Thursday, January 7 top news briefs

It’s Thursday, January 7.

After the pro-Trump mob at the U.S. Capitol was pushed back last night, members of Congress reconvened to continue to count the electoral votes.

Vice President Mike Pence said January 6 was a dark day in the history of the United States Capitol and that those who wreaked havoc did not win.

The Senate and the House resumed counting electoral votes and in separate chambers, voted down objections against Arizona and Pennsylvania. At about 3:30 am, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ election victory was confirmed when their Vermont victory was counted. After Vermont, there were five more states to count in alphabetic order and around 4:00 a.m., Congress officially certified Biden’s victory with 306 electoral votes over Donald Trump’s 232.

President Trump said in a statement that although he disagrees with the election outcome, there will be an orderly transition on January 20th. Trump had to issue his statement through his aides because social media companies temporarily blocked his Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram accounts after Trump said he loved the rioters attacking the U.S. Capitol and continued with false claims that the election was stolen from him.

Today Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced that Trump’s Facebook and Instagram pages would be blocked for the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete due to the risks of allowing Trump to continue to use his platform to provoke further violence. It is possible that his FB and IG accounts will be blocked past that date.

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Former Attorney General Bill Barr said President Trump betrayed his office and his supporters by orchestrating a mob to pressure Congress.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer (NY) said President Trump should be removed from office through the 25th amendment, which is a process in which the Vice President and members of the Cabinet coordinate to remove Trump and make Pence the president. Schumer said if they didn’t do this, Congress should reconvene to impeach Trump.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made similar remarks about removing Trump through the 25th amendment, and added that the House is ready to impeach Trump if the vice president doesn’t act.

The Pentagon authorized over 6,000 members of the National Guard to help with D.C. law enforcement last night.

A total of four people died during the riots.

The first is a woman named Ashli Babbit, who was shot by police inside of the U.S. Capitol when she tried to break through a door. There were videos posted of the shooting, which showed Babbit trying to climb through a broken door, falling down, and bleeding profusely from her mouth. Local news in San Diego said she was from the area and was a 14-year veteran who served four tours with the Air Force. Her husband said she was a strong supporter of Trump. There is an investigation in the shooting.

The three other deaths were two men and one woman who had medical emergencies around the Capitol. Maybe they had a heart attack or were injured in the chaos.

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D.C. police said they discovered two pipe bombs, one at an office where the Republican National Committee is at and one at the U.S. Capitol complex. The bombs were safely blown up.

DC. Police and the FBI are asking for help to identify people who were involved in the violent mob.

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), who heads a committee that funds the Capitol Police, said some police officers should be fired. He said the police failed by allowing rioters inside of the Capitol and it threatened members of Congress. There is controversy over videos that showed some police officers opening up steel gates outside of the Capitol and even taking selfies with protesters.

There was a lot of discussion on social media about how the rioters were treated very nicely by police, contrasting it with how police responded to Black Lives Matter protesters over the summer by shooting tear gas or rubber bullets.

Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) said some Capitol police officers were involved with wrongdoing. She pointed to an image of a row of police officers guarding the Capitol steps during Black Lives Matter protests and said it is clear there is a double standard.

CNN commentator Van Jones said imagine if Black Lives Matter protesters were the ones who stormed the Capitol when Congress was in session, just imagine the reaction if there were thousands of Black people coming in at the same time.

Bernice King, the daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., said if it was Black Lives Matter storming the Capitol, tanks would have been in the city by now. She said it showed our nation’s racist history and present and questioned how we could stop it from being the future.

One of the rioters was Derrick Evans, a new Republican member of the West Virginia’s House of Delegates that was sworn in last month. He live-streamed himself bursting into the Capitol and shouted, “We’re in! We’re in!” The West Virginia House Speaker said what Evans did was a crime and that he should be prosecuted.

There was some “fake news” being spread last night that one of the rioters who was wearing a horned headwear was a member of the Antifa. He was seen in pictures inside the Capitol and behind the Senate president’s desk. PolitiFact explained that the man’s name is Jake Angeli and he is from Phoenix. He is a Trump supporter who regularly attends political rallies and has fundraised to help pay for his travel expenses. His nickname is “Q Shaman.” He explained to a reporter that police gave up trying to stop him and allowed him to go inside of the Capitol and then after a while asked him to leave and let him go without arrest.

At least four White House aides resigned after the riots yesterday. Today the Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao announced she is resigning today. She said yesterday “our country experienced a traumatic and entirely avoidable event as supporters of the President stormed the Capitol building following a rally he addressed… It has deeply troubled (her) in a way that (she) simply cannot set aside.”

She is the first member of Trump’s cabinet to resign. There may be more changes within the White House in the near future.

That’s all the news for today. There will be plenty more news tomorrow. Check out our Deaf News videos. See you tomorrow and stay with the light.

https://www.latimes.com/politics/liveblog/live-updates-congress-electoral-college-votes

https://www.axios.com/congress-certifies-biden-electoral-college-win-eeb6ba0a-0bc7-4508-ada7-9c1b93aca416.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-55569604

https://www.axios.com/facebook-twitter-muzzle-trump-capitol-8751fa88-db34-4737-8bbe-a7a9903db07c.html

https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10112681480907401

https://www.kusi.com/kusi-news-confirms-identity-of-woman-shot-and-killed-inside-us-capitol/

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-supporters-us-capitol-4-dead/

https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/congress-electoral-college-vote-count-2021/h_a8427f16f5c09d46e0dcff011e3d48c0

https://www.kktv.com/2021/01/07/fbi-asks-for-help-identifying-people-involved-with-violence-at-the-us-capitol-on-wednesday/

https://www.cleveland.com/open/2021/01/angered-by-attempted-coup-at-the-capitol-rep-tim-ryan-wants-to-probe-capitol-police-force-and-remove-president-trump-from-office.html

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/01/06/us-capitol-attack-compared-response-black-lives-matter-protests/6570528002/

https://wvmetronews.com/2021/01/06/w-va-delegate-just-sworn-in-among-the-rioters-storming-u-s-capitol/

https://apnews.com/article/trump-25th-amendment-schumer-capitol-992705542ceebba6596f2d6682b476e7

https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/politifact/2021/01/07/face-painted-man-horned-fur-cap-capitol-riot-supports-trump-and-qanon-not-antifa/6578929002/?utm_source=SND&utm_medium=Facebook&utm_campaign=statesman&fbclid=IwAR0qloKmNeGOPdlvHc7Zn_VEEdQEodx3qvtjAmuoyJaD1-vYEWs6XNk6QD8

https://news.yahoo.com/well-known-qanon-influencer-dubbed-230306934.html