James Kitfield
January 16, 2021, 2:00 AM
After ransacking the U.S. Capitol and threatening the lives of members of Congress on Jan. 6, they walked down the building’s broad steps unmolested and into the mythology of right-wing extremism. Many wore shirts identifying them as accolades of QAnon, riders in “the Storm” who believe the fever-dream conspiracy that they are foot soldiers in a war against Satan-worshipping pedophiles in the government’s “deep state” bureaucracy. There were also neo-Nazis and anti-Semites in the overwhelmingly white crowd, including a man wearing a “Camp Auschwitz” sweatshirt. Racists rallied to the Confederate flag of rebellion that some of the insurrectionists waved in the halls of Congress.
The troops will be National Guard, and not active-duty. But officials know such events are fraught with risk, and cite Kent State in 1970, Tiananmen Square in 1989 and Tehran in 2009.
Copy to Clipboard
Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) (C) gives members of the National Guard a tour of the U.S. Capitol on January 13, 2021, in Washington, DC. (Getty Images)
On Wednesday, January 13, CNN host Jake Tapper was slammed on Twitter after he reportedly questioned the patriotism of Brian Mast, an Army veteran and double amputee who serves as the U.S. Representative for Florida s 18th congressional district, after he opposed the Democrats efforts to impeach President Donald Trump for a second time on the House floor. January 13 saw the House vote to impeach Trump for the second time making him the only U.S. president to ever be impeached twice. The resolution passed with 232 “Ayes”, 197 “Nays”, and four legislators abstaining from voting. Of the 232, ten names were those from the Republican party.
Tweet
According to the Associated Press, an Iranian court has issued an arrest warrant for President Donald Trump, for the drone-strike which killed General Qassim Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. General Soleimani led the expeditionary Quds force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The Quds Force (Persian: نیروی قدس, romanized: niru-ye qods,Jerusalem Force) is one of five branches of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) specializing in unconventional warfare and military intelligence operations. U.S. Army’s Iraq War General Stanley McChrystal describes the Quds Force as an organization analogous to a combination of the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the United States. Responsible for extraterritorial operations, the Quds Force supports non-state actors in many countries, including Lebanese Hezbollah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the State of Palestine’s Gaza Strip and the West Bank, Yemeni Houthis, and Shia mil