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‘Aiding and Abetting’: Speaker Johnson Blasted for Blurring Faces of J6 Participants

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Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is once again under fire, this time for intentionally blurring the faces of people caught on camera in the massive 40,000 hours of January 6 videos he ordered to be released to the public.

Speaker Johnson “said Republicans are blurring out the faces of people on the Jan. 6 tapes ‘because we don’t want them to be retaliated against and be charged the DOJ,'” Punchbowl News’ Jake Sherman first reported Tuesday (video below).

Federal law enforcement agencies have used those videos to identify, arrest, charge, prosecute, and convict hundreds of criminals who acted unlawfully during the January 6, 2021 insurrection. The FBI set up a public tip line specifically for their Capitol investigation. While not everyone who was on Capitol grounds acted illegally, the videos provided evidence of wrongdoing. Countless social media users worked together to help identify some of the participants, as was detailed in NBC News’ justice reporter Ryan J. Reilly’s book, “Sedition Hunters.”

During his remarks Tuesday Johnson also claimed the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack was “a partisan exercise” that produced a “biased report” and “hid some of the important evidence.”

READ MORE: Florida GOP Chair Could Face ‘Censure or Discipline’ After Rape Allegation and Three-Way Sex Claim

The Speaker’s comments are in direct conflict with his recent statement defending his march toward an impeachment investigation of President Joe Biden.

Johnson, who frequently reminds reporters he is “a constitutional attorney,” was labeled by The New York Times recently as “a key architect of his party’s objections to certifying President Biden’s victory” in the 2020 election.

Last week, in promoting what some critics – and the White House – say are House Republicans’ baseless allegations against the President, Johnson also told reporters Republicans are “the rule of law team.”

The Speaker was quickly criticized for, as former GOP congressman Joe Walsh said, “aiding and abetting.”

“The party of the police; the party of law and order,” mocked MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan. Top national security attorney Brad Moss similarly wrote, “Party of ‘law and order.'”

“The House Republican Speaker doesn’t want people who broke the law on January 6 to be charged with a crime … and he said this publicly,” notes MSNBC columnist Michael A. Cohen.

READ MORE: RNC Chair Falsely Claims ‘Biden White House’ Killed Hunter Laptop Story in 2020

“Wait. I thought the GOP said they were just tourists? Show their faces or admit they weren’t orderly tourists,” wrote former U.S. Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH).

Watch the videos of Johnson above or at this link.

 

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‘She Kills People’: Trump Amps Up Attack on Cheney After Violent ‘Nine Barrels’ Rhetoric

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Donald Trump has extended his attack against one of his top political critics, Liz Cheney, falsely alleging late Friday afternoon the Republican former U.S. congresswoman “kills people.”

“She kills people. She wanted to, even in my administration she was pushing that we go to war with everybody and I said, ‘If you ever gave her a rifle and let her do the fighting, if you ever do that, she wouldn’t be doing too well,’ I will tell [you] right now,” Trump said during a campaign stop in Michigan, Politico reported (video below). “She’s a war hawk.”

The ex-president, whose rhetoric, critics say, is growing increasingly violent as Election Day approaches, also charged Cheney “wants to go kill people unnecessarily” and called her “a disgrace.”

There are no reports that Cheney, who also served as vice chair on the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, and has crossed the aisle to endorse and campaign for Vice President Kamala Harris, has ever killed anyone.

RELATED: ‘How Dictators Destroy Free Nations’: Trump Slammed for Suggesting Firing Squad for Cheney

“Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrel shooting at her, okay? Let’s see how she feels about it,” Trump had said Thursday, speaking on a stage with far-right podcaster Tucker Carlson.

Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump’s Democratic presidential opponent, denounced the ex-president’s remarks Friday afternoon.

“This must be disqualifying,” she told reporters, CBS News reports. “Anyone who wants to be president of the United States who uses that kind of violent rhetoric is clearly disqualified and unqualified to be president.”

In addition to Harris’s remarks, Trump has been widely condemned on the left for his violent remarks, which some claimed were a call for Cheney’s execution. The state attorney general in Arizona has opened an investigation into the ex-president’s comments to determine if it was a death threat, according to CNN.

“Trump’s use of violent language dates back to his first presidential campaign, in 2015 and 2016, when he suggested a heckler deserved to be “roughed up” and said he’d like to punch another in the face,” CNN also reported. “Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper wrote in his memoir that while in office, Trump raised the idea of shooting protesters who took to the streets around the White House after the killing of George Floyd in 2020.

READ MORE: ‘Don’t Fall for This’: Vance’s ‘Normal Gay Guy Vote’ Claim Mocked, Criticized as ‘Gross’

“’Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?’ Trump asked, according to Esper.”

Earlier on Friday after massive condemnation Trump appeared to try to clarify his comments, a rare response when under fire.

Despite telling supporters in Michigan that Cheney “kills people,” on his Truth Social website he wrote: “All I’m saying about Liz Cheney is that she is a War Hawk, and a dumb one at that, but she wouldn’t have ‘the guts’ to fight herself.”

Watch Trump’s remarks from Michigan below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Embarrassing’: JD Vance’s Story About How He Responded to Trump Shooting Sparks Concerns

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‘Showing Up’ and ‘Coming Together’: Harris Talks ‘Enthusiasm,’ Campaign Highlights ‘Momentum’

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Vice President Kamala Harris is expressing cautious optimism in the final days of the 2024 presidential race, saying voters are “showing up,” and she is “seeing an incredible amount of enthusiasm from people of every walk of life.”

“What I’m enjoying the most about this moment is that in spite of how my opponent spends full time trying to divide the American people, what I’m seeing is people coming together under one roof who seemingly have nothing in common, and know they have everything in common,” the Democratic presidential nominee told reporters Friday afternoon (video below). “And I think that is in the best interest of the strength of our nation.”

Vice President Harris and her campaign have been focused, deliberate, and on-message since she began running for president just 103 days ago. Earlier this week, campaign manager and co-chair Jen O’Malley Dillion sought to tamp-down fears and anxiety from Harris’ supporters in a three-minute video acknowledging that the “race is going to be extremely close,” and “we still have a lot of work to do,” while saying, “we’re on track to win a very close election,” and “we feel really good with what we’re seeing.”

READ MORE: ‘Don’t Fall for This’: Vance’s ‘Normal Gay Guy Vote’ Claim Mocked, Criticized as ‘Gross’

Early Friday afternoon the campaign became a bit less tight-lipped, appearing to “leak” to reporters a somewhat more optimistic view of the election.

“Senior Harris campaign staff say their internal data shows Harris winning battleground state voters who have made up their minds in the last week by double-digit margins. They say that Trump’s MSG [Madison Square Garden] rally was the ‘last straw’ for late-breaking undecided voters,” TIME’s Charlotte Alter reported.

“Top Harris brass says their organizing operation has knocked on 13 million doors across the battleground states. In October, they made 100m [100 million] calls into battleground states,” Alter wrote. “In PA alone, their team is on track to knock 5m doors and have 1m conversations with voters by election day.”

“Top campaign staff believe Harris’s momentum is [because] of the work they’re putting in, but also [because] Trump’s MSG fiasco has broken through to late-breaking undecided voters. The MSG rally has sharpened the contrast and reminded voters what Trump is like.”

Meanwhile, Harris campaign senior advisor David Plouffe, who ran Barack Obama’s successful 2008 presidential campaign and became his White House senior advisor, offered additional insight.

“It’s helpful, from experience, to be closing a Presidential campaign with late deciding voters breaking by double digits to you and the remaining undecideds looking more friendly to you than your opponent. Close race, turnout and 4 days of hard work will be key. But good mo,” he wrote, appearing to mean “momentum.”

Former journalist and retired pundit Craig Crawford responded with data from Gallup:

“Voter enthusiasm is high, with Democrats more enthusiastic than Republicans,” Gallup reported Thursday. “Democrats maintain elevated election enthusiasm, at 77%, compared with 67% among Republicans.”

“Momentum” appears to be the key word for the Harris campaign and supporters as Election Day fast approaches.

READ MORE: ‘How Dictators Destroy Free Nations’: Trump Slammed for Suggesting Firing Squad for Cheney

Harris campaign surrogate, Illinois Democratic Governor J.B. Pritzker, talked about “momentum” on CNN Thursday night:

Neera Tanden, Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council noted on Thursday, “Lots of interesting endorsements today. You can feel the momentum.”

On Wednesday Harris spokesperson Ian Sams also talked about “momentum.”

Watch the video of Harris below, additional videos above, or all at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Embarrassing’: JD Vance’s Story About How He Responded to Trump Shooting Sparks Concerns

 

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‘How Dictators Destroy Free Nations’: Trump Slammed for Suggesting Firing Squad for Cheney

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In an escalation of his violent threats, Donald Trump has now suggested a top critic from his own party, Republican former U.S. Congresswoman Liz Cheney, face a firing squad. Outrage from the left was swift, and Cheney herself has responded.

“I don’t blame him for sticking with his daughter, but his daughter is a very dumb individual, very dumb,” Trump, speaking about former U.S. Vice President and Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, and his daughter, Liz Cheney.

“She’s a radical war hawk,” Trump continued, speaking on stage in Arizona with far-right podcaster Tucker Carlson, who labeled Cheney “repulsive.”

“Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrel shooting at her, okay? Let’s see how she feels about it,” Trump said, in what some, including the Drudge Report say is a call for Cheney’s “execution.”

CNN anchor Kasie Hunt Friday morning noted that “violent rhetoric is not new for Trump, but this stark imagery represents an escalation at a tense moment when the country is on edge heading into Tuesday, seven in ten Americans saying they feel anxious or frustrated about the election, according to a new AP poll.”

READ MORE: ‘Embarrassing’: JD Vance’s Story About How He Responded to Trump Shooting Sparks Concerns

“It comes after Trump has raised the specter of using the U.S. military on Americans he calls ‘the enemy within,'” she added. “Throughout the last nearly 10 years with Trump on the national stage, the public rhetoric has gotten darker and more violent with time.”

“This is the final battle, he says,” Hunt continued. “He’s talking about the election happening four days from now.”

Liz Cheney, who also served as the Vice Chair on the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, wrote: “This is how dictators destroy free nations. They threaten those who speak against them with death. We cannot entrust our country and our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant.”

Former Trump White House Director of Communications Anthony Scaramucci responded to his former boss’s attack on Cheney: “Trump should be taken into custody. He is a convicted felon and just violated the conditions of his bail agreement by threatening someone’s life. He needs to be sent away.”

Constitutional law professor and political scientist Anthony Michael Kreis remarked: “This is not the rule of the law. This is not respect for our constitution. This is fascism.”

Sarah Longwell, a Republican and publisher of The Bulwark, wrote: “If you claim to be a leader in any way—political leader, thought-leader, business leader, religious leader—and you don’t stand up and say clearly that America must keep this man away from power, then you’re no kind of leader at all.”

READ MORE: ‘Nauseous’: Trump’s Refusal to Grasp ‘Consent’ Revives ‘Access Hollywood’ Scandal

David Rothkopf, a foreign policy, national security and political affairs analyst and commentator, offered a wider view:

“Trump is his own October surprise: The Kelly/Milley revelations, the hate rally, the ‘whether women want it or not’ comments, the garbage truck self-own, planning to turn health care over to a lunatic, violent musings about Liz Cheney and so much more. He is self-destructing.”

Former U.S. Congresswoman Gabby Giffords (D-AZ) issued a statement, saying in part: “Declaring that a person should be shot and killed simply for supporting a different candidate is un-American. Any Republican who claims to respect the constitution and rule of law has a responsibility to speak out against Donald Trump’s dangerous comments immediately. My family holds this country close to our hearts. I was shot and nearly killed for serving the people of Arizona. My husband has dedicated his life in service as a Navy pilot and astronaut who continues to serve his country in the Senate. Those who serve this country know that truly loving America requires opposing all forms of political violence.”

The Harris campaign weighed in, with spokesperson Ian Sams calling Trump’s remarks “dangerous, violent rhetoric,” and saying, “You have Donald Trump talking about sending a prominent Republican to the firing squad. And you have VP Harris talking about sending one to her Cabinet.”

Watch the video of Trump’s remarks below, additional videos above, or all at this link.

READ MORE: ‘I’m Not Hitler’: Trump Insists He’s Being ‘Demonized’ Despite Remarks

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