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Congress has reconvened to certify Joe Biden as the next president of the United States late Wednesday, hours after an insurgent mob of Donald Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol in what lawmakers condemned as an attempted insurrection.

Shaken by the extraordinary scenes of chaos and violence that struck at the heart of American democracy, members of the House and Senate returned to the Capitol to continue the process of certifying the electoral college vote that would validate Bidens victory. Several Republican senators, unsettled by the days events, which had seen them duck under tables and don gas masks, said they no longer supported a brazen but doomed effort to keep Trump in office by rejecting the results of the electoral college.

In late night speeches, lawmakers lamented the siege of the hallowed halls of Congress and the deep divisions sharpened and exploited by the president that led to this perilous moment.

This failed attempt to obstruct the Congress, this failed insurrection, only underscores how crucial the task before us is for our republic, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell said, declaring that lawmakers would not be intimidated by thugs, mobs, or threats.

Speaking to both the would-be revolutionaries who stormed and occupied the Capitol and the rebels in his own caucus who supported an effort to throw out the election results, McConnell vowed to certify the winner of the 2020 presidential election.

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer who in the midst of the mayhem learned that he would soon become the majority leader, after Democrats won a second runoff election in Georgia said 6 January was a day that would live forever in infamy.

The uprising disrupted what was the early stages of a futile attempt by dozens of congressional Republicans to reject certification of the electoral college votes, that affirmed Trumps defeat, 306-232.

Traditionally a ceremonial affair, Trump convinced his allies on Capitol Hill to turn the pro forma ritual into what would be his last stand in an increasingly reckless effort to cling to power. The constitutionally-mandated joint session of Congress began at 1pm, with Pence presiding over the proceedings and each states electoral votes secured in mahogany boxes.

But the proceedings quickly devolved into a shocking series of events unprecedented in modern American history, as hundreds and then thousands of Trump supporters, many wearing red Maga caps and some armed, barrelled past security barricades and bashed through the Capitol doors. Some smashed windows and scaled the buildings exterior, waving Trump flags from a balcony, while authorities, seemingly outnumbered and unprepared, struggled to regain control.

By nightfall, authorities said the Capitol had been secured. Escorted by armed officers, Vice-president Mike Pence, who is presiding over the joint session of Congress, senators and members of the House returned to their chambers to resume debate over an objection to the electoral college count.

But the mood had changed remarkably from earlier that afternoon, when a band of Republicans arrived on Capitol Hill prepared to lead a futile rebellion against certification. Several senators reversed course and voted to uphold the results of the electoral college after saying they would object.

Others were undeterred. Republican Senator Josh Hawley, one of the Senate leaders seeking to overturn the results, argued that the earlier violence should not dismiss his concerns that fraud had occurred during the election. Just after midnight, he joined some House Republicans in seeking to throw out Pennsylvanias electoral slate.

For those who planned to forge ahead with the plot, Republicans senator Mitt Romney warned in a floor speech that drew sustained applause that they would forever be seen as being complicit in an unprecedented attack against our democracy.

Attempts by House Republicans to object to the electoral slate in Georgia, Michigan and Nevada failed to garner support from a senator and were not considered.

Earlier in the day, rioters for hours roamed the marbled halls of Congress shouting, we want Trump. Amid the bedlam, one woman was fatally shot, the DC police confirmed. The building was placed on lockdown, and the DC mayor imposed a rare 6pm curfew, as national guard troops were activated.

After initially declaring this is a time for strength and urging his supporters to walk down to the Capitol, Trump later attempted to appeal for calm. In a video taped from the White House, the president instructed his followers to go home. But he also fueled their grievances by again claiming the election was stolen. Facebook and Twitter removed the video.

In remarks from Wilmington, Biden condemned what he called an unprecedented assault and implored Trump to fulfill his oath and demand an end to this siege.

This is not dissent. Its disorder. Its chaos. It borders on sedition, said Biden, who is just two weeks away from being sworn in as the 46th US president. The world is watching.

Several lawmakers said the days events were tantamount to an attempted coup. Teargas was deployed in the Capitol Rotunda. Rioters, who were mostly white men, streamed into the Senate chamber. One swung from the balcony above the floor. They trashed the office of the Senate parliamentarian and entered the private office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, leaving behind a note that read: WE WILL NOT BACK DOWN. In a shocking episode, officers drew their guns on the floor of the House, where just outside an armed protester faced off with Capitol police.

Many blamed the president for stoking the violence by refusing to accept the reality of his decisive electoral defeat. Romney, who lost the 2012 presidential election to Barack Obama, described what transpired on Wednesday as the result of a selfish mans injured pride.

All 50 states have certified the election results after a number of closely contested states conducted post-election audits and recounts to ensure their accuracy. Courts at every level, including the supreme court, have rejected dozens of lawsuits filed by Trump and his allies to challenge the results. Wednesday was to be his day of reckoning.

In his increasingly desperate bid to remain in power, Trump, who has yet to concede, spent the last several weeks attempting to enlist allies and pressure public officials to overturn Bidens win. His machinations escalated last weekend when he demanded the Georgia secretary of state, Republican Brad Raffensperger, find enough votes to reverse his defeat in the state.

His ire then turned to Pence, who he implored publicly to do the right thing and reject the electoral vote tally a power the vice-president does not have. Pences decision not to interfere in the certification process infuriated Trump, who lashed out at him on Wednesday as he was being escorted from the Senate chamber out of concern for his safety.

Mike Pence didnt 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! Trump said in a tweet flagged by Twitter for amplifying falsehoods about the election. Twitter later suspended the presidents account.

Several House Democrats called for Trumps removal from office, blaming Trump for fomenting the violence that unfolded. With two weeks left in his presidency, congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, said she was drawing up articles of impeachment and congressman Ted Lieu, a California Democrat, urged Pence to invoke the 25th amendment and remove him from office.

Let me be very clear: if all we do is accept the certified electoral college results and go home, we would have failed our country, Lieu said in a tweet calling for Trumps removal office. Congress cannot just go home like nothing happened.

Excerpt from:
Vote to certify Biden victory resumed after pro-Trump mob storms Capitol - The Guardian

Editors note, January 6, 8:40 pm ET: This situation continues to evolve quickly after pro-Trump insurrectionists stormed the Capitol. Sens. Steve Daines (R-MT), Kelly Loeffler (R-GA), and James Lankford (R-OK) have indicated that they will no longer object to the vote certification. Additionally, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has indicated that there should be no more objections, but not all 11 remaining planned objectors have confirmed that. This story will be updated with more information as it becomes available. For all of Voxs latest coverage of the situation at the Capitol, follow our storystream.

On January 6, Congress is scheduled to certify the Electoral College vote.

In defiance of all available evidence, the American constitutional process, and long-held democratic norms, 14 Republican senators have announced they will object to that certification.

These senators ultimately wont succeed, but its a definite escalation from what had largely been cheap talk from Republicans still backing the presidents repeated attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Though President Donald Trump had large swaths of the GOP backing him in his earlier efforts to cast doubt on President-elect Joe Bidens victory and litigate the results, the latest (and last-ditch) effort to focus on Congresss certification vote began with Sen. Josh Hawley. On December 30, Hawley released a statement saying he cannot vote to certify the electoral college results allegedly due to his belief that some states, particularly Pennsylvania, failed to follow their own state election laws. He also accused Facebook and Twitter of having interfered in Bidens favor (Hawley has made a name for himself crusading against Big Tech).

Three days later, 11 other senators led by Sen. Ted Cruz announced that they would reject the electors from disputed states unless an emergency 10-day audit of the election results was completed. Their argument largely rests on the fact that lots of people have questions about the legitimacy of the election conveniently ignoring any role the president and prominent Republicans played in sowing doubt by peddling conspiracy theories that have been widely debunked.

The night before the Georgia Senate runoffs, within a minute of one another on Twitter, both Republican candidates announced their opposition to certification. Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler declared that she would vote against certification as her colleague Sen. David Perdue tweeted out a clip from an interview where he says, I agree that I would [object] and urges his colleagues in the Senate to join the effort. Both Loeffler and Perdue have since lost their races.

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) published an op-ed where he acknowledges that our Constitution and the law requires that I accept the states final decision on an election. However, he goes on to say that he is still prepared to oppose some electors.

As Cameron Peters explained for Vox, far from the whole GOP conference is on board with Hawley, Cruz, and the other senators plans to object to what is normally a perfunctory procedure.

Still, 14 Republican senators about a quarter of the conference isnt nothing. The current roster of objecting senators is:

In the House, more than 100 Republican members have announced their intention to object on January 6. While concerning, these numbers do not come close to the level necessary to actually reject the Electoral College vote.

Voxs Andrew Prokop has more on the procedural details of what will happen Wednesday, but briefly: Vice President Mike Pence will begin the process of counting the Electoral College votes, at which point if even one House member and one senator object, both chambers have to vote. As Prokop explains, for the objection to succeed both the House and the Senate must vote in favor of it. At the end of the day, there arent enough Republicans to actually reject the Electoral Colleges votes, but its an opportunity for potential 2024 hopefuls like Pence, Hawley, and Cruz to jockey for the limelight.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), another potential 2024 candidate, has objected to this latest attempt to nullify the results of the presidential election. This dividing line is likely to play a role in the 2024 Republican presidential primary as candidates situate themselves along the Trump axis that has realigned the party.

Cotton isnt the only Republican senator opposing this effort. Previous reporting has indicated that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Majority Whip John Thune are both opposed to splintering the Republican caucus in a vote that will be seen as either defying Trump or fully rejecting the legitimacy of the election. As Cameron Peters wrote for Vox, Sens. Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney, and outgoing Sen. Pat Toomey all released fierce statements pushing back against the doomed but alarmingly undemocratic scheme to reject the Biden electors.

According to CBS News, the full list of Republican senators supporting certification is:

Toomeys statement castigated the objecting senators: A fundamental, defining feature of a democratic republic is the right of people to elect their own leaders. The effort by Senators Hawley, Cruz and others to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election ... directly undermines this right.

He goes on to reject the specious reasoning offered up by the offending senators, arguing that allegations of fraud by a losing campaign cannot justify overturning an election.

Hawley fired back at Toomey in an email to his colleagues telling the senior member to avoid putting words in each others mouths and wrote that instead of debating the issue by press release, perhaps we could have a debate on the Senate floor. Notably, Hawley was the first to issue a press release on the subject.

In a Monday tweet, President Donald Trump deemed the group supporting certification the Surrender Caucus, claiming they will go down in infamy as weak and ineffective. Trump also specifically called out Cotton, warning him that Republicans have pluses & minuses, but one thing is sure, THEY NEVER FORGET!

Its a clear shot across the bow to any other 2024 hopefuls considering speaking out in favor of certification. The message is clear: If a longtime Trump ally like Cotton can be dropped so easily, so can anyone else.

Correction, January 6: A previous version of this article mischaracterized Sen. James Lankfords position on the election certification. The wording of a recent op-ed by Lankford prompted some confusion, as he stated that the Constitution and the law requires him to accept the states final decision. But he said on Twitter on Wednesday that he is prepared to object if Democrats do not acquiesce to the creation of an electoral commission.

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Excerpt from:
Hawley, Cruz, and other Republican senators plan to reject the Electoral College election certification - Vox.com

I know exactly what would have happened. Many of the 81,283,485 Americans who voted for Biden would have taken to the streets I would have been one of them and probably stormed the White House, the Capitol and the Supreme Court. Trump would have called out the military; the National Guard, directed by governors, would have split over this, and we would be plunged into civil war.

That is the sort of fire these people are playing with. Of course, they know it which makes the efforts of Hawley, Cruz, Johnson and their ilk even more despicable. They have so little self-respect that theyre ready to lick the shine off of Donald Trumps boots down to his last second in office, in hopes of inheriting his followers should he not run again in 2024. And they are counting on a majority of their more principled colleagues voting to recognize Bidens election to make sure their effort fails.

That way, theyll get the best of all worlds credit with Trump voters for pursuing his Big Lie his fraudulent allegation that the elections were a fraud without plunging us into civil war. But the long-term price will still be profound diminishing the confidence of many Americans in the integrity of our free and fair elections as the basis for peacefully transferring power.

Can you imagine anything more cynical?

How do decent Americans fight back, besides urging principled Republicans to form their own party? Make sure we exact a tangible price from every lawmaker who votes with Trump and against the Constitution.

Shareholders of every major U.S. corporation should make sure that these companies political action committees are barred from making campaign contributions to anyone who participates in Wednesdays coup attempt.

At the same time, we the people need to fight the Trump cults Big Lie with the Big Truth. I hope every news organization, and every citizen, refers to Hawley, Cruz, Johnson and their friends now and forever more as coup plotters.

Make all those who have propagated this Big Lie about election fraud to justify voting with Trump and against our Constitution carry the title coup plotter forever. If you see them on the street, in a restaurant on your college campus, politely ask them: You were one of the coup plotters, werent you? Shame on you.

The rest is here:
Opinion | Never Forget the Names of These Republicans Attempting a Coup - The New York Times

But since prediction is often just an expression of desire, Ill tell you what I want to happen. Even though the party richly deserved some sort of punishment, I didnt want the G.O.P. to be destroyed by its affiliation with Trump, because Im one of those Americans who dont want to be ruled by liberalism in its current incarnation, let alone whatever form is slowly being born. But now that the party has survived four years of Trumpism without handing the Democrats a congressional supermajority, and now that Amy Coney Barrett is on the Supreme Court and Joe Manchin, Susan Collins and Mitt Romney will hold real power in the Senate, whatever happens in Georgia well, now I do want Perdue and Kelly Loeffler to lose these races, mostly because I dont want the Republican Party to be permanently ruled by Donald J. Trump.

Obviously, a runoff-day defeat wont by itself prevent Trump from winning the partys nomination four years hence or bestriding its internal culture in the meantime. (Indeed, for some of his supporters it would probably confirm their belief that the presidential election was stolen because look, the Democrats did it twice!) But the sense that there is a real political cost to slavishly endorsing not just Trump but also his fantasy politics, his narrative of stolen victory, seems a necessary precondition for the separation that elected Republicans need to seek working carefully, like a bomb-dismantling team between their position and the soon-to-be-former presidents, if they dont want him to just claim the leadership of their party by default.

That kind of Trump-forever future is what Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz and others are making possible, with their ambitious pandering. Hawley and Cruz both want to be Trumps heir apparent (as though he doesnt already have several in his family), but the deeper they go into the Trumpian dreampolitik, the more they build up the voter-fraud mythos, the more likely it becomes that theyll just be stuck serving him for four more years or longer.

So there needs to be some counterpressure, some sense that dreampolitik has costs. And defeat for two Republicans who have cynically gone along with the presidents stolen-election narrative, to the point of attacking their own states Republican-run electoral system, feels like a plausible place for the diminishment of Trump to start.

I dont think that diminishment is necessary to save the American republic from dictatorship, as many of Trumps critics have long imagined, and with increasing intensity the longer his election challenge has gone on. Whatever potentially crisis-inducing precedents Republican senators are establishing this month, the forces and institutions technological, judicial, military that could actually make America into some kind of autocracy are not aligned with right-wing populism, and less so with every passing day.

But Trumps diminishment is definitely necessary if the American right is ever going to be a force for something other than deeper decadence, deeper gridlock, fantasy politics and partisan battles that have nothing to do with the challenges the country really faces.

Or to distill the point: You dont have to see Trump as a Caesar to recognize his behavior this month as Nero-esque, playing a QAnon-grade fiddle while the pandemic burns. We imported at least one of the new variants of the coronavirus from overseas in the past few weeks like the pandemic itself, the kind of thing a populist-nationalist president is supposed to try to slam the door against but instead of shutting down flights from Britain or South Africa, hes been too busy pushing the stupidest election challenge in recorded history, while slipping ever-closer to blaming the lizard people for his defeat.

See the article here:
Opinion | Why I Hope the Republicans Lose in Georgia - The New York Times

On Wednesday, the Republicans transition to the party of the Confederacy will be complete. A day after Georgias runoff elections, at least a dozen lawmakers in the Senate and more than half of the partys House membership will seek to overturn the results of the 2020 election and disenfranchise the majority of US voters. A coup attempt in all but name, this is how democracy dies.

Sadly, a statement issued on Saturday by seven sitting senators and four senators-elect dispelled any doubts about the nexus between the end of the US civil war, more than 150 years ago, and Donald Trumps desperate attempt to cling to power. Predictably, Americas racial divide again stands front and center.

After regurgitating for the umpteenth time unproven and unsubstantiated charges of electoral fraud, the senators invoked the election of 1876. Back then, the Democrats contested the outcome, conceding after the Republicans agreed to halt Reconstruction.

As framed by Ted Cruz and his posse, the most direct precedent for their actions arose in 1877, following serious allegations of fraud and illegal conduct in the Hayes-Tilden presidential race. In their telling, elections in three states were alleged to have been conducted illegally. Left unsaid is that after the end of Reconstruction, Jim Crow and the toxic legacy of separate but equal followed.

To quote Mississippis William Faulkner, The past is never dead. Its not even past. Senators from states that were part of the Confederacy, or territory where slaveholding was legal, provide the ballast for Cruzs demands. At least one senator each from Alabama, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas is on board.

Apparently, Trumps defeat at the hands of Joe Biden, formerly vice-president to the first black man in the White House, and Kamala Harris, a black woman, is too much for too many to bear. Said differently, to these Republicans the right to vote is only for some of the people, some of the time those people being this presidents supporters.

Trumps equivocation over Charlottesville, his debate shoutout to the Proud Boys and his worship of dead Confederate generals are of the same piece. The vestiges of an older and crueler social order are to be maintained, at all costs.

Likewise, the reluctance of Trump appointees to the federal judiciary to affirm the validity of Brown v Board of Education, the supreme court ruling that said school segregation was unconstitutional, is a feature not a bug.

As for the Declaration of Independences pronouncement that All men are created equal, and the constitutions guaranty of equal protection under law, they are inconveniences to be discarded when confronted by dislocating demographics.

Stand back and stand by, indeed.

Since the civil war, there has always been a southern party, frequently echoing strains of the old, slave-owning south. Practically, that has meant hostility towards civil rights coupled with wariness towards modernity.

To be sure, southern did not automatically equal neo-Confederate, but the distinction could easily get lost. And to be sure, the Democrats were initially the party of the south. During debate over the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Republicans gave Lyndon Johnson the votes he needed. Not anymore.

Cruz and Josh Hawley, the Missouri senator who kicked off the attempt to deny the electoral college result, are the products of places like Harvard, Stanford and Yale. John C Calhoun, the seventh vice-president, argued in favor of slavery and the right of states to secede. He went to Yale too. Joseph Goebbels had a doctorate from Heidelberg. An elite degree does not confer wisdom automatically.

For the record, Cruz also clerked for a supreme court chief justice, William Rehnquist. Hawley did so for John Roberts.

On Sunday, as the new Congress was being sworn in, a recording emerged of Trump unsuccessfully browbeating Georgias secretary of state into finding 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. From the sound of things, Trumps fear of prosecutors and creditors, waiting for him to leave the White House, takes precedence over electoral integrity.

Back in May, after Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, predicted 240,000 deaths from Covid, and as armed protests to public health measures grew, an administration insider conveyed that Trumps America was becoming a bit like the late Weimar Republic. Eight months later, the death toll is past 350,000 and climbing unabated.

Come nightfall on 6 January, the party of Abraham Lincoln will be no more. Instead, the specters of Jim Crow and autocracy will flicker. Messrs Trump, Cruz and Hawley can take a collective bow.

View post:
Trump's Republicans have dumped Lincoln they're the Confederacy now - The Guardian