youngwilliam Loc: Deep in the heart

Kevyn

In order to be respected you need to earn it. These people are the scum of the earth and deserve nothing but scorn. They are defending terrorists who attacked our Capitol in a failed attempt to overthrow our government.

Sonny Magoo Loc: Where pot pie is boiled in a kettle

Thanks for your opinion.
It is revealing.

archie bunker Loc: Texas

That would explain why you have less than zero respect here.

Zemirah Loc: Sojourner En Route...

FBI: No Firearms Were Found in the US Capitol During the January 6 Riot
By
Dan Zimmerman -
March 3, 2021


The riot and incursion at the US Capitol building on January 6 has been portrayed in the media as a violent terrorist attack, an armed attempt to overthrow a democratically elected government by crazed insurrectionists.

However you characterize the debacle in Washington that day, a few hundred people clearly forced their way into the Capitol building. Some smashed their way in, others strolled through open doors as Capitol police looked on.

Oh, and that day’s events have been — SURPRISE! — used as justification for more gun control laws.

Hundreds have since been arrested and charged for their part in what took place at the Capitol on January 6. Earlier today, Jill Sanborn, the FBI’s Assistant Director for Counterterrorism, testified in front of the Senate’s Homeland Security Committee.

In an exchange with Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson, Sanborn disclosed that precisely zero firearms were found among the people who made their way into the Capitol that day.

Johnson: How many firearms were confiscated in the Capitol or on Capitol grounds during that day?

Sanborn: To my knowledge, we have not recovered any on that day from any other arrests at the scene at this point, but I don’t want to speak on behalf of Metro and Capitol police, but, to my knowledge, none.

Johnson: So nobody has been charged with an actual firearms weapon in the Capitol or on Capitol grounds?

Sanborn: Correct. The closest we came was the vehicle that had the molotov cocktails in it and when we did a search of that vehicle later on there was a weapon, but…

Johnson: How many shots were fired that we know of?

Sanborn: I believe the only shots that were fired were the ones that resulted in the death of the one lady.

That lady, Ashli Babbitt, was shot by a still-unidentified Capitol Police officer as she attempted to climb through the broken window of a door within the Capitol building.

Sanborn’s testimony raises some questions. If the events of that day were — as Democrats and the media are so anxious to portray them — a brazen attempt to overthrow the government, why wasn’t anyone in the crowd that invaded the Capitol carrying firearms? If your intent is to sack and occupy the seat of power of the world’s most powerful democracy, shouldn’t you be carrying guns when you do it?

Zemirah Loc: Sojourner En Route...

Ending statement of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) as the press conference was shut down, and our elected officials were denied their constitutional right to freedom of speech:

Greene addressed the protesters as she said, “To the guy that’s blowing the whistle: we are not deterred.”

“And so for anyone that’s here, being an activist and yelling today, here’s the statement that I need everyone to understand: we will not back down, we will not stop asking questions, we are looking for the truth. And we believe the truth can be found by reaching out and answering and asking the right questions to the right people,” she added.

Milosia2 Loc: Cleveland Ohio

Capitol Protesters Were Armed With Variety of Weapons
By Joseph A. Gambardello

Posted on March 10, 2021 | Updated on May 24, 2021

Quick Take
Conservative social media posts misleadingly claim the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 was not an “armed” insurrection, citing FBI testimony that no guns were seized from suspects that day. But 23 people have been charged with having deadly or dangerous weapons during the assault — including a loaded handgun found on a man arrested on Capitol grounds.

Full Story
On March 3, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and Senate Committee on Rules and Administration held a joint hearing on the Jan. 6 attack on Capitol Hill. The assault left five people dead and scores injured, including at least 138 Capitol and Metropolitan Police Department officers.

During the hearing, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin asked Jill Sanborn, assistant director of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, “How many firearms were confiscated in the Capitol or on Capitol grounds during that day?”

“To my knowledge, we have not recovered any on that day from any other arrests at the scene at this point,” Sanborn said. “But I don’t want to speak on behalf of Metro and Capitol Police.”

Social media posts latched on to the answer to misleadingly purport that the protesters were not armed.

One meme, showing a photo of protesters inside the Capitol, falsely claimed: “Senate testimony this week confirms that no Capitol protesters were armed and not a single weapon was found. Clearly NOT insurrection, NOT an attempt to overthrow the government, just out of control protestors that saw inadequate security and ran thru the building.”

An article on the conservative website Gateway Pundit — which was cited on the website of conservative commentator David Harris Jr. — carried the headline: “Another Democrat-Media Narrative Goes Up in Flames: FBI Official Admits No Firearms Were Confiscated by Law Enforcement at Capitol Riot.”

But a wide array of lethal weapons — including a firearm — were found on protesters at the Capitol.

The Metropolitan Police Department reported its officers, while trying to clear the Capitol grounds about 7 p.m. on Jan. 6, arrested and charged a 33-year-old Maryland man with the federal offense of carrying a fully loaded 9mm semi-automatic handgun on Capitol grounds.

Clarification, June 25: In response to a reader’s inquiry, we updated this story to clarify that Christopher Michael Alberts was arrested by Metropolitan Police on Jan. 6 for carrying a pistol without a license, possession of a firearm on Capital grounds and other charges. He was formally charged in U.S. District Court on Jan. 7.

Social media posts claiming that protesters were not armed also do not address the issue of other weapons used by assailants at the Capitol — or the seizure of guns from supporters before and after the riot.

In legal terms, “armed” means being in possession of any weapon, not just a firearm. While there are laws that specifically address firearms, weapons can include virtually any object used to threaten or cause harm.

According to a database compiled by NPR, of the people charged with violent offenses, including assault on police officers, 15 were armed with deadly or dangerous weapons during the riot at the Capitol.

Eight others facing civil disorder or property destruction charges also were charged with possessing weapons, according to the database.

Those weapons included baseball bats, chemical sprays, a captured police officer’s riot shield, a crowbar, fire extinguishers and a metal flagpole.

Thomas Webster, a retired New York Police Department officer, was charged with attacking a Metropolitan Police Department officer with a metal flagpole. The federal complaint says he struck at the officer “with the flagpole numerous times.”

Before and after the storming of the Capitol, NBC News reported, police seized a dozen firearms, including an assault rifle, and thousands of rounds of ammunition from seven people attending the rally for President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C. Other weapons included a crossbow, a stun gun and 11 Molotov cocktails.

The FBI, in a statement to FactCheck.org on March 5, said Sanborn had testified “in her capacity as the FBI Assistant Director of the Counterterrorism Division. Her responses were restricted to FBI investigative matters and she appropriately deferred to other law enforcement partners for their information.”

Asha Rangappa, an attorney and former FBI agent, told us in an email that she did “not see the logic” in the claim that firearms had to be present for the Capitol riot to have been deemed an armed insurrection.

She also said we will never know how many rioters might have been armed with guns on Jan. 6, because only some were arrested that day.

“Not only was law enforcement completely overwhelmed (and being assaulted), from what I saw people were basically allowed to leave unimpeded,” said Rangappa, a senior lecturer at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. “So those arrested … are hardly representative of everyone who was there that day.”

Update, May 24: The Capitol Police and the Justice Department initially reported that Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick died as a result of injuries sustained during the riot. In April, the Washington Post reported that District of Columbia Chief Medical Examiner Francisco J. Diaz found that Sicknick suffered two strokes nearly eight hours after being sprayed with a chemical irritant during the riot. Diaz told the Post that Sicknick died of natural causes, but “all that transpired played a role in his condition.”

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here.

youngwilliam Loc: Deep in the heart

Excuse me kevyn. That is all bs and you know it. You all are scared to death the truth will come out, peeloosli's envolvement, capital police declining help from local police. Peeloosly declining Trumps offer of the National guard. 6 different offers of help were declined. They knew about this event way in advance and did not prepare. Why.

The Ms.

Back at them….. more of us. Pretty sure we can scream louder and longer when we get to Enough!

Zemirah Loc: Sojourner En Route...

The source is not credible, nor is the information.

Facebook Fact-Checker Funded by Chinese Money Through TikTok
By Petr Svab
December 10, 2020

According to minutes of a meeting between Facebook VP Nick Clegg and a European Commission executive, the Facebook executive acknowledged that the monolith’s censors and “fact checkers,” may be biased and chasing their own political agendas.

While Facebook portrays its army of fact-checkers as independent, the money behind at least one carries a distinct taint.

In another example, in a May 16 article published in Wall Street Journal, physicist Steven E. Koonin criticized Facebook for “spreading disinformation under the guise of ‘fact-checking’.” Facebook’s censors did not dare to criticize Koonin’s 75,000-word CO2-narrative-debunking book Unsettled directly, but only Mark Mills’ 900-word review of it, which Koonin said unfairly impacted his book’s credibility.

One such fact-checker, Lead Stories, is owned by ByteDance, which regularly does consultation work for TikTok, a firm with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP.)

Who fact-checks the fact-checkers?

After one its stories was dubiously slapped with a “partly false” rating from Facebook fact-checking partner Lead Stories, The National Pulse dug into the platform’s staff and found that many, including the top brass, are Democratic Party donors and former CNN employees.

Lead Stories is described as “a web-based fact-checking platform that identifies false or misleading stories, rumors, and conspiracies by using its Trendolizer technology to identify trending content that is then fact-checked by their team of journalists.”

The platform serves as one of Facebook’s partners for fact-checking content shared by users. According to The National Pulse, 50 percent of Lead Stories’ staff have been affiliated with CNN. Together, they total more than 100 years of experience with Cable News Network.

The National Pulse discovered Lead Stories’ strong left-wing bias after the group marked as “partly false” an article examining Black Lives Matter’s ties to the Democratic Party, despite BLM’s assertion of political neutrality.

The article noted that the Black Lives Matter website partners with the Democrat fundraising platform ActBlue, which also serves as a top donor to Joe Biden.

Lead Stories claims in its “Hoax Alert” section that The National Pulse’s reporting falls short of the truth because ACtBlue is merely a “payment processor” and is thus not affiliated with Joe Biden for President.

But as the article points out, ActBlue exclusively works with Democrats; Black Lives Matter’s use of the platform, rather than a more neutral option such as GoFundMe, shows a clear partisan alignment.

The National Pulse contacted Lead Stories’ editor-in-chief Alan Duke, who told the outlet he could not discuss the issue of the fact-check over the phone, saying only that appeals must be made by e-mail (but without providing an e-mail address).

Now whenever someone shares that story on Facebook, they see a message that reads “Independent fact-checkers at Lead Stories say information in your post is partly false. To stop the spread of false news, we’ve added a notice to your post.”

The message then goes on to say, “All fact-checkers who partner with Facebook must be signatories of the International Fact-Checking Network and follow their Code of Principles.”

A look at IFCN’s Code of Principles reveals that in the very first principle, fact-checkers are required to make “a commitment to non-partisanship and fairness.”

Despite that commitment, the makeup of Lead Stories’ staff is the very essence of “partisanship.”

As The National Pulse notes:

While many on the left and the establishment right insist “big tech bias” is non-existent, the background of and individuals involved with Lead Stories suggests otherwise.

Lead Stories Chairman and founder Perry Sanders is a devout Democrat, donating over $10,000 to political campaigns — every penny going to Democratic candidates.

Sanders donated $3,700 to Hilary Clinton‘s presidential campaign and gave $4,000 to Obama’s 2008 presidential effort.

The left-wing connections go beyond Sanders, who is also known as Michael Jackson’s family lawyer.

Victoria Eavis, a writer for the site, has also donated via ActBlue, writer Alexis Tereszcuk donated twice to the Clinton campaign in 2016 totaling $500, $25 via ActBlue, and $250 to failed Democratic congressional candidate Nick Leibham.

Writer Gita Smith appears to have donated 99 times amounting to $1,839.82 to Democratic campaigns.… Smith also donated to Swing Left, a hard-left political group formed in reaction to the election of President Trump intent on “defeating Trump.”

Notably, no donations from Lead Stories staff were made to Republicans.

Then there’s Lead Stories’ managing editor Eric Ferkenhoff, who has implied President Trump is a “white nationalist” and openly criticized him.

Note: Neither being white nor being a nationalist (America First) is a crime.

lpnmajor Loc: Arkansas

One must give respect in order to receive it........so no, decorum is ancient history.

youngwilliam Loc: Deep in the heart

They were having a news conference, how is that disrespectful? Idoits in audience were childish at most.

Redangel62

Yet they allowed themselves to be sent away. I, for the life of me cannot understand why the gop always give away to the left, who are really no more then terrorists. Makes them look very weak when they dispersed as ordered!

The Ms.

My guess…. Like most they do not like conflict….