I’ve read heartbreaking books about 9/11 but the piece of writing my brain recalls every year is the bizarre first-person account of the Toronto Star writer who happened to be in New York when the towers came down. Unfortunately for the Star, that person was their fashion editor. Star fashion editor Bernadette Morra was in NY to cover the spring/summer 2002 showcases. When the attack on the World Trade Center happened she jumped into action by… attempting to file her fashion stories from her hotel.

Ottawa police interim chief Steve Bell says the protesters were aggressive with police and they are now equipped with helmets and batons. Total number of arrested as of last update is 170. Asked about reports of excessive force during arrests, Bell says they have a process for reviewing every arrest.

Tom Marazzo, one of the protest organizers not in jail, is holding a press conference. Aaaand we are off to a start with quite a quote: "First they came for the truckers, and I did not speak out because I was not a trucker. Then they came for the donors of truckers..." "We are all in shock and we are currently organizing legal council for people injured by police brutality."

Three of hos fellow organizers have been arrested. Marazzo says some people's bank accounts have been frozen, including his.

"Walls are caving in" vibes downtown as police descend on the encampment in front of the Parliament buildings. Police just charged 20 feet or so forward. The crowd fled back. Some people got pepper sprayed, the smell of it is now wafting in the air.

Quiet, cold, snowy morning in Ottawa. Waiting to see if this is the day police make their move. At a downtown Tim Hortons, which I'm visiting for important journalism reasons, a group of protesters talk about what a hard week it's been. A man from Montreal says his guys trying to get in are being blocked by police. A woman advises to say they're staying at a downtown hotel.

Lots of honking started just now in downtown Ottawa Pat King is rallying the troops on YouTube. I'm not seeing a crackdown so far

Hard to know what to make of this. Obviously not much in and of itself, but could be the first step in police ramping up measures to push people out.

https://twitter.com/pdmcleod/status/1493963084557336578

The question that I can't answer is how the hell do you tow all these vehicles away when every time a crowd of protesters crowd in to physically block you? Not to mention the trucks in camps outside the city that would move in to block you.

Anti-mandate protesters are holding a twitter space “emergency meeting” in response to the state of emergency.

One who was at the Windsor/Detroit border blockade tells a story of how their communications were infiltrated, leading to organizational collapse... Protesters were using Zello, a live communications app. The problem was counter-protesters were spamming their channels with the gay cowboy anthem Ram Ranch.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau just started his press conference where he is expected to envoke the Emergencies Act.

“This is not a peaceful protest,” he says. Trudeau says he has envoked the Emergencies Act for the first time ever, in order to give law enforcement more power.

Trudeau says the measures will be time limited, geographically targeted, reasonable and proportionate.

A group of counter-protesters is blocking a line of trucks looking to get into the city core and join the trucker really. It's quite civil so far, actually. Some discussions happening between the sides.

"We are the majority. You lost the election," says one counter-protester. Police are telling the counter-protesters this convoy won't make it downtown because it's blocked off. I just got a cab here from downtown so I don't know exactly what they mean.

I'm at the Capitol for the reporter meet 'n greet, which is being held next to a huge police exercise, which is being held next to some sort of small protest rally. There are definitely hundreds of *people* at the #justiceforj6 rally but in terms of the ratio of participants to media/counter-protestors/gawkers, let's put it this way: if you're a willing to spout off loudly about the election here's how many reporters will surround you.

Acting Capitol police chief Pittman says 35 officers are under investigation for things like posing for selfies with Jan. 6 rioters, and six have had their police powers suspended. Pittman says “well in excess” of 10,000 people left Trump’s speech near the White House on Jan. 6 and went to the Capitol. She estimates about 800 made it inside the building.

The Senate Administration committee hearing on the Jan. 6 riots kicks off with a first-person account from Capitol Police Capt. Carneysha Mendoza, who described rioters firing CS gas in the Capitol. “I received chemical burns to my face that still have not healed to this day.” Of all the days she worked, Mendoza calls the 6th “by far the worst of the worst. We could have had ten times the amount of people working with us and I believe the battle would have been just as devastating."

Today we saw dozens of videos/tweets of Trump saying the election was stolen and the electoral college count needs to be stopped, urging supporters to “fight like hell” and “stop the steal,” then people storming the Capitol repeating those lines. How are Republicans reacting? Pretty much everyone has said the footage of the attack shown today is awful, reprehensible, traumatizing, etc. But many are saying that the responsibility is solely on the rioters, not Trump.

On day 2 of Trump’s impeachment trial begins with Rep. Jamie Raskin laying out Trump’s tweets calling people to DC on Jan. 6, then telling a crowd of supporters that day to “fight like hell or you’re not going to have a country anymore." Raskin: “He told them to fight like hell and they brought us hell on that day.”

Raskin says for hours Trump did nothing to call off the mob once the Capitol attack started. “He watched it on tv like a reality show. He reveled in it. He did nothing to help us.”

Republican Senator Bill Cassidy blasts the performance of Trump’s lawyers today: "It was disorganized, random. They talked about many things but they didn’t talk about the issue at hand… The House managers made a compelling, cogent case and the president’s team did not.” Cassidy switched from his previous position and voted that the trial is constitutional. Longer quote:

“Anyone who listened to those arguments, the House managers were focused, they were organized, they relied upon both precedent, the constitution, and legal scholars...

And here we go, arguments in Trump’s second impeachment trial in the Senate are beginning.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, the lead House impeachment manager, assures senators they won’t have to listen to lectures about the Federal Papers because his case will be based on “cold, hard facts" Raskin kicks off by showing a supercut of rioters storming the Capitol on Jan. 6 spliced with Trump talking about how the election was a fraud. “If you don’t fight like hell you’re not going to have a country anymore” etc. I’d expect to see a lot of this.

With Joe Biden (and, uh, Mitt Romney) proposing to send out direct cash payments to parents, there’s a pretty direct parallel we can look to to see what the impact would be — Canada! Biden’s proposing to give parents $3,600 per child under the age of six, as well as $3,000 per child aged 6-17.

washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021…

This is almost exactly the same program as the Canada Child Benefit introduced in 2016.

I don't have the signal to tweet photos but the scene outside the Capitol is pretty wild. They've broken down fences to get up to the outside doors of the Capitol. To be clear, most people are standing around chanting or taking photos. I've never seen anything like this. Protestors crawling all over the Capitol steps, massive crowds outside chanting. "This is our house, let's take it back!" A guy next to me yells.

Trump is vowing to never concede the election he lost. Trump is promising to lay out the evidence today that he won “by a landslide.” These deadlines of providing irrefutable proof (remember The Kraken?) keep coming and going.

Before fully diving into 2021 I'm gonna do this thing again where I recap some of the movies I liked or loved in 2020.

I watched 179 movies (had a lot of time to spend indoors.) My favorite new releases of the year were Portrait Of A Lady On Fire and The Vast Of Night.

https://twitter.com/pdmcleod/status/1218249981829828609

Some movies I had never seen before that I liked/loved: The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974), Shazam (2019), The Swimmer (1968), Under the Silver Lake (2018), I See You (2019), Sorry To Bother You (2018), Leave No Trace (2018), The Howling (1981), Contagion (2011)...