1/07/2022

Biden & Jan. 6 riots | Jan. 7, 2022

 

President Biden on January 6th U.S. Capitol Attack Anniversary (FULL REMARKS)
Jan 6, 2022
President Biden speaks on the first anniversary of the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. He delivers his remarks in Statuary Hall in the Capitol. Included in his remarks: "The former president of the United States of America has created and spread a web of lies about the 2020 election. He's done so because he values power over principle...because his bruised ego matters more to him than our democracy or our constitution. He can't accept he lost." "He's not just a former president. He's a defeated former president." "You can't love your country only when you win." "I did not seek this fight brought to this Capitol one year ago today. But I will not shrink from it either. I will stand in this breach. I will defend this nation. I will allow no one to place a dagger at the throat of democracy."
Remarks By President Biden To Mark One Year Since The January 6th Deadly Assault On The U.S. Capitol

JANUARY 06, 2022SPEECHES AND REMARKS

THE PRESIDENT:  Madam Vice President, my fellow Americans: To state the obvious, one year ago today, in this sacred place, democracy was attacked — simply attacked.  The will of the people was under assault.  The Constitution — our Constitution — faced the gravest of threats.

Outnumbered and in the face of a brutal attack, the Capitol Police, the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, the National Guard, and other brave law enforcement officials saved the rule of law.

Our democracy held.  We the people endured.  And we the people prevailed.

For the first time in our history, a president had not just lost an election, he tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power as a violent mob breached the Capitol.

But they failed.  They failed.

And on this day of remembrance, we must make sure that such an attack never, never happens again.

I’m speaking to you today from Statuary Hall in the United States Capitol.  This is where the House of Representatives met for 50 years in the decades leading up to the Civil War.  This is — on this floor is where a young congressman of Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, sat at desk 191. 

Above him — above us, over that door leading into the Rotunda — is a sculpture depicting Clio, the muse of history.  In her hands, an open book in which she records the events taking place in this chamber below.

Clio stood watch over this hall one year ago today, as she has for more than 200 years.  She recorded what took place.  The real history.  The real facts.  The real truth.  The facts
and the truth that Vice President Harris just shared and that you and I and the whole world saw with our own eyes.

The Bible tells us that we shall know the truth, and the truth shall make us free.  We shall know the truth.

Well, here is the God’s truth about January 6th, 2021:

Close your eyes.  Go back to that day.  What do you see? Rioters rampaging, waving for the first time inside this Capitol a Confederate flag that symbolized the cause to destroy America, to rip us apart.

Even during the Civil War, that never, ever happened.  But it happened here in 2021...     
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JANUARY 6, 2022 | PART OF PRES. BIDEN & VICE PRES. HARRIS SPEAK ON JAN. 6 ANNIVERSARY
President Biden and Vice President Harris on January 6 Anniversary
​President Biden and Vice President Harris spoke from Statuary Hall on the one year anniversary of the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Vice President Harris spoke of the “fragility” and strength of democracy. President Biden said former President Donald Trump “has created and spread a web of lies about the 2020 election” and that his predecessor “can’t accept he lost.” 

JANUARY 6, 2022
​White House Daily Briefing
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki held a briefing on the Biden administration’s legislative agenda. She answered several questions on President Biden’s speech from earlier in the day marking the first anniversary of the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. Other topics discussed during the briefing were on voting rights legislation, support for Senate rule changes, and the U.S. Postal Service’s request for a temporary exemption to the government’s vaccine mandate. 

Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jen Psaki, January 6, 2022

JANUARY 06, 2022PRESS BRIEFINGS
 
MS. PSAKI: Hi, everyone.
 
Q  Hi. Good afternoon.
 
MS. PSAKI: Good afternoon. Okay, I have nothing for you at the top.
 
Darlene, why don’t you kick us off?
 
Q  Thank you. That’s so unusual. So unlike you. (Laughs.)
 
MS. PSAKI: I know. (Laughs.) I do — I do like to load you up with updates, so stay tuned for the next briefing.
 
Q  So, I have one question on the speech and then two other topics I wanted to get to.
 
But often when we ask President Biden about Donald Trump, he will tell us, you know, he’s not thinking about the former president, he doesn’t want to talk to him. So, obviously, he had to think about him in order to deliver that forceful speech today. So I’m just wondering why he didn’t deliver this kind of speech before today — six months ago, a month after the insurrection, or whatever.
 
And also, since we are barreling toward an election this year, will he resurrect some of the themes that he sounded this morning?
 
MS. PSAKI: Sure. Well, let me first say, to remind you all, that the President launched his campaign on the idea that the former president posed a unique threat to the soul of our country, and he made that point throughout the campaign and over the last year in office.
 
I wouldn’t say — or we would argue the point that he ever shied away from making clear that form- — that his predecessor, former President Trump, was a threat to democracy, posed a threat to democracy throughout the course of his presidency — and that was a root reason why President Biden ran for office.
 
I would say, in terms of looking forward, you know, you all heard him make a very passionate case today — the fact that we are at an inflection point; the fact that in order to protect our democracy, to preserve it moving forward, there’s more that we need to do.
 
And I talked with him about this after the speech today, and he made very clear that the risk we have here at — at stake here is our democracy, is burying what happened on January 6th, is not taking action — not just in words but in action — to protect people’s fundamental rights.
 
You will obviously hear him speak next Tuesday about voting rights — something he touched on very briefly today — because he will be giving this speech next Tuesday, and you will hear him making the case about the fact that we are at an inflection point, there’s more that we need to do, and we need to do everything we can to ensure the dark day in our history that happened one year ago today is not buried...     more
 Biden condemns Trump as a threat to democracy in speech marking one year since January 6 attack

Jan. 7 - ..But the President's blistering speech nonetheless confronted Trump's election lies and post-presidency behavior, accusing him of spreading falsehoods about the 2020 election, refusing to accept defeat and holding him accountable for inciting a violent mob of his supporters to storm the US Capitol.

"A former President of the United States of America has created and spread a web of lies about the 2020 election. He's done so because he values power over principle, because he sees his own interest as more important than his country's interest and America's interest," Biden said.

Biden again emphasized the core message of his 2020 presidential campaign and the reason why he ran against Trump: "We are in a battle for the soul of America."

The President warned democracy and the "promise of America" is at risk and called on the American public to "stand for the rule of law, to preserve the flame of democracy."

He called for protecting voting rights across the nation and blasted Trump and his supporters for attempting to "suppress your vote and subvert our elections."


"It's wrong. It's undemocratic. And frankly it's un-American," Biden said...    quoted from CNN Politics


​U.S. Puts Thorniest Ukraine Issue Off the Table in Russia Talks

Jan. 7 - ...Putin regularly raises what he describes as the risk the U.S. will park nuclear weapons closer to his borders, even as he’s boasted that Russia possesses a new generation of hypersonic missiles capable of evading NATO defenses. U.S. and NATO officials have repeatedly said they view the alliance as defensive in nature. 

His rhetoric has increased since 2019, when the U.S. pulled out of a Cold War-era pact with Russia that barred the deployment of ground-based ballistic and cruise missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers -- either nuclear or conventional. 


The Trump White House cited what it called long-time violations by Russia for the withdrawal.

Several current and former U.S. and European officials familiar with America’s strategy for the talks acknowledge it’s fraught with risk and may not work. But, according to those officials, the two sides are so badly at odds over Ukraine, with so little chance of resolving that issue anytime soon, that they need to look elsewhere for potential progress or at least to buy time.

Either way, the Geneva talks will set the tone for the broader meetings that follow. Alongside the bilateral U.S.-Russia discussions -- seen by Moscow as the most important -- there will be a meeting of the NATO-Russia council in Brussels next week, then a conversation in Vienna within the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe framework.

The current U.S. assessment is that Russia would need about 10 days to complete preparations for an invasion, should Putin decide to act. That has officials looking at a window from mid-January to the end of February as a potential crunch time. 

According to a Ukrainian military map compiled around the New Year and seen by Bloomberg News, Russia now has 52 battalion tactical groups in close proximity to Ukraine. Russia has also developed capabilities to deploy more units in a short period of time, from one to two weeks, the Ukrainian assessment shows...     quoted from BNN Bloomberg

Related Articles:
Ukraine’s Army Is Underfunded and Not Ready to Stop an Invasion
Why Russia-Ukraine Tensions Are So Hard to Defuse: QuickTake



Putin's one-two punch European strategy to defeat America

​Jan. 6 - On Jan. 9, the Biden administration will begin negotiations in Geneva over the “Putin Ultimatum,” two sets of demands presented to the U.S. and NATO. If accepted, they would destroy 30 years of post-Cold War European security policy while opening the path to Russian Empire 3.0 — the latest imperial iteration after the Romanoffs and the Soviets.

Russia’s irridentist push is the most serious challenge to the U.S. presence in Europe and to the Atlantic Alliance since the Berlin crises of the 1940s and 1960s. The Kremlin wants to reverse 30 years of post-Cold War peace and 75 years of relative stability in Europe following the 1945 defeat of Nazi Germany, guaranteed by the 1975 Helsinki Accords and the 1990 Paris Declaration.

Moscow’s anti-status quo verve could lead to a Cuban missile crisis-style escalation, with unpredictable consequences. The Biden administration and NATO allies should pay close attention to the Kremlin’s threats — and be fully prepared to deter potential aggression.

The dual goal of Putin’s ultimatum is to emasculate NATO, creating a geo-strategic space to swallow Belarus and possibly Ukraine, while denying the alliance options to oppose Russian imperial rebuilding. Moscow is doing this simultaneously with Beijing’s pressure on Taiwan, threatening to open two far-flung fronts against the U.S., in Europe and the Pacific...     more


No, You Should Not Try to Get Omicron

Jan. 6 - But even if Omicron is on the whole milder than other variants, it will still be catastrophic for some people. On Jan. 3 alone, more than 1,400 people in the U.S. died from COVID-19 and more than 100,000 were hospitalized with the virus. Unvaccinated, elderly and medically vulnerable people are at the highest risk, but there’s no 100% guarantee for anyone. There’s also no way to know if you’re exposing yourself to the Omicron variant versus the still-circulating and more-severe Delta variant, since consumer tests do not differentiate between different strains...     more