It took under two hours of deliberatation for jurors who heard the case of Thomas Webster, a former NYPD cop charged in the violent attack on the Capitol. He was convicted on all charges. Webster was one of the goons caught on camera assaulting cops with a metal flagpole.
Absurdly, he claimed self-defense at trial, testifying that the cops defending the building were mistreating peaceful protesters. The jury didn’t buy it, and the NYT says the speed with which Webster was convicted may give other violent insurrectionists pause about going to trial instead of entering a plea deal.
As [Webster] approached the barricades that surrounded the building, he told the jury, a Metropolitan Police Department officer, Noah Rathbun, provoked him with a brief wave then threw a punch at him that struck him like a “freight train.”
But videos played by the prosecution cast doubt on this account, showing Mr. Webster emerging from the crowd and berating officers at the barricades in a state of foul-mouthed rage. Mr. Webster could be seen in the videos repeatedly pushing at the barricades, then swinging a flagpole at Officer Rathbun before he shoved through the police line and tackled the officer.
The Times also notes that at around the same time Webster was convicted, in a nearby DC courtroom, another insurrectionist who had pleaded guilty to assaulting cops during the riot was sentenced to 27 months in prison. The Justice Department is now 4-0 on all the trials completed related to the January 6 assault on the Capitol complex.
Open thread.
Old School
Lock him up!
sukabi
Good. About time Blue on Blue violence was addressed.
TonyG
“Former NYPD”. New York’s Finest.
debbie
Good. It’s well-deserved, if only for the “provoked with a brief wave” defense.
Betsy
Yay! Thanks for this nice bit of news, Betty.
Chip Daniels
Imagine a young black man assaulting a cop, and think of how that would play out.
West of the Rockies
I hope the June televised committee hearings are as explosive as promised. I want Republicans on the ropes, ruined and defenseless.
Jerzy Russian
How long could Mr. Webster potentially spend in the Big House? The linked article is behind a paywall for me.
Old School
@Jerzy Russian:
Jerzy Russian
@West of the Rockies:
That would be a good start. I would add “shamed” but we have to be realistic.
Jerzy Russian
@Old School: Thanks.
Omnes Omnibus
These keep happening. It’s almost like prosecutors are steadily doing their jobs.
PPCLI
Self-defence, eh? Not only is the story he told obviously false, but let’s say for a moment that it were true.Does the NYPD have the view that if an officer on duty hits you, you are legally allowed to strike them with a metal object? I hadn’t heard that.
Mike in NC
I wish we didn’t have to wait until June for the January 6 hearings. Meanwhile, the media is obsessed over which nitwit will prevail in the GQP’s US Senate primary. Trump endorsed Vance and promptly forgot his name, which should surprise nobody at all.
West of the Rockies
@Jerzy Russian:
Republicans truly seem collectively and constitutionally incapable of shame, don’t they?
Steeplejack
On a lighter note, I’ve been catching up on the Post coverage of the WHCD. Some good quips from Trevor Noah I hadn’t seen before.
NotMax
@Mike in NC
“No mystery why Your Favorite President endorsed Howie Mandel. He’s on the TV.”
//
lowtechcyclist
@Old School:
And may he have to serve every last second of it.
I want these guys to grow old in prison. The more time they have to serve, the less likely it’ll be that others will think it’s just gonna be a big party the next time that they’d hate to miss out on.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Omnes Omnibus: I haven’t seen stuff like this amplified nearly as much as all the “Merrick Garland do your job!” posturing
scav
YES! It is a good day. Ha.
ETA. went to get a cookie to celebrate.
Spanky
@lowtechcyclist: Wait ’til his new friends find out he’s an ex-cop!
Soprano2
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: But it’s not TFG being led away in handcuffs, so it doesn’t count for anything. /s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s
Omnes Omnibus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think we are outliers on that.
Ben Cisco
@lowtechcyclist:
I’m down with this plan. Ignorance of the law (and there has apparently been rather a bit of it) is no excuse.
Gravenstone
@Old School: Guess the plea deal might have been the better option…
Gravenstone
Arguably worse, he mangled it and conflated it with Josh Mandel’s.
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Most of the knocks on Garland I see on Twitter are related to the lack of apparent progress charging big fish political operatives. The fear is that goons like Webster (and the vast majority of other foot soldiers who are pleading out) will be all the accountability we’ll ever see. I don’t think that’s knowable yet, but given our history of failing to hold powerful people to account, it’s not an unreasonable fear, IMO.
Wag
@PPCLI: Once an entitled policeman, always an entitled policeman.
Mike E
@Steeplejack: That José Andrés/CNN joke is perfect!. Chef’s kiss!
scav
@Betty Cracker: Still don’t want to let the foot-soldiers off because the damage ring-leaders could do in future would be still greater if they could get more “tourists” to do their bidding.
Betty Cracker
@scav: Ideally, all of the criminals would be held accountable.
MazeDancer
Open Thread Update:
Yesterday, we were discussing why no GOP on the Speaker’s trip to Ukraine.
We speculated there were likely none she could trust not to leak. And she might have to go through Kevin McCarthy, guaranteed leak.
Answer is: She invited. She issued an invitation to go on a Congressional trip to Poland. No GOP takers.
Actual destination was not revealed for security reasons.
hueyplong
@PPCLI: Or, better still, that it’s OK to attack NYPD with a metal rod if “provoked by a brief wave.”
Makes “stand your ground” seem like child’s play.
cain
@Mike E: I see what you did there.
scav
@Betty Cracker: Absolutely. But I’m still going to celebrate these instances of justice.
cain
So the supreme court decided that if you ant to raise a christian flag, you can! We’re going to be seeing a lot of Christian flags. :/ So much for separation of church and state.
But I suspect the law of unintended consequences – I expect the Church of Satan to be really busy :-)
Gravenstone
Heh, pretty much exactly what I proposed elsewhere. That the Republicans would be told of the Poland visit, but the Ukrainian component would only be revealed in flight. Possibly not even until they landed, to keep treasonous fingers from Tweeting out vital info.
UncleEbeneezer
In addition to this, a couple of the leaders of the Proud Boys and Oathkeepers have recently pled guilty and agreed to cooperate with DOJ. Which raises the question: why? Prosecutors usually expect something in return when it comes to cooperation. Wouldn’t these agreements be a pretty good sign that DOJ is building the case and looking to go even higher up?
On a related note:
#BREAKING: A judge has selected nearly two-dozen Fulton County residents who will help prosecutors determine whether former President Donald Trump and his allies unlawfully tried to meddle in Georgia’s 2020 elections #gapol
UncleEbeneezer
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Right and as I just commented, isn’t this cooperation agreement a pretty good indication that DOJ is working it’s way up to bigger fish? That’s the whole point of getting defendants to cooperate, no?
lowtechcyclist
@Betty Cracker:
This. Back in 1973, it seemed pretty clear that everybody up to and including Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and Mitchell were going to get nabbed; the only question was whether Nixon himself would suffer any consequences (counting loss of office as a consequence).
If TFG managed to avoid indictment, but everyone around him who played a nontrivial role in his coup attempt got sent to prison, I’d be less than satisfied, but I’d still figure that would discourage persons in the next Republican administration from being accomplices. Assuming they don’t manage to entirely gut our democracy first, that is. I’d like to be sure that Garland & Co. will at least take it that far.
lowtechcyclist
@UncleEbeneezer:
The problem is bridging the divide between the street goons and the suits. Getting the street goons to cooperate doesn’t mean you’re going to nab the suits.
Brachiator
@cain:
I am tempted to join the Church of Satan, just for the hell of it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Betty Cracker:
it’s not, not at all, but that fear should come from the fact that the American people have failed to hold trump et al to account, not that Merrick Garland isn’t hurling magic thunderbolts of righteousness, or Democrats aren’t Doing Something. Impeachment was the thunderbolt of righteousness, and at some point between January 6 and February 13, Mitch McConnell went from predicting that 20+ Rs would vote to convict (if I’m remembering the drips from that Burns and Martin book correctly) to calculating, so far correctly, that he could afford to actively lobby people like Blount and Portman to acquit. If accountability comes through the criminal court system, it will be this way, from the bottom up, piece by piece.
Brachiator
@Steeplejack:
Noah followed this with a pretty good impression of Obama speaking to Biden.
Noah’s remarks are probably on YouTube. Definitely worth a watch.
lowtechcyclist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
No, it comes from its being a one-day story when “the Good Bush” pardoned all the Iran-Contra crew, from when Scooter Libby was the only one indicted in that bit of fooforaw, from when nobody faced criminal charges over the robosigning scandal that was the most obviously illegal machination that resulted in the Great Recession, the list goes on. The fear that the big shots will get off is based on decades of observation prior to 2016.
prostratedragon
@lowtechcyclist: But it does suggest that if you don’t get them it will be for lack of trying what has worked in the past. Nixon was looking at trial before a Presidential pardon saved him.
Steeplejack
@Brachiator:
There’s a long video clip at the Post story that includes the Obama impression. Judge Jeanine at Waffle House was the best! ?
prostratedragon
@Brachiator: I really thought about it too, for a moment. In the end, nahh…
UncleEbeneezer
@lowtechcyclist: The knock on Garland isn’t that he won’t be able to get the suits it’s that he doesn’t even want to. DOJ efforts to get cooperation suggest that that is not the case.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@lowtechcyclist: those, too. Criminal prosecutions have historically been a poor solution to political problems
Omnes Omnibus
@UncleEbeneezer: Yes. Either would indicate problems with our system. I don’t object to people being cynical about Garland’s chances of being successful. I do think that accusations of not trying are so far unwarranted.
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The incontrovertible fact that millions of American voters are morons and that Mitch McConnell is a corrupt, scheming ghoul are related but separate issues, IMO. People don’t have to be believers in “magic thunderbolts of justice” to recognize that there is an actual history of “bottom up, piece by piece” pursuits of justice against the powerful in this country that somehow never get beyond that bottom layer, and not for lack of criminality at the top. The stakes being what they are right now, it’s understandable if people are anxious about it, IMO. YMMV.
gene108
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The DOJ does not have infinite time to prosecute the 1/6 organizers.
Worst case scenario is Dems lose the White House in 2024. On January 20, 2025, the 1/6 investigation effectively ends.
So much of “let the DOJ do their jobs, time doesn’t matter” seems contingent on Democrats winning in 2024.
Omnes Omnibus
@gene108: An end to the Jan6 commuter would not stop the DOJ from continuing its investigation. They are different things.
lowtechcyclist
It’s just that it hasn’t worked for a long time.
I’m not saying this time won’t be different, I’m saying that the fears that the big shots will get off yet again are quite reasonable. And while this time could be different, I’ll be afraid it’s going to be the same old same old until indictments come down for the big players.
Too often even the supposed Good Guys have failed to come through. Don’t try to tell me these fears are irrational, or that the desire for Garland to hurry up with those indictments isn’t a quite natural reaction, given our sad history.
lowtechcyclist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Look, when ‘political’ actions involve criminal activity, people should be charged. A lot of people at the time and for years afterwards said the Watergate convictions were punishing people for political actions. Sure, they were political, but they were also illegal.
You can’t be allowed to get away with crimes just because they were committed in the service of a political goal. That is fucking bullshit.
Old School
@Omnes Omnibus: gene108 said in 2025. Not 2023.
Omnes Omnibus
@Old School: Mea culpa.
ETA: Okay, if we aren’t getting somewhere by then, I will be very concerned as well.
lowtechcyclist
@UncleEbeneezer:
Maybe some people have thought it through to that degree of specificity. I confess that I haven’t. It’s just the dread that this time will be “just like the time before, and the time before that,” to quote a certain Nobel laureate. Until it’s proven to be different this time, of course that dread will persist in the hearts of many of us.
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus: MERRICK GARLAND ARGLE BARGLE
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Betty Cracker: I think I already said I think those fears and anxiety are reasonable, so I won’t bother to repeat that. My concern is misdirected anger, the wrong people being blamed for whether or not trump (et al) is held accountable.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@lowtechcyclist:
You’ve convinced me. In fact I already believed that before you typed it. But the odds of me being on a jury in any of these cases is pretty much nil. The odds of me being the judge in an appellate case considerably less.
Benw
NYPD cops are, indeed, the worst.
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack: Wow, all 4 of those are great.
Kay
Can’t have Dolan. Too normal. Vance or Mandel, I care not which. Ok, maybe Mandel is better because that humiliates Trump.
Donald Trump is running a radio ad endorsing Vance about every 20 minutes. Horrible to hear his honking, bragging voice again. “You must come out very strong…” Ugh. I just loathe the way he talks.
PST
@Betty Cracker:
In the last month Laurence Tribe, who had been very hard on Garland, has reversed himself. I take this as a good sign. On March 31 he said:
Later in the month he cites developments as indicating that Garland isn’t “asleep at the switch.” By Saturday, in reference to the Brian Ulrich plea deal, he’s saying:
I understand people who are frustrated by the slowness of DOJ and lack of publicity, and they could be right that quiet and methodical won’t cut it, but I was most worried when highly knowledgeable voices like Tribe’s were harshly critical. I’m getting more optimistic.
Elizabelle
@PST: Good to hear. Source for the Tribe comments? (Maybe they are tweets?)
Anyway, I am on Team Don’t Diss Garland.
Raven
We got down to the beach safe and sound and I have to leave for the boat at 4:30 am so it’s the first time I haven’t gotten my gear together and gone down to surf fish. When we came in October we didn’t stay in this, our usual, beach house so Artie is a little nervous. It also can help but bring back the memories of Bohdi and Lil Bit and all the years that we came here with them. Biden was right, a smile crosses our lips before a tear falls from our eye. . . But not by much!
Betsy
@Kay: His appalling voice and enunciation.
Trevor Noah did such a good job mimicking it during his comic relief remarks. But how could Trevor stand to study it so intently!
PST
@Elizabelle: Source is Twitter. I don’t know how to embed tweets, but it’s all from Twitter.
debbie
@Kay:
Dolan was at 12% not so long ago.
feebog
@UncleEbeneezer:
I will repeat for the umpteenth time: Fani Willis will have tfg indicted, tried and convicted long before any DOJ investigation is complete. There is prima facie evidence of a crime, and the jury will come out of the Fulton County population.
Elizabelle
@feebog: I wish we were going to be as lucky with the NYC prosecution.
Truly do not know what is up with Alvin Bragg. Anyone??
zhena gogolia
@Raven: Hope you have a great time!
Matt McIrvin
@Betsy: People have been sleeping on Trevor Noah’s Trump impression for years. It’s actually really good. He captures the whininess of Trump.
Barbara
@Old School: I don’t remember all the details now, but the guy is 56 and has been retired for quite a while (more than five years) after working for the NYPD for 20 years. Maybe he works at other jobs but if so they never say. I mean, his defense of “I used to be a cop so I know a bad cop when I see one” was absurd on its face but it’s not even like he has been on the force recently.
I do wonder what the jury really thought. In my view, an average person who did what this guy did would stand a good chance of already being dead, not getting the chance to argue about the use of excessive force. Indeed, IMO the officer showed remarkable restraint.
Another Scott
Elections, schmelections. Democracy, schmocracy. I’ve got a book to sell.
(via Popehat)
Cheers,
Scott.
Sure Lurkalot
@Kay:
I hate “MAGA” too. You’re not MAGA, if you don’t MAGA at a MAGA rally. It’s a noun! It’s a verb! It’s an adjective!
Kay
@debbie:
I know. I think the business moderates are rallying to try to wrest their party back from the Magas.
But we don’t want that. For our purposes :)
Go Mandel.
UncleEbeneezer
@feebog: I hope so. I suspect DOJ will take much longer and some former US Attorneys I follow have said (paraphrase) “don’t expect high-ranking indictments from DOJ until 2023” just based on the incredible amount of evidence needed to be gathered for such a large conspiracy case with so many moving parts and defendants.
Kay
@Barbara:
The jury didn’t buy the defense at all:
Part of his ridiculous claims were that he snatched the officer’s mask off because he wanted to “show him his hands”. The jury found no evidence at all that any of his claims were true.
I don’t blame his lawyer. He probably stubbornly and arrogantly refused to plead to anything. Or maybe they didn’t even offer him a reduction. They had video of him swinging a flag pole and then tackling the officer.
Kay
@Barbara:
I still find it funny that most of the video used to convict the insurrectionists was taken by fellow insurrections.
Not the smartest criminals I’ve ever run into.
japa21
@Kay:
Well, remember, as far as they were concerned, they were heroes saving the country. They wanted to film the events to show how heroic they were.
KenK
@Jerzy Russian: I’d be okay with “at the end of ropes”…
Another Scott
@Another Scott:
+1
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
@japa21:
It’s just funny to watch them grind through the big criminal justice machine, which cares not about your imagined heroism, but only determines if the 4 elements of “assault” are met. Which you would think a cop would know. I hope he didn’t think he was having a trial about “America”. None of that matters, at all.
Betty Cracker
@PST: Good to hear that Tribe has backed off the ledge. He can be a hothead on political matters, which is kind of funny considering what an eminent scholar he is.
I have no idea what’s going to happen, obviously, but here’s my guess: none of the Trump admin people or congressional Repubs will be prosecuted, let alone go to jail, for trying to overthrow the government. My prediction is the DOJ goes as high up as possible prosecuting orgs like Oathkeepers and Three-Percenters, etc., as a compromise.
People who are super-invested in one narrative prevailing over another will claim vindication, but really, no one will be happy. I’ll be pleasantly surprised if it turns out otherwise.
Kay
In these peoples world the grown sons and daughters of union plumbers and general contractors don’t go to college.
It’s a weird, 18th century world where tradesmen remain tradesman in each successive generation.
Go ask your contractor if his grown kids went to college. Or maybe no- he’ll be insulted.
brantl
@prostratedragon:Nixon was looking at trial before a Presidential pardon saved him. And THAT started this shit. Gerry Fucking Ford (spit).
lowtechcyclist
@Betty Cracker:
I’m past making predictions; I’ve been wrong on everything since Trump declared his candidacy in 2015. And I haven’t dumped on Garland yet, nor am I ready to do so soon.
But it’s just been so damned long since the prosecutors’ nets caught the big fish in any of our many national scandals that it’s hard to believe it will be any different this time. Unless and until is actually IS different this time.
Steeplejack
@Another Scott:
Betty Cracker
@lowtechcyclist: I don’t know why I bother making predictions either — I’m always wrong! :) I haven’t dumped on Garland either, but I do think it’s fair to speculate, and a whole lot of DC institutions and institionalists have failed to meet the moment. Here’s hoping they surprise us with unexpected resilience.
Kay
No one told them they must become plumbers, unto the generations, because they’re in the “trades class”. How can we have a discussion about college debt if these people don’t even know who goes to college?
debbie
@Kay:
I know you’re right, but I hate him so much!
debbie
@Barbara:
Like TFG, his followers think they’re too smart by half. I bet he thought his “story” was a brilliant strategy. ??♀️
Kay
@debbie:
Well, of course you do but Tim Ryan needs a lot of luck. Mandel is a lucky draw.
Ryan will be a big upset if he somehow pulls it out. He needs…magic :)
Raven
@zhena gogolia: Thanks!
debbie
@Kay:
Mandel or Vance (JP or JD) will have to lurch so far right, I think Ryan might snag more than a few moderates. No?
Kay
@debbie:
Not R’s. They’ll line up for anyone. But maybe R-leaners. You know, “Independents”.
feebog
@UncleEbeneezer:
2023 at the earliest. That’s why I’m putting my money on Fulton County and Willis. Not a complicated case as the audio recording is the star witness. She doesn’t need to complicate it, it’s a straightforward case of election fraud. And I keep thinking about the look on Trump’s face when he realizes a “jury of his peers” consists of 8 women and 4 men, 9 of them persons of color.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I’m hoping the cooperating Oathkeepers can deliver the goods on Roger Stone. Even if federal prosecutors can indict Stone I’m not sure they can break him. He stonewalled the Muellar team and I think they tried hard to break him.
Stone had the prospect of a pardon then, and he doesn’t now. But he’s a freak and still might not flip on the boss despite financial pressure (the Justice Department is prosecuting a million dollar+ IRS claim against Stone).
There was a certain amount of improvisation in the January 6 coup. I’m hoping that career criminal Trump might have gotten sloppy and included too many unreliable people in his scheme. So if prosecutors can’t flip Stone there may be more compliant henchmen they can turn.
Ken
@Kay: I understand that even the daughters of waitresses can go to college nowadays, although it does mean their mother will be waiting tables into her 70s to pay off the student debt.
Elizabelle
@debbie: And presumably Sherrod Brown will be out campaigning hard for Tim Ryan? A one-two punch there could be great, especially if they are up against the (overtly) crazy.
lowtechcyclist
@Kay:
People usually do what is familiar to them. It’s a big step out of a familiar world into a very different world if you’re a first-generation college student.
Nonetheless, I’ve known quite a number of them. In fact, I’m married to one. Her dad was an electrician. She has an M.S. in mathematics.
The girl I was in love with in high school was another. I can’t remember what her dad did, but it was in the skilled blue-collar zone. She retired from a tenured professorship at a Midwestern university a few years ago.
A lot of the kids I taught at what’s now King University, when I was there back in the 1990s, were first-generation college students. We were in the middle of Appalachia, and the college’s reputation didn’t reach more than a couple hours’ drive away. Not many upper middle class college-educated parents down there.
So it happens, but of course I’m looking at it through the wrong end of the telescope here: I’m seeing those who made the jump, rather than seeing the world they came from, and how small the fraction of the kids in that world did so.
laura
Ken, only a fascist monster who is a fame whore who earns a lavish salary working for possibly the worst person on earth in the business of spreading filth among the willing consumers of racist invective would do such a thing.
Kathleen
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: @Omnes Omnibus: I am a fellow outlier. Or Fellowette?
Barbara
@debbie: This is where the lawyer must carefully explain to the client that a jury of his “peers” would not mean people just like him. Most of us who live in the area know that you can’t even sit on the Capitol steps to tie your shoes without being ordered to move along.
lowtechcyclist
@Geminid:
He’ll probably do his best to drag out the timeline with the hopes of getting pardoned on the afternoon of January 20, 2025.
If he isn’t indicted until early 2023, then his lawyers throw in various legal hogwash that results in various delays and postponements, then if convicted in early 2024, he appeals it to the D.C. Circuit, and ultimately to the Bogus Scotus. If he can keep the ball in play for a couple of years, and Trump wins in 2024, he’s home free. So I don’t expect him to flip.
Elizabelle
@Kathleen: I am an Omnes Outlier too!
Not into pre-disappointment.
Barbara
@Kay: Well I suppose there is regional variation, but lots of studies show that blue collar professionals who have been to college earn more than their non-college attending peers. And even if you don’t go to college per se, there are a lot of vocational programs that also require attendees to pay tuition, which is often financed with at least some loans. Do these guys think that all construction workers learn on the job, being paid to work their way up? There are even technical programs for people going into coal mines.
Kathleen
@Kay: “Guns. God. And Trump.” I’m sure you’ve heard his slogan. To me he and Vance’s vile ghoulishness are equal.
Barbara
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I get a newsletter from my local tv station giving me updates in the January 6 legal actions. They are moving to a once a week format because they anticipate having to attend so many trials in the next few months! I can’t wait!
Kathleen
@Elizabelle: It goes against my DNA but I’ve decided it’s one of those traits I have to repurpose.
Chief Oshkosh
@Betty Cracker: It’s great news the Officer Dumblefuck was convicted and faces serious time (note, though, that he’s not been sentenced yet). That said, FBI estimate are that about 1200 people entered the Capitol building; more stormed it but didn’t get in. Several in the background, including muck-a-mucks, organized it and are even more culpable. I haven’t heard hard numbers, but maybe a total of 1500 total participated in the attack. I think DOJ has brought charges on about 700. This is a lot. They’ve tried and won 4 convictions.
I can see from one perspective that 4 for 4 is a a huge win. However, from another perspective, after 2+ years, 4 out of 1500 convicted, none of them beyond “foot soldier,” is…a little worrisome.
Elizabelle
@Chief Oshkosh: Not two-plus years.
January 2021. About 16 months, right??
Chief Oshkosh
@Brachiator: Apparently it was a unanimous decision, based on the finding that Boston never declared that the poles existed for a government purpose. Thus, if the poles are not there for a government purpose, separation of church and state is not an issue.
OK, if Boston never set a reason for the poles existing on the municipal property, I think Boston should just declare that the goals for erecting the poles have been met, and that they will be taken down by the weekend. And, as the three poles serve no governmental purpose, Boston should fly a rainbow flag, a Church of Satan flag, and Ukranian flag for that remaining time.
Fuck ’em.
Chief Oshkosh
@feebog:
Ever spent much time in North Fulton? I am not so sanguine, but I’m not pessimistic.
brendancalling
@Kay: I remember my almost-father-in-law (the gal and I broke up) telling me he would advise “kids today” to go to trade school or become an apprentice plumber/electrician/etc. Earn while you learn, less debt, and EVERYONE needs a plumber/electrician/etc.
AnotherKevin
Actually I think DOJ is 4-1 on trials. There was a judge (non-jury) trial where the judge acquitted. Probably a Trump-Federalist Society goon.
WaterGirl
@Chief Oshkosh: I’m not sure the attorney general has even been in office since Jan 20, 2022. When was he sworn in? And when were his primary assistants finally approved by the senate?
Chief Oshkosh
@Elizabelle: Doh! You are correct! And of course, some of that time was just getting settled in to the new digs.
Thanks for the correction.
Kay
@brendancalling:
My middle son is an electrician. The apprenticeship is 5 years but he thinks it was well worth it . He’s handy and extraordinarily patient with putting things together and taking them apart- even as a little kid. He just didn’t want to go to college. I think he’s happy. He does commercial work exclusively- they have “high voltage”, linemen or residential in IBEW training. He’s high voltage. He’s going to the Hummer EV facility in Detroit next- he lives in Toledo so it’s about a 50 minute ride. He loves cars so he’ll be interested. He himself drives a used sedan with a wooden box that houses the sound system – which is loud :)
docNC
He was self defending as MTG was scared at the Capitol on January 6. Unwilling to stand up and take accountability when challenged. Losers. The book. Throw it at him.
Hamlet of Melnibone
@brendancalling: The one thing I would advise about going into the trades is that they’ll need a retirement strategy that involves getting out earlier than normal. You definitely don’t want to be the 63-year-old tradesperson trying to tough out the last few years as your body breaks down.
Otherwise, it is a great path for a lot of people. They just need to be smarter with their money than people who can work desk jobs into their 70s if need be.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chief Oshkosh: Over 700 people had been arrested and 71 sentenced by January 6, 2022. Don’t just count the trial results.
The Quiet One
@Hamlet of Melnibone: Totally agree. For all there faults ATT had great retirement benefits. I couldn’t be a phone man into my 60’s much less my 70’s
I would love one final insult to these goons. Hearing a hot Mic take from TFG calling them suckers. You just know it could happen!!
James E Powell
@debbie:
Dolan’s support comes from people who don’t believe Vance or Mandel can win. If people are cooling on Mandel, I doubt they move to Dolan.
James E Powell
@Kay:
Obligatory.
Barbara
@Chief Oshkosh: Two plus years? I guess math isn’t your strong suit.
Procopius
@gene108: Minor quibble — there is a high probability the Republicans will take majorities in both Houses in November. If they do, the 1/6 investigation will end at the beginning of January, 2023. Granted, the DOJ will still be influenced by Biden, so their investigations may not change course, but …