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10,000 People Showed Up for Trump’s Pre-Inauguration Concert. 400,000 Showed Up for Obama’s.

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40 Times More People Came for Obama 

Thursday afternoon Donald Trump held a concert to kick off his inauguration and a weekend of celebration at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The president-elect tried to spin it, suggesting that maybe no one had ever held a concert there, pretending there were “tens of thousands of people” there, filling the space, “all the way to the back.”

Trump told attendees, “This started out tonight being a small little concert, and then we had the idea maybe we’ll do it in front of the Lincoln Memorial. I don’t know if it’s ever been done before,” he said, according to Buzzfeed. “But if it has, very seldom. And the people came by the thousands and thousands, and here we are tonight, all the way back. All the way back.”

Later, at a donors’ dinner, Trump tried to spin a bit harder.

“We thought it would be a small concert and tens of thousands of people were there,” the president-elect said. “It went all the way to the back. They never had so many people. And very few people ever had a concert at the Lincoln Memorial.”

None of his remarks were true.

According to an MSNBC crowd estimate, 10,000 people showed.

Meanwhile, eight years ago, Barack Obama held a pre-inauguration concert at the National Mall. 

“Rap fans danced to country music, elderly white men high-fived with young African Americans and tears mixed with laughter as a varied lineup of A-list stars and an equally diverse crowd jammed the grounds of the Lincoln Memorial to celebrate the nation and its historic president-elect yesterday,” The Washington Post reported Jan. 19, 2009.

“By some estimates, more than 400,000 people filled the western end of the Mall for the official start of a three-day jubilee of prayers, parades and parties. They endured long security lines and chilly weather for a two-hour salute to the man who will be America’s first black president and to the nation that elected Barack Obama to the White House despite centuries of racial divisiveness.”

This tweet sums it up:

The photo above, a screenshot from CNN, was taken at 4:44 PM ET. Here’s video of Trump and his family arriving at 4:13 PM ET:

Many noted it didn’t help Trump wasn’t able to attract well-known talent:

Friday doesn’t appear to be much different. D.C. should be packed. Trump and his team have been falsely claiming dress shops and hotels are sold out but according to many, including one New York Times reporter, the city is conspicuously empty:

UPDATE:
Buzzfeed editor tweets there’s a light crowd out Friday AM: 

 

 

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RIGHT WING EXTREMISM

Christian Nationalist Home-Schooling Podcaster Running for Congress to Bring ‘The Name of God’ Back Into Politics

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January 27, 2022

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Early in 2021, Christian nationalist home-schooling advocate, author, and podcaster Heidi St. John launched a bid for U.S. Congress in Washington state’s 3rd Congressional District. Outraged by incumbent Republican Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler’s vote to impeach former President Donald Trump in the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol, St. John decided to try and unseat her in the GOP primary by appealing to MAGA voters, denouncing public libraries as “evil organizations,” and pledging to “be a mom for America.”

Earlier this month, St. John appeared on the “Stand Up For The Truth” podcast, where she sounded Seven Mountains and Christian nationalist themes that have been central to her campaign, describing politics as “a spiritual battle” and vowing to “bring back the name of God into the political sphere.”

“[Politics is] in my blood,” St. John said. “And I think it should be in the blood of every Christ follower. Politics determined policy, and it is policy that has murdered 63 million of our unborn in this country. It is policy that has gotten us into the mess that we are in as a nation, and we need wise people and godly people to ascend to positions of authority in the nation.”

“What we’ve observed over years and years and years is a church deciding to pull itself out of arguably one of the most important aspects of the culture, which is determining our laws and determining the policy that governs the people here,” she continued. “Christians belong in every sphere of influence. We have a command to be strong and courageous. [God] did not say, ‘Be strong and courageous except for in the political sphere, stay out of that one.’ No, we belong in every sphere of influence. We belong in medicine. We belong in entertainment. We belong in education. And we belong in politics.”

“[Christians] should be canvassing, they should be helping clean up the voter rolls, they should be running for positions of authority in every sphere of influence,” St. John added. “We bring back the name of Jesus, we bring back the name of God into the political sphere and we say out loud, ‘What is the biggest problem in our country? We have turned away from God.’”

“This is a spiritual battle,” St. John declared. “We know that we serve the Lord of Heaven’s armies. We serve the creator of the universe, the one who spoke the world into being. He can do anything. And I think he’s calling his people back out of hiding and out of the shadows and into the battle and onto the battlefield.”

This article was originally published by Right Wing Watch and is republished here by permission.

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'ENGAGED IN A GREAT CIVIL WAR'

Justice Breyer’s Decision to Quote Gettysburg Address and ‘Civil War’ in Retirement Remarks ‘Not by Accident’: Experts

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January 27, 2022

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During his unscripted remarks with President Joe Biden at a White House event Thursday to announce his retirement, Justice Stephen Breyer made very specific mention of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, quoting from the iconic president’s famous Civil War-era speech (video below.)

Bloomberg White House reporter Jennnifer Epstein observed the Justice, who will have served for 28 years on the nation’s highest court, held up a copy of the Constitution at one point as he was speaking.

“Please listen carefully,” NBC News Presidential Historian Michael Beschloss urged. “Not by accident did Justice Breyer, in appearance with President Biden, quote Lincoln saying that the nation was ‘engaged in a great Civil War’ and remind us that the American system is always an experiment whose survival must never be taken for granted.”

Former U.S. Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal calls Breyer’s remarks “brilliant,” and also notes his civil war remarks were not by accident.

Leah Litman, an assistant professor of constitutional law at the University of Michigan observed, “Justice Breyer seems to be … pointedly talking about threats facing the country. and about how future generations will determine and see whether this experiment succeeds.”

The LA Times’ White House reporter Eli Stokols says Justice Breyer was “suggesting America’s still engaged in ‘a civil war’ but expressing optimism that the democratic experiment will endure.”

Watch:

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'MONUMENTALLY STUPID AND HYPOCRITICAL'

‘Calls for Pelosi to Become President’: Nikki Haley Again Mocked – This Time for Demanding Biden and Harris Resign

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January 27, 2022

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Former Trump-era UN Ambassador Nikki Haley is being mocked after she called for both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to resign.

“If Joe Biden loved our country, he would step down and take Kamala Harris with him because the foreign and domestic policy situation is beyond dangerous at this point,” Haley tweeted Thursday.

Haley, who is believed to be a 2024 GOP presidential candidate if Trump does not run, made the same remarks on Fox News one day earlier. Her Twitter page is filled with her own retweets of that story.

Many people, including Bloomberg News White House reporter Jennifer Epstein pointed out that the Speaker of the House is second in line to the presidency.

“This is why people don’t take you seriously,” commented The Atlantic’s Molly Jong-Fast.

“You’re a ridiculously silly person,” tweeted best-selling author Benjamin Dreyer, the copy chief at Random House.

Historian Kevin M. Kruse added:

But political science professor Jeffrey Lazarus got to the bottom of what’s really happening here:

Others also served up scathing responses:

 

Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license

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