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      in US Politics

      Democratic and Republican senators unite to condemn deadly US Capitol violence – video

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      Senators from both sides of US politics have condemned the violence unleashed on the Capitol building on Wednesday.  The vice-president, Mike Pence, described it as ‘a dark day in the history of the United States Capitol’. The Democratic Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, labelled the Trump supporters as ‘goons’, ‘thugs’ and ‘domestic terrorists’, while Republican Mitt Romney labelled the events ‘an insurrection, incited by the president of the United States’
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      in Elections

      US Capitol stormed: what we know so far

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      A mob of Donald Trump supporters stormed Capitol Hill and clashed with police on Wednesday afternoon, apparently driven by the prospect that they might stop the certification of the 2020 federal election in favour of Joe Biden. The attack came after Trump urged a crowd of supporters to march on the Capitol and undo his November election defeat.
      A woman shot in the chest on Capitol grounds as the pro-Trump mob stormed the building died soon afterwards. Earlier reports indicated the woman was in a critical condition after being shot in the chest as the Capitol was breached. Dustin Sternbeck, a spokesman for the DC police, confirmed the woman’s death.
      The mob managed to enter the Senate chamber where minutes earlier the election results were being certified. A rioter stepped on to the dais and, according to a reporter on the scene, yelled: “Trump won that election.”
      Donald Trump praised the mob as “very special” people. The president justified the violence by citing baseless claims of widespread election fraud. In a video that Twitter has since deleted from his account, the president urged his supporters to “go home”, but also gave legitimacy to the falsehoods that fuelled Wednesday’s attempted insurrection, calling the election “stolen” and telling the angry mob, “we love you”. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram have since locked the president’s accounts in order to address misinformation and the incitement of violence.
      Joe Biden called on Trump to “demand an end to this siege”. The president-elect said in a speech in Wilmington, Delaware, “It’s not a protest; it’s insurrection. The world is watching.” Former President George W Bush also used the term “insurrection”.
      Barack Obama said history would rightly remember the violence at the Capitol as a moment of great dishonour and shame for the nation. Obama said it should not have come as a surprise, and that for two months “a political party and its accompanying media ecosystem has too often been unwilling to tell their followers the truth”.
      Four hours after the breach, officials announced that the Capitol was secure. The siege was among the worst security breaches in American history. Senators were then escorted back into the Senate chamber to resume the certification of Biden’s victory. Vice-President Mike Pence opened the session, saying”: “To those who wreaked havoc in our Capitol today: You did not win. Violence never wins. Freedom wins. And this is still the people’s house … Let’s get back to work.”
      The DC police chief, Robert Contee, said 13 people had been arrested so far in connection to the “riot” at the US Capitol. During the protests over the police killing of George Floyd, more than 400 people were arrested, mostly for curfew violations.
      A curfew in Washington DC went into effect at 6pm and will be in place until 6am on Thursday. As the curfew kicked in, an announcement played at the Capitol that anyone still on the grounds after 6pm would be subject to arrest.
      Representatives Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have called for Trump to be impeached. Omar said that she was filing articles of impeachment.
      Facebook announced it would remove all photographs and and videos posted from the protest, as well as praise for the protests or calls to bring weapons to the protest or anywhere else in the US. The posts, “contribute to, rather than diminish, the risk of ongoing violence”, it said.
      Melania Trump’s chief of staff, Stephanie Grisham reportedly resigned, effective immediately, over the violence at the Capitol. Grisham was the former White House press secretary.
      The attacks were condemned by leaders around the world and within the US, though Trump allies including Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro maintained their support. More

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      in Elections

      Trump supporters gather outside statehouses across US as mob assails Capitol

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      Supporters of Donald Trump massed outside statehouses across the US on Wednesday, leading to some evacuations as cheers rang out in reaction to the news that a pro-Trump mob had stormed the US Capitol in Washington.Hundreds of people gathered in state capitals from Georgia to New Mexico on the day US lawmakers were scheduled to certify Joe Biden’s electoral victory over Trump in November’s presidential election.In scenes that echoed those in the US capital, Trump supporters waved signs that read “Stop the Steal” and “Four more years”. Most eschewed masks and some carried guns in places like Oklahoma, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and Washington state. Despite some scuffles in states including Ohio and California, with instances of journalists or counter-protesters being pepper-sprayed or punched, many demonstrations remained peaceful.In Georgia, the secretary of state and his staff were evacuated from their offices at the state Capitol after about 100 protesters gathered, some armed with long guns.Gabriel Sterling, a top official with the secretary of state’s office, said it was a precautionary decision made by Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, for his team to leave. Trump has focused much of his ire on Raffensperger in the weeks following his loss of the state by about 12,000 votes.“We saw stuff happening at the Georgia Capitol and said we should not be around here, we should not be a spark,” Sterling told the Associated Press.The chaotic events in Washington DC came as Congress tried to affirm Biden’s electoral college victory. A pro-Trump mob entered the Senate chamber and forced lawmakers to flee. One woman was shot and killed.Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, slammed the storming of the US Capitol, calling it “a disgrace and quite honestly un-American”. Kemp said he was extending an executive order from protests over the summer activating the national guard in case they were needed to protect the state Capitol on Monday, when the legislative session begins.In New Mexico, hundreds of flag-waving Trump supporters arrived in a vehicle caravan and on horseback. Police evacuated staff from a statehouse building that included the governor’s office and the secretary of state’s office as a precaution.Demonstrators sang God Bless America, honked horns and declared Trump the rightful election winner, despite Biden winning the vote in New Mexico by a margin of roughly 11%.Brian Egolf, New Mexico’s Democratic house speaker, described it as a “shameful moment”.“It’s the first time in the history of the United States that the peaceful transfer of power has been slowed by an act of violence,” Egolf said. “I hope that the Congress can recover soon.”Elsewhere, Trump supporters circled the state Capitol in Madison, Wisconsin, in cars and trucks adorned with Trump and US flags, blaring their horns.In Colorado, the Denver mayor, Michael Hancock, ordered city agencies to close buildings after hundreds gathered in front of the Capitol building to protest against the election results.And in South Carolina, protesters supporting Trump came to the statehouse but left before the US Capitol was breached.In Washington state, protesters broke through a gate at the mansion of the state’s governor, Jay Inslee, and dozens of people gathered on the lawn before being cleared from the area. The crowd, some of whom were armed, repeated baseless allegations of election fraud.Earlier, dozens of people gathered at the state Capitol, demanding an election recount.In Utah, the staff of Governor Spencer Cox was sent home as several hundred people gathered in Salt Lake City, the lieutenant governor, Deidre Henderson, tweeted. A Salt Lake Tribune photographer said he was pepper-sprayed by a demonstrator who taunted him for wearing a mask and shoved him as he was shooting video of the protest.At least one person was arrested at the Oregon Capitol in Salem on suspicion of harassment and disorderly conduct as police in riot gear tried to get people, many of them armed, to leave. Video showed protesters and counter-protesters clashing and riot police moving in.In Honolulu, about 100 protesters lined the road outside the state Capitol waving American and Trump 2020 flags at passing cars. Sheryl Bieler, a retiree in the blue state, said she had come out to “support our president and support the integrity of the elections”. More

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      in Elections

      Biden calls on Trump to 'demand an end to this siege' – video

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      President-elect Joe Biden denounces the violence at the Capitol, after a mob of Trump supporters storm the building. ‘This is not dissent, it’s disorder, it’s chaos, it borders on sedition, and it must end now,’ Biden said. He then called on outgoing US president Trump to publicly ‘demand an end to this siege’
       Trump tells mob that stormed Congress ‘we love you’ as Biden condemns ‘siege’ – follow live
      ‘Trump blows up US democracy’: the world watches on in horror More

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      in Elections

      America shaken as violent pro-Trump mob storms Capitol building

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      [embedded content]
      America was shaken on Wednesday as a mob of Donald Trump supporters staged an insurrection at the US Capitol building in Washington, storming the debating chambers and fighting police in clashes that left one person dead.
      The siege was among the worst security breaches in American history and came after Trump had earlier urged a crowd of protesters to march on the Capitol and undo his November election defeat.
      The violence halted the tallying of electoral college votes to affirm Joe Biden’s victory. Mike Pence, the vice-president, and members of Congress were evacuated to undisclosed locations for their own safety.
      Local police said one person had been shot inside the Capitol building. Later, Dustin Sternbeck, a spokesman for the DC police, told the Washington Post that the woman had died. More

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      in Elections

      Jon Ossoff wins Georgia runoff election, giving Democrats control of Senate

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      [embedded content]
      The Georgia Democrat Jon Ossoff has won his Senate runoff election, giving Democrats control of the Senate for the opening of Joe Biden’s presidency.
      Ossoff’s victory against David Perdue, was called by the Associated Press late on Wednesday, and follows fellow Democrat Raphael Warnock’s victory against incumbent Kelly Loeffler.
      With the victories of Ossoff and Warnock, the US Senate is now 50-50.
      Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris will serve as the tie-breaking 51st vote, giving Democrats control of the chamber for the first time since 2015.
      A pastor who spent the past 15 years leading the Atlanta church where Martin Luther King Jr preached, Warnock’s victory makes him the first Black senator in his state’s history.
      The results were a stinging rebuke of Donald Trump, who made one of his final trips in office to Georgia to rally his loyal base behind the state’s Republican candidates.
      In an emotional address early on Wednesday, Warnock vowed to work for all Georgians whether they voted for him or not, citing his personal experience with the American dream. His mother, he said, used to pick “somebody else’s cotton” as a teenager.
      “The other day, because this is America, the 82-year-old hands that used to pick somebody else’s cotton picked her youngest son to be a United States senator,” he said. “Tonight, we proved with hope, hard work and the people by our side, anything is possible.”
      The Democrats were propelled to victory in Senate runoff elections by Black voters, young voters and new arrivals to the rapidly diversifying state, a coalition just strong enough to topple a long-dominant GOP and take control of the US Senate.

      Black voters cast 32% of the ballots, a slight increase from the presidential election two months ago, according to AP VoteCast. As in November, almost all – 94% – of those votes went for Democrats. Black voters accounted for about 60% of ballots for Democrats, according to the survey of 3,700 voters in the runoff elections.
      Voters under the age of 45 also broke for Democrats, as did suburban voters, women, low-income voters and voters who have lived in the state fewer than five years, a group that cast about 60% of their votes for Democrats.
      The coalition closely mirrored the one that handed Georgia’s electoral college votes to President-elect Joe Biden, the first Democrat to win the state since 1992. In defeating Republicans Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, Democrats will have half the seats in the chamber, leaving Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris to serve as tie-breaker.
      The high-stakes runoffs drew hundreds of millions of dollars, media attention and a massive organizing effort. The result was a game of inches – both Republicans and Democrats largely held their voters from November, the survey showed, but Democrats did just slightly better in pushing their voters to the polls.
      The GOP candidates won an overwhelming majority – almost three-quarters – of white voters and 60% of voters 65 and older. They also captured majorities from voters earning $75,000 or more. That coalition in the recent past likely would have been enough to keep Perdue and Loeffler in the Senate. But shifting demographics and an energized Democratic party have turned the tables. More

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      in Elections

      Teargas and shots fired as pro-Trump mob rampages through Congress

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      This article is more than 1 year old Teargas and shots fired as pro-Trump mob rampages through Congress This article is more than 1 year old Presidential handover collapses into chaos as Trump supporters break through barricades and enter building Pro-Trump mob storms US Capitol – follow live The presidential handover collapsed into chaos on […] More