After the extraordinary scenes of rioting by a Trump supporting mob that actually invaded the halls of Congress forcing all its members to evacuate until the mob was cleared out and the certification of Joe Biden was allowed to continue, the question is what comes next?

Here is a short video of the invasion

The ransacked office of the Senate Parliamentarian: pic.twitter.com/E7PsSgoAEX

— Ali Zaslav (@alizaslav) January 7, 2021

DC Police saying in live update that they have made 52 arrests.

Yes, only 52.

They also recovered pipe bombs both at the RNC and the DNC and found a vehicle on Capitol grounds with a long gun and molotov cocktails.

— Heather Caygle (@heatherscope) January 7, 2021

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You may recall my post about the crackpot lawsuit brought by crackpot Texas congressperson Louie Gohmert before a federal judge that the president of the senate has broad powers to decide which electoral slates should be counted on January 6th when the joint session of Congress meets to certify the results of the presidential election. The odd thing was that Gohmert was citing as the defendant vice-president Mike Pence, the very person whom, in his role as president of the senate, Gohmert was saying should have these vastly expanded powers.

But the justice department has filed a motion on Pence’s behalf saying that the lawsuit should not be directed at vice president Mike Pence.
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We know that January 6th is the day when Congress is scheduled to meet to ratify the Electoral College votes and declare Joe Biden the winner. At his first post-election news conference held just before Thanksgiving, when asked if he would leave the White House if the Electoral College declares Joe Biden the winner, Trump replied, “Of course I will. Of course I will. You know that.” However that was his only concession to reality and since then he has continued to deny the fact that he lost.
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Among the cronies pardoned by Trump yesterday is Charles Kushner, father of Trump’s son-in-law Jared. What crimes was he convicted of?

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie called it “one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes” he ever prosecuted as U.S. attorney.

After Charles Kushner discovered his brother-in-law was cooperating with federal authorities, the wealthy real estate executive and father of President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared, hatched a scheme for revenge and intimidation.

Kushner hired a prostitute to lure his brother-in-law, then arranged to have the encounter in a New Jersey motel room recorded with a hidden camera and the recording sent to his own sister, the man’s wife.

How sleazy can you get?
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After the right wing echo chamber broadcast and amplified Trump’s wild claims of election fraud by the Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic, they were threatened with legal action. Smartmatic posted on their website the basis of their complaint.

According to Smartmatic’s demand letters, these organizations could have easily discovered the falsity of the statements and implications made about Smartmatic by investigating their statements before publishing them to millions of viewers and readers. Smartmatic had nothing to do with the “controversies” that certain public and private figures have alleged regarding the 2020 U.S. election.  Multiple fact-checkers have consistently debunked these false statements with stunning consistency and regularity. 
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Yesterday, Donald Trump pardoned a lot of people and you can be sure that there will be more to come before he is kicked out of the White House.The list of pardon beneficiaries include the usual cronies and politicians. But the ones that really stick in the craw are the pardons of people who killed civilians and were tried and convicted of their offenses.

The four Blackwater guards — Nicholas Slatten, Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, and Dustin Heard — were convicted by a federal jury in 2014 after a lengthy trial that saw some 30 witnesses travel from Iraq to testify against them. Prosecutors accused the men of illegally unleashing “powerful sniper fire, machine guns and grenade launchers on innocent men, women and children.”

According to prosecutors, the four were among seven Blackwater employees who opened fire in the Nusoor Square traffic circle in Baghdad, killing 17 people.

An FBI investigation found 14 of the deaths unjustified, according to rules of engagement for private security contractors in Iraq. Slatten was accused of firing the first shots.

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Now that 12 Trump cult members of the House of Representatives seem to have decided to oppose the acceptance of at least some of the electoral votes that gave the win in the Electoral college to Joe Biden, attention has shifted to what might happen on January 6th, the day that a joint session of Congress meets to finalize the election results. Objections on this day are not rare. They happened in 2001, 2005, and 2007. But they have never succeeded.

Here is what will happen, according to the Congressional Research Service, when the joint session of Congress meets “for the purpose of opening the 2020 presidential election electoral votes submitted by state government officials, certifying their validity, counting them, and declaring the official result of the election for President and Vice President.”
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After Sidney Powell was fired as a lawyer for the Trump campaign after making all manner of wild conspiracy theories about how the CIA and Hugo Chavez had worked with Dominion Voting Systems machines to swing the election against Trump, one could be forgiven for thinking that her 15 minutes of fame were over. But no.

She is back in the limelight for two reasons. One is that Dominion is threatening legal action against her unless she withdraws the allegations made against the company that they claim has damaged its reputation and resulted in its employees being threatened.
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