“White House officials pushed Atlanta’s top federal prosecutor to resign before Georgia’s U.S. Senate runoffs because President Trump was upset he wasn’t doing enough to investigate the president’s unproven claims of election fraud, people familiar with the matter said.”

“A senior Justice Department official, at the behest of the White House, called Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney Byung J. Pak and told him he needed to step down because he wasn’t pursuing vote-fraud allegations to Mr. Trump’s satisfaction, the people said. Mr. Pak resigned abruptly on Monday – the day before the runoffs – saying in an early morning email to colleagues that his departure was due to ‘unforeseen circumstances.’ The pressure on Mr. Pak was part of Mr. Trump’s weekslong push to try to alter presidential election results favoring President-elect Joe Biden, which included his win in Georgia. Mr. Trump this week, following the U.S. Capitol riot, said he would leave office on Jan. 20 when Mr. Biden is inaugurated” – Wall Street Journal.

Back on November 15th, I wrote a piece saying maybe it’s a good thing Trump is still dragging this out. Premised on the idea that a that point, twelve days after the election, MAGA Nation believed that the Supreme Court would somehow intervene, or the Electoral College slates would be replaced with pro-Trump electors, or the state certifications would be overturned, or some other deus ex machina fantasy would happen that would keep Trump in office another four years, that the violence we’d all expected before the election if Biden had won was being put in forbearance until it the reality of the loss sank in.

January 6th was when it all came due. These fuckers rushed the Capitol in a desperate last ditch bid to overturn Trump’s defeat. Nobody had any real plan, but they were acting out their rage. We knew this was coming, and it was shocking and horrifying to watch nonetheless.

Epic hypocrisy. Facts:

1) Nazis are evil bigots.

2) You & your anti-Israel pals blocked a resolution condemning antisemitism—which I passed unanimously in the Senate. https://t.co/kYQGO4zVVU

3) Unless they are genocidal, calling your political opponents Nazis is atrocious. https://t.co/ZV5dhUDRzD

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) January 9, 2021

“Donald Trump has been granted five honorary degrees in his lifetime – from Lehigh University in 1988, from Wagner College in 2004, from Robert Gordon University in Scotland in 2010, and from Liberty University, which granted honorary degrees to Mr. Trump on two occasions – 2012 and 2017. But as of today, only one of those institutions – Liberty University – has not revoked the honorary degrees originally granted to Mr. Trump” reports Forbes Magazine.

“As of today, Liberty has not announced any moves to revoke the degrees it bestowed on Trump. According to Bloomberg, a spokesperson for Liberty did not respond to requests for comments. Obviously, events and decisions concerning President Trump are unfolding at a very rapid pace. Perhaps it’s just a matter of time before Liberty decides it too needs to pull the honors it’s given to Mr. Trump. But then again, perhaps not.”

“Unity and healing” doesn’t happen with cancel culture and impeachment.

— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) January 9, 2021

North Korean dictator and Donald Trump lover Kim Jong Un has vowed to increase the development of his country’s nuclear arsenal, calling the United States his country’s “biggest enemy,” NPR reports.

Trump had boasted early in his term that he had eliminated the threat from North Korean nuclear weapons, stating on his now-deleted Twitter account that Americans can “sleep well” because he met with Kim in a highly controversial summit.

“Our external political activities must focus on controlling and subjugating the United States, our archenemy and the biggest stumbling block to the development of our revolution,” Kim said, according to the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).  “No matter who takes power in the United States, its true nature and its policy toward our country will never change.”

Washington Post: “President Trump urged Georgia’s lead elections investigator to ‘find the fraud’ in a lengthy December phone call, saying the official would be a ‘national hero,’ according to an individual familiar with the call who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the conversation. Trump placed the call to the investigations chief for the Georgia secretary of state’s office shortly before Christmas – while the individual was leading an inquiry into allegations of ballot fraud in Cobb County, in the suburbs of Atlanta, said people familiar with the episode.”

“The president’s attempts to intervene in an ongoing investigation could amount to obstruction of justice or other criminal violations, legal experts said, though they cautioned a case could be difficult to prove. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger had launched the inquiry following allegations that Cobb election officials had improperly accepted mail ballots with signatures that did not match those on file – claims that state officials ultimately concluded had no merit.”

Jake Angeli, the self-described “QAnon Shaman” whose real name is Jacob Anthony Chansley, was arrested Saturday in Arizona, WTTG Fox-5 reports.

Recorded wearing face paint and buffalo horns as he strode through the Capitol, Angeli has been charged with knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority, and with violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.

With no known job, Angeli carried a spear into the Capitol building.  It is unknown if weapons charges will be added to his slate of alleged crimes.

“You scumbags blew off the concerns of the people, threw everything out on one technicality after another, and you’re surprised that people are upset? You’ve not seen anything yet. Thanks to Trump, people now know how deep and how broad the swamp is”

– The current top comment on the Breitbart article “Scalise: Trump Didn’t Unequivocally Denounce Capitol Riot on Wednesday, His Words ‘Caused a Lot of Real Division’“, posted early Saturday.

The Seattle, Washington police chief announced that he has placed on administrative leave two officers who were in Washington, DC during the attempted coup at the Capitol on Wednesday, pending an investigation into the actions the pair took during the insurrection.

“Today the Seattle Police Department was made aware that at least two of its officers were reportedly in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday,” Chief Adrian Diaz said in a statement released late Friday.  “The Department fully supports all lawful expressions of First Amendment freedom of speech, but the violent mob and events that unfolded at the U.S. Capitol were unlawful and resulted in the death of another police officer. The incident has been forwarded to the Office of Police Accountability for full review of any SPD employee activities at the U.S. Capitol.”

Fox News: “Twitter saw a surprising item trending on Friday night when ‘Hang Mike Pence’ hit around 14,000 tweets, according to reports. Twitter appeared to notice the trend at some point: on the Twitter Trending USA site, which tracks the past 12 hours of the top 10 trending, the item does not appear. ‘We blocked the phrase and other variations of it from trending,’ a Twitter spokesperson told Fox News on Saturday. ‘We want trends to promote healthy discussions on Twitter.'”

“Let’s state what happened on Wednesday for what it was: an insurrection by supporters of President Donald Trump storming the US Capitol. They were the definition of a mob. The insurrection and the Electoral College objections to President-elect Joe Biden’s election that preceded and followed it were an ugly milestone in just how divisive the political arena has become in America” writes CNN’s Harry Enten.

“But let’s be clear: This wasn’t a both sides issue. The events of the past week are a major point in support of the idea that Republicans are more responsible for the polarization in our country. Wednesday was the culmination of a multi-month effort by the President that was largely bolstered by a number of Republicans. Recent American history doesn’t provide any sort of road map for what happened this past week. This isn’t a philosophical argument. We can prove this via the numbers – specifically, the number of times a president tried to overturn the results of an election, the number of times supporters of his backed that with widescale violent action and the number of times a majority of his own party’s members in Congress backed that election challenge.”

Texas Tribune: “Texas GOP Chair Allen West said Monday that the state party ‘will not support, nor accept’ state Rep. Dade Phelan as the next speaker of the Texas House, after the Beaumont Republican said last week he has the votes to win the gavel. In an email to supporters, West took issue with the fact that Democrats had backed Phelan even though Republicans retained a majority in the 150-member lower chamber after Election Day.”

“Phelan said last week he had support from a ‘supermajority of the Republican caucus’ and a ‘broad coalition of support’ from Democrats. That support, should it hold until January when the Legislature convenes, would mean Phelan has more than enough votes needed to become the next speaker when House members elect a leader as one of the chamber’s first orders of business. ‘Texas will not allow the undermining of our ‘Texas Republic.’ This is why the Republican Party of Texas is perplexed, and will not support, a potential Texas Speaker of the House who would seek affirmation from progressive socialist Democrats to attain that position,’ West wrote, calling it ‘utterly absurd and demonstrably idiotic’ that a Republican would join with Dems to lead the GOP-controlled House. West does not get to vote on the next speaker since he is not a House member.”

It’s heartbreaking to recall that Republicans in the House and Senate could have repealed Section 230 and stopped tech censorship before it became a monster. They didn’t do it, and now it is unleashed in full force against us

— Dinesh D’Souza DineshDSouza Saturday, January 9, 2021

“Twitter’s extraordinary action against President Trump Friday night was driven both by the deadly rampage of his supporters in Washington and what the company said was a looming ‘secondary attack’ on the U.S. Capitol and state government facilities next weekend – a finding that tracks with the open threats of violence independent researchers have also found across the Web. Calls for widespread protests on the days leading up to the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden have been rampant online for weeks. These demonstrations are scheduled to culminate with what organizers have dubbed a ‘Million Militia March’ on January 20 itself, as Biden and Kamala Harris are to be sworn in on the same Capitol grounds that rioters overran on Wednesday.”

“As with the online chatter ahead of that assault on the Capitol, these calls to action have bristled with violent talk and vows to bring guns to Washington in defiance of the city’s strict weapons laws. Twitter cited some of these posts in its announcement Friday night stripping Trump of his account and preventing him from creating new ones in the future. Some event listings are openly discussing delivering ‘justice’ for Ashli Babbitt, a rioter and Air Force veteran who was fatally shot by police inside the Capitol Wednesday” – Washington Post.

ABC News: “Florida authorities say they’ve arrested one of the alleged Capitol rioters Friday night who was seen in a viral photograph carrying Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s lectern through the halls. Adam Johnson, 36, of Parrish, Florida, is being held in Pinellas County Jail and pending charges after federal marshalls picked him up, according to arrest records.”

“Johnson is allegedly the man in the photo taken during Wednesday’s raid of the U.S. Capitol by Donald Trump’s supporters where he is waving to the camera while holding the lectern in his right arm, according to investigators. Johnson, who was clean shaven in his mugshot, appeared in the photo with a beard and a wool hat with ‘Trump’ written on the top.”

“Despite the belief among many that the presidential election results were not accurate – the very belief that spurred Trump supporters to gather in the nation’s capital this week – the vast majority of Americans – 88 percent – oppose the actions of those who broke into the U.S. Capitol, according to this latest poll. That includes 96 percent of Democrats, 86 percent of independents and 80 percent of Republicans. However, nearly a fifth of Republicans – 18 percent – were in favor of Trump supporters breaking into the U.S. Capitol, far more than the 3 percent of Democrats and 7 percent of Independents who felt the same. Ninety percent of U.S. adults and 100 percent of Democrats say the perpetrators should be prosecuted for the break in” – PBS NewsHour.

Ron Brownstein, The Atlantic: “The Republican Party’s ‘Flight 93’ revolution tragically, but almost inevitably, came full circle this week in a storm of insurrectionary violence at the U.S. Capitol. Late in the 2016 presidential campaign, an anonymous author, eventually revealed as Michael Anton, a conservative scholar who later joined the Trump White House, described the race between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton as the ‘Flight 93 Election.’ In his widely read essay, Anton insisted that a Democratic victory would change America so irrevocably that conservatives needed to think of themselves as the passengers on United Airlines Flight 93 on September 11 – the ones who chose to bring down the plane to save the U.S. Capitol from al-Qaeda hijackers. Letting the Democrat win, in other words, would doom the country.”

“Trump supporters’ rampage on Wednesday represented a bracingly physical expression of that belief – and a bitterly ironic inversion of it. To save the country, in their eyes, the pro-Trump rioters assaulted the same building that the actual Flight 93 passengers died to protect. The riot showed how the ominous tenor of contemporary Republican messaging could be fueling white conservatives’ extremism. For at least the past decade, GOP candidates and conservative-media personalities have routinely deployed rhetoric similar to the Flight 93 argument. Only about 40 hours before the insurrection, at a campaign rally hosting an enthusiastic, virtually all-white audience in rural Georgia, President Trump insisted that if Democrats won the state’s two Senate runoff elections this week, ‘America as you know it will be over, and it will never – I believe – be able to come back again.'”

Axios: “Leaders in business, technology and culture are pulling the plug on their support for President Trump and some of his closest allies in the final days of his presidency. Trump’s political power, and his popularity with a large swath of the Republican base, always protected him from a backlash from business and tech leaders – until now.”

“The Capitol siege proved to be the final straw. Twitter announced Friday that the platform will permanently suspend President Trump’s account. It’s the strongest action against the president’s account and comes in response to the risk of further incitement of violence.”