Now We’re Getting Somewhere
Yesterday the DOJ announced the arrest and charging of 3 insurrectionist leaders who planned and led the attack on the Capitol. In an extensive 23 page indictment, 3 individuals were named, Thomas Caldwell, Donovan Crowl, and Jessica Watkins, associated with extremist groups including Oathkeepers, Proud Boys, and the Three Percenters. The charges detailed how they forcibly entered the Capitol, assaulted officers, destroyed property, interfered with Congress, and pursued members of Congress. One particular chilling part of the indictment describes FB messages Caldwell was receiving from co-conspirators that were actually guiding him down flights of stairs and through tunnels as he pursued fleeing members of Congress. In messages between other co-conspirators, they even talked about “Paul” who has “the goodies in case things go bad and we need to get heavy.” And stupidly, they put a lot of this communication and evidence of their lawbreaking up on social media for all to see. Unbelievable.
It’s becoming very clear that the attack on the Capitol wasn’t just a demonstration that got out of hand. The attack was planned among conspirators in multiple states in multiple extremist groups. Their military training, radical rhetoric, and threats made it clear they intended to capture, and even kill members of Congress whom they had decided had somehow committed “treason”. The evidence is also becoming clear that they had help from the inside of the Capitol. Who that is, we don’t know yet, but I predict we will.
The feds must continue investigating, arresting, trying and convicting as many of these conspirators. These extremists are gun nuts who advocate unlicensed and unregulated ownership of all firearms. Many are convicted felons who are excluded from owning guns, by law. Even though many of these radicals are not allowed to own guns, they can still get them through private sales and black markets, but the feds must continue pursuing these criminals and enforcing the law. The Congress in collusion with George W, let the genie out of the bottle in 2004 when they let the Assault Weapons ban expire. Millions of weapons of war have flooded into the market feeding the violent tendencies of extremists groups that have proliferated all over the country. The only tool we have remaining is charging, convicting, and jailing thousands of these gun nuts who threaten our democratic republic.
This is at least a start.
“This guy (Daniel Beck) says several senators, Don Jr, Rudy, etc attended a January 5 pre-Insurrection meeting at Trump International Hotel.”
https://twitter.com/RexChapman/status/1354303258131574786
I hope this gets featured during the impeachment trial.
1I’m not expecting ANY rePUKEian congress-varmit being chagred as they are rich & powerful and have influence. Some of their idiot sheeple gets slapped on the hand is all expect!
2The cold sweat of fear begins as your wait turns into the “silence of the lambs.”
Headline: Arizona GOP lawmakers who traveled to DC before Capitol riot refuse to release cell phone records
3Jason Johnson on MSNBC last night brought up the point that the GOP’s fixation on “Benghaaazi!” went on for a couple of years, but now they want everyone to just move on and ignore the insurrection, even though they were witnesses to the crime and some, like Mike Pence, came perilously close to being attacked, if not killed. Nothing to see here, folks.
4I saw an article stating that the right-wing terrorists learned from assaulting state legislatures that these buildings were lightly defended, and the defenders were often sympathetic to right-wing causes.
Small wonder these folks felt no need to hide their communications. They won’t repeat that error.
5Surprise! Proud Boys leader, Enrique Tarrio, was a “prolific” informant for federal and local law enforcement, according to Reuters. Shocked, shocked I tell you.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-proudboys-leader/exclusive-proud-boys-leader-was-prolific-informer-for-law-enforcement-idUSKBN29W1PE
6This is going to be to the Orange Moron’s advantage. If these people planned the whole mess in advance, it lets the Moron off the hook for incitment to riot. Just my thoughts, of course. I’m not a lawyer.
Still, throwing the book at these people might just knock some sense into their followers.
7Planned, yes.Well-planned, no.
No communications security, no rally points, no specific objectives, no chain of command etc.
If these are examples of military training then I can see why the US hasn’t won any wars since 1945.
8Since several of those arrested have already claimed they were asked by you know who to invade the capital, I don’t think he can use the preplanning by the proud boy types as a defense. Remember when he told them to stand down and stand by? The totality of you know who’s previous lies and threats along with his mouthpieces at the final 1/6 rally-the-mob rioters are damning. Clearly what the mob heard was go to the capital and into “combat”. Still, at the end of the day, you know who will be acquitted by the senate repugnanticans. Down the road as the members of the organized proud boy type groups get prosecuted, as part of their defense, they might implicate others in the 1/6 insurrection including you know who and his inner circle.
9There’s ample proof Trump was involved in, knew about, the planning as early as September (possibly earlier) when he refused to confirm that he would make a peaceful transition if he lost the vote. His refusal to do that, and his steady insistence that he could lose only by voter fraud, signaled to me that he had another plan either already in place or being developed. It didn’t have the feel of his usual bluff…it had the feel (and the expression on his face revealed…that he had a violent force organized and ready to act. And some of them bragged about it.
This has always had the feel…from both surrounding “noise” online and in the press (esp. right wing but also centrist), as well as Trump’s own attitude and what he said and did in the months before the election…of a multi-layered, long-laid plot of some kind. Between Christmas and January 6, it was clear *something* was going to happen that wasn’t a peaceful read-out of Electoral College results with routine acceptance. Certain key people in Congress were obvious bellwethers for it (because they weren’t people who could keep their mouths shut!) and so was Trump’s known team. The connections back to Trump should be very easy to find, though it takes time and care–for those in the intelligence agencies know that they’ve been penetrated–that some of their own people were/are involved–and it’s important to make the connections before those on the wrong side are spooked into running too far.
When the attack came, it was obvious that the gathered crowd had several components…the cannon fodder, and specific teams for the various activities necessary to make it that easy. It was obvious that the planning could not have been spontaneous…it wasn’t a matter of a loose network with a phone tree and “Hey, let’s go to D.C. Cody & Jim & Barb and Sandy are going…” There was some spontaneity to some of the cannon fodder, but there was also professional-level military planning, adequately staffed, at a high level. “These are the levers we need to move, and these are the levers we need to immobilize.” You don’t get that with spontaneous, emotion-based activity; you get that with cool, clear-thinking professional military. Which is why I still think Erik Prince was involved at the strategic planning level, whether or not he had any operational command.
Some of the attacks on state legislatures and governors have clearly been amateur-level planning; others have clearly been probes by the military pros, testing out hypotheses about the Capitol building, security issues, etc. They’ve all involved people in uniforms with guns, but also a lot of noisy, rowdy people who wear camo and maybe have guns but the discipline of a bunch of third graders loose in a park.
The Capitol attack showed pros using amateurs as cover, including moving themselves out of camera while directing excited, undisciplined idjits to do this and that. (ALso…not all veterans count as pros in that kind of action, but many more veterans can *recognize* them in a crowd.)
Unfortunately I have an important long and intricate report that must be finished tomorrow, that’s been eating up my hours and my eyesight and hand strength this past week, so not as much time to write here as I’d like.
10Since I’d prefer to live in a law-governed society, I’d prefer that the Persimmon $h!tgibb0n was acquitted. The language doesn’t rise to incitement, only excitement.
You want incitement to riot, try Portland.
Of course, the trial should be long, with many many witnesses each half day it’s in session, so the Fake Media can roll around in the sordid details. Maybe three months in session?
11Good thing about the WMDBS is we can vent our opinions, so here goes, Mr Otvos.
12Let’s deal with Portland first. I think the riots and vandalism were (and are) deplorable and should have resulted in more serious prosecutions. Some should have been prosecuted as insurrections, but my bigger concern has been the damage to private businesses. The other thing I hated was it gave Trumpf a few million votes.
Now, my opinion is there’s no comparison between Portland and an insurrection to overturn an election and potentially damage our democracy. Also my opinion, a President of the United States through his words and actions along with his inner circle did in fact incite the insurrection. To just call it excitement is, well, puzzling. That’s not fake news. He will be acquitted but still needs to be held accountable. Unfortunately, the repugnantican party in states and in congress will make him a martyr instead of holding him accountable. Frankly, they deserve him. I hope the future will hold them accountable, but that’s probably wishful thinking.
For more on this, read @sethabramson on Twitter.
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