Reuters: “Social media platform Parler, which has gone dark after being cut off by major service providers that accused the app of failing to police violent content, may never get back online, said its CEO John Matze. As a procession of business vendors severed ties with the two-year-old site following the storming of the U.S. Capitol last week, Matze said in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday that he does not know when or if it will return.”

“‘It could be never,’ he said. ‘We don’t know yet.’ The app said in a legal filing it has over 12 million users. Matze said that Parler was talking to more than one cloud computing service but refused to disclose names, citing the likelihood of harassment for the companies involved. He said the best thing would be if Parler could get back on Amazon.”

• Liz Cheney (WY)
• Anthony Gonzalez (OH)
• Jaime Herrera Beutler (WA)
• John Katko (NY)
• Adam Kinzinger (IL)
• Peter Meijer (MI)
• Dan Newhouse (WA)
• Tom Rice (SC)
• Fred Upton (MI)
• David Valadao (CA)

Donald John Trump has become the first president in United States history to be impeached twice.

At 4:22 p.m. ET on Wednesday, the House passed the simple majority threshold necessary to impeach Trump.  Trump was impeached by a final vote of 232-197 for incitement of insurgency related to the violent attack on the Capitol by Trump-supporting insurrectionists.

Trump also became the president to get the most votes for impeachment from members of his own political party.  Ten Republicans voted to impeach Trump, doubling the five Democrats who voted to impeach Democratic President Bill Clinton in 1998.  Clinton also received substantial votes from Republicans to dismiss the impeachment charges.

The ten Republicans joined 222 Democrats to impeach Trump.  No Democrats voted against the article of impeachment.  Votes for five representatives were not recorded.

“During 2017 and 2018 I made a number of comments stating or implying that Aaron Rich, the brother of Seth Rich who was tragically murdered in July 2016, had been involved in downloading and transferring emails from the DNC to WikiLeaks and receiving payment in exchange… I take full responsibility for my comments and I apologize for any pain I have caused. I sincerely hope the Rich family is able to find out who murdered their son and bring this tragic chapter in their lives to a close” says a tweet thread from Ed Butowsky which apparently has been deleted since the initial publication of this article. Re-retracted, I guess.

With their continued endorsement and incitement of BLM/Antifa violence, the Democrat impeachment of President Trump sets a precedent that members of their party should be removed from office.

This impeachment is based on a lie.

AGAIN! pic.twitter.com/60kKkJG0xp

— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) January 13, 2021

“The Secret Service has issued an intelligence bulletin warning of additional armed protests in Washington before and after the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden—particularly from the Boogaloo Boys—that in some cases it expects to become violent. The Secret Service bulletin, dated Jan. 11, is unclassified but marked not for distribution outside law-enforcement channels, and was obtained by The Daily Beast. The Daily Beast is declining to give specifics for these rallies to prevent insurrectionists from organizing through the media” – Daily Beast.

Fox News: “President Trump on Wednesday is calling for ‘all Americans’ to help ‘ease tensions and calm tempers,’ saying he does ‘not’ stand for violence ‘of any kind’ – and he’s asking Big Tech to join the effort. ‘In light of reports of more demonstrations, I urge that there must be NO violence, NO lawbreaking and NO vandalism of any kind,’ the president said in a statement to Fox News. ‘That is not what I stand for and it is not what America stands for. I call on ALL Americans to help ease tensions and calm tempers. Thank You.’ A Trump adviser told Fox News the statement will go out as an email from the White House press office. The White House will then attempt to post the statement to all of Trump’s official social media accounts.”

“The adviser also told Fox News the statement would be posted and distributed through all Trump campaign and political accounts. ‘President Trump is asking all Americans to join with him in ensuring that there is an orderly and peaceful transition next week,’ a senior Trump adviser told Fox News. ‘President Trump is also asking that Big Tech companies join with him in this effort.’ The adviser added: ‘This is a critical time in our nation’s history and surely we can all come together to deliver this important message and not continue to play partisan politics.'”

Dan Newhouse declared in a floor speech that he will vote to impeach, becoming the sixth Republican who will vote for impeachment, joining Liz Cheney of Wyoming, John Katko of New York, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, Fred Upton of Michigan, and Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington.

This marks the most people from the President’s party to vote for impeaching the president, another first for Trump.

“Oath Keepers and patriots, Oath Keepers has been attacked by the hostile radical left. Our server provider, LiquidWeb has shown its colors and caved to the Loony Left. We will recover and are working to rebuild a communications and membership website. Please use your training and adapt to the new environment. Keep your cool and know that we are all in this together. Use this time to tweak your local communications with one and other. The website and platforms are being rebuilt, stay the course” says the message on OathKeepers.org, almost completely devoid of CSS.

Listening to the arguments pro-Trump Republicans have made in the debate about the rules for the upcoming debate about the article of impeachment, Republicans are relying on three excuses to try to justify voting against impeachment:

1. The process is happening too fast; Trump’s being found guilty without a trial;
2. It’s another attempt to overturn (the last) election and throw out/delegitimize Trump; and
3. Nothing Trump did was criminal.

The proper responses:

“Ordinarily, aides would look to Twitter for the President’s first response to being the only president in history to be impeached twice. So, too, would Republican members of Congress fear what might appear on Trump’s feed if they decided to break with him and vote for his impeachment. But Trump’s account has been permanently suspended – and with it his principal weapon for ensuring GOP loyalty. While Trump has railed against his suspension, telling reporters this week that free speech was under assault, CNN has learned of a new effort by one of his top advisers to keep him from emerging on fringe platforms in place of the major ones he was banned from.”

“Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner intervened when other officials tried restoring the President’s social media presence on sites that are often havens for extremists, such as Gab, following an unprecedented ban from several major platforms. According to an outside adviser and an administration official, Kushner and deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino blocked efforts by other aides, including personnel chief Johnny McEntee, to get the President on fringe social media platforms after he was suspended in some fashion from almost every major one, including Twitter, Facebook and, now, YouTube” – CNN.

“A Queens man who may have been involved in a new plot against the U.S. Capitol is in FBI custody. It’s one of several investigations into local people, including some who allegedly participated in last week’s deadly riot. The NYPD tells CBS2 the Queens man has been on the department’s radar before. He’s now accused of making threats online about the capitol. He was identified as 40-year-old Edward Florea, of Middle Village. The joint terrorism task force is holding him on weapons charges after he allegedly wrote online that he is a member of the Proud Boys and wanted to arm people to travel to Washington, D.C.” – WCBS.

Business Insider: “The commercial real estate giant Cushman & Wakefield said it has it has dropped President Donald Trump’s family real estate firm as a client, a week after Trump incited a mob to riot at the nation’s Capitol Building. ‘Cushman & Wakefield has made the decision to no longer do business with The Trump Organization,’ a spokesman for Cushman said in a statement provided to Business Insider. The Trump Organization did not respond to a request for comment.”

“Cushman, one of the nation’s largest real estate services companies, worked with the Trump Organization on two of its best known and most profitable assets: Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, and 40 Wall Street, a roughly 1.3 million-square-foot Lower Manhattan office tower known as the Trump Building. Cushman had served as an agent for the properties, helping the Trump Organization market available space to potential office tenants and negotiate leasing deals. Business Insider has also learned that Fred Trump III, Donald Trump’s nephew, who joined Cushman in 2017 as a leasing executive, has parted ways with the firm. Cushman’s spokesman declined to comment on or confirm Fred Trump III’s departure.”

Unbelievable.

We are locked out of the Students for Trump account until after Inauguration Day.

No violations. No warnings. Nothing.

— Ryan Fournier (@RyanAFournier) January 13, 2021

“Today, in response to various local, state and federal officials asking people not to travel to Washington, D.C., we are announcing that Airbnb will cancel reservations in the Washington, D.C. metro area during the Inauguration week. Additionally, we will prevent any new reservations in the Washington, D.C. area from being booked during that time by blocking such reservations.”

“Guests whose reservations are canceled will be refunded in full. We also will reimburse hosts, at Airbnb’s expense, the money they would have earned from these cancelled reservations. HotelTonight reservations also will be canceled. Airbnb’s work continues to be informed by inputs from our local host community as well as Washington, D.C. officials, Metro Police and Members of Congress throughout this week. In particular, Mayor Bowser, Governor Hogan and Governor Northam have been clear that visitors should not travel to the D.C. Metro area for the Inauguration. Additionally, we are aware of reports emerging yesterday afternoon regarding armed militias and known hate groups that are attempting to travel and disrupt the Inauguration” – Airbnb blog post.

I spotted the National Guard sleeping in the hallways of the Capitol as I walked in this morning. pic.twitter.com/PzVpQCo5yU

— Daniella Diaz (@DaniellaMicaela) January 13, 2021

Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who was the target of a state-sponsored assassination attempt using a chemical nerve agent, intends to return to Russia on Sunday after recovering in Germany from the attack, the Washington Post reports.

Despite the risk of imprisonment or additional threats to his life, Navalny will pick up his political activity in opposition to the Russian government led by Vladimir Putin.  Putin insinuated that Navalny has been long-term surveillance, including possibly when he was hospitalized in Germany recovering from the toxin Novichok, a Soviet-era nerve agent.

“[Russian President Vladimir] Putin, who gave the order to kill me, is screaming in his bunker and tells his servants to do everything to prevent me from returning,” Navalny said in an Instagram post. “Servants act as usual, fabricating new criminal cases against me. But I’m not very interested in what they are doing. Russia is my country, Moscow is my city, and I miss them.”