Judges Read Capitol Rioters' Social Media Posts, Gave Them Stricter Sentences (apnews.com) 424
After sentencing one of the "Capitol Hill rioters" to 41 months in prison, a judge added that anyone with Facebook and Instagram posts like his would be "well advised" to just plead guilty right away. "You couldn't have beat this if you went to trial on the evidence that I saw."
And other rioters are now learning the same thing, reports the Associated Press: Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Amy Jackson read aloud some of Russell Peterson's posts about the riot before she sentenced the Pennsylvania man to 30 days imprisonment. "Overall I had fun lol," Peterson posted on Facebook. The judge told Peterson that his posts made it "extraordinarily difficult" for her to show him leniency....
Among the biggest takeaways so far from the Justice Department's prosecution of the insurrection is how large a role social media has played, with much of the most damning evidence coming from rioters' own words and videos. FBI agents have identified scores of rioters from public posts and records subpoenaed from social media platforms. Prosecutors use the posts to build cases. Judge now are citing defendants' words and images as factors weighing in favor of tougher sentences.
As of Friday, more than 50 people have been sentenced for federal crimes related to the insurrection. In at least 28 of those cases, prosecutors factored a defendant's social media posts into their requests for stricter sentences, according to an Associated Press review of court records....
Prosecutors also have accused a few defendants of trying to destroy evidence by deleting posts.
And other rioters are now learning the same thing, reports the Associated Press: Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Amy Jackson read aloud some of Russell Peterson's posts about the riot before she sentenced the Pennsylvania man to 30 days imprisonment. "Overall I had fun lol," Peterson posted on Facebook. The judge told Peterson that his posts made it "extraordinarily difficult" for her to show him leniency....
Among the biggest takeaways so far from the Justice Department's prosecution of the insurrection is how large a role social media has played, with much of the most damning evidence coming from rioters' own words and videos. FBI agents have identified scores of rioters from public posts and records subpoenaed from social media platforms. Prosecutors use the posts to build cases. Judge now are citing defendants' words and images as factors weighing in favor of tougher sentences.
As of Friday, more than 50 people have been sentenced for federal crimes related to the insurrection. In at least 28 of those cases, prosecutors factored a defendant's social media posts into their requests for stricter sentences, according to an Associated Press review of court records....
Prosecutors also have accused a few defendants of trying to destroy evidence by deleting posts.
Sometimes you have to love Social Media. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Sometimes you have to love Social Media. (Score:5, Insightful)
True, but perhaps they wouldn't have acted as idiots had they likely not gotten the idea and encouragement from their fellow idiots on social media.
Re:Sometimes you have to love Social Media. (Score:5, Interesting)
Just because we couldn't see their stupid beliefs and thoughts doesn't mean they weren't acting on them.
Re:Sometimes you have to love Social Media. (Score:5, Funny)
What that tells us is that there are many gullible idiots hidden among us, doing long term damage through their actions, who were able to hide behind a mask of respectability because they didn't have a safe space to air their stupid beliefs and thoughts.
Yes, some of them are in Congress.
Re: (Score:3)
"some"
If they banded together they could be a dominant political party.
Re: Sometimes you have to love Social Media. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Sometimes you have to love Social Media. (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure there are gullible idiots, and always where. The problem is Social Media gave exploitative state and non state actors access to those people. Prior to the internet conspiracy theorists and whacko political extremists had to recruit via badly written notices on noticeboards in town squares and via shifty bookstores staffed by weird old men that looked like potential sex offenders. The notices where always crazy looking things with all caps type writing about Moon Nazis and black helicopters. People just knew it was crazy shit, even the gullible ones.
But the net has vastly expanded that reach, and put the conspiracyt theorists and extremists together with people with marketing and sociology know how able to conduct dangerously effective mindfuck campaigns on people who would otherwise ignore the noticeboards and shit.
And thats where it gets dangerous. The last time a well funded and successful PR campaign premised around conspiracy theories happened was in 1930s germany, and that turned out *very* badly for everyone.
Re:Sometimes you have to love Social Media. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think most of us may be more vulnerable to cult-like social phenomena than we think. When we look at people like this we're looking at the endpoint; it seems impossible that we could end up there. But I think the capacity to take a journey to that particular end is pretty normal.
We think *we* are entirely rational because when we're using critical thinking we're necessarily aware we're doing that; it's hard work. But when we come to some conclusion through a heuristic (e.g. "this person speaking seems to be trustworthy") it's so effortless we aren't even aware we're letting a new belief set up house in our head. This is the back door through which cult-like thinking can ensnare a normal person.
Look at *any* group, regardless of its political ideologies, religious orientation, age or culture, and you will see powerful irrational social forces shaping its members. What kept various groups from becoming cults is the competing groups its members are also members of; your coworkers tend to think one way, your family another. This keeps a group from absorbing your identity. Someone with rich, diverse, and frequently used social connections is hard to radicalize because he has so many intersecting group identities.
That's why cults try to cut you off from your friends and family, to saturate your consciousness with their world view. It is an extremely potent brainwashing technique, and if someone can manage to use it on you it will be very hard for a normal person to resist. The thing is, social media apps try to do the exact same thing, to saturate your consciousness with particular world views; only it's called "maximizing engagement". It's no wonder we're seeing these vast cult-like movements arise so quickly. Yes, there are bad actors involved, but they almost don't matter; they're like the specs of dust that seed the rain cloud.
That's why a cult tries to cut you off from your friends and family; it tries to saturate your consciousness with its viewpoint. The thing is, this is exactly what social media apps try to do, only it's called "maximizing engagement". If yo
Re:Sometimes you have to love Social Media. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think most of us may be more vulnerable to cult-like social phenomena than we think. When we look at people like this we're looking at the endpoint; it seems impossible that we could end up there. But I think the capacity to take a journey to that particular end is pretty normal.
You can see that because a huge majority of the country favored invading Iraq.
Re:Sometimes you have to love Social Media. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's why a cult tries to cut you off from your friends and family; it tries to saturate your consciousness with its viewpoint. The thing is, this is exactly what social media apps try to do, only it's called "maximizing engagement". If yo
I'd never thought if it like that. Even given a low starting point is now seems much worse.
Re:Sometimes you have to love Social Media. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you think you're too good a person to join in on such things, and therefor not constantly questing things, then you're actually more likely to fall in line when a system is asking you to do unethical things.
Look into what the fishing industry does to trillions of fish every year, and what people on factory farms do to hundreds of billions of animals every year. Compare your CO2e footprint to the 2.1 tonnes per person per year limit to prevent a 2C increase
Re:Sometimes you have to love Social Media. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you believe in some sky fairy already, it wouldn't surprise me you would believe in other nonsense that requires no proof either.
Re:Sometimes you have to love Social Media. (Score:5, Insightful)
Lone idiots were far less dangerous before social media allowed them to find like-minded idiots and form a cult of millions.
I remember reading some of the posts at the time. They described it as a revolution, and the people taking back power from a corrupt government. I'm not surprised it lengthened their sentences because it rather undermined their claims that they were just tourists or protestors.
Re:Sometimes you have to love Social Media. (Score:4, Insightful)
George Carlin — 'Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.'
Re: Sometimes you have to love Social Media. (Score:5, Informative)
Hahaha, "stolen election" (Score:4, Informative)
Hahaha, "stolen election". What the hell happened to the Right caring so much about the rule of law? The election had its time in the courts and the judges involved not only found no evidence of fraud but they also penalized those who brought the frivolous lawsuits in a number of cases.
Re: Hahaha, "stolen election" (Score:5, Insightful)
You think every BLM supporter was at every protest? That's not how any of this works.
Let me know when a left wing group tries to kill or kidnap members of Congress (or a governor) so that their losing candidate can have the reigns of government handed back to them.
Until then, keep you false equivalency hands to yourself.
Re: Hahaha, "stolen election" (Score:5, Insightful)
99.9997% of Trump voters were not there on Jan 6. Your blatantly broad brush is making you look foolish.
Bullshit, 100% of those storming congress that day were conservatives. Sure, not all conservatives are seditionists but in this case all seditionists were conservatives.
Re: Hahaha, "stolen election" (Score:4, Interesting)
Bullshit, 100% of those storming congress that day were conservatives.
I don't know if we can really say that, there are some total froot loops who think that Trump is some kind of secret democrat who's participating in the process in order to sabotage the republican party from within, and some of those people are probably crazy enough to have participated in the capitol insurrection. If you turn off enough of your brain at once that theory can sound reasonable because Trump has done massive damage to the relationship between the RNC and genuine fiscal conservatives. The big problem with that idea is of course that there are almost none of those left, virtually all republicans are happy to throw money down the military hole forever, and in any quantity, to SupPoRt THe tRoOpS! (Really supporting the troops means not sending them to commit suicide in the desert over the angst of fighting a war to profit Halliburton, Xi, etc.)
Meanwhile Trump has galvanized a base of useful idiots who are completely unequipped to engage in critical thinking, by telling them what they want to hear. Ironically, these people only listen to him when he's telling them things they're already willing to listen to, so when he told them that the medical establishment didn't have their best interest in mind he ate it up, but when he told them they should get vaccinated they just ignored it. It was like it never happened; they don't even hold it against him. It's like they literally have no mode of thought but cognitive dissonance. They're so used to being confused all the time that if something seems simple and straightforward they reject it out of hand.
Re: Hahaha, "stolen election" (Score:5, Insightful)
99.9997% of Al-Qaeda were not on the airplanes that crashed on 9/11, either.
Re: Sometimes you have to love Social Media. (Score:5, Insightful)
There were FAR more people at the BLM protests, and some of the people in the riots after weren't even associated with them, they just showed up to cause trouble. The protests were about racial inequality and the killing of black people.
In the Jan 6th incident, all the people that stormed the capitol were breaking the law with one purpose: to disrupt our democracy. They were protesting the will of the people, there was no harm done against them
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
While the other guy is trying to gaslight you, you are absolutely correct.
Out of *millions* of protesters, about 14,000 have been arrested and charged among BLM. And quite a few of them were white people trying to radicalize the protests, or loot, or vandalize property (like Mr. Black Umbrella guy(who was eventually found, identified, arrested-- and a white guy). So maybe 0.4% or less nation wide.
Out of between 5000 and 30,000 jan 6 attendees of the rally, over a thousand marched on the capital with close
Re: Sometimes you have to love Social Media. (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean... do you really not comprehend the difference here?
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Look who's talking! You bias has been on display for quite some time.
We all have plenty to worry about if "your team" wins again. It will be far worse that the effects of rioting on the general population. The riots are to intimidate the enemy, that's why you support them and lie about them.
Re: Sometimes you have to love Social Media. (Score:4, Insightful)
"You seem to be like the rest of these lunatics."
He IS one of those lunatics. You just haven't been reading his posts before this. He has a long track record of this bullshit.
"This combination produces a smug, smarmy type of repetitive argument that is founded upon the mistaken belief that you are really hyper-intelligent and that you can see past, way past, those lefties, commies, atheists, catholics and the rest that work together to deprive you of the riches and recognition that you know you deserve."
Yes, but he is not a mistaken bystander, he is literally the problem. He is a pure tribalist, the challenge before us is overcoming assholes like him, not changing his opinion.
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You're make a false equivalence here. The two events couldn't be more different.
In your quest to appear objective, you've introduced significant bias. For the life of me, I can't understand why. It's hard to believe that you don't know this already.
Re: Sometimes you have to love Social Media. (Score:5, Insightful)
On the one hand you have cars set on fire.
On the other you have public gallows, seeking to kid/kidnap elected officials, beating police, stopping the peaceful transfer of power after an election, and all while flying the Virginia Regiment Battle Flag and banners of the guy that lost.
Howsoever will we ever tell those two scenarios apart?
Re: Sometimes you have to love Social Media. (Score:4, Informative)
On the one hand you have cars set on fire.
On the other you have public gallows, seeking to kid/kidnap elected officials, beating police, stopping the peaceful transfer of power after an election, and all while flying the Virginia Regiment Battle Flag and banners of the guy that lost.
Howsoever will we ever tell those two scenarios apart?
You forgot trying to force their way [imgur.com] into the parking garage of the Capitol where Mike Pence was being sheltered.
Re: Sometimes you have to love Social Media. (Score:5, Informative)
and it's not on the side of fact.
Well, one "side" tried to overthrow the government.
The other "side" was present when Boogaloo Boys burned down a police station.
Your attempt to equate those is pretty damning evidence against your grasp of facts.
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There's a difference between civil disobedience and "direct action" protests, and what happened January 6. Take a look at what was done this summer regarding the For the People Act - various activists and even members of Congress would stand in the lobbies of the office buildings where the Senate members have their offices, chanting and singing protest songs. The Capitol Police would show up, and "ask" them to leave (it was more than a request). They would decline to do so, and get handcuffed and escorte
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For example, Obama suspending Habeas Corpus.
You mean the Republicans suspended it and Obama didn't stick to his promise of fixing that?
But that wasn't a threat to Democracy was it?
If I had to rate the two, then the recent Republican attempt to chuck democracy completely out of the window for the entire country at once is the worse of the two.
Re: Sometimes you have to love Social Media. (Score:5, Informative)
Motivated reasoning is not a logical fallacy. It's a bias in the arguments you choose to make, but fallacies are logical flaws in the arguments themselves.
You have not pointed out any flaws in the arguments you are replying to, just griped about the people making them. Which means you are engaging in a (fallacious) ad hominem attack.
Re: Sometimes you have to love Social Media. (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you saying BLM protestors didn't damage buildings, cars or people?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It lets idiots tell the world that they're idiots. I hope they all become unemployable.
Nah. You don't want them on welfare. Let them continue to pay taxes and just stay out of trouble and tell all their friends and relatives that believing in right-wing media might not be such a great idea. It's the least they can do.
Let the market sort them out. (Score:2)
It lets idiots tell the world that they're idiots. I hope they all become unemployable.
Nah. You don't want them on welfare. Let them continue to pay taxes and just stay out of trouble and tell all their friends and relatives that believing in right-wing media might not be such a great idea. It's the least they can do.
So your idea is optimal, but in my view, you're describing reform. I'd love to see them reformed and join in thinking society...repent of their ways. Unfortunately, that seems unlikely. Whatever psychosis made them want to assault the Capitol is unlikely to go away just because of their arrest. They have a massive media apparatus as well as social media circles cheering them on. They really think that this is Star Wars and they're the rebels and Joe Biden is the evil emperor spreading tyranny by sugges
Re: Let the market sort them out. (Score:2)
What we need are re-education camps, right?
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I'm fully in support of paying stupid people so that they don't have to work and ruin everything.
Idiots costs society more than the welfare pittance they'll receive.
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No no, I WANT them on welfare.
Radically stupid people with too much time on their hands is asking for trouble.
Re: Sometimes you have to love Social Media. (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually you're most likely a liar. Once again, small businesses dont prosper on refusing 50% of their business.
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They're all morons, but they may raise the average IQ of congress if they get elected.
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I really don't think any hoping is needed.
Very Interesting Times (Score:3, Insightful)
"You have the right to remain silent", unless you are an asshat who has waived this right by posting publicly your intentions and participation.
I am a bit more disturbed by the implications deleting a post means you are destroying evidence. It could be a sign of remorse. More so as prosecutors, your job is to collect evidence. They should scrape that data ASAP and build manners to have chain of custody of this evidence with social networks (I.e. confirmation from Facebook that the post was legitimate and the date it was deleted). If the post is deleted before charges our legal council, this goes a long way to showing some form of regret. If, it's deleted right before trial, the case it was deleted to destroy evidence is more valid. This being said, I still think making such a charge sets a bad precedent.
Re:Very Interesting Times (Score:4, Insightful)
Destroying evidence is seldom a sign of remorse. If you feel remorse, then say you feel remorse. You're already on social media oversharing, so you might as well come out and say it.
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Yeah man, destroying evidence doesn't have a party affiliation
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So destroying a gun after having shot someone with it should not be considered destroying evidence because the shooter might be remorseful?
Re: Very Interesting Times (Score:2)
How this timeline: go to rally, get swept up in the moment, "invade the Capitol", post to social media "in the moment", go home, regret it, delete posts, then greet the FBI at your front door two months later...
Re: Very Interesting Times (Score:2)
Exactly. Perfectly reasonable timeline. Not comparable to shooting someone.
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Who got beat to a bloody pulp? Oh, you mean the Trump supporters who the DC police invited into the building and then beat/shot to death. Got it.
I can't even come up with a metaphor for this headline. https://www.nbcwashington.com/... [nbcwashington.com]
Re: Very Interesting Times (Score:3)
Oh, so all that video we've been seeing for months showing people beating on cops, taking their gear and beating them with it, the broken windows, the chemical irritant spray, the lobbing of fire extinguishers into police, the sworn testimony of officers that were actually there - it's all fake news, right?
Fuck off, apologist.
Re: Very Interesting Times (Score:4, Interesting)
Not comparable. The issue is clarity of crime and criminal intent. Shooting someone generally means both are clear. Remorse in such a case would be surrendering your firearm and turning yourself in. As for a protest turned into a riot. It's easy to get swept into the moment with no criminal intent. Deleting a post can be interpreted as recanting what you said but you can't really recant shooting someone because that's actual physical violence.
The matter is simply more difficult for posts and requires a bit more detail about the post.
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Re: Very Interesting Times (Score:4, Insightful)
If the prosecution showed that, bravo. This is all I am asking, is better context relating to the post being deleted to reasonably conclude the evidence was removed to obstruct justice.
My point is simply removing content on the internet in itself being deemed obstruction. I think we can imagine cases where users or hosts delete data without the intention to obstruct. Obstruction of justice in this way should show motive and relevance to the time period of prosecution. Personally I am less concerned about the implications for a user and more about the slipper slope for a host who may have an outage or hardware failure, loses data and is charged in this manner.
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"You have the right to remain silent", unless you are an asshat who has waived this right by posting publicly your intentions and participation.
Publicly posting your intentions doesn't waive the right to remain silent, it just means you can't be compelled to testify, but anything you do or say can be used against you in a court of law regardless.
First rule of crime (Score:5, Insightful)
My only real complaint about this is the time and money we are wasting. Unless they actually hurt someone, or is a primary figure we need to make an example of, charge them with a felony, give them a years probation, and put them on the no fly list. The last thing I need is some entitled prick forcing my plane to divert because he thinks he got a smaller bag of snacks.
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"You know, in most non-fascist countries, showing up for a protest one had every right to reasonably assume was going to be peaceful isn't a crime. But yeah, the dems will call you an insurrectionist, and try to put you in front of a firing squad for that."
Seriously?
https://theconversation.com/fa... [theconversation.com]
"For weeks in advance, I watched as groups across the right-wing spectrum declared their intentions. On Facebook, Twitter, Parler and other platforms, influencers, politicians, activists and ordinary people focus
Re: First rule of crime (Score:3)
Parades don't involve spraying law enforcement with bear spray, breaking windows, or 5 corpses in the ground.
Take your fucking appeasement bullshit elsewhere, we don't want it in our country.
Recording that crime spree (Score:3)
One of the guys who tased a cop (Score:4, Interesting)
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but it's also clear a lot of them were radicalized without really realizing or intending to be.
But the majority of people have the maturity, intelligence, humility, self-awareness, and self-control, not to be radicalized.
These people have had ample opportunity to go through life and gain experiences, and not one of them had enough self-awareness and self-assessment to consider whether they're wrong or not.
These people are rightfully punished for it.
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"Democracy is beyond broke "
I think you mean democracy IN THE USA (and UK, perhaps other nations) is broke.
It can likely be fixed, you know, by reforming your strangely archaic and unique electoral system via preferential and compulsory voting - just as a suggestion.
I'll show myself to the door...
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And ... you completely ignore my first point, the preferential voting?
Which addresses the two party system and majority rule quite nicely, at least here (our ruling party isn't a party, it's a coalition of two parties, neither of whom would be in power without each other).
Compulsory voting also reduces the likelihood of a party managing to get a huge turnout of people who vote for them, so the policies of the various competing parties (dozens in Australia, though admittedly most are never elected) need to a
To be fair he was probably faking (Score:3)
To be fair a lot of the remorsefulness in the court room has been shown to be completely false via social media posts after the fact. I would imagine that there are also a number of people on trail who will also fake it but are not stupid enough to contradict themselves on social media. Basically I disagree with your "misled" narrative. At some point a person has to be held accountable for their actions and storming one of the seats of our government strikes me as an over the line scenario for feeling sorry
Give them all 4 years. (Score:2)
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Speaking of which, why didn't Trump pardon them?
Maybe because he (incorrectly) doesn't think anyone did anything wrong. Also, my understanding is that blanket pardons are problematic -- and a pardon would probably be an admission that they all committed a crime, of which he was a part ...
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No, it's because you can't pardon someone of a federal crime for which they haven't been convicted.
That's not right. Ford pardoned Nixon, who was as-yet uncharged, let alone convicted. The President can pardon someone for any crimes they committed as a result of specific actions, convicted or not. It's the un-specific actions that cause problems.
You presented that as a fact, no uncertainty. It's just plain wrong. Where did you come to learn that? And how are you so certain in something that's just flat wrong?
Not that Trump gave any sign he would do such a thing anyway. Not to be confused with Kamala Harris, who made a big production out of bailing out people who tried to burn federal cops alive, and torch federal buildings night after night for months the previous summer.
Oh.
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Speaking of which, why didn't Trump pardon them?
Probably something to do with how much he cares about the little guy.
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Because they failed. Trump doesn't like losers.
Which is why he will always insist the election was stolen. His psyche can't handle the idea that he lost.
"Insurrection" BS - these are trespassing charges (Score:5, Informative)
> Among the biggest takeaways so far from the Justice Department's prosecution of the insurrection
I love how they drone one about an "insurrection" but these are glorified trespassing charges in the linked PDF.
18 USC 1752(a)(1) - Knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds
18 USC 1752(a)(2) - Disorderly Conduct Which Impedes the Conduct of Government Business
40 USC 5104(e)(2)(D) - Disruptive conduct in the Capitol Buildings
40 USC 5104(e)(2)(G) - Parading, Demonstrating or Picketing in the Capitol Buildings.
Just as a reminder, the only people who died were:
Ashli Babbitt - 35, an Air Force veteran from Southern California, was shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer as she clambered through a broken window https://archive.ph/YLP2Q#selection-665.1-665.140 [archive.ph] - archive of nytimes.com
Brian Sicknick - ... suffered two strokes and died of natural causes a day after he confronted rioters at the Jan. 6 insurrection, the District’s chief medical examiner has ruled. https://archive.is/LgYvj#selection-429.23-429.199 [archive.is] - archive of washingtonpost.com
Kevin Greeson - Kevin D. Greeson, 55, of Athens, Ala., ... suffered a heart attack and fell to the sidewalk. He was talking on the phone with his wife at the time. https://archive.ph/YLP2Q#selection-793.0-793.234 [archive.ph] - archive of nytimes.com
Rosanne Boyland - 34-year-old ... died of acute amphetamine intoxication according to medical examiners. https://archive.ph/8g5qA#selection-4055.23-4055.123 [archive.ph] - archive of wusa9.com local Washington DC
Benjamin Philips - Mr. Philips died of a stroke in Washington, those who accompanied him to the Capitol told the newspaper. https://archive.ph/YLP2Q#selection-1041.0-1041.104 [archive.ph] - archive of nytimes.com
After this, there were also a few cops who committed suicide, though I've read the reports and it's not exactly clear how those were related to this event, or even if there's a true relation there. So just a reminder: half the people here are celebrating the death of an unarmed protester here where people slightly delayed a formality when Biden won months prior.
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Also, when you look at video [nbcchicago.com] of the lead-up and shooting of Ashil Babbit it's obvious that her clambering through the window that the rioters broke was about to be a rush of said rioters streaming in behind her if it was not met with deadly force very quickly. Trying to just sell this as the death of some poor unarmed protestor is disingenuous to say the le
2024 elections (Score:3)
If Trump wins in 2024, I wonder if in Kamala will follow the idea of Trump to throw out the election. I mean Trump said that the Vice President has a right to count only the electoral votes he feels like counting. Why can't Kamala do that? I almost want to see it happen for the comedic effect of it. I am saying almost, only cause I live in US so the joke would be on me. But oh boy, imagine the entertainment value of watching something like that play out from say Sweden or something.
Re: 2024 elections (Score:2)
It's cute you think Kamala will still be in office in 2024.
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Because it's against the law. And the Democrats seem to be more interested in actually keeping to the law (in most cases) than the current Republicans.
So there's a fair chance they won't try this.
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I wish you had written that earlier. I could have skipped all of your other posts.
You Q nuts will believe anything but the truth.
Who do they think they are? (Score:3, Insightful)
Prosecutors also have accused a few defendants of trying to destroy evidence by deleting posts.
Only Democrats can delete messages to hide their crimes [denverpost.com]
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Clinton got the advice to run her own email server for the explicit purpose of avoiding discovery... From Colin Powell [theguardian.com] . In case you didn't know, he declared as an independent until 1995, at which point he declared as a republican.
The idea that only democrats get away with concealing evidence is a severely stupid one, which is why I'm not surprised to see you repeating it.
They Won't Make The Same Mistakes Next Time (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:They Won't Make The Same Mistakes Next Time (Score:4, Insightful)
What mistakes? None were made, Trump is above the law, his republican stooges won't suffer any consequences and a bit of the mindless canon fodder is going to jail to be replaced with more mindless canon fodder next time.
The only people being punished are those replaceable idiots incapable of learning a lesson. Until we start seeing the likes of Trump or Meadows in jail no learning will be done and nothing will change.
"The Big Lie" is now a standard playbook and has been used by several local / state elections since the federal one. Either republicans win or the election was stolen.
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Don't kid yourself. The far right is learning from this and the next time they storm the government apparatus, they won't be so easy to catch and punish.
Don't kid yourself. The kind of people who can be whipped into a froth and sent forth to try to stop a fair and legal election process (as demonstrated by the very auditors the republicans paid to try to find fraud) are big. fucking. idiots. They are not going to learn a fucking thing. They will do the same shit, possibly in different venues which will still cough up the evidence in response to subpoena. i.e. they might not post it on faceboot, and instead go to some more conservative enclave to brag. But t
Trump's Mastodon (Score:3)
You know what'll be perfect for providing vital evidence of willful intent & culpability for locking up white supremacist extremists? An online community where they can share their values, beliefs, objectives, intentions & plans. We have to help them to build Trump's Mastodon!
However, it'll only work if law enforcement actually goes after them for a change. Can't the police & FBI just pretend that they're African American or middle eastern groups & networks & treat them accordingly?
Re:Call a digging implement a digging implement (Score:4, Insightful)
Among the biggest takeaways so far from the Justice Department's prosecution of the insurrection ...
I understand that the press has settled on insurrection to describe the event, but I sure wish they would call it for what it really was: an attempted coup d'etat.
Perhaps a more nuanced interpretation might be that it was an attempted coup by Trump and (some of) the Republicans in Congress which inspired an insurrection by their followers. Anyway you look at it though, it doesn't look good on a resume.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think their intent would count as a coup. A coup would be overthrowing the government, as in all of it, which doesn't seem to be their intent. Their intent was to prevent the certification of Joe Biden's electoral victory. Insurrection, an uprising against the government, seems more correct.
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Classic banana republic shit. I mean they made a fucking powerpoint presentation. https://www.independent.co.uk/... [independent.co.uk]
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The bubble is thick around you.
I guess trying to burn down federal courthouses are just mostly peaceful protests.
Re: (Score:3)
No, the coup d'etat occurred when Democrats (and some Republicans) cheated in an election.
K, show your evidence.
Something that Team Trump literally failed to do in 34 different lawsuits.
Re: (Score:3)
What I found really annoying is one clueless congress critter from New York with a room temperature IQ compared it to December 7th. So this crazy bitch though that a attack that killed over 3,000 US servicemen, that brought the US in to a world spanning conflict that ultimately resulted of over 50 million people. She compared that to some dude wandering around the capital building in furs, face paint and viking helmet.
Re: (Score:3)
No they weren't. Nobody there was trying to kill any police officers. Most of them where quietly chatting with the police officers. It was the rogue capital police officer that was responsible for the only death through violence when he murdered one of the protesters in cold blood.
So , fuck you.
Re:woah "insurrection" (Score:5, Informative)
They were organized, just not very well. I mean, organizational geniuses generally don't create PowerPoint presentations outlining their plan to overthrow the government step-by-step.
https://www.theguardian.com/us... [theguardian.com]
They did have guns. Some had many guns, molotov cocktails, crossbows, tasers, and tear gas. In fact, there were guns seized from the rioters during the attempted coup. Here's a record of the guns that were known about as long ago as July (we know about more now):
https://www.statesman.com/stor... [statesman.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Do you think that person should not have used the gun? A review agreed with their action, but how far do you think someone should be able to go into a federal building with the intent to harm elected officials without action being taken?
Re:woah "insurrection" (Score:5, Informative)
There was no Powerpoint presentations,
You might want to stop reading Fox. https://www.independent.co.uk/... [independent.co.uk]
A PowerPoint presentation that bears the exact title as one that former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has turned over to the House of Representatives select committee investigating the 6 January insurrection alleged that China had effective control of American voting machines and urged the declaration of a “national security emergency” as a pretext for throwing out election results in several US states.
Re:woah "insurrection" (Score:5, Informative)
Planned.
https://abc7.com/rioter-planne... [abc7.com]
With the worst of intentions.
https://www.politico.com/news/... [politico.com]
It's going to take a while to sort out the organized people who researched maps of the tunnel system and knew which windows were reinforced from the morons who could be decoyed away from Pence by a single police officer. (Let's be clear too, Eugene Goodman saved their lives. If they'd hit Pence's Secret Service detail ...)
At a guess, it looks like someone implemented the old military adage that the best way to do a covert operation is to do a big noisy one at the same time.
Law professor Carlton F.W. Larson does agree with you that it wasn't "insurrection". He calls it treason based on his career studying that branch of law.
Re: Riots? (Score:2)
"Parading" seems to be the most common charge.
Re: (Score:3)
"Parading" seems to be the most common charge.
Ummm.. WTF is "parading", a term I have never seen in any of the news coverage or commentary about the arrests and charges?
This useful compilation of data about the charges [wikipedia.org] states that most defendants face "two class-B misdemeanor counts for demonstrating in the Capitol and disorderly conduct, and two class-A misdemeanor counts for being in a restricted building and disruptive activity," Then there are the people facing felony charges related to assault and such. So "the most common charge" is actually sev
Re: (Score:3)
They didn't act like a mob in that they didn't trash the place, set fires, or grab people. I don't think they set many fires or broke much shit besides some windows.
https://www.npr.org/sections/i... [npr.org]
"The [inauguration] platform was wrecked. There was broken glass and other debris. Sound systems and photography equipment was damaged beyond repair or stolen. Two historic Olmsted lanterns were ripped from the ground, and the wet blue paint was tracked all over the historic stone balustrades and Capitol building hallways."
In the Capitol building complex, historical statues, murals and furniture were damaged, mainly from pepper spray accretions and residue from chemical irr
Re: (Score:2)
The AP erodes their credibility by calling this barely-organized protest + criminal trespass an "insurrection". The US government was never at any risk of being overthrown.
Just because the government wasn't in danger - since, even if the mob had killed everyone in Congress, the nation's governors would all just appoint replacements right afterward - doesn't mean the mob didn't intend to overthrow the government.
The people who took part were imbeciles, but that doesn't amount to a valid legal defense.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
> These rioter morons though, against all reason, that they would win.
Why shouldn't they have thought they would, at least, not get into trouble?
The leftists did the exact same thing during the Kavanaugh nomination hearings.
The so-called "rioters" were invited in. It's on video.
Well, you just identified yourself as a moron. Of course anybody with two working brain cells would immediately have seen that this could never work. As to "invited in", no. The capitol is off-limits to anybody without specific permission. That you claim otherwise means you are stupid or lying, probably both. Your use of "leftists" nicely shows you are arguing in bad faith anyways.
Or let me say this on a simplified level you may just about be able to understand: You are stupid and do not understand how thin