January 13, 2021

Iran Is Assembling Gear Able to Produce Key Nuclear-Weapons Material

Source: WSJ

BRUSSELS—Iran has taken a new step toward possible atomic-weapons production, United Nations inspectors said in a confidential report, starting work on an assembly line to manufacture a key material at the core of nuclear warheads and raising the stakes in Tehran’s standoff with Washington ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, in a report for member states viewed Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal, said Iran told the watchdog that it would install equipment to produce uranium metal at a site in Isfahan over the next four to five months. Uranium metal can be used to build the core of a nuclear weapon.

The IAEA said that in January 2019, Iran informed the agency it intended to produce more advanced fuel for its Tehran Research Reactor. After being repeatedly pressed by the agency, it set out a plan in mid-December saying it would make uranium metal to make an advanced fuel for the Tehran reactor.

Iran hasn’t made uranium metal so far, senior Western officials said. The IAEA said Tehran had given it no timeline for when it would do so.


Read more: https://www.wsj.com/articles/iran-is-assembling-gear-able-to-produce-material-for-nuclear-weapons-officials-say-11610554933

January 13, 2021

Trump's EPA Skips Waiting Period for Rules, Making It Harder for Biden to Repeal

Source: Yahoo/Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- The Trump administration is rushing to impose industry-backed regulations using a tactic that will make it harder for President-elect Joe Biden to repeal them.

Federal agencies, including the EPA, have skirted the customary waiting period of at least 30 days for new regulations to take effect and put several into force immediately. It’s a new twist on midnight rulemaking that undercuts the ability of Biden to freeze regulations his first day in office.

The law permits an agency to skip the waiting period for certain regulations if they have good cause to believe that waiting would be “impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest.” But experts say some of Trump’s recent regulations don’t appear to meet the criteria -- and that they haven’t seen an outgoing administration make such widespread use of the exemption.

“We’re seeing essentially a new and unprecedented tactic to get last-minute regulatory actions on the books so that it ties the hands of the incoming administration,” said Amit Narang, a regulatory policy expert with the watchdog group Public Citizen.

Read more: https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-epa-skips-waiting-period-070000732.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAKJKguJrl9cOvRNa1JdOktGRSFwKRZXcv3BnWAveibrv64UgnsOfSFiK0Xbms5NBfd2jdswd_sfSLUotTH3PB5k9Hb9Sl0rC-RS2N_f7M53Py51igjGPQozGwUt4XUbMh6vRSXYMi56ncMq_o2brF0X2rbeLwHMhLz6cP_J89QKI

January 13, 2021

7 Philadelphia transit officers under investigation for attending Trump rally prior to deadly Capito

Source: CBS News

Seven Philadelphia transit police officers are under investigation for attending President Trump's rally in Washington, D.C., last week, officials said Tuesday. The investigation into the officers, who are part of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA), will examine if they were involved in any illegal behavior.

Mr. Trump's rally on Wednesday led to a violent mob attacking and entering the U.S. Capitol, where pro-Trump rioters caused the electoral vote count to be delayed and forced members of Congress and their staff for hours. At least five people died — including two officers with the Capitol Police — and at least three House lawmakers have tested positive for COVID-19 after the Capitol siege. Mr. Trump is also facing a second impeachment, a first in U.S. history, due to the riot.

"[The officers] are being investigated to see if they were involved in riotous behavior or for violations of our social media policies," SEPTA Police Chief Thomas Nestel said, according to CBS Philly.

The station said that there was a tip that a SEPTA employee was at the rally, and the investigation revealed several more officers who were in attendance. SEPTA is looking into whether the employees were part of the mob that breached the U.S. Capitol.

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/7-philadelphia-transit-officers-investigated-for-attending-trump-rally-in-washington-dc/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab7e&linkId=109006067

January 12, 2021

Parler Users Breached Deep Inside U.S. Capitol Building, GPS Data Shows

Source: Gizmodo

At least several users of the far-right social network Parler appear to be among the horde of rioters that managed to penetrate deep inside the U.S. Capitol building and into areas normally restricted to the public, according to GPS metadata linked to videos posted to the platform the day of the insurrection in Washington.

The data, obtained by a computer hacker through legal means ahead of Parler’s shutdown on Monday, offers a bird’s eye view of its users swarming the Capitol grounds after receiving encouragement from President Trump — and during a violent breach that sent lawmakers and Capitol Hill visitors scrambling amid gunshots and calls for their death. GPS coordinates taken from 618 Parler videos analyzed by Gizmodo has already been sought after by FBI as part of a sweeping nationwide search for potential suspects, at least 20 of whom are already in custody.

The siege on January 6, which lasted approximately two hours, resulted in five deaths, including that of a Capitol police officer whom authorities say was bludgeoned with a fire extinguisher and later succumbed to his injuries. Windows were smashed, tables overturned, and graffiti scrawled and scratched into the walls of the 220-year-old building—some calling for the murders of journalists sheltering in place nearby.

Gizmodo has mapped nearly 70,000 geo-located Parler posts and on Tuesday isolated hundreds published on January 6 near the Capitol where a mob of pro-Trump supporters had hoped to overturn a democratic election and keep their president in power. The data shows Parler users posting all throughout the day, documenting their march from the National Mall to Capitol Hill where the violent insurrection ensued.

Read more: https://gizmodo.com/parler-users-breached-deep-inside-u-s-capitol-building-1846042905?utm_medium=sharefromsite&utm_source=gizmodo_twitter

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January 12, 2021

GOP Rep. Liz Cheney: "I will vote to impeach the President"

Source: CNN

Wyoming's Liz Cheney, the third-ranking GOP leader in the House, announced in a statement today that she will vote to impeach President Trump, saying that he "summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack."

"There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution," she said in the statement.

Read her full statement:

"On January 6, 2021 a violent mob attacked the United States Capitol to obstruct the process of our democracy and stop the counting of presidential electoral votes. This insurrection caused injury, death and destruction in the most sacred space in our Republic.
Much more will become clear in coming days and weeks, but what we know now is enough. The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack. Everything that followed was his doing. None of this would have happened without the President. The President could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not. There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.
I will vote to impeach the President."

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/webview/politics/live-news/trump-impeachment-news-01-12-21/h_2067c0bb604f154efbe1db20e8ae23c5

January 12, 2021

Luxembourg, EU snub Pompeo in final Europe trip, diplomats say

Source: Reuters

BRUSSELS/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cancelled his Europe trip at the last minute on Tuesday after Luxembourg's foreign minister and top European Union officials declined to meet him, European diplomats and other people familiar with the matter said.

The extraordinary snub to Washington came days after the storming of U.S. Capitol by thousands of supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump, an unprecedented attack on American democracy that stunned many world leaders and U.S. allies.

Pompeo, a close ally of Trump, had sought to meet Jean Asselborn in Luxembourg, a small but wealthy NATO ally, before meeting EU leaders and the bloc's top diplomat in Brussels, three people close to the planning told Reuters.

Pompeo had originally planned to go to Luxembourg, but that leg of the trip was scrapped, one diplomatic source said, after officials there showed reluctance to grant him appointments. The Brussels leg was still on until the last minute.

Read more: https://uk.news.yahoo.com/exclusive-luxembourg-eu-snub-pompeo-184353472.html

January 12, 2021

Armed DHS agents were on standby near Capitol riot but weren't deployed till too late

Source: NBC News

WASHINGTON — As a violent mob of Trump supporters outnumbered Capitol Police and stormed inside the Capitol on Wednesday, approximately 50 uniformed, armed DHS personnel stood inside a federal building just down the street waiting on a call to be deployed, according to two current Department of Homeland Security officials and one former DHS official.

But while the violence escalated, the call to deploy to the Capitol did not come in time to help.

“They just stayed there the entire time, waiting,” the former official familiar with the events told NBC News.

The roughly 50 DHS personnel, all from various parts of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, were waiting in a staging area inside the Ronald Reagan Building, just 13 blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol.

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/armed-dhs-agents-were-standby-near-capitol-riot-weren-t-n1253918?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma

January 12, 2021

DC Police Chief: "I've had officers that have done two tours in Iraq say that this was scarier..."

https://www.11alive.com/article/features/producers-picks/dc-police-officer-capitol-riot-american-flag-capitol-police-response/65-713578e6-cd96-45f2-870c-1b30253ef692?utm_campaign=snd-autopilot

New video shows Capitol rioters dragging a DC police officer and beating him with an American flag



...

D.C.'s Acting Police Chief Robert Contee said the images left him sick to his stomach. The officer was terrified they'd kill him, Contee said. The video is chilling to watch, the officer ripped by insurrectionists from a line inside a door, his fellow officers unable to help him.

...

"I've had officers that have done two tours in Iraq say that this was scarier than their time in combat," Contee said.

Another video shows the terrified officer finally pulled from the crowd, injured and barely able to hold up his head.

The chief said the rioters injured a total of 56 D.C. police officers. Social media detectives have grabbed images from the videos and are doing their best to identify the rioters.

January 12, 2021

Three Democrats Now Have COVID After Republicans Refused To Wear Masks During The Capitol Attack

Source: BuzzFeed News

Democratic Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman, Pramila Jayapal, and Brad Schneider have announced they tested positive for COVID-19, adding that they believed they were exposed to the virus while in protective isolation during the attack on the Capitol, where several of their colleagues refused to wear face masks.

"I received a positive test for COVID-19, and am home resting at this time," Coleman said in a statement, after testing positive Monday. "While I am experiencing mild, cold-like symptoms, I remain in good spirits and will continue to work on behalf of my constituents."

Jayapal also tested positive Monday and called out her Republican colleagues for refusing to wear masks while forced to isolate during the attack.

"Many Republicans still refused to take the bare minimum COVID-19 precaution and simply wear a damn mask in a crowded room during a pandemic — creating a superspreader event on top of a domestic terrorist attack," Jayapal said.

Read more: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/salvadorhernandez/congress-member-covid-positive-capitol-insurrection?origin=thum

January 12, 2021

Trump blames Antifa for riot

Source: Axios

President Trump today privately — and falsely — blamed "Antifa people" for storming the Capitol, even though clear video and documentary evidence exists showing the rioters were overwhelmingly Trump supporters, Axios' Jonathan Swan reports.

...

Behind the scenes: In a tense, 30-minute-plus phone call this morning with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Trump trotted out the Antifa line.

McCarthy would have none of it, telling the president: "It's not Antifa, it's MAGA. I know. I was there," according to a White House official and another source familiar with the call.
The White House official said the call was tense and aggressive at times, with Trump ranting about election fraud and an exasperated McCarthy cutting in to say, "Stop it. It's over. The election is over."

Read more: https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-sneak-peek-1c44d7d7-d31e-4879-bff1-11965803be69.html?chunk=0&utm_term=twsocialshare