Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

We still have time to mess this up!

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

Weird. Rome has an American Pope and America has a Russian President.

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

So many bastards, so little time.

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

75% of people clapping liked the show!

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

You are here: Home / Politics / domestic terrorists / Late Night Open Thread: Every Man His Own Martyr

Late Night Open Thread: Every Man His Own Martyr

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If Tarrio showed up unannounced in her nice suburban neighborhood, Palin would either call out the neighborhood watch or ask him where his landscaping equipment was.

Sarah Palin went on Eric Bolling’s Newsmax show this week to express her displeasure at Enrique Tarrio being sentenced to 22 years for his involvement in the January 6 insurrection. For Palin, Tarrio’s sentence is an outrage for a fairly simple reason: he and other January 6 defendants are the good guys…

Palin’s argument is perfectly in step with how extremist nationalism operates. The people acting on behalf of the nation cannot be doing wrong. They’re by definition heroic figures. If they’re not that, they’re redeemed by their sheer everydayness.

This is typical of January 6 apologia. The insurrectionists were some combination of patriotic, harmless, and understandably outraged people, united by being normal Americans.

At worst, they were people who got carried away and committed some minor offenses like scuffling with officers and damaging property. At best? It was 1776.

What’s important is that these are the good Americans, the good guys. Their actions don’t deserve or necessitate the use of the state’s powerful capacity to apply justice. In fact, doing so delegitimizes the state because no good government would treat them like the real criminals who are deservedly punished by our police and courts every day…

Matt Lewis, at the Daily Beast:

… Former Arizona Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake took the opportunity to revisit an old trope, calling it a “staged riot,” and saying that “many of the people were encouraged to go in by FBI informants.”

Meanwhile, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis suggested that, as president, he would pardon rioters who were handed “excessive sentences.” Like others on the right, DeSantis went out of his way to argue that “a lot of people with the BLM riots… didn’t get prosecuted at all.”…

… Likewise, presidential candidate and tech bro Vivek Ramaswamy lamented that “Antifa and BLM rioters roam free while peaceful Jan. 6 protesters are imprisoned without bail.” As such, Ramaswamy pledged to pardon “all peaceful, nonviolent Jan. 6 protesters who were denied their constitutional due process rights.”…

Regardless of the sentencing, it seems likely that the fate of the Capitol rioters will ultimately be determined based on which party wins next year’s presidential election. So while their prosecution wasn’t politically motivated, their pardoning most certainly would be.

This is an open secret that is already being used to encourage MAGA voters to get-out-the-vote…

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee declared this week that “People in power use their police agencies to arrest their opponents for made-up crimes in an attempt to discredit them bankrupt and imprison them, exile them, are all of the above. And if you’re not paying attention, you may not realize that Joe Biden is using exactly those tactics to make sure that Donald Trump is not his opponent in 2024.”

“If these tactics end up working to keep Trump from winning or even running in 2024,” Huckabee continued, “it is going to be the last American election that will be decided by ballots rather than bullets.” (Regarding Huckabee’s dangerous rhetoric, it’s unclear where the warning of violence stops and the inciting of violence begins.)…

Every woman, too…

Micki Witthoeft, the mother of January 6th insurrectionist Ashli Babbitt, once again called for Nancy Pelosi to be hanged in another sick violence-laden rant this weekend…

“Being an equal opportunity rope swinger, I think Nancy Pelosi belongs at the end of a rope,” Witthoeft said to deafening cheers from the crowd of terrorists. She went on, “again these are not threats because I don’t want to get hit with seditious conspiracy or some other charge. So while you’re writing the indictment FBI get that straight. I said they deserve it, not that I’m going to do it.”

Witthoeft: “I’m not a vigilante, and I don’t plan on stringing Nancy Pelosi or [Capitol Police Officer] Michael Byrd up. So I will have to wait for God to give them their justice, or the American people. Because it’s within our power.”

Just to note: the FBI, just like any agency of the DOJ, or Jack Smith, or any DA or prosecutor, doesn’t have indictment capability. That power rests with citizen grand juries.

The FBI does, however, have the ability to investigate the increasingly violent calls for terrorism on the right.

Also the charming Ms. Witthoeft:

Meanwhile, at the Justice Department…

Reader Interactions

48Comments

  2. 2.

    Shalimar

    @Alison Rose: She correctly points out that we kicked Hitler’s ass in that war.  Despite that, I am guessing you only have to listen to her conversations for a little while to hear her admire Hitler.

  5. 5.

    eclare

    These people are so scary.  Let’s hope they are all as incompetent as the guy who wore the “I was there” t-shirt when he was arrested.

  6. 6.

    Tony Jay

    Just those quotes above should give Democratic ad makers so much material they can pile it up in warehouses and spend next Autumn sunning themselves on Copa Cabana.

    Imagine those quotes playing over images of the insurrectionist mob storming the Capitol, beating Police and strutting around in their Plus-size-Xtra tactical cosplay. Hell, throw in the footage from Charlottesville as well, it’s all the same thing. Ask America the question; do you want to vote for candidates who think this is what patriotism looks like?

    Oh, and Huckabee is straight up calling for a campaign of political terrorism if and when Trump gets beaten next November. No ifs, no buts, that’s what he’s saying.

  9. 9.

    JWR

    Dan Froomkin (PressWatchers.org)
    @froomkin Sep 13
    The interview will be pre-taped, giving Welker and Meet the Press a chance to rise to the challenge of fact-checking a compulsive liar and contextualizing his fascism. They will, of course, fail. apnews.com/article/trump-kri…
    Sep 13, 2023 · 10:19 PM UTC

    Dan Froomkin (PressWatchers.org)
    @froomkin 9h
    Trump tells Welker “You mean because I challenge an election, they want to put me in jail?” and there’s no sign of pushback either in person or in the story. Gah. Massive journalistic failure. nbcnews.com/politics/donald-…
    Sep 14, 2023 · 10:44 PM UTC

    About what one would expect from a Chuck Todd mentee and number one fan. Same sad as it ever was.

  11. 11.

    TriassicSands

    Kari Lake: “…many of the people were encouraged to go in by FBI informants.”

    Well, in that case they really had no choice at all, did they? Everyone is required to follow the encouragement of people they don’t know who suggest they do stupid, violent, illegal things. Hey, makes sense to me.

    If breathing required conscious thought Lake, Palin, etc. would all suffocate.

  12. 12.

    JWR

    @sab:

    Pretty much what I expected of Welker…

    Yep, especially after her performance with Todd last Sunday. It left me gagging (in the old meaning of the word.) But what really struck me about the brief clips of the Welker/TFG interview on the NBC home page was that TFG not only looks worse for wear, but sounds pretty bad, too. Why, he even looks, dare I say it, old?

  13. 13.

    Baud

    @JWR:

    She supposedly asked him if he would pardon himself but I don’t know if she asked him whether he would pardon everyone else involved in J6.

  14. 14.

    JWR

    Dan Froomkin (PressWatchers.org)
    @froomkin 6h
    “whether the president benefited from his son’s business dealings, although they have produced little, if any, evidence to that effect.” Little evidence? Show me any evidence. Dear God the bothsidesing is out of control washingtonpost.com/politics/…
    Sep 15, 2023 · 3:20 AM UTC

    This has always bugged me, it’s the media constantly using the phrase, “no evidence of widespread voter fraud“. No, media, you have no evidence of “voter fraud”, widespread or otherwise. It’s as if the word “widespread” is automatically appended to the phrase “voter fraud”, and assumes that some measurable voter fraud actually exists. (Yes, I know it exists, but I wouldn’t call it that easily measurable.)

    And now they’re doing the same thing with this Biden impeachment malarkey by writing “despite having no concrete evidence” or “despite having no direct evidence”.

    Another example, from NPR’s Amna Nawaz: “Despite having no public evidence…”

    And from CBS’s Skyler Henry earlier today, “despite having no hard evidence.”

    So we have widespread, concrete, direct, public and hard. Why do they do this to us? (I know why they do this to us.)

    Relatedly, it’s the same way I felt back when the Rs started regularly using “Democrat” party.

  15. 15.

    mrmoshpotato

    Garret Miller was wearing a T-shirt that said, “I Was There, Washington D.C., January 6, 2021,” when he was arrested on charges he stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

    I can’t insult this Trump-trash insurrectionist dumbass shitstain more than this Trump-trash insurrectionist dumbass shitstain’s actions insulted himself.

    Oh, wait, tattoo it on your face, dumbass!

  16. 16.

    Baud

    @JWR:

    The widespread voter fraud is necessary because there are isolated pockets of voter fraud by Republican voters.

    ETA: But your general point stands.

  19. 19.

    mrmoshpotato

    I see Sarah Palin is palling around with terrorists.

    Maybe she should go suck a moose’s ass and shut up forever – about 16 years ago.

  20. 20.

    lowtechcyclist

    @TriassicSands: ​

    Well, in that case they really had no choice at all, did they? Everyone is required to follow the encouragement of people they don’t know who suggest they do stupid, violent, illegal things. Hey, makes sense to me.

    I know, right? And these were mostly middle-aged people, with their values well formed, for better or worse. What they did that day is a reflection on who they are, what sort of people they’ve chosen to be over the years and decades of their adult lives.

    Maybe while in prison, they’ll have time to realize that they didn’t just make a bad choice that one day, but that who they’d chosen to be all along had turned them into the sort of person who might choose that way on January 6, 2021.​

    ETA: Which is to say, I don’t feel sorry for them in the least. I don’t hate them, but they need to repent of what they’ve done and who they’ve been. And they need to be treated in a way that discourages others from making choices like these.

  21. 21.

    Tony Jay

    @Other MJS:

      “We’re also taking back the swastika.”

    “And those swell uniforms. So classy. We won the war so they’re ours now. And the Camps, so efficient, so useful, we could do a lot with them. Plus the Laws, the Nuremberg ones, not the ones from after we won the War, those were downer ones, witchhunty. I mean the ones from before the War. Really clear Laws about who could and couldn’t be citizens. We need them. Basically all of it. We won the War, its ours now.”

  23. 23.

    Baud

    @Tony Jay:

     

     

    I’m bringin’ sexy Nazi back (yeah)
    Them other boys don’t know how to act (yeah)
    I think it’s special, what’s behind your back (yeah)
    So turn around and I’ll pick up the slack (yeah)

  25. 25.

    JWR

    @Baud:

    isolated pockets of voter fraud by Republican voters.

    Oh, definitely! It’s either that, or someone not sure of their polling place, or even one not sure they’re even allowed to vote, (Hello, Floriduh!), or the Repub deliberate fraudsters. I was gonna put that “Repubs committing voter fraud” stuff in there, but got tired of commenting. ;)

  26. 26.

    lowtechcyclist

    Like others on the right, DeSantis went out of his way to argue that “a lot of people with the BLM riots… didn’t get prosecuted at all.”…

    OK, fine. Identify people who committed crimes in the BLM ‘riots’ and pass that info on to the appropriate authorities. There was a bunch of crowdsourcing done to ID the January 6th rioters and seditionists. Let’s see you guys do the same with the BLM protests.

    (I’ll be amused when they mostly find white supremacists who used the BLM marches as an opportunity to smash stuff and discredit the BLM protests. Assuming they ever try to do anything like this at all, which I doubt.)

  27. 27.

    Baud

    @JWR:

    But back to your point, I feel like the media does use subtle cues and inflection that are negative towards Dems.  But it’s the kind of thing that’s hard to demonstrate and people will just dismiss it as viewer sensitivity (not an illegitimate reaction).

  28. 28.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    Since Watergate, the political media has desperately tried to rebut charges of bias against republicans by being biased against democrats. which is why we get endless false equivalencies and fake scandals (tan suit, mustard on hamburgergate)​

  29. 29.

    Tony Jay

    @eclare:

    Damn it! I didn’t think of that one.

    @Baud:

    “Under-fire conservative provocateur James O’Keefe became embroiled in yet another scandal today when his self-produced debut album ‘100% JO’K’ had to be pulled from shelves in DollarDays after lawyers for almost twenty established artists, including Justin Timberlake, Barry Manilow and Barney the Purple Dinosaur, accused him of plagiarising their work.“

  36. 36.

    What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @lowtechcyclist: Yeah NPR did a segment on the protests in Minneapolis following the George Floyd murder a few days back and mentioned that a historic police precinct and other historic buildings were burned down, without noting that it was a white supremacist who started the fire.

    The story was mostly about how they’ve rebuilt and new businesses are opening in the space. But if you’re going to mention the fires you could at least lay the blame where it belongs rather than imply by omission that it was the BLM protestors who started the fires.

    This is exactly why those white supremacist goons show up and destroy things. They know the peaceful black protesters will get the blame and it’ll de-legitamize the protests. The media doesn’t have to help perpetuate it though.

  37. 37.

    TriassicSands

    @lowtechcyclist:

    Complaining is far more satisfying to those people than actually following up. They are, after all, a part of the most victimized group in the history of the world. Everyone else gets to commit crimes and walk away without repercussions. But not these poor downtrodden, beleaguered folks. No, life is a non-stop witch hunt looking for things to persecute them for, even when those things are really just good-natured, constructive acts like trashing the Capitol and trying to overturn an election.

    If they think it is too difficult to find all the “criminals” who participated in BLM protests and were allowed to skate, then at least they could come up with a single shred of believable evidence that shows that the election of November 2020 was rigged, fixed, whatever and Donald Trump actually won.

  39. 39.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Tony Jay: I’m very confused, but will they also take back being charged, tried, convicted, and hanged until dead at Nuremberg?

    16 October 1946 was a good day.

    ETA – can they not find a way to satisfy their sexual fetishes without all of the crimes against humanity baggage?  These sad sacks.

  42. 42.

    TheTruffle

    Here is an idea for a T-Shirt!

    “My dad stormed the US Capitol and I didn’t even get a lousy T-shirt. Didn’t matter, because I still turned him into the FBI.”

  45. 45.

    RaflW

    Looking at that photo of Garret Miller, I continue to insist that the term ‘incel’ is flat wrong.

    It’s a choice to have such poor hair, beard and clothes styling. Women won’t go out with you because you’re a schlub who doesn’t respect yourself enough to pay for a decent haircut or a well-fitting Tee.

    They’re v-cels. Totally volunteering to be home alone.

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