“A judge has ordered Jacob Chansley, known as the ‘QAnon shaman,’ held in custody while his case goes forward, agreeing with the government that he is a flight risk and a danger. Chansley tries to speak after the judge announces her decision, but she stops him, saying that it is for his lawyer to address the court and generally not advisable for the defendant. Chansley’s lawyer says he’ll speak with his client” reports BuzzFeed’s Zoe Tillman.

NBC News: “Online far-right movements are splintering in the wake of last week’s Capitol riot, as some radical anti-government movements show signs of disillusionment with the relatively hands-off approach of some QAnon conspiracy theorists amid warnings of future violence. Users on forums that openly helped coordinate the Jan. 6 riot and called for insurrection, including 4chan and TheDonald, have become increasingly agitated with QAnon supporters, who are largely still in denial that President Donald Trump will no longer be in the Oval Office after Jan. 20.”

“QAnon adherents, who believe Trump is secretly saving the world from a cabal of child-eating Satanists, have identified Inauguration Day as a last stand, and falsely think he will force a 10-day, countrywide blackout that ends in the mass execution of his political enemies and a second Trump term. Several QAnon supporters were arrested after storming the Capitol last week, including Jacob Chansley, whose lawyer said his client believed he was ‘answering the call of our president.’ QAnon believers have spent the last week forwarding chain letters on Facebook and via text message, often removing the conspiracy theory’s QAnon origins, in an effort to prepare friends and family for what they believe to be the upcoming judgment day. According to researchers who study the real-life effects of the QAnon movement, the false belief in a secret plan for Jan. 20 is irking militant pro-Trump and anti-government groups, who believe the magical thinking is counterproductive to future insurrections.”

“The bridges spanning the Potomac River connecting Virginia and Washington, D.C., will be closed during the 2021 presidential inauguration. An agreement between the Commonwealth of Virginia and the U.S. Secret Service was announced on Friday. Virginia State Police will facilitate the closure of bridges and pedestrian thoroughfares, including Theodore Roosevelt Bridge, Arlington Memorial Bridge, Interstate 395 Bridge, and 14th Street Bridge, beginning at 6 a.m. on Tuesday, ending at 6 a.m. on Thursday” – Augusta Free Press.

Bloomberg: “New York prosecutors conducted an hourslong interview Thursday of Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, asking a range of questions about Trump’s business dealings, according to three people familiar with the meeting. The interview focused in part on Trump’s relationship with Deutsche Bank, his biggest and longest standing creditor, according to the three people, who weren’t authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity. The interview, at least the second of Cohen by the Manhattan district attorney’s office, comes amid a long-running grand jury investigation into Trump’s business dealings. District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. has been waging a protracted legal battle to get access to the president’s tax records.”

“The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on Trump’s request for a stay and a further appeal after he leaves office Jan. 20. The New York investigation is one of several legal entanglements that are likely to intensify as Trump loses power – and any immunity from prosecution he might have as a sitting president – as he departs the White House. The Manhattan-based grand jury has been continuing its work despite the coronavirus pandemic, which has curtailed many court operations. The Republican president also faces a civil investigation, led by New York Attorney General Letitia James into whether Trump’s company lied about the value of its assets to get loans or tax benefits. Cohen also is cooperating with that inquiry. He previously told Congress that Trump often inflated the value of his assets when dealing with lenders or potential business partners, but deflated them when it benefited him for tax purposes.”

@MyPillowUSA CEO Michael Lindell shows off his notes before going into the West Wing at the White House on Friday, Jan 15, 2021 in Washington, DC. pic.twitter.com/AY6AyJNSyE

— Jabin Botsford (@jabinbotsford) January 15, 2021

“WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The National Rifle Association on Friday said in a statement that it has filed bankruptcy petitions in U.S. court as part of a restructuring plan.”

BREAKING….

KXAN: “Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, will attend President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20, sources tell KXAN. Cruz defended President Donald Trump’s claim that the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent and volunteered to argue Texas’ failed lawsuit challenging election results in four battleground states before the Supreme Court. Calls for Cruz to resign mounted in the week since rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol after Cruz called on his colleagues to object to certifying the Electoral College vote. He said an emergency audit of the election was necessary to restore public confidence in the electoral process, though there has been no evidence of widespread voter fraud. Sen. John Cornyn responded to this story saying he, too, will attend the inauguration.”

Rechecking that retraction of articles saying Dominion from the “American Thinker” blog, I saw another post of theirs where they said they’re shutting down their comments sections that accompanied each article. It appears they were on Disqus at one point and moved over to another platform about two years ago. Not sure what it was, but it doesn’t matter.

They explained the decision with some victimhood bullshit, writing “It is news to almost nobody who reads American Thinker that a political witch hunt is underway. Parties in and out of government are looking for excuses to suppress and destroy voices that oppose the left. Because [American Thinker] lacks the ability to monitor comments in real time [then why’d you ditch Disqus?], and because our position that comments are a forum, not something we publish, is being called into question, we can no longer publish comments.” Probably not a coincidence that the very next day they posted their retraction and apology to Dominion, anticipating the blowback.

In any case, it was a chickenshit move and they’ll regret it when their traffic takes a beating.

More than 70 days after the Biden-Harris campaign was declared the victor in the November elections, Mike Pence called Vice President-elect Kamala Harris on Thursday to offer his congratulations and to offer help in the transition, the Associated Press reports.

Donald Trump has yet to concede the election or call President-elect Joe Biden.  Third First Lady Melania Trump has also eschewed tradition and refused to invite incoming First Lady Jill Biden to the customary lunch.

Pence, who will attend the Biden-Harris inauguration in five days, is apparently attempting to repair his image after four years of kowtowing to the cantankerous Trump, perhaps in an effort to maintain some future in politics.

All members of the Trump family are feeling the impact of Donald Trump’s disastrous presidency and the shunning they can expect when they return to civilian life.  People in the Manhattan social scene have made it clear the Trumps are no longer welcome.  Multiple banks and business partners have announced they will no longer do business with the Trump Organization, jeopardizing the family’s financial stability.

And now, the ultimate of society shunning:  Ivanka and Jared Kushner have been told the “need not apply” to the exclusive Indian Creek Country Club, according to Vanity Fair.

The country club, located on the isolated Indian Creek community where the Kushners bought a $30 million manse, one of 29 residences on a tidal island known as “the Billionaires Bunker” north of Miami.

Ron Brownstein, The Atlantic: “For four years, Donald Trump downplayed the risk of white-supremacist violence and denied that racial bias is pervasive in law enforcement. In a single, searing day, the assault on the U.S. Capitol exposed the price of both of those choices – and may have provided Joe Biden new political momentum for reversing direction on each front.”

“At once, the rioters demonstrated how much the threat of white extremism has metastasized under Trump, while the restrained police response vivified a racial double standard in policing. The attack could strengthen the case for systemic police reform, both through congressional action and a revival of Justice Department oversight of local police practices that the Trump administration essentially shelved. Representative Karen Bass of California, the lead sponsor of a police-reform bill that passed the House last summer, told me she believes that the lower chamber will approve a new version ‘within the first quarter’ of 2021. ‘This was yet another example in the disparity of treatment between African Americans and others,’ Derrick Johnson, the president and CEO of the NAACP, told me. ‘This is yet another example of how police agencies viewed citizens differently.’ The attack could also make it tougher for congressional Republicans to resist the Biden administration’s expected efforts to dramatically increase enforcement against white supremacists through the Justice Department, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security. ‘This isn’t just a Trump thing that goes away when Trump goes away,’ Elizabeth Neumann, the former DHS assistant secretary for threat prevention under Trump, told me. ‘And this isn’t just a bunch of really crazy Trump people. This is something darker and deeper that has been around a very long time. We have aroused the sleeping giant … and we’re now going to be dealing both with [Trump’s] radicalized supporters and this white-power movement on steroids for the foreseeable future.'”

Donald Trump will leave office on Wednesday with the federal government having exhausted its supply of coronavirus vaccine doses, severely limiting the ability of federal and state officials to provide vaccines to millions of Americans in a timely manner, the Washington Post reports.

The Trump Administration is taking supplies directly from the manufacturing lines and distributing them around the country, leaving no inventory for necessarily follow-up vaccinations.  State governments must now contend with a flat supply of doses, rather than the increasing quantity necessary to satisfy demand.

Because the available vaccines require two doses, administered weeks apart, for the vaccine to be fully effective, the supply chain must compensate for follow-up doses and new inoculations by increasing production.  Trump’s Operation Warp Speed had pledged to ensure that such an increasing supply was available, with Trump saying first 100 million people–revised down to 20 million people–would be vaccinated by the end of 2020.  In fact, fewer than 10 million have received vaccinations as of mid-January.

Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has announced that Retired Lt. General Russel Honoré will lead a probe into the security of the Capitol Complex after the site was the target of a insurrectionist attack on January 6th.

“I have asked retired Lieutenant General Russel L. Honoré to lead an immediate review of security infrastructure, inter-agency processes and command and control,” Pelosi said in a statement Friday morning. “The general is a respected leader wither experience dealing with crisis.”

A Louisiana native, Honoré led the recovery effort in the Gulf Coast after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when the immediate Bush Administration left tens of thousands stranded for days.  Honoré led the ensuing effort to clean up and repair the region, restoring vital services after the hurricane killed nearly 2,000 people.

According to the Johns Hopkins COVID tracker, the 2 millionth person has succumbed to the coronavirus.

As of it’s 12:22 p.m. ET update on Friday, the JHU site recorded 2,000,905 deaths worldwide from the coronavirus.  Nearly 20% of those fatalities have been in the United States.

“American Thinker and contributors Andrea Widburg, R.D. Wedge, Brian Tomlinson, and Peggy Ryan have published pieces on www.AmericanThinker.com that falsely accuse US Dominion Inc., Dominion Voting Systems, Inc., and Dominion Voting Systems Corporation of conspiring to steal the November 2020 election from Donald Trump. These pieces rely on discredited sources who have peddled debunked theories about Dominion’s supposed ties to Venezuela, fraud on Dominion’s machines that resulted in massive vote switching or weighted votes, and other claims falsely stating that there is credible evidence that Dominion acted fraudulently.”

“These statements are completely false and have no basis in fact. Industry experts and public officials alike have confirmed that Dominion conducted itself appropriately and that there is simply no evidence to support these claims. It was wrong for us to publish these false statements. We apologize to Dominion for all of the harm this caused them and their employees. We also apologize to our readers for abandoning 9 journalistic principles and misrepresenting Dominion’s track record and its limited role in tabulating votes for the November 2020 election. We regret this grave error” reads the correction which is probably buried from American Thinker’s main navigation.

The FBI is investigating 37 insurrectionist who attacked the Capitol on January 6th for their roles in the murder of Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, who was struck with a fire extinguisher as rioters rushed into the building, the New York Times reports.

Sicknick died at an area hospital from his injuries.  More than a dozen Capitol Police and 60 DC Metro Police officers were injured in the coup attempt.  Another Capitol Police officer took his own life in the wake of the attack.

Intelligence agencies are also monitoring foreign internet activity, tracking their efforts to fuel the flames of the violence.  Chinese, Iranian and Russian trolls are amplifying the violent rhetoric, attempting to destabilize the American government.

UPDATE 1/15/21 11:45 AM: Rudy Giuliani posted cryptic tweets from James Sullivan, a political gadfly who claims to be a leader of antifa, but was shown speaking at the Capitol coup attempt January 6th. Sullivan is referred to a “Proud Boy X” by BLM activists who have banned Sullivan from its activities because of his attention whoring.  Sullivan has been arrested by federal agents, and his arrest is being used by conservatives and Fox News as evidence that antifa was behind the attack on the Capitol, despite all evidence to the contrary.

Dr. Anthony Fauci said on NBC’s Today program that President-elect Joe Biden’s goal of having one million people receive the coronavirus vaccine each day during Biden’s first 100 days in office is an achievable goal.

https://youtu.be/t319fB6oiKg

“I really do think so,” Fauci told NBC’s Craig Melvin.  “We’ve discussed this with the Biden team and we think it’s quite feasible that we can do that.  Right now, even now, we’ve gone from half a million a day to 750,000 a day.  I believe strongly that it’s doable….”

Washington Post: “The violent mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 came perilously close to Vice President Pence, who was not evacuated from the Senate chamber for about 14 minutes after the Capitol Police reported an initial attempted breach of the complex – enough time for the marauders to rush inside the building and approach his location, according to law enforcement officials and video footage from that day.”

“Secret Service officers eventually spirited Pence to a room off the Senate floor with his wife and daughter after rioters began to pour into the Capitol, many loudly denouncing the vice president as a traitor as they marched through the first floor below the Senate chamber. About one minute after Pence was hustled out of the chamber, a group charged up the stairs to a second-floor landing in the Senate, chasing a Capitol Police officer who drew them away from the Senate.”

Daily Beast: “Amid ongoing ratings struggles, Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott and President Jay Wallace are fighting for their jobs as their boss Rupert Murdoch has swooped in to take a more hands-on role at the network in recent days, multiple network insiders told The Daily Beast. In fact, according to people familiar with the situation, Scott’s days at Fox News may shortly be coming to an end, following a tumultuous few months in which the conservative cable news giant’s ratings have sagged following the November election. A not-insignificant portion of the network’s conservative viewership have abandoned Fox for Newsmax, a rival pro-Trump channel that openly disregards factual reporting. To make matters worse, Fox has also suffered historic ratings losses to CNN and MSNBC, despite an intensely dramatic news cycle. In response to a request for comment for this story, a Fox Corporation spokesperson said: ‘Your premise is wrong. It is wishful thinking by our competitors.’ But when pressed for a statement of support for Scott from Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch, none was forthcoming.”

“Scott may be taking the brunt of blame, insiders said, for the network’s ratings issues. Additionally, last month, more than a dozen current and former Fox News women – both behind and in front of the camera – told The Daily Beast that the CEO has yet to be held accountable for her role as a prominent enabler for late founder Roger Ailes’ alleged serial sexual misconduct; and that she helped foster a misogynistic workplace culture that allegedly objectifies female staffers and ignores or silences their complaints of misconduct. The New York City Commission on Human Rights also confirmed last month that it is currently investigating Fox’s corporate culture.”