If you’re frustrated by this lockdown it is worth remembering that there is an alternative. Our country has had a year to build an effective system for testing to identify cases & isolate them & those they have exposed. We are all paying the price for the failure to do this.

Spotted at the U.S. Capitol insurrection with his mother and hopping around the Senate while holding tactical restraints, so-called “zip tie guy” Eric Gavelek Munchel's bail hearing is about to begin.

Live-tweet ahead, for @LawCrimeNews.



A preview for today's detention proceedings is linked at the top of the thread.

Please read it for background for what's up ahead.

A 5-year-veteran FBI special agent is testifying now.

The FBI agent says that he participated in the surveillance and search of Munchel's house in Nashville.

Court papers show what authorities said they found.

Left: Tactical vest with a “Punisher” comic book and Tennessee “thin blue line” patches.

Center: Five pairs of white plastic handcuffs.

Right: A baseball cap depicting a rifle and a flag

Last week, @CleCityCouncil started reviewing Mayor Frank Jackson’s proposed city budget for 2021. There was robust discussion, and Documenters were there to cover it. Here’s a thread of what we learned last week about the #CLEBudget

First, it helps to know where we are in the budget process. From today through Feb. 24, the council will meet about the General Fund budget. The council will then agree on a budget with their changes (if any); 15 days after doing so, they can vote to make the budget official.

In other words, there’s still time to use your voice! The #refundcleveland tool can help. Create the #CLEBudget you want and send it to your council member. Click “Change the Budget” on the homepage and follow the on-screen instructions from there.

Want to know the budget basics? Our #CLEBudget primer details the timeline, different types of budgets and the funds involved, and defines budget-related terms. It can be a helpful guide during City Council’s discussions.

And don’t forget: all these meetings are livestreamed on City Council’s YouTube channel. They’re slated to start at 9 a.m. every business day from today through the 24th. You can also follow along with #CLEDocumenters live-tweet threads and

THREAD: So @UKLabour think they can win back the red wall by "use of the union flag, veterans & dressing smartly?" Here's why this is ludicrous fantasy

1. You don't "use" the union flag & especially veterans. You believe in them, from the patriotic heart. Anything else is lies

2. How can Keir Starmer pretend to love the Union flag, when he knelt to BLM, who set fire to it at the Cenotaph? No way will patriots swallow this co-opting of the flag for votes

3. Labour MPs are secretly or even openly ashamed of our flag & history, esp Corbynistas

4. Labour want to win back working class voters? First, believe in Brexit. Except Starmer led Labour's #PeoplesVote movement to cancel Brexit & most Labour MPs are ardent Remainers, so there goes that one

5. Labour are so soaked in identity politics, their top brass believe the white working classes are "privileged" - even though WWC boys are the least likely to go to Uni & perform worst at school. Instead, they are fixated with minority projects, so get minority numbers of votes

6. Trans issues: huge majority of British people are not "transphobic" & want people to live happily. But they don't want trans women in women's toilets, jails, changing rooms or sports. That is a majority position. Crying "transphobe" doesn't help: it repels moderate voters

A federal judge in DC is holding a detention hearing in the cases of Capitol insurrection defendants Eric Munchel (who was photographed wearing tactical gear and holding a bunch of zip tie handcuffs) and his mother Lisa Eisenhart — the govt is arguing to keep both behind bars

Re: the zip tie handcuffs that Munchel and Eisenhart allegedly picked up inside the Capitol, AUSA Ahmed Baset says they were visible to lots of people passing by at the time but these two not only took them, but did so "with glee"

Baset says it's true that Munchel and Eisenhart aren't charged with physically hurting anyone, the evidence shows they were looking for lawmakers, who had been cleared out. "They should not be given credit for that," Baset argues.

Baset says that Munchel was in touch with the Proud Boys in Tennessee *after* Jan. 6 and talked about how he'd wanted to join their ranks before but didn't know how

Munchel's lawyer Sandra Roland argues that the Tennessee magistrate judge who granted pretrial release to Munchel and Eisenhart got it right in finding that the govt failed to show there were no combination of release conditions that would protect the community