https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/01/fbi-arrests-republican-lawmaker-who-stormed-capitol-with-pro-trump-mob/?

"This rising tide of anti-protest repression seemed to culminate in 2020, when the massive, nationwide demonstrations following the police murder of George Floyd were met with the same brazen police brutality they were protesting. Police rammed their cars into protesters; attacked and hospitalized the peaceful and even the elderly; deployed military weapons, equipment, and tactics; spied on protesters; and, at one point, even began kidnapping those they deemed suspicious off the streets. This happened in Portland, Oregon, for months a flashpoint of the movement, where demonstrators wearing protective gear and wielding leaf blowers were met with federal authorities using the kind of counterinsurgency tactics usually reserved for foreign countries invaded by the US government."

"The rows of militarized police that were ready and waiting for racial justice protesters last summer seemed strangely absent from yesterday’s event, their meager forces easily overwhelmed. The police that once gratuitously shoved an elderly protester to the ground and gave him a brain injury now carefully escorted a protester by the hand down the Capitol steps. Police let protesters take selfies with them, punch them, and at one point opened a gate to let them through to the Capitol, all while dutifully continuing to arrest journalists.

“We’ve just got to let them do their thing now,” one police officer told the press as he pleaded with protesters to leave the Capitol, a sight difficult to reconcile with decades’ worth of gratuitous police violence, perhaps best embodied by the image of a University of California-Davis policeman casually pepper-spraying Occupy activists seated cross-legged on the ground in 2011."

"yesterday’s events signal something alarming. Law enforcement’s general preference for, and sympathy with, the far right has been well documented, and the police’s starkly different treatment of Trump supporters charging into the heart of US democracy to annul an election, when contrasted with last year’s racial justice demonstrations, is a reminder that law enforcement’s priorities are vastly out of step with most ordinary people.

What it suggests is that even as the right to protest takes hit after hit from law enforcement and the Right, this erosion only counts for some groups and not for others. The political polarization of US society is seeping beyond the realm of culture and extending to how laws are being applied by the state."

https://jacobinmag.com/2021/01/capitol-insurrection-protest-police-violence/

"A source sends this video of a group of Trump supporters today harassing Sen. Lindsey Graham at Reagan airport and loudly calling him a “traitor” after he publicly broke with Trump earlier this week."

twitter.com/dlippman/status/1347612365093826565

Just in - FBI claims "no indication at this time" showing Antifa violence at the U.S. Capitol disguised as Trump supporters, according to Assistant Director Steven D'Antuono.

In the days before an insurrection at the Capitol, the Pentagon placed significant restrictions on the DC Guard
— Prohibited from receiving riot gear
— Engaging protesters unless necessary for self-defense
—Sharing equipment with local police

twitter.com/hshaban/status/1347370208990781441

too little, too late

https://twitter.com/oneunderscore__/status/1347657071567769600

Not a peep from the Billionaires that backed Trump:

Peter Thiel: “I’m sorry, I am not available right now."
Andy Beal, the Texas banking billionaire, couldn’t comment because, “he doesn’t know what happened,” according to his assistant.

https://twitter.com/misyrlena/status/1347605098269171712

Ben Sasse, citing conversations with senior White House officials, says Trump was "excited" and "delighted" as his supporters tried to storm the Capitol and was "confused" others weren't so excited

https://twitter.com/awprokop/status/1347583108934197248