As we all know, Twitter is a wretched hive of scum and villainy. I go there so you won’t have to, and so I can see the funny videos. This tweet by Ashley St Clair has reminded me that the category “funny video” includes more than just cats. It is a 32-second clip from the Capitol riot of exactly a year ago. I disapprove of riots, but it is impossible not to admire the comic timing of every single person in this clip.
Followed by an embarrassed-looking police officer, Shaman Guy walks confidently into the chamber in his fur headdress and very little else: “Heeeeey. Fucking hey, man” (addressed to Capitol police) “Glad to see you guys! You guys are fucking patriots.” (Sees man sitting on carpet nursing his face) “Look at this guy, he’s got covered in blood. God bless you.”
Staff member: “You good sir? Do you need medical attention?”
Man on floor: “I’m good, thank you.”
Staff member: “All right.”
Man on floor, sounding slightly aggrieved at his implied “don’t mention it” being taken literally: “I got shot in the face. I got shot in the face with some kind of plastic bullet”.
Camera pans to the throne or whatever you people call that fancy desk with the flags. Shaman Guy scratches the small of his back and makes to sit down and take the weight off his feet.
Plaintive voice from off screen: “Any chance I could get you guys to leave the Senate wing?”
Man on floor: “We will, I been making sure they ain’t disrespectin’ the place.”
A police officer, presumably the person who spoke earlier, comes into view: “OK, just wanna let you guys know this is like the sacredest place”
Man on floor: “I know, I know”.
It was all like a Disney movie, with Mickey Mouse sitting in the King’s throne with a too-big crown falling down over his eyes and Goofy as the Capital Policeman welcoming people at the door.
If BLM had done the Jan 6 “Insurrection” there would still be reconstruction happening at the Capitol now from all the buildings that were put into flames.
Right wingers don’t even know how to riot properly. Pathetic.
The regime loyalists in the press won’t do so, but they really should ask Brandon if he thinks the current rioters in Kazakhstan are trying to stage a coup.
I find it hard to regard what happened on Jan 6th last year as a moment of historical import.
To be honest everything about January the 6th was hilarious,the bland citadel of American power, big white halls with mediocre paintings being overrun by people wearing buffalo horns, ghillie suits and revolutionary war outfits. Even that Ashli Babbitt video was funny.
It IS a moment of historical importance- I think it shows that All Presidents should only have one term, ever. Then America wouldn’t be in this mess.
January 6th 2021: The day the US federal government was rocked to its very foundations by an unsupervised tour group.
That’s what they expected. I’m convinced that until the very moment it went off with a fizzle, they genuinely believed there’d be ransacking, burning, shooting, and looting. Because imagine it had been like the BLM riots: the reaction, the idea that it was an “insurrection”, would make some kind of sense. The entire thing was organised on that assumption. But now they can’t turn back without admitting the bogeyman was right all along.
Perhaps of no historical importance, Perry, but rather important to the Jan 6 protestors still being held in horrible conditions, without trial or bail. No charges, no lawyers, no bail, no end. That the Feds would do this and that no one would protest seems like an historically important development in America.
I wonder if the DC Police started taking these political prisoners out onto the Capitol Mall and just shooting them, say one each day, if anyone would protest? Would we rise up to stop it? I doubt it. We are all too cowed already. Any any who dared protest such public executions without trial would join the Jan 6 prisoners. I don’t really believe that…just being hyperbolic. But how close are we to that state of affairs?
Let’s see if the new, hopefully Republican, Congress repeals or modifies the Patriot Act and other post-911 laws that have enabled Fed LEO and intel folks to target American citizens who it’s clear after 5 seconds of background check have nothing to do with terrorism, domestic or international. I’m not holding my breath. And they won’t have a veto proof majority in any case, although we can still dream.
I don’t understand what all the fuss is about ? It was a ‘mostly peaceful’ insurrection surely ?
Less than 1% of the people who attended the massive January 6th 2021 rally against the BLATANT ELECTION FRAUD of the 2020 Presidential Election, entered the Capitol Building. They were WAVED IN – and the “activists” who encouraged them enter turn out to have been working for the FBI.
As for the despicable way that the people have been treated by the Federal “Justice” system (that “conviction machine” – a rigged system where nearly everyone is either forced to “make a deal” or is convicted of something) is indeed terrible – as comments above show.
Endless imprisonment (“waiting for trial” and so on), beatings, sexual abuse – and all the rest of it.
The bitter truth is that the institutions are rotten to the core – have been going rotten for a very long time.
“Conservatives” who put their faith in American institutions and say “we must defend THE SYSTEM” are either fools or knaves – or both.
“And Britain Paul?” – The United Kingdom does not even claim to have any limits on state power, there are no rights AGAINST the state here, “rights” are benefits from the state (very Jeremy Bentham).
As Sir William Blackstone put it – natural law, natural justice, is such-and-such unless Parliament orders something else (say – everyone with red hair to be burned alive).
So there is no real difference between Sir Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, Sir William Petty, Sir William Blackstone, David Hume, Jeremey Bentham – the fashionable fashionable British thinkers – they are not going to stand up against state power.
It could be argued that the protestors (not ‘insurrectionists’) were merely acting in a way they considered faithful to the spirit embodied in the Declaration of Independence, specifically the bit about “whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it.”
It is not unhealthy for the legislators and administrators to be reminded that such power as they possess does not belong to them, but is instead ‘on loan’ from the people they govern.
And let’s keep a sense of proportion about the behaviour of the Capitol protestors when compared with the protests of certain other groups, shall we?
‘It is not unhealthy for the legislators and administrators to be reminded that such power as they possess does not belong to them, but is instead ‘on loan’ from the people they govern.’
Exactly!
Perry:
Do you regard the Reichstag Fire as a moment of historical import?
Exactly
The preposterous thing about the insurrection narrative is that these people belong to the most heavily armed demographic on earth, they own more firearms (if less powerful) than the People’s Liberation Army of the PRC. The idea that they would try to overthrow the government, and no one would be shot is not believable.
Larry Correia put it best.
Never mind that. The idea that no-one would be carrying is not believable. IIRC the (considerable amount of) coverage I have seen, the authorities have not reported finding a single firearm on anyone they arrested. (Please correct me if I have missed anything.)
bobby b, as a US-based lawyer, can you explain something that is puzzling me?
I have (or had) a vague idea that in the US (and the UK and some other places – as against, say, China), they can’t just hold you in jail awaiting trial for ever and ever; they have to try you within some finite time.
I also had a vague idea that the period was less than a year.
Is there any date by which anyone arrested for trespass on January 6th 2021 must be tried or released?
Niall K, I could write a book . . .
Yes, there is an explicit right to a speedy trial in the US Constitution. It has been codified in state and federal statutes. Generally, a defendant who is in custody has the right to demand that he be brought to trial within 90 days of arrest. A noncustodial defendant can demand a trial (varying by jurisdiction) within 180 days.
I have had clients released and charges dropped on this basis. It’s normally a very serious thing. It gets bastardized when you have a partisan judge. The Jan6 defendants have partisan judges.
Here’s a good source to get the details.
There are exceptions. One of them is, the government can claim that the case is too complex for it to prepare for trial so quickly. That is the exception being claimed here by the government. The judges have merely been rubberstamping the government’s arguments.
You’d think that the defendants could go right to an appellate process to enforce this Constitutional right, but the standard has long been that the “complexity” determination is left to the “discretion of the court.” That’s always a high burden compared to a bright-line enforcement of a right, so an appellate solution, at this stage, would be unlikely.
These are now true political prisoners. Our federal government has lost its legitimacy through this action alone. Many of us are taking the position that the very first requirement for a presidential candidate in 2024 is a promise to pardon and recompense these people.
We’re also buying more guns and ammo. Because these louts do not recognize our Constitution when it conflicts with their desires.
(Addendum)
If anyone wants a good education on Speedy Trial concepts, go to this page, go down the list of articles to “Speedy Trial”, and read the four articles listed. Worth your time.)
Many thanks to Niall for asking a pertinent question; and many thanks to bobby for answering.
I note that afaik in Italy there is no right to a speedy trial. (Which is part of the reason why i spend as little time as possible in Italy.) But, afaik, this has never led to abuses *for political reasons*.
Not abuses as blatant as we are seeing in the US, anyway.
It wasn’t the alleged attempt at ‘insurrection’ on Jan 6, but the coup d’état that actually took place. Two different groups, but the MSM were all over the former, yet to this day, barely mentioned the latter.
Many thanks for your swift reply and links, bobby b (January 8, 2022 at 6:41 pm). IIUC, the one year “constitutional dimension … presumptively prejudicial” marker will (soonish?) at least oblige a speedy trial analysis – but only by the rubber-stamping trial court(s) to whom these cases are assigned. IIUC, your links show a trial court’s analysis can be overruled by an appellate process, but your comment indicates that may well not happen fast.
@bobby b
We’re also buying more guns and ammo. Because these louts do not recognize our Constitution when it conflicts with their desires.
Quick question: what do you plan do do with all those guns and ammo about the constitution ignoring louts?
Several things:
1. Most important: Cause fear and hesitation amongst those who would ignore Constitutional clauses for their own political benefit – i.e., the louts. The main purpose that I see in our Second Amendment is to give government cause to fear the consequences of overreaching – I want to multiply that sense of fear. I want them to be paranoid for cause.;
2. I want there to be so many arms freely available amongst the people that any talk of prohibiting them becomes moot;
3. This one takes a hypothetical. Imagine you have an 18-year-old son. He took part in a peaceful demonstration against the Big Boss. He and 1000 other similar sons and daughters have now been jailed for over a year – a rather savage and demeaning pretrial detention that has lasted at least four times as long as the sentences usually imposed for the crimes of which he has been accused. Constitutional protections routinely afforded the most heinous of criminals have been denied to him, at the personal discretion of judges who are friends of the Big Boss. There is no hint of resolution, only the promise of a long continued incarceration.
Now imagine what I might do with those weapons. No, I don’t have a son in those circumstances. But many do, and at some point it cannot – should not – remain “their problem.”
It may have been unwise to attend such a demonstration. But it was at least that unwise to attend a night of BLM Burn-Loot-Murder – and those BLM attendees have suffered no such fate, because the Big Boss likes them. This cannot stand. This is far beyond “I do not like this new regulation and wish to see it changed.” This is “the bastards are imprisoning our kids.”
Buy a gun.
(ETA: I might also use them defensively when someone comes to arrest me for posting “buy a gun.”)
bobby b (January 8, 2022 at 6:41 pm et seq.), this withholding of speedy trial is one of a few things I file under: if they will do this where they can, then they will steal votes where they can (and vice versa). In one sense, it is not evidence of that other kind of cheating (I don’t use it to reach any conclusion of where and to what extent that occurred). But in another sense, it is informative and/or a kind of checksum.
As a lawyer, I expect you were familiar with the “If known to do this, would do that?” issue long before this example came along.