followers not to attend an event they said was secretly organized by the FBI.
At the same time, however, some commenters continued to promote rallies planned in cities and state capitals across the country.
Online discussion before Jan. 6 was intense. But that type of chatter hasn’t been replicated so far on social media, with hashtags promoting the event gaining little traction.
https://apnews.com/article/prisons-violence-capitol-siege-law-enforcement-agencies-us-national-guard-4dd5188eeb846965b88073f549982974
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.