Proud Boys leader, awaiting Jan. 6 sedition verdict, assails Justice Department https://t.co/Zt0tD9YXID
— POLITICO (@politico) April 26, 2023
Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio — awaiting a verdict on charges he conspired to violently prevent Joe Biden’s presidency — lashed out at the Justice Department and Democrats on Tuesday, accusing them of “weaponizing” government institutions and seeking to “manipulate the 2024 election.”…
… Tarrio used his appearance — his first public comments since his arrest and detention 13 months ago — to eagerly embrace far-right critiques of the Justice Department’s pursuit of Jan. 6 perpetrators, accusing prosecutors of “overcharging” defendants and criminalizing pro-Trump speech. He assailed the seditious conspiracy case against him and four other Proud Boys as a part of an effort to silence figures on the right.
“I’m the next stepping stone,” Tarrio said in the call, which was broadcast to a freewheeling Twitter Space organized by the Gateway Pundit, a far-right media outlet known for promoting conspiracy theories about Jan. 6 and the government.
Tarrio’s attorneys used their closing arguments in court Tuesday morning to lay blame for the Jan. 6 Capitol attack at the feet of Donald Trump, who they say bore the ultimate responsibility for riling up supporters and aiming them at Congress. Tarrio praised his legal team but declined to elaborate on their contention…
Tarrio’s decision to speak publicly came two weeks after he opted against taking the stand in the trial. He elaborated on that decision in Tuesday’s call, saying he wanted to avoid a grilling from prosecutors about statements he’s made over the years…
Prosecutors have charged Tarrio and four allies with acting as the “tip of the spear” of the mob that overran the Capitol, assembling a group of hundreds of Proud Boys to form a “fighting force” on Jan. 6. Those men surged across police barricades and stoked the crowd’s anger at decisive moments in the melee. One of them — Dominic Pezzola — ignited the breach of the Capitol itself when he smashed a Senate window with a riot shield.
Tarrio wasn’t present on Jan. 6 — he had been ordered to stay away from Washington due to an arrest for a separate charge two days earlier — but prosecutors say he stayed in contact with other Proud Boys leaders from a hotel in Baltimore and later celebrated their role in the attack…
This is called rolling over https://t.co/yZwDmMJPoz
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) April 26, 2023
New: Proud Boys’ leader Enrique Tarrio, facing a felony conviction, argues Trump is to blame for Jan. 6 attack. https://t.co/W2t1GkH7xO
— Paul Farhi (@farhip) April 25, 2023
Dear Officer Krupke, ya gotta understand…
[Yes, Mr. Lamond has troubles of his own.]… Henry “Enrique” Tarrio is accused of organizing a small group of loyal Proud Boys to lead the pro-Trump mob in storming the U.S. Capitol building. Four members of that “Ministry of Self Defense” have been on trial for the past four months with Tarrio, all accused of a seditious plot to prevent Joe Biden from taking office. While other defendants have pointed at Trump’s role in fomenting the violence at the Capitol, Tarrio’s attorney Nayib Hassan was far more direct. Early in his closing argument Tuesday, he quoted Trump telling supporters to “fight like hell” on Jan. 6.
“It was Donald Trump’s words, it was his motivation, it was his anger that caused what occurred on January 6 in your amazing and beautiful city,” Hassan said. “They want to use Enrique Tarrio as a scapegoat for Donald Trump and those in power.”
Hassan kicked off the second day of closing arguments in the trial, one of the most high-profile of the nearly 1,000 Jan. 6 cases the government has charged. He started by quoting President Franklin D. Roosevelt and ended by quoting the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., both on the importance of protecting the rights of the few as well as the majority…
Three high-ranking Proud Boys from across the country — Joseph Biggs, Ethan Nordean and Zachary Rehl — were put on trial with Tarrio, along with a recruit who joined in the fall of 2020, Dominic Pezzola.
Prosecutors contended that the Proud Boys saw themselves as Trump’s army, turning the president’s words into violent action.
“Enrique Tarrio isn’t being scapegoated for Jan. 6,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nadia Moore said in the final argument jurors heard in the four-month trial. “He’s being held accountable for the real crimes that he committed.”…
Tarrio was arrested two days before Jan. 6 over the burning a church’s Black Lives Matter flag during a December Proud Boys march in Washington. Just before he was taken into custody, he told one of the other defendants that “whatever happens” they should “make it a spectacle.” After the Capitol was overrun, Tarrio posted on the app Parler that people inside the building shouldn’t leave; after the riot, he messaged other Proud Boys leaders: “Make no mistake … we did this.” That night, Tarrio posted a prerecorded video of himself standing outside the Capitol, titled “Premonition.”
Two Proud Boys, one close to Tarrio, also testified that they were part of a conspiracy to stop the peaceful transfer of power….
Hassan emphasized that from November through January, Tarrio corresponded regularly with Shane Lamond, a D.C. police lieutenant in charge of intelligence. Throughout the trial, Tarrio’s attorneys argued that the correspondence with Lamond indicates the Proud Boys were cooperative with police and had nothing to hide. Lamond is now under investigation for his relationship with Tarrio; Hassan called the investigation “shameful.” Lamond shared information he got from Tarrio with the police department and federal agencies, but he also appeared to give the Proud Boys leader warnings about law enforcement activity. Based on his conversations with Tarrio, Lamond told the D.C. police that there would be an “extremely small” group of Proud Boys in Washington on Jan. 6 and that reports of mobilization for violence were “totally fake news.”…
Tarrio wouldn't have been in communication with police if any of this was planned, his lawyer says: "If you’re going to be committing one of the most serious crimes in the United States, would you tell the person who may arrest you…?
— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) April 25, 2023
Their defense is they were tired of winning https://t.co/TOwpfh3BFB
— zeddy (@Zeddary) April 25, 2023
We’re now officially in the find out stage of the Proud Boys trial. https://t.co/4WzKJydIu4
— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) April 26, 2023
… The dream shall never die…
If Donald Trump become president again, Enrique Tarrio wants to be the Justice Department inspector generalhttps://t.co/0uEqwMmFY2
— Citizens for Ethics (@CREWcrew) April 26, 2023
Yutsano
Okay so I’m gonna drift off topic right away, but this is a reminder that Alexandra Petri remains a national treasure. Should be a gift link.
Otherwise, fuck the Proud Boys.
frosty
Thanks for bringing us the news, AL … I guess. I hadn’t seen any of this today or the last few days.
Ken
I don’t know why I’m surprised that anyone would use “I was only following orders” as a legal defense. In retrospect it was inevitable.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
I’m sure this asswipe has no qualms with the right using government processes/rules to silence those on the left
Omnes Omnibus
Ain’t Too Proud To Beg.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Lawyers of BJ, would Tarrio’s Twitter outburst while awaiting a verdict have any bearing on sentencing if he’s found guilty?
Alison Rose
Time to share again one of my fave TikToks. A shrink could have a field day with Tarrio.
zhena gogolia
@Yutsano:
My favorite line:
SpaceUnit
Love those photos. Incel cosplay is fucking hysterical.
Albatrossity
No shit, Sherlock. Drump used these guys, just like he used lots of other thugs and grifters.
And they should all go to Jail. Forever.
Elizabelle
I hope that is how a lot of upcoming stories begin. From TFG to Roger Stone to Michael Flynn and all through that horrible ecosystem.
eclare
There is no way TFG stops tweeting about this. Or truthing, whatever he calls it.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@SpaceUnit:
Speaking of incel cosplay, there’s a customer I regularly see at work every other week or so who wears a “Just the Tip” hat (with a bullet underneath) with apparently his young son in tow. I think it’s disgusting to walk around with that in public with your kid. What kind of example does that set?
Dan B
@Alison Rose: Great Tik Tok! Afro Cuban head of White Nationalists? Scratches head..
BethanyAnne
@Alison Rose: ha!
different-church-lady
So many insane people. But at least now some of them are going to jail.
SpaceUnit
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
It’s a kind of Drag for the most sexually insecure dudes among us.
And it’s okay to point and laugh.
Narya
In memory of EFGoldman…fuck’em
Suzanne
LAWL. What a clown.
Speaking of clowns, Mr. Suzanne sent me this today. Hot damn.
Chaos Ensues After The ‘LeBron James Of Incels’ Gets Laid
mrmoshpotato
Is that? Is that the sound of Lady Justice (or Gaga suggestive text) pummeling a punching bag? Is she getting ready to pummel some Proud Trash fascist faces?
Narya
@SpaceUnit: or, as RuPaul notes, we’re born naked; everything else is drag.
eclare
I just read that NBA star Dwayne Wade moved his family out of Florida. He has a transgender daughter who he is very supportive of. I suspect more will follow.
SpaceUnit
@Narya:
Not sure if everything is drag.
But WWE and MAGA rallies, definitely. That shit would make Sigmund Freud puke.
sdhays
@Suzanne: What bizarre people.
Dan B
@eclare: It’s breathtakingly horrifying what the far right has done demonizing a tiny vulnerable minority in favor of Christianists whose pastors are daily sentenced for child sexual abuse. Who knows how many avoid discovery. Why can’t they just move yo reservations away from the different people they so loathe and fear.
eclare
@Dan B: In the news here today, xtian school worker/pastor arrested for grooming a fifteen year old boy.
Jeffro
It all takes far too long…I know that’s a feature of having an actual justice system, but man, these guys should have been shoved into a dungeon (or worse) by midday on Jan 7, 2021
Another Scott
ICYMI, …
Very well said, Rep Zephyr.
Eyes on the prizes.
Cheers,
Scott.
thruppence
Now you don’t talk so loud
Now you don’t seem so proud
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
I guess she’s not his type
dmsilev
@Suzanne:
That’s a ….fascinating title for someone to (apparently) aspire to.
Urza
Better than 50% chance he would get appointed to the Justice Department if the unthinkable happened. The trend of putting the worst people possible in positions of power would continue and we should fight like the world depends on it.
West of the Rockies
Tarrio looks like the poster-boy for Toxic Masculinity Man-Child Syndrome.
Mike in NC
WTF? Tarrio is a white supremacist who isn’t even white. Almost like the old Dave Chapelle skit about a blind black klansman.
Darkrose
@eclare: I added so many more people to my block list on Twitter based on one of the threads about him. Fuck the haters; he’s an awesome dad.
Anotherlurker
@Mike in NC: I can only guess at what the proud white boys call Enrique behind his back. I’ll bet he is referred to as just another .
Brachiator
The Proud Boys are chumps.
The larger problem is Trump, who wraps himself with lies and delusions of dominance to protect his ego. Strangely, for someone so insecure and infantile, he gets suckers to believe in him.
And Trump only has power because the GOP continues to protect him.
Redshift
@Ken:
There is apparently a real criminal defense, the Public Authority defense, that (in one form) is that you knew what you were doing was a crime, but believed a government official had the authority to order you to do it. But I doubt insisting (correctly) that TFG incited the insurrection is enough to qualify.
Frankensteinbeck
@SpaceUnit:
That is the strangest word to me. Men utterly obsessed with sex as the value of masculinity trumpet that they can’t get laid. Which is literally what the word means, that they can’t get any no matter how hard they try.
Hilbertsubspace
If you’re going to commit a crime, would you tell the person that may arrest you?
Yes. Because you believe they are on your side and are going to help you.
Tarrio believed they would at least stand down, and some did. Others made sure reinforcements weren’t available.
piratedan
@Frankensteinbeck: which kind of calls into question their methodology to begin with. While I can’t speak to the inner methodologies of attractiveness, a baseline that includes personal hygiene, courtesy and respect as a foundation would be a great start (not a guarantee).
Would also say that media plays a part in unrealistic expectations for men (call it the Kevin James syndrome) but for some reason, many women are a damn sight less shallow than men are, perhaps because of generations of settling…. just have to say that for some reason many of these young men keep thinking that all they have to do is just show up or show an interest and its starbursts and fireworks….
Shalimar
@Frankensteinbeck: They aren’t actually trying though. Pretty much any “incel” could go to a bar for a month and find someone drunk enough to fuck them. Probably multiple someones. Thry’re not really looking for sex. They’re looking for sex/relationships with women who are really hot. And the vast majority of women want nothing to do with depressed, negging losers.
SpaceUnit
@Frankensteinbeck:
My theory is that somewhere around 6th grade somebody called these poor losers a sissy. And from then on they devoted their lives to the performative rejection / hatred of anything feminine.
Ultimately they end up collecting guns and jerking off to Schwarzenegger movies. No self-respecting woman would ever give them the time of day. And as I said before, Freud would puke.
Frankensteinbeck
@piratedan: and @Shalimar: and @SpaceUnit:
It’s not that they can’t get sex, or even that they admit it that boggles me. It’s that by their own belief system that makes them losers, and they made a word to describe themselves so that everyone would know they are losers and inferior males.
opiejeanne
@Dan B: That would be Idaho.
Tony Jay
@Frankensteinbeck:
It makes them losers to us, but insofar as I can comprehend their ideology, being an Incel means that you’re actually a prime example of evolutionarily optimum Alpha-Male studliness in the traditionalist mold, but the Feminazi Conspiracy has insidiously convinced all attractive women that the path to a gender-equal world lies in resisting their natural attraction to these Sons of Gor and mating instead with the well-oiled and anally-bleached Beta-Boys who have themselves been groomed into anti-masculinity by agents of the Homosexualist Agenda. So, like, it’s actually everyone else that’s the losers, because, like, they’re betraying the future of the species by eugenically cleansing it of Real Men.
Or, shorter, the more that supermodel won’t fuck you, the more of a man you know yourself to be
ETA – Or even shorter? “Can’t get none? You a soldier, son.”
Aussie Sheila
@Hilbertsubspace:
This exactly. I believe the Jan6 committee performed a huge service to democracy, but for whatever reasons they had, they did not pursue what I always thought from the moment I saw it on my timeline, was the most incredible thing. Under resourced law enforcement in a country that permits policing to be akin to occupying Bagdahd was ineffable from here.
I think that US law enforcement has a big problem as does the military. That problem includes deference to anti democratic forces and refusal to acknowledge democratic control of lawful force.
The US needs to get its armed forces and law enforcement regime into democratic gear, fast. I believe the Biden administration is the best I have seen in my political lifetime, but this is an issue they need to attend to. Not headlines, not leaking, but surely and methodically.
That day was not just a disgrace, it was a warning. These militias have clear links to both law enforcement and the military. The US needs to clean house when it comes to domestic lethal force.
Aussie Sheila
@Tony Jay:
I get the attention and mocking of incels. They are pathetic. But they aren’t the problem. The undermining of democratic control over the levers of lethal force in the US is far more serious that a bunch of losers on the internet.
Tony Jay
@Aussie Sheila:
Well, yeah, but it’s early morning over here, and I always like to start the day with a little light mocking of delusional hate-monkeys before I reach Third Coffee status and take on the masterminds of modern authoritarianism.
Plus, every pound is made up of pennies. 8-)
sab
Yes so much.
In my city they gave up all supervision of police to the union as a trade- off because we couldn’t afford raises. So the rookies police at night and the experienced cops police at day when nothing happens.
Then the gun nuts.
My husband went to an inner city Catholic high school, so he knows lots of cops (now retired in their seventies.) They are all still very protective of the blue line, but they are also very critical of the whole environment around the young cops.
70 year old urban cops in the US could go their whole career without firing a shot. They were trained in diffusing tension. The younger cops are gun obsessed and trigger happy, but they are also facing a different populace. Facing a populace is also a disturbing way to look at policing. Older cops knew their neighborhoods. The younger cops are trigger happy and often afraid.
Training used to be internal by experienced locals. Now it is outsourced to foreign (Canadian) nuts with an agenda.
The police higher ups were happy to recruit Iraq and Afghanistan war vets. They now look on that as a catastrophic error. The younger cops look on their role as an occupying force amongst hostile citizens. Also too, the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan apparently didn’t get a lot of supervision. They don’t respect or listen to their supervisors at all.
I never in my life thought that a mayoral candidate could win with the message that the city needs to protect you from the city’s cops (while acknowledging that you need to be protected by the cops) but that is where we are.
NotMax
Know what we used to call incels back in the good old days?
Pathetic losers.
More than necessary to trot out that time tested label again.
Geminid
There was a State Dinner at the White House last night, for President Yoon of South Korea. Guests were in for a special treat: Mr. Yoon singing his favorite song, Don Mclean’s “American Pie.”
sab
@Geminid: Seriously? Touching but hilarious.
I used to live in Grand Rapids MI and they have a wonderful community version of that. Everyone marching downtown singing.
Aussie Sheila
@NotMax:
Yes mocking and laughter is the best antidote to these losers. Mocking laughter towards the US Right in public, while taking their threats seriously in private and developing a proper domestic defence against these people is important. The US is famous abroad for its social violence.
Restoring US democratic bona fides has to include determined action against anti democratic forces. That includes militias. No democratic country in the world would permit such lawless and violent groups to challenge the peace and tranquility of their polity.
This is not a question of the right to demonstrate or remonstrate domestic grievances . This is an issue of democratic control of the space in which people conduct their lives and livelihood. It is simply unbelievable the amount of deference that is given to people that should be either locked up, or be on ‘warning’ from civil authority.
sab
@Geminid: Biden gave him a Don McLean signed guitar!
Geminid
@sab: President Yoon is the kind of guy you’d want to have a beer with. At least, Japanese Prime Minister Kishida thinks so. A recent summit meeting between the two featured a visit to a restaurant, where the smiling leaders were photographed raising a glass of beer to each other. They are trying to put historic and recent tensions between their two countries behind them.
Aussie Sheila
@sab:
This is a classic example of imperialism coming home. Think France and the Algerian war. Think Portugal and their war in West Africa.
I spent some time in the US off and on in the 1990s and early 2000s for my work. Union organising. The whole place smelt to me of a third world country. Cheap gas, cigarettes and bad food. Expensive health care, higher education and decent housing. A hustle culture divorced from any notion of a common shared polity.
The Cold War might have finished in 1989, but it appears the US can’t cope without an external enemy to cohere against. Without it, your elites turn on your own people.
I wonder when enough people will wake up.
I hope that young people can be registered and organised to vote, and I hope that unionisation can pick up a pace.
Plenty of people here sneer at unionisation, thinking it means prioritisation of old white males over everyone else.
But in fact the opposite is the case. Unless and until the US liberal ‘middle’ wakes up, the new and growing precariate will be picked up by right wing populists.
It wasn’t easy for me as a woman in the TU movement of my time. But I was a part of a big movement that changed trade unions in Australia.
If US liberals persist in being blind to what has happened to working class communities of all ethnicities, colours and beliefs, right wing populism will be your lot, and the erosion of democracy your future.
Tucker Carlson is a distraction. He is a clown. Right wing militias and police forces out of democratic control is your future. More dangerous than even Fox. You are staring at third world governance imo.
sab
@Aussie Sheila: Yes. But also to
sab
@Aussie Sheila: Thank you for this comment. Took a lot of work. We noticeud.
Aussie Sheila
@Aussie Sheila:
oh, and before I forget, the most important right any working class has, is the right to vote, easily, fairly and with every vote honestly counted. This was a clear goal of the Australian working class movement from the beginning of self government in the 1850s.
Without it nothing can be achieved. With it, everything is possible.
The registration, organisation and encouragement of voting in every working class community in the US will do more for democracy than any number of dumb political ads and cringey appeals to patriotism a la corporate Democrats. When the working class can vote, the ruling class must listen. Our democracy here in Oz is a clear example of that. It doesn’t mean we have always had progressive or left government. What it means is that when a government oversteps the democratic mark they are tossed.. Easily and without resistance.
The US needs to get to a more democratic norm in that respect.
lowtechcyclist
@thruppence:
But he won’t have to be scrounging his next meal while in prison.
JPL
@Geminid: From Huff Post American Pie
Aussie Sheila
@Mike in NC:
Tarrio is very dangerous imo. Look at him. Do you see a white southern sheriff? No. You see a young man who thinks the way to power and publicity is to align himself with the real power in that movement. That is what is happening in the US. Don’t take your eyes off him. That is your future if you don’t start to determine the right to vote for everyone. The southern americas are full of people like him. He reminds me of people who used to try and infiltrate democratic union movements in the Americas 35 years ago.
Your past is coming home. Better buckle up and learn from the civil rights movement. This will be the future in Red states, unless Dems learn to organise the vote outside their comfort zone.
BellyCat
Passed by an unmarked state police car yesterday. All black with small thin blue line magnetic sticker.
“To Protect and Serve”? Only themselves!
Aussie Sheila
@BellyCat:
That insignia should be prohibited by local, county and state government. It is a direct challenge to democratic control of police that wield lethal force. Unless and until the US middle class says enough is enough, this anti democratic BS will continue. But of course, it will be wielded against the working class, so cares, amirite?
BellyCat
@Aussie Sheila: Absolutely. A condition of public funding should be the prohibition of fraternal insignia at odds with public interests (and their damn assignment). And the fact that it looks like a military sleeve patch to identify troop membership is no accident. Intimidation; plain and simple.
Matt McIrvin
@Shalimar: I’ve said before, I was very bad at dating as a awkward young man, was paralyzingly anxious, got fixated on hopeless premature crushes on the wrong people, and I feel like I very well could have fallen into the “incel” hole if (a) I’d been just slightly dumber and meaner and (b) the hole existed then to the formalized extent it does today. I think I was at the edge of the pool that the political cult now preys on.
I think the key thing is that they don’t primarily want sex or affection; maybe they do want these things, but the main thing is that they want to raise their status in toxic sexist boy culture and can’t see how to do it. They are obsessed with status rankings: rankings of men and rankings of women, and they think that they need a highly ranked woman.
“Incel” wasn’t a word when I was young but all the seeds were there–there were people peddling magic pickup techniques; there was pop culture telling us at high volume that a boy who was still a virgin at 19 was a broken lost creature (that was actually worse than it is today); there were definitely young men who were obsessed with ranking the relative coolness status of all the other young men around them and where they were in the hierarchy (I remember one guy on my freshman dorm floor in particular–he drew tables and diagrams).
The “incel” subculture doesn’t help them because it doesn’t tell them to reject all this– it powerfully reinforces that, yes, status in the chad hierarchy really is what is important. But it tells them that the reason they don’t have status is that other people robbed them of it, one way or another. Women robbed them of it by being shallow; bad men robbed them of it by taking the good women.
I think that a significant chunk of them would be better off if someone just told them that it was OK, that they don’t actually have to date anybody or get laid or they can do it later if they’re not ready, that nobody is keeping score.
Some of them are actually what we might now call aro/ace, or on that spectrum. They can’t figure out how to date or get laid because, whether they realize it or not, on some level they don’t really want to; it’s a status token from an alien culture that they think they have to earn anyway. They claim to be involuntarily celibate because they don’t think voluntarily celibate is a socially acceptable thing to be. But I think it actually is getting more socially acceptable.
Others do want sex or affection but, yes, have impossible standards–they’ve been told there’s a stigma associated with “settling” if you don’t get the head cheerleader.
And I think a lot of them have the problem I had, which is that they get crushes: they get prematurely emotionally fixated on one person who isn’t necessarily even interested in them, and they can’t un-fixate, and it becomes this huge weird anxiety loop where they can’t even try to ask her out because the stakes of rejection are so high. But lowering the toxic status anxiety, taking that out of the equation, would help a lot with that.
Aussie Sheila
@BellyCat:
Yes. It should be prohibited. The police serve the community they answer to and should be prohibited from displaying anything other than the signs of that elected government. JFC, how is it that public servants get to display their own insignia when on publicly funded business? It amounts to insubordination for publicly funded employees to display insignia in the ordinary course of their business that challenges the right of elected officials to direct their work.
Effing unbelievable.
The US middle class should take much more interest in how the police forces they pay for are controlled and deployed.
raven
@Aussie Sheila: Rosta Ruck.
Aussie Sheila
@raven:
??…!
Matt McIrvin
@Tony Jay: Right–they’re buying into the whole toxic notion that there is a status hierarchy of masculinity they have to ascend; they just believe that their rightful status has been unfairly stolen from them.
And you see how this plays naturally into being a fan of the far right and Donald Trump in particular, whose pitch is all about resentment at your rightful status as King of the World being stolen from you.
Baud
@Tony Jay:
I knew it wasn’t because I’m a creep!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@sab: I have some sympathy for the police in our gun-happy culture. Anyone they stop could be carrying a gun.
Aussie Sheila
@Aussie Sheila:
I don’t mean to be rude, but what are you saying? That the US middle class can’t or won’t control their police forces?
If that is true, then they are going to find out the hard way. Force directed below for their protection will soon enough be directed at them when the going gets tough.
I admire the US muscular liberal tradition when it is directed at real and present danger. But it is hopeless when it comes to domestic discontents that don’t have the kind of heroic tropes that US liberalism loves.
The right to vote fairly and easily for everyone doesn’t sound ‘sexy’ but it is the foundation of every other right.
I just can’t understand the hero worship of powerful electeds like BO, and the relative indifference to rights to vote and organise.
No diss on BO. He was merely President. The US middle class is the king of voting and consumer culture. It needs to get its boots on.
The future most certainly doesn’t belong to it while it permits armed yahoos to trample over democratic governance at local and state levels.
Marmot
@Aussie Sheila:
Right now in Austin, we’re voting on two propositions. One is by a group called Equity Action that would strengthen police oversight, and another by a front group for the police union that would “strengthen police oversight.”
I expect the former to win, not the latter. But we have a pretty engaged population, or at least a lot of politically active people. Other places might not be so lucky.
Tony Jay
@Matt McIrvin:
Yeah, it’s the whole toxic tail-chasing delusion that can be bolted onto just about any problem and used to redirect fear/anger into destructive avenues.
1) You feel afraid/angry/resentful? Yes!
2) Here is a conspiracy theory to explain why this is (BLANK) fault. That makes sense!
3) Which makes you feel afraid/angry/resentful. Yes!
4) Only smart people believe this conspiracy theory. That makes sense!
5) Which makes you feel afraid/angry/resentful. Yes!
6) They’ll call you a moron/dupe/sheep for believing this conspiracy theory. That makes sense!
7) Which makes you feel afraid/angry/resentful. Yes!
8) Everyone who rejects the conspiracy theory is IN ON IT! That makes sense!
9) Which makes you feel afraid/angry/resentful. Yes!
10) They’ll even lie and fake evidence that We are to blame. That makes sense!
11) Which makes you feel afraid/angry/resentful. Yes!
12) Here is a conspiracy theory to explain why this is (BLANK) fault. That makes sense!
Round and round and round and round and round. It’s easier to stay angry that to try and become a better person.
Warblewarble
Without a reining in of out of unaccountable millitarized police forces , “constitutional sheriffs”and law onto themselves millitias, the UNITED STATES is headed to where Sudan is today.
Aussie Sheila
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Yes, I believe that is part of the shocking police violence that is so terrifying to the rest of the democratic world.
An armed citizenry challenges the right to lawful violence usually and properly confined to representatives of a democratically elected state apparatus. In Australia, police carry weapons, but the lawful citizenry doesn’t. A conservative government here smashed the nascent gun violence culture that was growing here in the 80s and the 90s.
Everyone here, no matter their politics is grateful for this.
No political formation here of any electoral consequence wishes it were otherwise.
The US middle class is the only really active political formation in your polity, apart from the oligarchs. It needs to get going. The oligarchs are lining up their armed lumpen helpers, and whining and whinging about Fox and Tucker Carlson won’t do squat.
Tony Jay
@Baud:
And for just the knock-down price of $29.99 plus postage you can be the owner of our revolutionary new anti-fungal miracle cream that can keep you that way!
robtrim
Democracy’s great strength is that allows, even encourages, reform not revolution.
The self-appointed defenders of democracy and the Constitution – Proud Boys, 3 Percenters, Oath Keepers – have created a mythical world view that imagines the opposite. They have no interest in democracy. They are a political force that thinks its idiosyncratic grievances and fears (driven by demagogues, con men and propagandists) have primacy over democratic principles established over centuries by men and women who understood history, the rule of law, and the dangers of mob rule.
Nothing in our Constitution gives license to violence as a tool in democratic give and take.
These “patriots” are charlatans and provocateurs whose perverse ideology is a sick challenge to hundreds of years of self-government.
AWOL
@Aussie Sheila: He’s an asshole.
Aussie Sheila
@robtrim:
Yes. That is true. Bit so far lawless lumpen thugs and their oligarch controllers appear to have US democracy by the short and curleys. Only an active and vigilant citizenry can stop their trot. Unfortunately the US middle class has forgotten that the right to cast a fair and easy, honestly counted ballot everywhere in the US is the best way forward to securing democracy.
It is not just the citizenry either. I believe that at least three additional Dem Senators to Manchin and Sinema resisted overturning the filibuster to secure that right for everyone, especially in Red states. Shame on them, and shame on the Dems in Blue states where their reps allowed that to happen.
Looking at Senators Coons, Blumenthal and Warner.
The performance of Dem Senators has been disgraceful on voting rights. Christ, even LBJ did better.
This is a do or die issue imo.
The Thin Black Duke
@AWOL: No. He’s not.
NutmegAgain
@Aussie Sheila: You know, really I’m sure I’m not the only American who reads your posts telling us what’s wrong with our country and how much it sucks, and thinks, “Really? Wow I never thought of that!” /s
Truly we are so busy stuffing McDonalds into our faces that we never notice a thing. Especially those of us who frequent a semi well-known political & current events blog.
Let me just finish by saying that you need to up your game; derision and scorn about the USA and its inhabitants is so much more biting and harsh from Europeans.
Geminid
@Aussie Sheila: You could probably add Senators Tester and King to your list of suspects. And implicate Chuck Schumer and the rest of the Senate caucus for not forcing a vote they could not win, so as to “expose” the footdraggers.
But I am not so eager as you to punish these possible defectors. We’ll see how eager are other Democrats, in Connecticut, Maine, Montana, and Delaware (Mark Warner won reelection last year and likely will retire in 2028)
Eta: And I have no problem with your comments, even when I disagree with them.
MazeDancer
Never going to get past this Afro-Cubano guy pimping for white nationalists.
Tony Jay
@robtrim:
Yup. Your Founders made it crystal clear that once their own exercise in revolutionary violence to overthrow the established political order had achieved its aims, no one else was allowed to pull the same escape cord. 8-)
That’s why the armed forces of Magna Twattia are always so invested in creating a hazy, swirly, history-wistory version of their respective nations’ creation myths, because once you rub out all of the inconvenient facts, there’s a vast, blank canvas of raw emotion you can repaint with whatever fantasy version of patriotism might be convenient at that particular time.
Hence, America was established by free men (and their obedient wives) with the right to bear their own arms overthrowing a Government they saw as tyrannical, so it follows that it must be a Constitutional right for free men (and their obedient wives) with the right to bear arms to overthrow a Government if they see it as tyrannical.
It might be utter drivel that wouldn’t fool a mildly well-educated pineapple, but they’re not aiming that high up the Big Brain totem pole, are they?
BellyCat
My read of Raven’s snark is a little different. The intent of the MOTU has been to *reduce* not *bolster* the size and voice of the middle class in the US. Hence, neutering middle class potency.
Our current dystopian crisis involving authoritarianism (fueled by Fox and Fucker Carlson, in particular) and city vs. rural populations is simply a divide and conquer initiative aimed squarely at the middle class. Suburbia is the front line. Internecine battles over Federal and State rights/governance ultimately gut prudent, collective efforts by the middle class that are necessary for widely beneficial societal reform. Hate and fear ultimately subvert self-interests.
Thus, I ultimately (cynically) agree with Raven. Collective middle class effort in the US is as necessary as it is unlikely at present…. which is EXACTLY how those currently in financial power want it to be. And, judicially, LEO are (more often than not) viewed as essential allies in maintaining the status quo.
Nothing is more important than court reform. Sober judicial action is required to bury the emergent State’s rights movement which is seeking to undermine if not override Federal rights intended for all.
Aussie Sheila
@NutmegAgain:
Really? Derision and scorn? You need to get out more. Travel overseas then you’ll really see derision and scorn. When I get to vote in your elections I’ll let up. Until then suck it up. The US has for all of my lifetime, lectured the whole world about democracy, capitalism and the proper mix of the two. It has engendered untold violence across the world in pursuit of its own vision of ‘democratic capitalism’ that has delivered neither to most of the world.
It would be bad enough if that had been done without the cheerful acquiescence of the US electorate. But it wasn’t . Every war the US has waged in my lifetime (70 years) has been waged with the full throated approval of the US electorate. Meaning of course the US middle class.
You are as a whole, a threat to the peace and security of the world. Outdone at the moment by Russia.
I have no doubt that once Ukraine manages to defeat Russia, your military and its middle class allies and dependents will be urging a jihad against China.
Every fellow citizen in my country has an interest in ensuring that doesn’t happen.
Since you don’t seem to be able to ensure that everyone can vote equally and fairly in your country, don’t complain when people who may be the victims of your bloodthirsty polity get Bolshy about your many democratic deficits.
Suck it up. It’s a free blog, and I am entitled to my opinion. Or is ‘free speech’ confined to those who think their policy preferences are purely domestic, and the international ramifications of your shortcomings are nobody else’s business?
Not on my watch mate. I have lived long enough and watched my country dragged into terrible wasteful useless wars, and our political economy dragged into your version of capitalism.
Get knotted.
RobertS
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): IANAL. There is a sentencing phase when the judge will weigh the charges. Thats the point where contrition and apology come in. Some of the other J6 defendants have made a pretty good show of that and gotten light sentences and then go out there post-sentencing and show that it was an act.
Tarrio has pretty much eliminated the “I’m sorry” defense by running his mouth.
The PBs were in the middle of the violence. I doubt that ‘Donald Trump made me do it’ is going to help them much.
robtrim
@Tony Jay: The 2nd Amendment says nothing about overthrowing the government. That’s another fiction of the extreme right.
The “a well-regulated militia” phrase is conveniently forgotten by the gun nuts who think fair and honest elections are somehow subject to their illegal violence.
Tony Jay
@robtrim:
Exactly.
Aussie Sheila
@robtrim:
Its also conveniently forgotten by your Supreme Court. The people can hardly be expected to be wiser than the Guardian Council appointed to ‘protect’ their Constitutional rights and liberties. But somehow, it’s always their fault. Never the esteemed elites that actually make the laws and the institutions that bind them, and never those whose chief aim is to ensure ‘exceptionalism’ in everything except the peace and well being of the actual majority of US citizens.
Matt McIrvin
@robtrim: They have fanciful interpretations of the phrase–I heard one saying that in 18th-century English, “well-regulated militia” means “you’re proficient with your gun”. But I kind of doubt that what we see in the world even amounts to proficiency with guns–posing for selfies with your pistol pointed at your junk doesn’t seem very proficient to me.
Matt McIrvin
(It kind of reminds me of the claim that “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” means “your parents were American citizens”).
Matt McIrvin
(…or the people parsing Jesus’s condemnations of rich people as mistranslations of arcane sayings referring to the gates of Jerusalem)
Kosh III
Hang ’em High!
Roberto el oso
@Aussie Sheila: “Every war the US has waged in my lifetime (70 years) has been waged with the full throated approval of the US electorate.”
With a little nuance, a sledgehammer statement like this might be something almost accurate. But, worded in the way you’ve chosen, this is bullshit.