Hard not to tear up each time the rawness of the many tragedies from 1/6 are raised.
Sicknick's manner of death was hard to securely link back to his injuries but for me he is an emblem, representing the two other LEOs killed by PTSD, & the >138 injured, some very seriously.
I will point out that in 2016 at least, Twitter was full of MAGA tweets about the link between combat deployments, PTSD, and suicide among US military.
They now mock, laugh at, and try to belittle the testimony of Jan 6 LEOs who took no less personal risk in serving the USA.
Even if the USCP and MPDC had been fully funded, trained and operational, they still were not trained to face the nature of the (known) threat that day.
Approx 4,500 crossed the security line, with ~800 entering the building. The term "weapon" does not only mean firearms.
The LEOs knew that their lives were in immediate danger. Their employers had relied on the usual inter-agency planning for major DC events, where LE/military units that ARE trained for that situation are right there, ready to assist.
Trump made sure those units weren't there.
I cover that aspect of it in detail in the thread below.
I became a GOP supporter in 2016 because I believed they cared more about LEOs and military than the other side did.
That belief was shattered on 1/6. The only way for me to show support now is to dissent and fight as a conservative alongside Democrats. Like Kinzinger & Cheney.
It took me a long time to reach this point. To begin with I supported having recounts etc to at least verify the election result, either way. After the insanity & frankly life-threatening conduct seen in the past 8 months, I'm of course proud to be a #NeverTrump conservative.
The evidence against Trump and many of those around him mounts by the day. The Congressional Republicans who continue to cling onto his worthless coat-tails will never be able to win back the trust and respect of most Americans. Not gonna happen.
(1) Elise Stefanik's lies in this statement are easy to expose:
Regardless of Pelosi's decisions, she relied on the normal inter-branch DC security planning process, which was suspended before 1/6 - by Trump as CiC of the DG Nat Guard.
I hold certain people in the CA justice system responsible for not adequately educating the public about adult guardianship principles & processes in the US.
(2) Today's second thread in my series was prompted by the news that Britney Spears' doctors want her father removed as a financial (not welfare) conservator. I agree with them.
(3) Adult guardianship laws are necessary and they vary between countries and US states. In CA it's called conservatorship. There are two types - personal welfare and financial, essentially. Various terms used in different places.
(2) I wrote a bit about them at the time. They were:
M7.8 on July 22, 2020
M7.6 on October 19, 2020
Tonight's:
M8.2 on July 29, 2021
(3) The Canterbury, New Zealand earthquakes of 2010-2011 that I lived through also involved a #foreshock event. Of course, we only find out after the main quake that an earlier one was a foreshock.
The geology of the area is what determines the likelihood of foreshocks.
(3) And in that thread I also explain the golden opportunity Scalise had seven months ago to learn about Covid after a US Rep-Elect in his own state died from it. Luke Letlow's death was connected to a procedure ICU doctors were using to try to save him. He was 41 years old.
(1) I've been watching this guy's video clips for a while & I find them very thought-provoking & informative. He's left wing so ofc I don't agree with his pols BUT I care more about information than ideology now.
Folk need to understand: TFG has NPD.
(2) In this video about TFG's long-standing thinly-veiled dysfunctional attitude toward women, Christo Aivalis makes some really sound arguments for inferring from behavior and comments over several years that TFG is indeed a misogynist.
Now, I would add that:
(3) The cause of his misogyny (and other stuff) is that he almost certainly has NPD (narcissistic personality disorder) and probably some other PD-related issues too.
IMO it's absolutely essential that Americans understand this about him & some of his children, too.
(2) Many people seem to forget that this pandemic was declared a national emergency, and it will remain that way for at least another year, maybe two.
So trying to help people learn the facts about vaccines is way more important than it otherwise would be.
(3) In the current context, the idea that your view on vaccine safety has no impact on anyone else is quite a stretch.
Yes you can decline it for yourself. That's not the issue I have with the spreading of anti-vax lies. It's the people affected who can't make that decision.