Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The lights are all blinking red.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

They want us to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Focus. Resist. Oppose.

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

How stupid are these people?

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Celebrate the fucking wins.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

You are here: Home / Politics / domestic terrorists / Insurrectionists Open Thread: How Can You Indict Him When He Won’t Stop Talking?

Insurrectionists Open Thread: How Can You Indict Him When He Won’t Stop Talking?

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Yes, he’s dangerous, he needs to be kept under supervision (not least for his own sake), but… Entitled White Dude is one helluva drug…

It was shortly after federal agents confronted him in May outside a boutique hotel in Lubbock, Texas, seizing his cellphone with a warrant, that Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers militia, made a bold decision: Even though he had just gotten undeniable proof that he was under investigation, he agreed to be questioned about his — and his militia’s — role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Against the advice of a lawyer, Mr. Rhodes spoke freely with the agents about the Capitol assault for nearly three hours, he said in an interview on Friday. Mr. Rhodes said that he denied that he or any other Oath Keepers had intended to disrupt Congress’ certification of the Electoral College vote — the chief accusation the government has lodged against 16 members of the group who are charged with conspiracy…


For months, the government has quietly acknowledged that investigators have been scrutinizing the role that Mr. Rhodes played in the Jan. 6 assault, but the fact that he voluntarily submitted to an F.B.I. interview was a new step in the inquiry. In court papers connected to the case of his associates, Mr. Rhodes has been identified as Person 1 and prosecutors have described how he was in direct communication with some suspects before, during and after the assault…

Speaking with investigators in the middle of a criminal inquiry is a risk even though Mr. Rhodes had a lawyer, Kellye SoRelle, present with him. Mr. Rhodes said that he was not the only Oath Keeper leader to have talked with federal agents in recent weeks. After he was questioned, one of his top lieutenants, a man he identified as Whip (and who is known as Person 10 in court papers), also spoke voluntarily with the F.B.I…

The revelation that two Oath Keeper leaders — who have not been charged — have been questioned by the F.B.I. comes at a kind of inflection point for the Oath Keepers’ case, one of the most prominent prosecutions stemming from the Capitol assault.

Earlier this month, most of the defendants challenged the viability of the government’s charges and one asked the presiding judge, Amit P. Mehta, to move his trial out of Washington, arguing that too many local residents suffered from “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” Judge Mehta issued an order on Tuesday saying that the 16 defendants would be tried in two groups, one tentatively set to begin in January, the other three months later.

At the same time, however, at least three Oath Keepers have pleaded guilty in the case and have agreed to cooperate with the government’s sprawling investigation of the group. At a recent hearing, prosecutors told Judge Mehta that they were in plea negotiations with several other members and could not rule out further charges.

Despite the flurry of activity, prosecutors overseeing the investigation of Mr. Rhodes have long admitted that they have struggled to make a case against him. His activities seemed to stay within the boundaries of the First Amendment, one official with knowledge of the matter said…

Reader Interactions

112Comments

  4. 4.

    There go two miscreants

    TIL who Florence Foster Jenkins was. The Wikipedia article is a hoot. “No one, before or since, has succeeded in liberating themselves quite so completely from the shackles of musical notation.”

  5. 5.

    egorelick

    What is it with Yale Law school? J.D. Vance, Stewart Rhodes, Kavanaugh, Thomas? It’s like they value a good story over principals.

  8. 8.

    Chip Daniels

    In a bold move, Stewart Rhodes, the founder and leader of the right-wing militia group, sat for an interview with federal agents after they seized his phone in May.

    Bold move, Cotton. Let’s see how it works out for him.

  9. 9.

    dmsilev

    Some Friday Schadenfreude:
    Biden fires head of Social Security Administration, a Trump holdover who drew the ire of Democrats

    President Biden on Friday fired Social Security Commissioner Andrew Saul, a holdover from the Trump administration who had alienated crucial Democratic constituencies with policies designed to clamp down benefits and an uncompromising anti-union stance.
    Saul was fired after refusing a request to resign, White House officials said.

    Saul disputed that. “I consider myself the term-protected Commissioner of Social Security,” he said, adding that he plans to be back at work on Monday morning, signing in remotely from his New York home. He called his ouster a “Friday Night Massacre.”

    “This removal would be an unprecedented and dangerous politicization of the Social Security Administration,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell tweeted.

    “Since taking office, Commissioner Saul has undermined and politicized Social Security disability benefits, terminated the agency’s telework policy that was utilized by up to 25 percent of the agency’s workforce, not repaired SSA’s relationships with relevant Federal employee unions including in the context of COVID-19 workplace safety planning, reduced due process protections for benefits appeals hearings, and taken other actions that run contrary to the mission of the agency and the President’s policy agenda,” the White House said in a statement.

    What are the odds that his remote login credentials will still be valid on Monday morning?

  10. 10.

    Tony Jay

    Just to clarify, these are the people who are going to take up arms against Democrat tyranny and save the decent white folks from having to eat tacos?

    I am unconvinced.

  12. 12.

    JustRuss

    @dmsilev:What are the odds that his remote login credentials will still be valid on Monday morning?

    Man, I’d love to be working on the helpdesk when that call comes in.

  14. 14.

    JPL

    In Sullivan Cty TN a Contemporary Issues teacher was fired after previously showing a Coates article that was in the Atlantic, and more recently a poem.   Good news, though, he wasn’t arrested.

    lin

    So it begins.

  21. 21.

    Tony Jay

    @Frank Wilhoit:

    I wasn’t at the meeting, but when I glanced through the minutes I’m pretty sure the Taco Threshold was something the Coalition of Conservative Crackpots were deeply concerned about.

  25. 25.

    Roger Moore

    @dmsilev:

    Of course the topper is that he probably couldn’t have been fired if the Supreme Court hadn’t recently ruled that the President could fire any appointee, even if the law creating the position had been written to protect them from arbitrary firing.  Sauce for the goose…

  26. 26.

    Jeffro

    @dmsilev:“This removal would be an unprecedented and dangerous politicization of the Social Security Administration,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell tweeted.

    Well, yeah, Mitch – we sure would hate to do something unprecedented, dangerous, and political.  Like refusing to give a SCOTUS nominee a hearing for nearly a year, or rushing one through a week before an election, or doing an about-face on the guilt and punishment of a chief executive who incited a violent and deadly insurrection.

    Would hate to do something really radical like fire a Social Security official… (eyeroll x a gazillion)

  30. 30.

    Mike in NC

    @dmsilev: Better not call Saul. Hey, he was just implementing the Orange Clown’s directive to cut as many people as possible from collecting federal benefits. Because cruelty was the whole point.

  31. 31.

    Baud

    @dmsilev:

    He called his ouster a “Friday Night Massacre.”

    It happened during the day.  I don’t know someone who can’t tell time to run social security.

  32. 32.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    Meh – Jefferson Davis went to West Point. Heinrich Himmler went to Munich Tech. You can put lipstick on scum, but it’s still scum.

  33. 33.

    sdhays

    Now, I remember reading about Biden can’t fire DeJoy because that’s not how the statute was written. Does the loophole opened by the Shitty Court actually mean that Biden can wake up tomorrow and fire DeJoy?

  36. 36.

    Tony Jay

    @Nutmeg again:

    “Have you really looked at our uniforms? These helmets, they’ve got spikes on them. And don’t you think our armour looks a bit… menacing? I don’t want to be… you know… that way… but my mace has bones in it. Do the goodies have bones in their maces? I don’t think Elves have bones in their maces.”

    “Gothmog think too much.”

    “Thanks, Snargul, that helps.”

  37. 37.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    These guys are high on their own supply 

    Is “their own supply” their own farts?  Because these assclowns have their heads up their own asses.

  38. 38.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    My lawyer usually cites “Sex and the City” in her briefs.

  40. 40.

    Geminid

    @JPL: In July 1925, another Tennessee teacher, John Scopes, was put on trial for teaching the theory of evolution. This was in Dayton, Tennessee, about 150 miles southwest of Sullivan County.

    I wonder if this teacher will fight the school board in court. That could be interesting.

  42. 42.

    James E Powell

    Related topic:

    Village Trump fluffers White House press corps struggles to adjust to covering the Biden administration. It’s pretty much as we expected. They miss Trump like their days on tour with Guns n’ Roses. They are even bigger a holes than we thought and they hate the way Biden is a competent president who doesn’t give them a flaming dumpster to write about every day.

    “They’re really disciplined, they’re really risk averse, well-trained, seasoned operatives who know how to do this,” said another prominent White House reporter.

    This is stated as a bad thing.

    “Obviously, I’m not wishing that Trump was still president, but as a reporter that wants a story, it’s frustrating how disciplined they are. Kudos to them, they’re very happy with themselves. You can see it, the coverage across the board from everyone is very, very lame. You never get inside the room and hear how this shit’s going down. Like, how are they managing this elderly man?”

    Says a reporter who very clearly wishes Trump were still president. And how about that total adoption & repetition of the right-wing lie about the staff “managing this elderly man.”

    There is more along the same lines and it is infuriating, but I still recommend reading the whole thing – as the kids say – because we need to understand who & what we are dealing with.

  43. 43.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    Fun news from Vanity Fair

    In recent days I spoke with a half dozen GOP insiders about the recent flare-ups between DeSantis’s and Trump’s camps. The sources agreed that DeSantis and Trump are on an inevitable collision course as the 2024 GOP field takes shape. “There’s going to be a blowup,” a prominent Republican said. “Trump fucking hates DeSantis. He just resents his popularity,” a Trump confidant told me. Asked for comment, Trump spokesperson Liz Harrington said: “Governor DeSantis has shown great respect.”

  44. 44.

    Roger Moore

    @Baud:

    Unfortunately, I think Baud is correct on this one.  The Supreme Court’s idea is that the President can’t hire someone but not be allowed to fire them.  It’s annoying that this makes it difficult to insulate appointees from political pressure, but it makes some kind of sense.

    But the Postmaster General technically isn’t appointed by the President.  Instead, the President appoints a Board of Governors, and the board of Governors appoints the Postmaster General.  If the Supreme Court is consistent (yeah, good luck with that) then the President ought to be able to fire members of the Board of Governors and appoint new ones, but I don’t know if Biden is willing to do that.  At the very least, he should fill the open seats before thinking about firing anyone.

  46. 46.

    MomSense

    Just about to get in the car to drive upta camp.  Packed lots of food and treats.  Can’t wait to get there.

    My son in CT called and was telling us about one of the financial advisers who was bitching about masks and vaccines.  He thinks Covid is over hyped.  He actually said to my son “I mean cancer kills more people”. My son replied Yeah and everybody fucking hates cancer.

  47. 47.

    Anonymous At Work

    I am not a practicing attorney but asking those who are: How stupid and ignorant of the law does a single graduate have to be, in order to justify yanking a law school’s accreditation???

  48. 48.

    JPL

    @Geminid: Maybe that’s why they just fired him.   They didn’t want the comparison.     The article actually caused me to be teary eyed, because we really do have a lot to lose.

  49. 49.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: ​These guys are high on their own supply –

    Uh, no, that term is reserved for MD’s lone GQP Congresscritter, RWNJ whackadoodle Andy Harris (MD-01). Who in his former life, when he might actually have done some patients some good, was by trade an anesthesiologist.

    (NB Harris is best known for his actions a day or two after his first election, when he complained loudly about not receiving his gold-plated Congrescritter health care. It had to be pointed out to him that he was not yet entitled to it, as he was in fact NOT a member of Congress until sworn in – and that wouldn’t happen for nearly two months. Dumbshit.)

  51. 51.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    I was working at the store’s state liquor agency yesterday and had a young guy come in to buy some booze. He was wearing a Three Percenter shirt and I wanted to chew him out so badly but of course I couldn’t

  52. 52.

    NotMax

    When an arrest warrant is sworn out, would the be acceptance as a Rhodes collar?

  53. 53.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @bluehill:

    Smells like “cancel culture” to me. I wonder how the school board members who voted to approve that teacher’s termination would respond to being called out on the logic of “cancel culture”?

  55. 55.

    Starfish

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: The way that man in the video I shared confidently stated his Hunter Biden conspiracy theory, then went into the gallery and recorded himself spray-painting the wall and accused the gallery security of assaulting him as if it was his God-given right to walk into a gallery and deface it…

  56. 56.

    Another Scott

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):  I remember going into a barbeque joint on the way to Williamsburg, VA a few years ago and seeing a big hulking guy at another table with Moron Lube tats and so forth.  They’re everywhere, but they’re a small minority (as their “3%” nomenclature would indicate).

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  63. 63.

    Geminid

    Charlottesville has put up temporary fencing around the blocks containing the Lee and Jackson statues. Trees were trimmed to allow for a crane to be brought in. The statues are coming down, probably tonight.

  65. 65.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Another Scott:

    Oh for sure. Still pissed me off to see that crap though, especially after 1/6. I, and I’m assuming a bunch of others saw the 3%ers and the Oathkeepers as incompetent gun fetishists before, but not so much anymore, I guess

  66. 66.

    Matt

    The article states that Rhodes, a former firearms instructor, dropped a loaded handgun and it shot him in the face, blinding him in his left eye.

    His best chance to tangibly improve America, and he even screwed THAT up.

  67. 67.

    Geminid

    @NotMax: I’ve been thinking of getting an artist friend to mock up a statue of a golden calf with trump’s head. Then carry it outside the rally if that creep comes to central Virginia to campaign for odious Glenn Younkin.

  70. 70.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I didn’t know there were this many stupid doctors in the world. I find that news distressing.

    Don’t look now, hon, but the main intellectual achievement of most MDs is getting into med school in the first place. Once in, the curriculum is essentially rote memorization, sleep deprivation and other personal abuse. No creativity or ability to integrate information from diverse sources required. It’s what makes the medical God complex so utterly disgusting.

  71. 71.

    jimmiraybob

    @egorelick:  “What is it with Yale Law school? J.D. Vance, Stewart Rhodes, Kavanaugh, Thomas? It’s like they value a good story over principals.”

    The poor man’s Skull and Bones?

  75. 75.

    debbie

    @dmsilev:

    Should be a fun Monday morning.

    McConnell’s just ticked that TFG couldn’t get to politicizing SSA because he was too busy politicizing the PO, DOJ, DHS, ICE, ATF, etc. etc.

  77. 77.

    Geminid

    @dr. bloor: That’s not a golden calf, though. I’m thinking recreating the scene in The Ten Commandments. With fewer people.

  83. 83.

    dr. bloor

    @Robert Sneddon: Pretty sure the keyword here is “traitorous.”

    They should never be forgiven for their original sin, but it’s worth trying to understand it in context.  If you’re sense of history puts Washington on par with Lee, you’re not very good at history.

  85. 85.

    bluehill

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Fortunately, anyone wearing a camo t-shirt and tactical pants into a liquor store probably isn’t going to be a member of the 3% that could successfully overthrow the government.

  86. 86.

    Geminid

    @dr. bloor: Don’t know if I would get an Aaron. I thought I might be able to get a few people in period dress, chanting, “Behold, your god!”

  87. 87.

    Roger Moore

    @Anyway:

    The 3%ers (also III% or Three Percent) are a bunch of extreme right wingers.  Their name is based on the claim that only 3% of the colonial population supported the American Revolution.  They think this means they can take over and enforce their will on the country even though they’re only a tiny fraction of the country as a whole.  It’s a really dumb idea for a couple of reasons.

    First, they aren’t even close to 3% of the country, at least in their formal 3%er groups.  Maybe there are more people out there who would favor violent revolution to implement their right wing fantasies, but it’s probably not even close to 3% of the country supports violent overthrow of the government.

    Second, the 3% number is total nonsense.  The standard historical estimate is that about 1/3 of the population supported the Revolution, 1/3 opposed it, and 1/3 was indifferent or keeping their heads down.  The 3% number is the fraction of the population who actively took up arms to support the revolution, and that might be low.  Even then, it took massive foreign support to win the war.

  89. 89.

    sab

    @Roger Moore: If only 3% of the population is willing to fight for your ideas in the middle of a revolution/civil war, then probably you are doing democracy wrong.

  90. 90.

    Geminid

    @Geminid: Now I read that Charlottesville officials say there will be designated viewing areas. So maybe the statues will come down daytime tomorrow. But this could be a headfake.

    The City Council appropriated money for the purpose only yesterday. They want this over quickly.

  91. 91.

    Geminid

    @Roger Moore: That “3%” number must be too low. My understanding is that if someone visited a typical tavern in the years after the Revolutionary War, he would find that everybody fought in it.

  92. 92.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Roger Moore: That 3% number comes from the fact that the Continental Army never exceeded 90,000 people.  This, of course, ignores the people who served in militias and the fact that very few people served continually throughout the war.  I have one ancestor who serve two one year hitches.  One of them put him with Arnold at Quebec and at Ticonderoga (but on the opposite side of the lake).  There are estimates that around 250,000 people actually took up arms on the Revolutionary side during the war.

  93. 93.

    James E Powell

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    One of the big gaps in general knowledge of US history is that Americans know a great deal about the leadership and almost nothing about the people who made it happen.

  94. 94.

    Roger Moore

    @sab: ​
     
    They aren’t interested in democracy. The whole damn point of their organization is that they think a dedicated minority can impose its will on the country. They may occasionally talk about the Constitution or something, but their main goal is to get what they want and anyone who disagrees be damned.

  95. 95.

    Roger Moore

    @Omnes Omnibus: ​
     
    I think we’re more or less agreeing. The point is that the 3% number is a massive underestimate of the popularity of the Revolution, but the III%ers interpret it as evidence that they can win with only a tiny fraction of the country behind them.

  98. 98.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @James E Powell: ​
    Wow. Talk about people high on their own supply. Those quotes from reporters are like listening to a bunch of Mean Girls. They view everything in terms of asshole dominance games. Policy, the actual results of government, doesn’t exist to them. A couple at least had the self-reflection to realize that their job was easy under Trump.

  99. 99.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @James E Powell: One of the best sources for that are the pension records of the soldiers.  When they applied for a pension, they had to describe where they had been and things they had seen.  Those were matched up with regimental histories and other records for verification. Among other things, my ancestor described in some detail an argument between Arnold and Schuyler(?) which was seen as proof that he was on the scene for a known incident.​

  103. 103.

    James E Powell

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    And there are letters, diaries, and probably more memoirs than we are aware of. I think it’s a great subject waiting for a documentary, but please, keep Ken Burns away from it.

  104. 104.

    burnspbesq

    @Frank Wilhoit:

    Are tacos the new arugula?

    There were tacos long before anyone knew what arugula was. Even if they were just Sloppy Joe in a hard shell, they passed for Mexican food in high school cafeterias in New Jersey.

  105. 105.

    burnspbesq

    @Anonymous At Work:

    I am not a practicing attorney but asking those who are: How stupid and ignorant of the law does a single graduate have to be, in order to justify yanking a law school’s accreditation???

    Not ever going to happen.

  107. 107.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Geminid: My understanding is that if someone visited a typical tavern in the years after the Revolutionary War, he would find that everybody fought in it.

    Dead thread I know, but…

    This brings to mind de Gaulle’s public statement (IIRC even prior to V-E Day) to the effect that all French citizens supported the Resistance. In fact the percentage of collaborators was a lot closer to (and may in fact have exceeded) that of Trumpistas here and now, and the fraction of “apolitical” hunkerers-down as well: la Nation was shot full of hyper-Catholic anti-République reactionaries who were only too happy to see les juifs get their comeuppance. (Meilleur Hitler que Blum** was a common sentiment of the time.)

    DeGaulle was well aware of this; but his commitment to France overrode any sympathy he (as a doctrinaire Catholic) might have felt for Vichy and its supporters. He knew for a fact what he said was a lie; but he also knew it was one the French people had to accept – no matter how much it might have angered those who’d risked (and often lost) their lives to resist the occupiers – as otherwise the country would have torn itself to pieces in the aftermath.

    You who are reading this blog should consider the likelihood that, even in the happy instance that the forces of American democracy manage to send the fascisti scurrying back under their rocks, some future POTUS – perhaps (perhaps especially) one of an historically mistreated minority – will find it incumbent to proclaim an equivalent “necessary fiction” if this nation is to move further ahead.

    ** Referring to Léon Blum, Jewish socialist Premier of France briefly in the 1930s – who after an assassination attempt and later a Nazi concentration camp survived to see the end of the war.

  109. 109.

    Albatrossity

    I’m sorry to be late to this thread.

    But the only part of this that makes no sense at all is  “boutique hotel in Lubbock Texas”.

  110. 110.

    J R in WV

    @David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch:

    Meh – Jefferson Davis went to West Point. Heinrich Himmler went to Munich Tech. You can put lipstick on scum, but it’s still scum.

    Oh, come on David. Surely you have seen a woman person put on lipstick. Scum is too glopy and structure-less to take the application o f Lipstick at all. Now, a Pig — you can put lipstick on a pig, it IS still a pig.          ;~)

  111. 111.

    J R in WV

    @Robert Sneddon:

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): ​

    Traitorous slavers shouldn’t be honored

    You mean like George Washington?

    George W. wasn’t traitorous towards the US, only towards George III. I dunno if he swore an oath to G. III when he fought alongside the English in the French and Indian Wars. If that’s what that war is still called…

  112. 112.

    J R in WV

    @There go two miscreants: ​
     

    TIL who Florence Foster Jenkins was.

    It is a great movie, built like a comedy, but very gradually you realized it was so not funny, really. Won’t say why or how to avoid spoilers, but if you like great sneaky drama you should check it out.

    You will have to ignore the pain caused by the singing, it is worth it.

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