Many things will be written about what happened yesterday. It seems that a tipping point has been reached. There was a string of resignations from White House staff, the FBI is looking to press some charges, and Trump has finally conceded the election - sort of - saying, finally, that he is 'committed' to a peaceful transfer of power. That certainly remains to be seen.
Yesterday, a large group of Trump supporters, chanting phrases like "stop the steal" and "this is our house" stormed the nation's capitol and trashed it. Windows were broken, senate offices were vandalized, equipment was stolen, as capitol police took selfies with the insurrectionists. There were 5 deaths, including one officer.
The Causes of Death
1. A heart attack from a flash-bang grenade.
2. A fall of 30 feet from scaffolding on the building.
3. A guy carrying a Taser accidentally tased himself, and had a heart attack.
4. A woman was shot in the neck, and later died from her injuries.
5. Officer Brian D. Sicknick was injured while physically engaging with protesters.
These are all tragic events - and horrific. One look at the number of insurrectionistas, though, and we should all be glad it wasn't worse. Yesterday was a terrible day for the United States of America. That much we can all agree on.
I have officers who were not issued helmets prior to the attack who have sustained brain injuries. One officer has two cracked ribs and two smashed spinal discs. One officer is going to lose his eye, and another was stabbed with a metal fence stake. — Gus Papathanasiou, chairman of the Capitol Police officers’ union
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. I've always taken that to mean simply that we are always being held to account for our own decisions. If we choose to engage in reckless behavior, we should be ready to handle some reckless repercussions. Karma matters, in other words.
The name Roberta Paulson refers to the former bodybuilder, wrestler and creator of a chest expansion program from the cult film classic Fight Club. Due to his excessive use of steroids, Robert got testicular cancer. As a result of the cancer he had his testicles removed, due to a hormone imbalance he later developed gynecomastia - which The Narrator refers to as "bitch tits". He is portrayed by Meat Loaf in the film.
When the MAGA-hats came back from their day of raiding the offices of US congresspeople, many of them made self-incriminating videos, and posted them to Facebook, and YouTube, and Twitter, with a lot of self-satisfaction. Now that lawmakers are calling for Trump's removal by either 2nd impeachment or 25th amendment it looks like there may be some sort of retribution for this. Unfortunately, with a recess until the 20th of January, it seems pretty clear that this event will be allowed to be forgotten, with only the small-timers like Jenny Cudd paying any sort of price at all. Trump is all set to pardon himself and his whole family, preemptively, and the Democrats will just shrug it off and pretend it doesn't matter. I really hope I'm wrong about that.
There was some confusion when MAGA got fooled into thinking that the vet who was shot was named Roberta Paulson. Here's someone who was there, praising Roberta as a hero.
Her name was Ashli Babbitt.
Image credit: Manuel Balce Ceneta & Saul Loeb
