996 replies to this topic

[golden_valley]

 LFC, on 17 February 2021 - 04:11 PM, said:

#whiteprivilege

This country appears to make schools and police responsible for a whole range of issues that they really can't handle. Some of the behavior exhibited by students comes from something besides, or in addition to, lack of discipline. Figuring out what the problems are and dealing with them in a medical or mental health setting makes more sense than suspending the kids repeatedly while hoping that their underlying problems will magically vanish.

[LFC]

Another domestic terrorist is caught and charged. He sounds like a nice boy.

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Christian Secor was one of the many who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, but he can be recognized as the one who sat in Vice President Mike Pence's chair in the U.S. Senate chamber.

According to the FBI, however, Secor has now been arrested for his involvement. The Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday that Secor was charged with "assaulting or resisting a police officer, violent entry and remaining on restricted grounds, civil disorder and obstructing an official proceeding."

At least 11 people reported him to the FBI, with one source saying that he was "moved back in with his mother, got rid of his cellphone and bragged that he 'would not be caught for his involvement at the U.S. Capitol.'" He is currently being held without bail.

The 22-year-old UCLA student was at his home in Costa Mesa, California, when the FBI came to execute a search warrant, said FBI spokesperson Laura Eimiller.

"As a result of Secor and others pushing on the double doors ... the doors opened and dozens of additional rioters flooded into the building," FBI Special Agent Benjamin Elliott wrote in the affidavit. "The Capitol Police officers were shoved by the crowd, at times trapped between the doors and the crowd, and eventually pushed out of the way of the oncoming mob."

The report also said that Secor was broadcasting live from the Capitol using DLive using the moniker Scuffed Elliot Rodger. The name comes apparently from the man "who killed six people in Isla Vista, Calif., in 2014 and became a hero to 'incels'" said the Times. Incels are members of online communities of men who can't attract women to have sex with and are "involuntarily celibate" as a result.

Secor has a history of statements in support of white nationalism and anti-Semitism, the affidavit described. It also noted that last year at UCLA he was accused of inciting racism with comments and tweets about immigrants and Jewish students.

[LFC]

BWAHAHAHA! One of the Proud Boys who is facing real consequences for his insurrection has his attorneys blaming Trump! Rat meet sinking ship.

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Former President Donald Trump — not the rioters — was responsible for the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, attorneys for a Kansas City-area Proud Boy argued in federal court Wednesday.

At a hearing on the government’s request that William “Billy” Chrestman remain incarcerated pending trial, his attorneys said the Olathe man was not a serious flight risk, chances were slim that he would attempt to obstruct the prosecution and he was not a danger to the community.

“It is an astounding thing to imagine storming the United States Capitol with sticks and flags and bear spray, arrayed against armed and highly trained law enforcement,” Chrestman’s attorneys said in a court filing opposing the prosecutors’ request. “Only someone who thought that they had an official endorsement would even attempt such a thing.

“And a Proud Boy who had been paying attention would very much believe he did.”

That endorsement, Chrestman’s defense argued, came from Trump.

[LFC]

 LFC, on 17 February 2021 - 04:11 PM, said:

#whiteprivilege

More on this asshat. He apparently has money and he certainly has strong GOP ties.

[LFC]

Waddya' know. Being a member of a domestic terrorist organization is a step too far even for at least one GOP county party.

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The Sacramento County Republican Party on Wednesday expelled a member from its central committee who weeks earlier had been exposed as a member of the far-right Proud Boys gang.

The Sacramento Bee reports that Proud Boys member Jeffrey Perrine got booted by the GOP after the paper documented his ties to the Trump-loving extremist group that was instrumental in organizing the riots at the United States Capitol building last month.

In voting to expel Perrine, local GOP officials said that the Proud Boys were "categorically inconsistent with the values of the Republican Party."

In an interview with the Sacramento Bee, Perrine complained bitterly about the effort to expel him.

""It's a total, just, leftist appeasing attempt of a bylaw," he said. "They're going to railroad me out the backdoor, and it's not even the full executive committee."

Micah Grant, who serves as the county party's treasurer, told the Sacramento Bee why he made the motion to expel Perrine.

"Mr. Perrine's beliefs, actions, and public statements are woefully out of touch with true conservative values and were a slap in the face to Republicans everywhere who are deeply embedded in their communities," Grant said. "I'm proud the committee took the necessary action to remove this individual."

[LFC]

In the past week or so I read something by a retired intelligence official about the Capitol Hill Police and potential involvement of officers in the Republican Insurrection. They said that with the few things we knew from the outset (like Officer Selfie) and the deafening silence that followed he believed it meant that things were bad. Like really bad. Well, really bad just dropped today. There's a total of 35 officers being investigated. What percentage of the CHP are traitors to America?

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Six US Capitol Police officers have been suspended with pay, and 29 others have been placed under investigation, for their actions in the January 6 riot, a department spokesman said Thursday.

"Acting Chief Yogananda Pittman has directed that any member of her department whose behavior is not in keeping with the Department's Rules of Conduct will face appropriate discipline," department spokesman John Stolnis told CNN.

CNN reported in January that the USCP had placed at least 10 officers under investigation, and two others had been suspended.

One of the suspended officers took a selfie with someone who was part of the mob that overtook the Capitol, according to Rep. Tim Ryan, a Democrat from Ohio. Another wore a "Make America Great Again" hat and started directing people around the building, Ryan said.

Last month, Pittman said the department "has been actively reviewing video and other open source materials of some USCP officers and officials that appear to be in violation of Department regulations and policies."

The suspensions and investigations come at a time of internal turmoil at the department as officers continue to grapple with the insurrection that led to the death of Officer Brian Sicknick. Members of the Capitol Police issued a vote of no confidence in the force's top leaders earlier this month.

At least seven officers in five other departments across the country have come under internal investigations as their presence in Washington during the assault comes to light through social media or other means.

One officer in New York, one in Philadelphia, two in Seattle, two in Virginia and one in Texas are under investigation by their departments for potential rules violations. Additionally, some departments have been contacted by the FBI as part of their criminal investigation into the overrunning of the Capitol.

The number may grow as investigators and the public sift through social media and lodge allegations that officers may have been involved in the siege.

[andydp]

Not to be outdone, we have two from our area who were at the Jan 6 "festivities". Initially charged with misdemeanor charges they are now facing a couple of felony charges.

Two Capital Region men facing more charges in Capitol riot


ALBANY -- Two Capital Region men who allegedly smoked marijuana inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and separately boasted on social media about "taking" the building that afternoon are now taking on more criminal charges.
A federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., indicted Brandon Fellows, 26, of Niskayuna, on Feb. 6 on five counts, including a felony obstruction charge, for his actions on Jan. 6. Fellows, who smirked throughout his arraignment in Albany last month, was initially facing misdemeanor charges.
James Bonet, 29, of Glens Falls, initially charged with two federal misdemeanors, is now facing four charges, including felony charges, according to court documents filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.



Two Capital Region men facing more charges in Capitol riot (timesunion.com)

[LFC]

As predicted charges are increasing. See Andy's last post and then this one.

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A husband and wife planned their role in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack with a group of Oath Keepers, federal prosecutors alleged in charging documents filed Thursday.

Sandra Parker, 60, and her husband Bennie Parker, 70, were allegedly affiliated with the same group of Oath Keepers militia members that has already been indicted on conspiracy charges for the alleged planning they did before participating in the riot.

The Parkers were two of the six people indicted by a federal grand jury on Friday, added as codefendants in an existing case against three others who allegedly planned their actions on Jan. 6.

The Parkers, as well as Graydon Young, Laura Steele, Kelly Megs and Connie Meggs, now face a conspiracy charge, as well as counts for aiding and abetting the depredation of government property, obstructing an official proceeding, and entering a restricted building or grounds.

The three others on the indictment were charged weeks ago: Jessica Watkins, Donovan Crowl and Thomas Caldwell allegedly used Facebook messages and a walkie talkie app to communicate during the attack.

Sandra Parker, the feds say, moved with a larger group of Oath Keepers that used a “stack” formation to snake its way to the Capitol doors and then get inside. Her husband stayed outside during the attack but assisted by “staying in communication with members inside the Capitol,” according to an FBI agent’s affidavit.

Caldwell allegedly received messages during the attack with purported information about elected officials’ whereabouts and instructions to “seal them in” and “Turn on gas.” (Caldwell’s lawyer has said his client did not enter the Capitol and that he is not a member of the Oath Keepers.)

According to the FBI agent’s affidavit, it wasn’t terribly difficult to track the Parkers down.

[LFC]

Dr. Fauci is still being threatened by domestic terrorists. They are Trump's brown shirts.

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Dr. Anthony Fauci, who serves as White House chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, is still grappling with the dangers of contradicting now-former President Donald Trump’s falsely rosy portrayal of the COVID-19 pandemic by presenting grim, science-based facts on the virus.

Trump’s retaliatory attacks on Fauci’s integrity whipped up fury from MAGA supporters “to the point that to this day I have to have armed federal agents guarding me all the time,” Fauci said in an interview with the Telegraph published on Friday. The doctor and his family have had security detail since at least April last year.

Fauci described how Trump would do or at least allow “terrible” things to happen to him if the official’s somber remarks on COVID-19 clashed with the artificially positive messaging coming from the White House.

“Like he allowed [White House trade adviser] Peter Navarro to write an editorial in USA Today saying that almost everything I’ve ever said was wrong,” the doctor said. “He allowed the communications department of the White House to send out a list to all of the media, all of the networks, all of the cables, all of the print press, about all of the mistakes I’ve made, which was absolute nonsense because there were no mistakes.”

[LFC]

Another data point that the MAGAts are heavily driven by racism. Duh.

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A Capitol Police officer who was on the front line against the pro-Trump rioters that stormed the Capitol has revealed that he was subjected to relentless racist abuse while trying to defend the building.

In an interview broadcast Monday on ABC News’ Good Morning America, Harry Dunn recalled being surrounded by rioters, his lungs burning from pepper spray and bear mace, and bursting into tears. When one of his colleagues approached him to ask what was wrong, Dunn said that he felt devastated by the unashamedly racist vitriol of the the Trumpist rioters.

“I got called a [N-word] a couple dozen times today protecting this building,” Dunn recalled telling his colleague through tears. “Is this America? They beat police officers with Blue Lives Matter flags. They fought us, they had Confederate flags in the U.S. Capitol.”

In the six weeks that he’s kept his silence, Officer Dunn has seen some people try to dismiss the riot as being purely motivated by politics. From his experience, that is completely wrong. The officer told ABC News: “Everybody wants to say that it was about politics and everything—but there was a large number of people in that crowd that were racist.”

Dunn’s account of the day is terrifying. He described one particular moment when he was looking over the MAGA hordes and realized that any one of them could have a gun, and that he was an obvious target.

[andydp]

 LFC, on 22 February 2021 - 10:18 AM, said:

Another data point that the MAGAts are heavily driven by racism. Duh.

Well.. it is Blue Lives Matter Monday....

"Is this America? They beat police officers with Blue Lives Matter flags. They fought us, they had Confederate flags in the U.S. Capitol.”

[LFC]

One of the insurrectionists claims she was there to provide security for the rally with cooperation Trump's Secret Service. I suspect there's a fair chunk of truth to this. It shows how close Trump was/is to the right-wing domestic terrorists.

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A leader in an alleged Oath Keepers conspiracy in the US Capitol insurrection claims she was given a VIP pass to the pro-Trump rally on January 6, had met with Secret Service agents and was providing security for legislators and others, including in their march to the Capitol, according to a new court filing.

Attorneys for Ohio Oath Keeper Jessica Watkins detail how the efforts among paramilitants who are now accused of conspiracy on January 6 were closer to the apparatus around then-President Donald Trump and his rally than was previously known.

By sharing the new details in the filing Saturday, the defense attorney for Watkins, a former Army ranger who served in Afghanistan, argues for her release from jail on bond and other restrictions as she awaits trial.

"On January 5 and 6, Ms. Watkins was present not as an insurrectionist, but to provide security to the speakers at the rally, to provide escort for the legislators and others to march to the Capitol as directed by the then-President, and to safely escort protestors away from the Capitol to their vehicles and cars at the conclusion of the protest," the court filing said on Saturday. "She was given a VIP pass to the rally. She met with Secret Service agents. She was within 50 feet of the stage during the rally to provide security for the speakers. At the time the Capitol was breached, she was still at the site of the initial rally where she had provided security."

The US Secret Service, in response to Watkins' claims in the Saturday filing, denied that private citizens were working with the Secret Service to provide security on January 6.

"To carry out its protective functions on January 6th, the U.S. Secret Service relied on the assistance of various government partners. Any assertion that the Secret Service employed private citizens to perform those functions is false," a US Secret Service spokesperson said in a statement to CNN on Sunday.

The Justice Department, which is prosecuting Watkins' case, has not yet responded to her claims in court.

Watkins is central to one of the most aggressive criminal conspiracy cases yet to emerge from the insurrection. The Justice Department indicted her and eight other alleged Oath Keepers on several charges related to the riot, including allegations that the group coordinated their travel to the pro-Trump event, discussed training and weapons beforehand, suited up in body armor and broke through the crowd heading into the Capitol in a military-style formation.

Watkins' attorney argued in the new filing she isn't alleged to have been violent in the melee, and that, though she is charged with aiding the destruction of property, didn't participate in vandalism and encouraged others not to as well. The court filing is the first meaty defense of the high-profile defendant in court.

[golden_valley]

 LFC, on 22 February 2021 - 10:39 AM, said:

One of the insurrectionists claims she was there to provide security for the rally with cooperation Trump's Secret Service. I suspect there's a fair chunk of truth to this. It shows how close Trump was/is to the right-wing domestic terrorists.

Is she so lost in her fantasy that of course Secret Service would ask her, a former Army ranger, to do such work? There are lots of law enforcement organizations and private security agencies that could provide that sort of work. No need for Ms Oath Keeper to be involved in anything legitimate.

ETA: For more detail on what Ms Oath Keeper and her people were doing see the Empty Wheel entry on it.

[LFC]

LFC, on 22 February 2021 - 10:39 AM, said:

One of the insurrectionists claims she was there to provide security for the rally with cooperation Trump's Secret Service. I suspect there's a fair chunk of truth to this. It shows how close Trump was/is to the right-wing domestic terrorists.

Well, well. That all fell apart rather quickly. I guess her lawyers explained that issuing verifiable lies in writing to a federal court probably isn't the best move. So is this a case of self important or self preservation? A bit of both?

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Over the weekend, a member of the Oath Keepers militia and a key alleged conspirator in the Jan. 6 attack on Congress claimed that she was really working VIP security for the event, and that she even “met with Secret Service agents.”

Well, that latter detail fell apart Monday.

In a “clarification” filing, Jessica Watkins’ lawyer said the claimed meeting was more like… a conversation at a security check point.

“Counsel in no way meant to imply that Ms. Watkins met with the Secret Service,” Watkins’ attorney A.J. Kramer, the federal public defender representing Watkins, wrote. “A better verb would have been ‘encountered.’”

Watkins spoke with Secret Service personnel that day when she was coming through the checkpoint for the VIP area, Kramer wrote. She was given directives about what she could and couldn’t do, “including directions to leave all tactical gear outside of the VIP area, and she abided by all of those directives.”

(In an earlier court filing, prosecutors alleged Watkins was inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, and identified her with the yellow arrow, above.)

[LFC]

I'm still having trouble determining if Ron Johnson is a treasonous terrorist sympathizer, stupid as F***!, or both. I'm leaning towards both. This is from a Senate hearing on the security failures during the Jan. 6 Republican Insurrection.

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To Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), the events of Jan 6. may all fit into a grand, left-wing conspiracy.

At a Tuesday hearing with officials charged with defending the Capitol on Jan. 6, Johnson broke with other senators by declining to use the majority of his time to ask questions. Instead, he read from an article which suggested that a fifth column of Antifa provocateurs staged the insurrection.

Johnson read out excerpts of the piece which claimed that “agents provocateurs, fake Trump supporters” were behind the attack.

“These apparent agents-provocateurs placed hundreds of unsuspecting supporters of the president in physical danger,” the article reads at one point.

Johnson entered the piece into the record of a hearing devoted to gathering testimony from officials responsible for guarding the Capitol on Jan. 6, examining the security failures that led to that day and how officials responded as the attack unfolded.

The Wisconsin Republican added that he had so many questions for the officials before him that he would contact them in writing outside of the hearing. Instead, Johnson said, he would read excerpts from a column purporting to be an eyewitness account of Jan. 6 that he encouraged the other senators to read.

The column was written by J. Michael Waller, an analyst at the Center for Security Policy, a Frank Gaffney-founded organization that has spent years spreading hateful conspiracy theories about Muslims while encouraging military intervention abroad.

The article is pure utter nutter nonsense, of course.

[LFC]

You can follow the Senate hearing coverage by TPM here. I found this to be interesting. Somebody is trying to save their own ass.

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Capitol Security Chiefs Differ On Jan. 6 Timeline

Even before their live testimony has begun, opening statements from those defending the Capitol on Jan. 6 show important contradictions.

These go to one of the most crucial questions of that day: why did it take so long for the D.C. National Guard to come?

Former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund said in his prepared remarks that he notified the Sergeants at Arms of the House and Senate at 1:09 p.m. on the day of that police needed National Guard support to defend the Capitol.

But former House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving said that he has no memory of Sund asking that, and that a review of his phone and text records show no communication from Sund until a call at 1:28 p.m.

Hawley grandstanded about the possibility of complicit police officers brought up by Army Lt. Gen. Russell Honore who reviewed the failures in security for the House. I loved the response.

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Hawley’s particular dislike probably stems from a now-deleted, colorful tweet Honoré sent out in the days after the attack but before he was tasked with leading the investigation.

It read: “This little peace of shit with his @Yale law degree should be run out of DC and Disbarred ASAP @HawleyMO @tedcruz aaa hats . These @Yale and @Harvard law grads is high order white privilege .”

[LFC]

Another domestic terrorist from the Jan. 6 Republican Insurrection turns out to be ex-police. This one set a pipe bomb. The numbers of those terrorists with attachments to police or military just keeps stacking up.

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A retired NYPD officer who surrendered at the FBI’s Hudson Valley office Monday is expected to face charges over allegations that he used a pipe to attack Capitol Police during the Jan. 6 insurrection, according to a report.

Thomas Webster is expected to appear in federal court on Tuesday after being taken into custody Monday in Westchester, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office told WNBC, a New York NBC affiliate.

[Probabilistic]

LFC, on 23 February 2021 - 02:17 PM, said:

Another domestic terrorist from the Jan. 6 Republican Insurrection turns out to be ex-police. This one set a pipe bomb. The numbers of those terrorists with attachments to police or military just keeps stacking up.

Defund the military too?

What can you buy with $7 T?

[LFC]

Another piece at TPM (in full due to paywall) on that shit weasel Hawley. He IS an American traitor.

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Senators Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) opened their remarks at Tuesday’s hearing with profuse gratitude for the police officers who helped protect the Capitol during the insurrection on January 6.

“We are grateful for the bravery and the courage in the face of a truly horrific attack,” Cruz said. “In the aftermath of the attack, there is naturally a process to assess what could have been done to better prevent that attack.”

Hawley particularly, in a vendetta against Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, was fixated on the idea of “complicity,” but only insofar as asserting that Capitol police officers were not.

It was all a little hard to swallow.

Less than two months after the insurrection, too little time has passed to blur the inconvenient truth: that the two of them especially, with their steadfast spreading of the rigged-election conspiracy theory even after the mob broke in, bear responsibility for the violence.

But so far, Twitter and the opinion pages of their hometown newspapers have done a better job highlighting that fact than Congress’ formal hearings.

Tuesday’s session of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs was the first time the public got to see some accountability — but only from certain law enforcement members involved. All but one of the four witnesses had already resigned over the mortifying, fatal breach of the Capitol anyway.

Cruz and Hawley, though, are still senators. Seated on the raised dais, they got to ask questions like the rest, bemoaning the dreadful day without acknowledging their role in it. To some degree, that’s the nature of what the hearing was: meant to home in on breakdowns in inter-agency communications, on intelligence lapses, on such granular details as when, exactly, did the Capitol Police chief call for National Guard backup. The utter security failure that allowed a pro-Trump mob to waltz into the Capitol is still shrouded in mystery and needs probing.

But the hearing did not interrogate the conspiracy theorizing and embrace of violence that led to the insurrection, the sowing of doubt in U.S. elections from the President but also his faithful Republican allies.

The best forum for exploring that facet of the story may have been the impeachment trial. A multi-day event with many eyeballs on it, the House managers were there less to uncover information than to tell the story of how Jan. 6 culminated in insurrection. Coincidentally, the very fact they were trying to convince listeners of was that former President Donald Trump incited the mob through months of peddling the election conspiracy theory and whipping up his followers not to accept a loss that would be unfair, tainted, “rigged.”

But the managers decided to leave Trump’s right-hand men out of it. They were careful not to dwell on Republicans’ complicity, a pragmatic decision given that those GOP senators were also jury. Though it seemed impossible from the beginning, the managers had a job: to win over 17 Republicans and get a conviction.

So, during impeachment, as at Tuesday’s hearing, the senators were not the subjects of the intense scrutiny a congressional committee can muster. Instead, they get to occupy the role of questioner and committee member, looking to the uninitiated like impartial civil servants eager for accountability and fact-finding.

Cruz and Hawley, while unique in their ambition-fueled verve for leading the charge in challenging the Electoral College certification, were not alone in bearing this culpability — many of their Republican peers, including Sens. Lindsay Graham (R-SC), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Rand Paul (R-KY), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), to name a few — participated in the charade as well. At least Johnson had the courage of his conspiratorial convictions at the Tuesday hearing, spending his time reading into the record an article that described the insurrection as an antifa false flag event.

So far, Cruz and Hawley have gotten away relatively scot-free. Seven Democrats signed an ethics complaint against them, which is percolating in the intensely insulated and secretive Senate Ethics Committee. But it could take months for a verdict to be rendered from the body made up of the senators’ peers.

Otherwise, they both have fairly high approval ratings from Republicans (Cruz more than Hawley, though the former’s higher name recognition from his 2016 presidential bid may be a factor there). Cruz has already had a whole other scandal cycle, after he skipped town to Cancún while his constituents in Texas froze.

That utter lack of accountability has informed their behavior now. A fundraising email Hawley sent out Tuesday, noted by Mother Jones, touted his role in challenging the election results, and asked for money to help him fight “Biden and his woke mob.”

“If we do not stand up to the radical left we will get four years of lies,” he wrote, adding: “I will not back down.”

If we do not stand up to Hawley, Cruz, and their fascist Treason Caucus we will get four six eight a f***-ton years of lies. We cannot back down.

[AnBr]

Andy Borowitz
6h

Law Enforcement At Senate Hearing Asks For Help Identifying Insurrectionist.