As you probably heard, over the weekend the cops nabbed a man named Ryan Faircloth, who busted a window with a rock and threw a (fortunately defective) IED into a county Democratic Party building in Austin, Texas. Faircloth is being held on a $40K bond for arson and vandalism charges by the state, but it looks like the feds have also lodged a felony charge. That may be why Faircloth is still in jail instead of bonded out via wingnut GoFundMe.
I hope the federal charges are robust because Faircloth is not a damned firebug; he’s a domestic terrorist. His Facebook page, which was still live as recently as yesterday, was a stream of anti-mask and anti-vax bullshit and anti-Democratic Party invective, plus lots of pictures of a beautiful dog who I hope is now being cared for by a better person.
Faircloth is dumber than dirt, so he was easily caught. He drove his pickup past cameras when committing the crime and shared incriminating information via text with someone who immediately turned him in. The latter is a mistake a lot of the people who got busted for rioting in the Capitol Building made.
Speaking of insurrectionists, Proud Boys associate and accused rioter Paul Rae of the Tampa Bay area was busted Saturday for boating under the influence after he ran a vessel aground and was released on his own recognizance yesterday. Rae was busted in March for taking part in the Capitol riot. In a pretrial hearing, he was released with restrictions that included wearing a monitoring device to ensure he remained home except for “necessary travel.”
The court probably didn’t include drunk boating as “necessary travel,” so I’m not sure why Rae was released after this latest incident. Maybe the feds and state don’t coordinate? Wouldn’t the presence of a monitoring device on Rae’s ankle give the local authorities pause prior to releasing him on his own recognizance? Apparently not. Let’s hope the feds revoke his pretrial release agreement.
In the Austin case, a fire official’s remarks on the crime at a press conference came under criticism when he described the motives of the suspect, i.e., “he wasn’t happy with the political situation.” Some folks said the official came off as sympathetic to the suspect, a fellow white man. I wouldn’t go that far, but it’s true that officials didn’t allude to the 9/11 hijackers as being unhappy about the political situation in explaining the rationale behind their crimes. They called them monsters who were trying to destroy America.
We have a growing domestic terrorism problem, but so far, it doesn’t look like the government is responding with anything like the energy and focus it invested in rooting out foreign terrorism after 9/11. Some of that is good, of course. The U.S. badly overreacted to 9/11 in innumerable ways. But underreacting is dangerous too. I hope we can find a Goldilocks response, because treating dolts like Faircloth and Rae like ordinary criminals is tantamount to coddling them. And that won’t end well.
Open thread.
Tom Levenson
You’re absolutely right, and this is the kind of thing where I think calling one’s representatives to ask/demand that they push the FBI and DoJ on enforcement here is useful.
I’ll be on the phone shortly to my congressman, Jake Auchinloss, and my senators, Warren and Markey
Roger Moore
Assuming it was still there. It seems very likely that he found some way of taking the monitor off and was running around without it, thinking he had duped the feds into believing he was safely home the whole time. Otherwise he would likely be caught when the feds checked the records of where he had been. It seems likely that this will be brought up at his next hearing.
lowtechcyclist
Seriously. With the January 6th insurrectionists, it bugs the hell out of me that a lot of them are just getting charged with trespassing, rather than, say, breaking and entering. And certainly anyone out on bail, or released on their own recognizance, should be back in jail awaiting trial at the first whiff of a crime.
Like you say, this is serious shit. And if the consequences for these acts aren’t a big deal, then they’ll not only keep on doing the shit they’re doing, but will be emboldened to escalate. We shouldn’t wait until there’s another Tim McVeigh before we crack down on this bullshit.
laura
If the domestic terrorists would stop being entitled white men and entitled white boys, I’m sure law enforcement will get right on it. While tfg may be their current passing fancy, they long for Timothy McVeigh. And if memory serves, an internal report on domestic terrorism remains collecting dust because the media and the GOP got their panties in a massive wad because it identified the sources of domestic terrorism to be white men and boys. Or was I mistaken?
Anoniminous
Seeing as how coddling an egg means to place it in 165–180 °F water I’d be excited if we started coddling QAnon & etc.
Betty
The problem does seem to involve sympathetic law enforcement who have trouble taking these attacks seriously. The solution seems elusive at the moment.
Betty
@lowtechcyclist: Some of the judges hearing these cases agree with you and are questioning prosecutors about the charges.
laura
@lowtechcyclist: Nobody benefits from overcharging. Please consider that many of the insurrectionists were MAGA goober tourists amongst the hard core, the coordinators and funders and the architects. It’s a slow process watching what can be seen of the wheels of justice. If Karen with the big hair and private jet gets probation, I can sleep at night. If 3pers and PB and Eastman and Pence and that last fucker get real federal time – as they should, I’d really get some deep sleep.
Emptywheel is a great sour e for this.
Mike in NC
Two articles in Monday’s USA Today. One on the number of police officers and military that have gravitated to the Oathkeepers lunatic fringe, and another on the burning ambition of Greg Abbott to bring the shit he’s done in Texas to the rest of the country. Abbott wants to be Trump on steroids. Slap that fucker down hard.
hells littlest angel
Yeah, it’s puzzlingFloridaRoger Moore
@Betty:
A big part of any solution will be to reform law enforcement. It’s going to be a long, painful slog.
Ocotillo
By in large, we (America) have been fortunate that the coup attempt and many of these acts of domestic terrorism have been amateurish. Eventually, some of these Bubbas are going to be more competent and there will be something tragic.
This is not to diminish what happened 1/6, people died and democracy was weakened but I am speaking more broadly of the clowns Betty mentions above and the Michigan goobers who wanted to kidnap the Governor.
Think about it though, these a-holes are trying to take elected officials into custody for God knows what because they don’t agree with their politics.
J.
“When you’re a white male Republican, they let you do it. You can do anything.”
O/T I just read that Casey DeSantis (wife of RegeneRon) has breast cancer. If true, I feel for her (thoughts, prayers, etc.) Cancer sucks. But the cynic in me wonders if a) she really does, or b) DeathSantis is using this awful bit of news to make himself seem sympathetic in the public’s eye/deflect from the hoopla surrounding the very unpopular anti-abortion bill and ongoing Covid numbers/fights with school districts. Thoughts?
justawriter
The decades long project of working the refs (going back to the Bush and Clinton years -“jackbooted thugs”, Ruby Ridge, Waco) to demonize police actions not directed at POC or “hippies” has created a system where a redneck, excuse me, a conservative citizen, is more likely to be punished for poaching a deer while drunk than assaulting federal property or officials.
The Dangerman
@Anoniminous:
SousLoser Vide?Ocotillo
@justawriter: Clive Bundy says, yessir to that.
Immanentize
@Ocotillo:
I think people get to “by in large” from hearing “by ‘n’ large.”
SteveinWTF was on coffee break.
lowtechcyclist
@Betty:
Glad to hear it.
For a dissenting opinion, we go to:
@laura:
The reason why I disagree is that there really aren’t enough people in that hard core to do it all by themselves. Even the deliberately understaffed Capitol police on duty that day could have stopped the hard core types if it had been just them. They really need the mob for sheer overwhelming mass.
And the people in the mob are the easiest ones to discourage – IF their escapade at the Capitol costs them a couple years in prison. If they mostly get six months’ probation, the mob will be bigger next time.
Another Scott
@Betty: Yeah, but sympathetic may be much too mild a term.
Grr…
(via Popehat)
Cheers,
Scott.
Professor Bigfoot
Treat them the way this country treats Black criminals.
That won’t happen, though, because these are white men, and from my perspective white men always look out for each other.
JPL
The news media spoke about Clinton’s blow job more than they did the attack on our Capitol on January 6th. It’s not surprising to me at all that domestic terrorists are handled differently.
JPL
@Professor Bigfoot: Well in this particular case, he didn’t pass a counterfeit bill.
Time to call my rep and Senators before the republicans take over the state again.
Omnes Omnibus
@lowtechcyclist: Probation for a federal crime is no joke.
Mike in NC
Every day I see more of those black and white American flags with either a blue stripe (cops) or a red one (firefighters). I was in the Navy for 30 years and didn’t have to have my very own special snowflake banner. Why do these angry white guys need them?
Omnes Omnibus
@Professor Bigfoot: We would be a better country if we did the reverse.
Anoniminous
@The Dangerman:
The basis of Science is Experiments. So let’s set it up and see what happens.
For SCIENCE!
Professor Bigfoot
@JPL: was that ever actually established?
laura
@lowtechcyclist: Apologies, I didn’t realize that you had expertise in the federal criminal justice system and insights into probation v. incarceration, sentencing guidelines, appeals and the like.
Hoodie
@Professor Bigfoot: Yeah, I’d like it if they actually did treat them like criminals. I would have preferred that with respect to the 9/11 terrorists, it might have led to more rational response to 9/11. These organizations are mostly criminal gangs with a veneer of political purpose. A lot of these right wing terrorists are violence junkies, not committed revolutionaries. The latter applies more to the sleazy political and media types who egg them on but don’t do the actual crimes.
Betty Cracker
@J.: I assume she really has it and also that they’ll use that unfortunate situation for maximum political benefit. (I was going to say “milk it,” but oy!) From what I’ve read, the wife serves as RegeneRon’s top advisor, so she must be a terrible person too. I wish them both long, healthy lives in a howling political wilderness.
Professor Bigfoot
Theory: the majority of white people— particularly white men— are terrified of sharing power with Black people.
Terrified, really, and outraged at the idea of a Black person “ruling over them.”
Ultimately, fear and outrage at Black political power, as evidenced by their reaction to the election of Barack Obama, their willingness to take the symbol of the Confederacy into the Capitol.
The real divide in this country is not between the so-called “left” and “right,” it’s between those who believe that Black people are full citizens of this country, with all the rights thereof (like to carry a gun, to run for office and if elected to serve in that office, to fucking vote)— and those who do not.
Benw
Who among us hasn’t made the youthful, innocent mistake of hucking an IED into a politician’s office when under economic anxiety?
Betty Cracker
@Hoodie: Like hate crimes, the effects of terrorist violence reach (and are intended to reach) beyond a specific building burned, an individual murder committed, etc., so I can see the logic in making the penalties more severe.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@J.: The cynic in me thinks she does but her husband is using it to generate sympathy for himself and deflect criticism. There are radically different types and stages of breast cancer. Hopesully she has the “good” kind. The kind thats caught warly, and has not spread.
That’s what my mom had when she was about 68/69. Carcinoma in situ, she had a tiny self contained lump, no spread. They caught it really early. just a few doses of Chemo, with very few side effects, in her case. She lived another 15 years with no re-occurrence.
My husband’s sister on the other hand has stage 4, metastatic breast cancer…which is really…not good.
Old Man Shadow
I would not mind if the legal system treated these goobers like regular criminals.
The problem is that it seems to be treating them like “just some good ol’ boys. Never meaning no harm.”
jl
I agree with BC that it is important to call these people and their backers what they are. These people are operating to further to cause of well-funded backers and groups that are running conspiracies to systematically subvert our laws on a wide front.
So we’ll see. Right now the charges look like an application of the broken windows and stop-and-frisk policies that have long been applied to the political activity of racial/ethnic minorities, like Blacks and Native Americans, and progressives, and pretty much anyone left of Manchin in opposing corporate interests.
OTOH, many of the foot soldiers of these conspiracies are also mentally unbalanced and have serious psych/emotional problems. If they keep running around out and about, and endangering people while drunk, stoned, threatening public health or public safety generally in some sort of fugue state or mental breakdown, what are we going to do? Have pick them up asap for those problems.
So, we’ll see.
Betty Cracker
@Professor Bigfoot: I don’t think it’s the majority of whites, but I agree it’s a large enough plurality to cause lots of problems. I also don’t believe that the overriding explanation for this country’s divisions is racism. That’s definitely a huge factor, but attributing everything to racism is just as wrong-headed as attributing everything to economic inequality, IMO. It also erases other significant factors, like sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, etc. Our pathologies are multifaceted and intersectional.
trollhattan
Attention to Ron Johnson: Your status of Stupidest Senator is being challenged, hard, by the senator from Tennessee.
The move, senator, is yours.
lowtechcyclist
@Omnes Omnibus:
Maybe it isn’t, but do you think the next MAGAt who answers the call to be part of one of these mobs is going to think, ‘omigod, I’d better not do this, I could get probation?”
Buahahahahaha.
@laura:
And I didn’t realize I told you I had.
You don’t need a degree in criminal justice to know that if the cost of committing a crime appears minimal, people who’d like to commit that crime are more likely to follow through.
jl
@Betty Cracker: I think, as Adam Smith said, ‘there is a lot of ruin in a country’. I’d add that there are also many kinds of ruin.
Some of these people are die hard bigots and religious fanatics (actually from a traditional Christian point of view, heretics, though as one theologian said, established religions in free societies don’t think that way these days). Nothing can be done about the vast majority of these people.
Others are victims of cynical manipulation of GOP which has definitely gone racial identity nationalist and authoritarian, except with out any benefits for the racial groups they claim to be helping and defending. I think some substantial proportion of these people are salvageable, but will take more person-to-person outreach into these people’s communities.
And then, cynical manipulation by GOP pols and their backers creates feedback that forces them to move further into the darkness. After reading the histories of many of the political leaders famous for their racism, it is interesting how many started as moderates, but grassroots political pressure forced them into bigotry.
I think the feedback loops really need to be recognized, and the different groups that are reacting to the feedback loops. I mean these social phenomena are at least as complicated as your fricken thermostat for your central heating, right?
Edit: assuming the swamp goddess BC has any use for central heating in her magical kingdom.
Another Scott
@lowtechcyclist: The common-clay people at the 1/6 rally were told by TFG that he was going to be there with them. They thought it was Ok.
They were gullible and mislead. Sending them to overcrowded prisons won’t help (it’ll clog up the courts, turn the public against the prosecutions, and delay the trials for the ringleaders, for one thing).
Cheers,
Scott.
JoyceH
@JPL:
One thing I’ve never seen in all the coverage of the Floyd murder is whether or not the bill was actually counterfeit. And if it was, did Floyd even know that it was. Because the whole point of counterfeiting is to trick people into thinking it’s a real bill and a lot of the people using them as currency are doing so in all innocence.
Professor Bigfoot
@Betty Cracker: indeed they are…but who are the problem people in each case?
Yup. White dudes.
Ksmiami
GITMO them and throw away the key. This is political violence and domestic terrorism. When can we replace Garland? He’s the wrong man for the times.
Ruckus
@jl:
Political leaders who feel themselves forced into bigotry are not moderates, they are racists. They spoke as moderates because that’s what it takes to win over a lot of people, even some who are racist. Once they are comfortably ensconced into political office, their true character comes out and often they find that it doesn’t hurt them at that point and may help them.
Professor Bigfoot
From 1865 to the present, white supremacist seditionists and traitors have been treated with kid gloves.
Look, for example, at Alexander Stephens’ post war career.
Betty Cracker
@Professor Bigfoot: My guess is sexism and homophobia are at least as prevalent in non-white communities than among whites.
Roger Moore
@lowtechcyclist:
But the question is what level of cost appears minimal. My impression is that most of the people who participated in the 1/6 coup attempt assumed there would be no consequences at all, or even positive consequences if they succeeded. Just having to defend themselves in court, having a criminal record, etc. has been enough to get many of the minor players scared. Maybe there will still be enough people who aren’t scared off, but it’s flatly wrong to think nobody has been scared off by even the minor consequences they have faced.
Professor Bigfoot
@Betty Cracker: fair point, but who’s always at the top of the pyramid?
lowtechcyclist
@Another Scott:
When my wife’s grandmother was sending checks in response to every religiously-tinged right-wing mail or phone solicitation as her mind was slipping away, she was gullible and misled.
The people who broke into the Capitol on January 6th may have been misled, but when you break through fences, fight with cops, and break into the freakin’ U.S. Capitol when it’s not open for your tour group, if some small part of you doesn’t know you’re doing something very, very wrong no matter who encouraged you to do it, then I’ve got no fucking sympathy.
And the authoritarian mindset that if Dear Leader tells you to do bad shit, then it’s really OK, should be nipped in the bud anyway. That’s the road to “I vas only followink orders.” Hell, it’s not the road to it, it’s the thing itself.
There are 2,000,000 people incarcerated in this country. Yes, that’s way too many, but a few hundred more isn’t going to break the system.
Can’t speak to all of this, but they’re already clogging up the courts.
As for turning the public against the prosecutions? My bet is that it’ll break down on Covid lines. The MAGAts and the anti-vaxxers will be basically the same people, and they’ll be pissed. But my bet is that the same people who are tired to death of the anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers throwing sand in the gears, are also fed up with these people who almost overturned our democracy getting off with slaps on the wrist.
Professor Bigfoot
@Another Scott: Please don’t take this the wrong way, but why is it white men can always find a way to minimize and excuse away the actions of other white men?
Are they all Brock Turner?
Professor Bigfoot
@Betty Cracker: oh, by the way— obviously white supremacy isn’t the ONLY divider… but I’m convinced it is, right now, the BIGGEST divider.
Otherwise we wouldn’t have virtually ALL Black people in only one of the two political parties.
Chief Oshkosh
@laura: the jetsetting Karen’s potential harm to society is what she does with her money and influence. So, try her and, if found guilty, take her money (fines, garnish wages, etc.) and come up with alternative sentencing, like maybe, disallowing any social media/internet access. I don’t think society benefits from incarcerating her, but she and her ilk should not be allowed to do any further damage whatsoever.
lowtechcyclist
@Roger Moore:
I thought I’d made it clear that I’m not talking about the people who were there that day, but rather the people who might or might not be part of the next such event.
It’s a question of who gets scared off by the minor and only barely newsworthy consequences some stranger has faced.
Betty Cracker
@Professor Bigfoot: Again, my point isn’t that white supremacy isn’t a huge problem. It’s that it isn’t the ONLY problem.
Nora Lenderbee
@Another Scott: “Gullible and mislead” is not adequate to describe the people who beat a police officer to death, or the people who pissed and crapped in Congressional offices.
Hoodie
@Betty Cracker: I’m ok for increased punishments for hate crimes based on race or other prejudices, but I think you risk validating these yahoos’ political stances when their politics is actually utter nonsense based on wigged out conspiracy theories. Their politics is more like an excuse for them acting out their feelings of inadequacy. It’s not like these are warriors for national liberation from a foreign colonial oppressor.
Ksmiami
@Hoodie: the second they start killing Capitol police and breaching the security of our National Democratic institutions is the second they lose any leniency
polyorchnid octopunch
@Mike in NC: Compensation.
lowtechcyclist
Also, it isn’t just the 1/6 mob. It’s the people who are harassing doctors and nurses all over the country, it’s the people who are threatening local election officials and local health officers.
There’s a rising tide of violence in our country, and while TFG gave the MAGAts permission to act on their worst impulses, the MAGAts are the ones who chose, and keep on choosing, to act that way.
If there’s no serious pushback, it will only get worse.
Betty Cracker
@Hoodie: An argument where ALL people who use violence and intimidation for political gain (i.e., terrorists) should be treated like common criminals or ALL should be classified as terrorists makes sense to me. It’s the double standard that rankles. The 9/11 hijackers’ crank theology is as nonsensical as QAnon, IMO, and bin Laden was probably as driven by daddy issues as anything else. But one is a terrorist and the other merely criminal? Makes no sense to me.
Skepticat
@lowtechcyclist:
Let’s say SEDITION, TREASON, AND TERRORISM.
Another Scott
@Nora Lenderbee: Indeed. Those people aren’t the one’s I’m talking about.
I’m talking about people like the woman who was trampled to death outside – she was gullible and misled. Or those who went inside and quickly left without doing any damage.
There are lots of grey areas where prosecutors can use their judgement. I’m Ok with them doing so with those who didn’t cause property damage, didn’t commit violence, etc.
Cheers,
Scott.
The Moar You Know
@J.: I normally take people at their word about this stuff but DeSantis is depraved enough to fake it, and I’m sure his wife is not a far better person than he’s showed himself to be.
lowtechcyclist
Responding to Betty C. and Skepticat:
Where I think I’ve come down on this is that the following people should be charged with sedition or whatever’s in that ballpark that fits the bill: (a) were behind the insurrection but not present – organizers, planners, funders, definitely including TFG; and (b) the hardcore types who were there, who came prepared to do violence, who had an arsenal on the other side of the river in case it turned out to prove useful.
The people who weren’t in either of those categories, the dumb MAGAts from a variety of walks of life, but were part of the mob, providing the sheer numbers that overwhelmed the Capitol police, should be treated like common criminals, and should be charged with the most heavy-duty everyday crimes that apply to what they did. Hence the breaking-and-entering for anyone who actually entered the Capitol building, even if all they did inside was wander around and take pictures. If there’s evidence that justifies more serious charges, I’m good with that too. That’s what would happen to any common criminal.
But nobody who entered the Capitol that day should be treated as if they committed only a minor offense, e.g. misdemeanor trespassing, and be allowed to go free – even if they’re on probation, even if they have to wear an ankle bracelet, even if they’re under house arrest.
And people who issue threats against fellow citizens they disagree with, or against major or minor officeholders who they’ve gotten themselves riled up at, or against doctors and nurses who are doing their level best to save as many lives as possible – there are laws against such threats, and they should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law for making those threats. Too many local officials are becoming afraid to continue in their jobs, and many have quit over the past year or so. This should not be happening in America, full stop. So this must be prosecuted to the extent the law allows.
And of course if you actually commit or attempt to commit violent acts, like the Molotov cocktail guy, or the group that plotted to kidnap and probably kill Gov. Whitmer, you’re a terrorist, and prosecutors should prosecute you as they would a terrorist.
Hoodie
@Betty Cracker: Oh, I agree. I just prefer the former over the latter. If you go with the latter, you have the risk of casting crazy political beliefs as some type of quasi-legitimate rejection of the system or an alternative lifestyle rather than excuses for criminality. That leads to stuff like this stupid cop talking about the bomber “not liking the political situation” instead of saying the guy is just a dangerous criminal who damaged property with reckless disregard for life and we really don’t give a shit as to why he did it. I want them to know we don’t give a shit about their politics, that they are not even worth talking about, but if they engage in violent crime they will be punished like any other criminal. You form a conspiracy to kidnap a member of Congress, that’s not expressing a political view, it’s human trafficking. Put this guy in prison with guys who burn down buildings or kill people for profit, same diff.
Professor Bigfoot
@Betty Cracker: As usual, we’re very much in agreement.
It’s just that being Black in this country makes the “white” in “white nationalist” and “white supremacist” and “white Christian” really stand out, y’know?
It seems like it’s really easy for white people to discount the power of whiteness… and to *always* give other white people the benefit of the doubt.
Professor Bigfoot
@Betty Cracker: exactly. It’s the never ending double-standard that drives up ones blood pressure.
After all, what’s the real difference between the 9/11 murderers and the Q crew?
Which one is ostensibly “white” and supposedly “Christian?”
J R in WV
@jl:
Once you get so far south, the AC control loop becomes more important than the central heat loop, most of the time. BC is probably in the AC loop area for the vast majority of the year, and could get by with a small wood stove as needed.
Torrey
@Chief Oshkosh:
I’m not sure where you get the idea that society doesn’t have an interest in incarcerating the jetsetting Karen. After all, harm also occurs when a wealthy white woman is allowed to get off with loss of wages and “no more Facebook for you, young lady!” in a situation where a low-income woman of color would get jail time. Something about equal justice under the law. In fact, a pretty good argument could be made that with a prison record Ms. Gotbucks would find it a lot harder to exert that influence or at least that it would do her and everyone else some good if she were to get a time-out from the playroom for a while.
The Pale Scot
@Professor Bigfoot:
Chocolate City
sab
@Professor Bigfoot: Yep, especially when every Oklahoma City ten year anniversary comes around and not a public peep anywhere.
McVeigh blew up a day care center full of tiny children in addition to the federal building. And years later it’s just yawn. He wasn’t a foreigner angry that we had our troops in his country. He was supposedly one of us, and his ilk are still trotting around causing ever increasing trouble yet again.
The Pale Scot
I understand that horse paste and bleach injections are an effective treatment for various cancers
Starfish
@Another Scott: I have a problem with you treating grown adults who chose to go to DC on 1/6 as if they had no agency in their own actions.
Starfish
@Torrey: Did jetsetting Karen go into the building, or are we pissed that she took a private jet to some dumb MAGA garbage?