Assault on the Capitol (DC)

[Suranis]

I've been suggesting to people on Facebook that the great Southern landowners used slaves to control them by keeping wages down as they could use slaves for free, so the Southern white was told to hate the slave for providing free work and making the white life miserable, rather than the person who was giving the low wages. And again they were being told the same thing about the immigrant and taught to hate them rather than the person refusing to pay a decent wage. I haven't gotten a reply yet.

[northland10]

The Know-Nothings return ever so often to remind us of our ugly underbelly. Always find it interesting to find some descendent of the Irish who came in the 19th century complaining about immigrants today. All the same damn arguments used one their ancestors. Same thing with folks like Mario Apuzzo.

It's a bit like the folks who would move up north to Traverse City and then complain about the new housing developments and other people coming up to TC. They lived by the rule, I'm here, now shut the door.

[filly]

The Know-Nothings return ever so often to remind us of our ugly underbelly. Always find it interesting to find some descendent of the Irish who came in the 19th century complaining about immigrants today. All the same damn arguments used one their ancestors. Same thing with folks like Mario Apuzzo.

It's a bit like the folks who would move up north to Traverse City and then complain about the new housing developments and other people coming up to TC. They lived by the rule, I'm here, now shut the door.

The 45th Parallel is a real thing.

[fierceredpanda]

The Know-Nothings return ever so often to remind us of our ugly underbelly. Always find it interesting to find some descendent of the Irish who came in the 19th century complaining about immigrants today. All the same damn arguments used one their ancestors. Same thing with folks like Mario Apuzzo.

It's a bit like the folks who would move up north to Traverse City and then complain about the new housing developments and other people coming up to TC. They lived by the rule, I'm here, now shut the door.

Kicking the ladder out behind you once you've climbed it is, I'm sorry to say, as American as apple pie and baseball.

[Kendra]

Breaking: Ten members of Congress who were in the House gallery as rioters breached the Capitol on January 6 are adding their names to the NAACP lawsuit first filed in February against Trump and Rudy Giuliani.

OOF: DC judge REJECTS request from accused Proud Boy & Capitol insurrectionist Chris Worrell for release from jail. Worrell has been treated for 14 years for lymphoma and is concerned about COVID. Judge says...You didn’t seem concerned while in “mob” on Jan 6 “without a mask”

[AndyinPA]

https://todaysglobalmedia.com/politics/ ... udy-finds/

When the political scientist Robert Pape began studying the issues that motivated the 380 or so people arrested in connection with the attack against the Capitol on Jan. 6, he expected to find that the rioters were driven to violence by the lingering effects of the 2008 Great Recession.

But instead he found something very different: Most of the people who took part in the assault came from places, his polling and demographic data showed, that were awash in fears that the rights of minorities and immigrants were crowding out the rights of white people in American politics and culture.

If Mr. Pape’s initial conclusions — published on Tuesday in The Washington Post — hold true, they would suggest that the Capitol attack has historical echoes reaching back to before the Civil War, he said in an interview over the weekend. In the shorter term, he added, the study would appear to connect Jan. 6 not only to the once-fringe right-wing theory called the Great Replacement, which holds that minorities and immigrants are seeking to take over the country, but also to events like the far-right rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017 where crowds of white men marched with torches chanting, “Jews will not replace us!”

“If you look back in history, there has always been a series of far-right extremist movements responding to new waves of immigration to the United States or to movements for civil rights by minority groups,” Mr. Pape said. “You see a common pattern in the Capitol insurrectionists. They are mainly middle-class to upper-middle-class whites who are worried that, as social changes occur around them, they will see a decline in their status in the future.”

[sterngard friegen]

I don't find that surprising. That's what animated the Trump cult from the beginning.

[roadscholar]

Or in other words, they are afraid they may end up with the status they deserve.

The horror!

[AndyinPA]

I think the operative word is fear. It's always fear.

[neeneko]

Kicking the ladder out behind you once you've climbed it is, I'm sorry to say, as American as apple pie and baseball.

Sadly one of the reasons the right is so powerful is that they offer what the left can not... the promise of being able to punch down.

[Volkonski]

Short-staffed and overworked: Capitol Police struggle after months of trauma
‘Every single person I know is looking for another job. Just applications everywhere.’

https://www.rollcall.com/2021/04/07/sho ... of-trauma/

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honoré and his task force prepared a report after the Jan. 6 insurrection on how to improve security at the Capitol complex. It found that Capitol Police “were understaffed, insufficiently equipped, and inadequately trained to secure the Capitol and Members” when the violent mob stormed the building.

Honoré’s team noted that 233 vacancies and increased work demands have resulted in an “unsustainable” model of overtime use in the force, which is authorized to have 2,072 officers. There were almost 720,000 overtime hours across the force in fiscal 2020 alone. The report recommended that Capitol Police add a total of 854 positions.

The staffing shortfall, coupled with increased requirements to guard entry points at the inner fence around the complex (the outer fence was taken down at the end of March at the behest of lawmakers), has resulted in low morale and officers regularly working so much they say they barely see their families. Further complicating matters, there are hundreds of officers eligible to retire over the next five years and others want to leave.

“We’re already very short. People are quitting every day,” the first officer said. “Basically every single person I know is looking for another job. Just applications everywhere.”

[noblepa]

I don't find that surprising. That's what animated the Trump cult from the beginning.

True. A lot of people were saying, and I think we all know it is true, that from the beginning, when Donald Trump said "Make America Great Again", many of his followers heard "Make America White Again".

[Volkonski]

Capitol riot defendant flips to help prosecutors against Proud Boys

https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/07/politics ... index.html

The development is the first indication that people charged in the insurrection are cooperating against the pro-Trump extremist group. Federal prosecutors have made clear they are focused on building conspiracy cases against leadership of the Proud Boys and paramilitary groups like the Oath Keepers.

Court records have made murmurs for weeks about cooperators and plea deals in the works, and prosecutors revealed that a rioter wearing an Oath Keepers hat was in talks to cooperate earlier this week.



What happens next is likely to follow the same pattern in organized crime or drug investigations, with prosecutors pressuring knowledgeable defendants to become witnesses. Some may sign up to cooperate, and many of those charged are likely to plead guilty to avoid trial or more severe charges.

It's always been likely prosecutors would gain cooperators against the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and other extremist factions involved in the riot, according to several defense attorneys involved in the cases.

[pipistrelle]

They are not militia or paramilitary. They are gangs.

[AndyinPA]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/08/politics ... QCFHJKp6m9

(CNN)Federal prosecutors have informed some Capitol riot defendants the Justice Department has given the green-light to cut guilty plea deals, a step toward bringing the first of the hundreds of cases to a close, according to attorneys involved in the talks.

Defense lawyers involved have long recognized that much of the evidence in the Capitol riot cases isn't disputable enough to take to trial -- especially because so much is on video -- and that many of the more than 350 people charged would want to end their court proceedings quickly. But the cases have stalled for weeks as the Justice Department worked out what it was willing to offer, prompting attorneys to ask for delays in many of the court proceedings.

It's not clear yet which or how many defendants may be getting plea deals, and they haven't been offered to all interested defendants at this time, the attorneys told CNN. Lawyers who spoke to CNN described deals for defendants with misdemeanors, and not the cases with more severe charges.

[Maybenaut]

I predict very few actual trials. The harshest punishments will go to those who put their hands on law enforcement officers (even if they’re not charged with assault), those who conspired before actually arriving in DC, and those who entered the chambers and congressional offices.

Edit: Let me add those who broke stuff to the harsher punishment list.

[Slim Cognito]

For the people who did not vandalize or assault, but wandered around before deciding to GTFO, I'd be happy with a long-ass community service gig, with underprivileged minority youth. I mean a year or two, at least four hours a week.

Or a soup kitchen/homeless shelter.

[neonzx]

imho, given the 800+ persons who breached the building... they all should be held to account, even if they did nothing more than enter. They are accomplices to the crimes. They helped create a mob that encouraged the actual violent perps.

[Volkonski]

imho, given the 800+ persons who breached the building... they all should be held to account, even if they did nothing more than enter. They are accomplices to the crimes. They helped create a mob that encouraged that actual violent perps.

[Maybenaut]

imho, given the 800+ persons who breached the building... they all should be held to account, even if they did nothing more than enter. They are accomplices to the crimes. They helped create a mob that encouraged the actual violent perps.

I don’t disagree. They just won’t be punished as harshly.

[neonzx]

I don’t disagree. They just won’t be punished as harshly.

Yes, a legal slap on the hand, essentially. And that is fine and will work.

[Slim Cognito]

I figure a lot of those people would rather do 30 days in jail than work a homeless shelter or assist minority youth. Also, they can exploit any jail time in a way they can't with assisting the unfortunate. They'd wear it like a badge of patriot honor. How do you spin, "I was FORCED to help feed old people!" into a bad thing? So I'm pulling for community service in the least destructive cases.

[Chilidog]

I don't mind that a few might get nothing more than a slap on the wrist, as long as it is a FELONY slap on the wrist.

[Patagoniagirl]

imho, given the 800+ persons who breached the building... they all should be held to account, even if they did nothing more than enter. They are accomplices to the crimes. They helped create a mob that encouraged that actual violent perps.

Scores of defendants in criminal cases have been convicted of murder when they did not actually murder but were present and accompanied someone who committed the murder. Some have been executed.

[filly]

No one has been charged with murder in the Insurrection so it's kind of hard to prosecute anyone else for felony murder.