Git yer iced blood drinks heah!
Inaugural Security Is
Fortified in D.C. as
Military and Police
Links Are Eyed in Riot
Dozens of people in Washington on the day of the attack on the Capitol were said to be on a terrorism watch list.
Chief Robert J. Contee III of the Metropolitan Police Department saying on Wednesday that he expected more than 20,000 members of the National Guard in the Washington region on Inauguration Day. It remains unclear how many of the Guard members will carry weapons.
On Tuesday night, Defense Department officials said that the Army secretary, Ryan McCarthy, had decided to arm National Guard members ...
The number of National Guard troops in Washington may ultimately stretch beyond 20,000; the figure has been rapidly climbing in recent days as intelligence officials monitoring pro-Trump groups online have grown increasingly worried that militant, far-right organizations have plans for violent protests in Washington.
videos and photos posted online have shown chilling scenes of rioters in tactical gear moving through the chaos inside the Capitol complex in tight formation and sometimes using hand signals to communicate with one another. Investigators are eager to determine whether any of these plotters were working together or had ties to law enforcement or the military.
The Pentagon was sufficiently concerned that members of the military might have taken part in the attack — or at least supported it — that the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued an unusual message to all military personnel this week, reminding them that President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. would soon be their commander in chief and that they were duty bound to defend the Constitution.
[So, THAT's what was behind it. Lovely.]
...
Federal officials have already concluded that the swearing-in next week of Mr. Biden is a likely target for armed extremists and are expected to flood Washington with more than 20,000 members of National Guard from 13 states.
The Secret Service, which is leading the effort to secure the ceremony, announced on Thursday that it would establish a “green zone” in downtown Washington this weekend, shutting down traffic and train stations as troops continue to flood into the increasingly militarized city. In a statement, the Secret Service added that most of the streets around the Lincoln Memorial and the Capitol would be closed from Saturday morning until the day after the inauguration.
...Customs and Border Protection planned to deploy aircraft to Washington to conduct surveillance over the inauguration, the agency said in a statement. Agents on the ground can watch video footage of the event in real time to spot potential threats.
[Bombs? Armed with bombs? C'mon c'mon c'mon.]
the fact that agents have so far identified about 200 suspects altogether — should “serve as a very stern warning to anyone else who might be inclined” to return to Washington to commit more violence.
[Bombs are better than very stern warnings with coupsters.]
As of Thursday afternoon, about 7,000 National Guard troops were in Washington, a number that was expected to rise to more than 20,000 by the time of Mr. Biden’s inauguration.
That, officials said, was roughly three times the total number of American troops deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and Syria.
[Yeah, but they got M1's, MOABs, the National Guard's got pop guns. ONE MOAB, that's all I want, ONE.]
