Capitol Riots 2

Poncier

mrussel1 said:

tempo_n_groove said:

Halifax2TheMax said:

tempo_n_groove said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

tempo_n_groove said:

Merkin Baller said:

tempo_n_groove said:

I thought I explained it well enough but we will try another way.

What is the bill for?

I'm not the only person who found your statements contradictory, so you clearly didn't explain it well enough. 


Figure out the bill for yourself and explain both how the republicans' reasoning for voting against it is bullshit and valid, because you've argued both here this afternoon. 

I give up...

that's how I took it too, tempo. 

This last one didn't make sense?

The bill is for the medal of honor.

If the bill's language is used in the court of law going forward then the bill was politicized.  That is what I am trying to get at.

Does that make sense?

No. Bills introduced, debated and voted on in Congress by their/there/they're nature are "political." Referencing a bill/law/act passed by Congress in a courtroom prosecution because it mentions or references "insurrection" is not "politicizing" the bill, its a statement of fact.

If the bill didn't pass, do you think the prosecutors would drop the charges? As far as I've heard, no one is being charged with insurrectionism, if there is indeed a statute on the books in the courts that have jurisdiction and prosecutors have filed such a charge.

A defense attorney could argue that, "that evil commie bill passed by Congress that awarded the Medal of Honor to our men and women in blue was an evil conspiracy by the dem majority to define a tourist visit as an insurrection and since it was a tourist visit, you must acquit my client." Never mind the actual charge(s) of trespassing, failure to disperse, theft, assault, conspiracy, etc. that defendants are likely to be charged with.

How do you define "insurrection?"

This bill should have nothing to do with prosecuting though.  It is a medal for the officers that day. But the way you describe it is exactly what will happen now.  The bill becomes about the insurrection and not about the officers that day.

I have said multiple times that what happened that day was an insurrection since you needed confirmation.

No one has been charged with fomenting an insurrection nor sedition.  So why would a federal prosecutor use a congressional bill's language to accuse a defendant of insurrection?

They wouldn't...it isn't even remotely possible, just an excuse some of those who voted against awarding the medals used to try and hide their true intent.

josevolution

Hell if this insurrection had been perpetrated by BLM black protesters it would of been a blood bath! 

mrussel1

Poncier said:

mrussel1 said:

tempo_n_groove said:

Halifax2TheMax said:

tempo_n_groove said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

tempo_n_groove said:

Merkin Baller said:

tempo_n_groove said:

I thought I explained it well enough but we will try another way.

What is the bill for?

I'm not the only person who found your statements contradictory, so you clearly didn't explain it well enough. 


Figure out the bill for yourself and explain both how the republicans' reasoning for voting against it is bullshit and valid, because you've argued both here this afternoon. 

I give up...

that's how I took it too, tempo. 

This last one didn't make sense?

The bill is for the medal of honor.

If the bill's language is used in the court of law going forward then the bill was politicized.  That is what I am trying to get at.

Does that make sense?

No. Bills introduced, debated and voted on in Congress by their/there/they're nature are "political." Referencing a bill/law/act passed by Congress in a courtroom prosecution because it mentions or references "insurrection" is not "politicizing" the bill, its a statement of fact.

If the bill didn't pass, do you think the prosecutors would drop the charges? As far as I've heard, no one is being charged with insurrectionism, if there is indeed a statute on the books in the courts that have jurisdiction and prosecutors have filed such a charge.

A defense attorney could argue that, "that evil commie bill passed by Congress that awarded the Medal of Honor to our men and women in blue was an evil conspiracy by the dem majority to define a tourist visit as an insurrection and since it was a tourist visit, you must acquit my client." Never mind the actual charge(s) of trespassing, failure to disperse, theft, assault, conspiracy, etc. that defendants are likely to be charged with.

How do you define "insurrection?"

This bill should have nothing to do with prosecuting though.  It is a medal for the officers that day. But the way you describe it is exactly what will happen now.  The bill becomes about the insurrection and not about the officers that day.

I have said multiple times that what happened that day was an insurrection since you needed confirmation.

No one has been charged with fomenting an insurrection nor sedition.  So why would a federal prosecutor use a congressional bill's language to accuse a defendant of insurrection?

They wouldn't...it isn't even remotely possible, just an excuse some of those who voted against awarding the medals used to try and hide their true intent.

And perhaps the defendants should have thought that through.  Last time I checked the GOP was backing the blue and tough on crime.  Sounds like they are pro-criminal.  

mickeyrat

guess this goes here...

 Aaron Blake
June 18 at 12:12 PM ET
Earlier this week, 21 congressional Republicans voted not to award Congressional Gold Medals to the police officers who protected the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. The stated purpose was often that they disagreed with specific language in the legislation — particularly that the riot constituted an “insurrection.”
But increasingly, key elements of the conservative movement have expressed another relevant objection involving Capitol Police officers’ conduct that day: suggesting Ashli Babbitt was a martyr.
Babbitt was the 35-year-old veteran whom a Capitol Police officer shot and killed while she was breaking into a sensitive area of the Capitol. In April, the Capitol Police officer who shot her was cleared of any wrongdoing in the shooting. But of late, pressing for answers on Babbitt’s death has become a cause celebre among some conservative activists.
What’s perhaps most notable about the effort is how slowly it has built. We had the graphic video of Babbitt’s death almost immediately after the Capitol riot. Very little has been added to the record since then, beyond the officer’s being cleared two months ago. But as the questioning of the narrative of the Capitol riot has grown — and with authorities still declining to identify the officer involved — a chorus has swelled around the Babbitt issue as well.
[‘The storm is here’: Ashli Babbitt’s journey from capital ‘guardian’ to invader]
Shortly after the Capitol riot, Babbitt’s death was often held up on the right as a tragedy, but not necessarily one resulting from police misconduct or political persecution.
Then-Fox Business host Lou Dobbs on Jan. 7 lamented Babbitt’s death but suggested that a backlash wasn’t likely or necessary.
“Does anyone on the left this evening seriously believe the death of Ashli Babbitt at the hands of a Capitol Police officer justifies civil unrest for even a few minutes, or certainly months afterwards?” Dobbs said. “I do not. I don’t know anyone who does.”
On Jan. 9, Fox News contributor Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service agent, was asked specifically about how the Babbitt situation was handled, and he warned against “Monday morning quarterbacking.”
“Well, in general, there are two big failures I see here that are obvious,” Bongino said. “Let me just say this, of course, it is always going to be Monday morning quarterbacking. I mean, there’s no other easy way to put it.”
Indeed, at that point, there were few efforts to claim any wrongdoing in Babbitt’s death.
The next month, though, that began to change. Fox host Tucker Carlson responded to a Nicholas Kristof column noting Babbitt was a viewer of Carlson’s show, which often featured the kind of baseless conspiracy theories about election fraud that spurred the Capitol rioters. Carlson leaned into the idea that perhaps Babbitt shouldn’t have been shot.
“But what kind of country is it where nobody says, ‘Well, wait, that’s kind of sad,’” Carlson said. “They shot an unarmed woman? Is that really a death-penalty offense?”
But it was still months before the effort to suggest Babbitt’s shooting might have been wrong truly took off.
After the officer was cleared in April, Carlson lamented that “when you’re fighting insurrectionists, you don’t have to explain yourself; you just hyperventilate about QAnon and then you do whatever you want.”
Carlson also upped the ante when it came to pitching the likes of Babbitt and her fellow rioters as tragic figures: “When a group of sad, disenfranchised people who have been left out of the modern economy show up at your office, you don’t have to listen to their complaints.”
He also labeled the death a “homicide” — a word that implies criminality by the shooter: “Only one person actually was a homicide victim. That was Ashli Babbitt. She was a protester.”
By May, the theory that Babbitt’s death was wrong gained a supporter in Congress, with Rep. Paul A. Gosar (R-Ariz.) going so far as to claim at a hearing with FBI Director Christopher A. Wray that Babbitt was “executed.” (This was the hearing in which other Republicans who would eventually vote against the Congressional Gold Medals would also downplay the riot, including Georgia Rep. Andrew S. Clyde, who said early images of Trump supporters streaming into the Capitol looked like a “normal tourist visit.”)
Gosar this week doubled down on the “executed” claim, adding that the police officer was “lying in wait.” This drew a rebuke from Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who said it was “disgusting and despicable to see Gosar lie about that day and smear the men and women who defended us.”
Fox’s Laura Ingraham has also increasingly dabbled in this. On Jan. 6, she conducted a sympathetic but largely fact-focused interview with an eyewitness to the shooting. The witness said of Babbitt: “She wasn’t being violent; she wasn’t breaking anything. She just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Between then and now, Ingraham occasionally mentioned Babbitt as the only shooting victim of the riot — a regular argument to suggest the situation wasn’t actually that violent. But this month, Ingraham has repeatedly run segments calling for answers.
Fox News host Mark Levin last week wdescribed Babbitt as essentially someone minding her own business when she was shot.
“The only person killed that day was this veteran who was in the building, who didn’t have a weapon, who wasn’t threatening anybody,” Levin said. “She was walking around with the rest, and boom.”
(Babbitt was, in fact, climbing through a broken window of doors that officers were struggling mightily to keep closed to rioters.)
Carlson this week cited Russian President Vladimir Putin as having raised valid concerns about Babbitt’s death. (Whatever one thinks about the circumstances of her death, Putin’s record on human rights makes pretty clear this is less about justice and more about deflection.)
And social media has practically exploded this week with fringe conservative figures — who have real followings — suggesting that Babbitt was a patriot who was unjustly killed.
It’s all a logical progression of the effort to recast the Jan. 6 riot, for two reasons:
It contributes to the narrative that it wasn’t that bad — and even that these were simply well-meaning protesters trying to make their voices heard

It raises claims of a double standard and hypocrisy when it comes to police shootings. (“Well, we certainly didn’t hear that when the tables were turned,” Wisconsin GOP Sen. Ron Johnson said on Levin’s show. “Again, it’s the concern about the unequal application of justice and a lot of concern.”)
And for those reasons, the chorus seems likely to keep growing. Thus far, it’s mostly relegated to social media, fringe members like Gosar and conservative talkers (who pitch this as just raising questions, while being sympathetic to Babbitt). But there’s little doubt the revisionism will only mushroom from here — despite the lack of any new real evidence beyond what we all saw five months ago.

mrussel1

https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/1405155836201254916?s=20

tempo_n_groove

mickeyrat said:

guess this goes here...

 Aaron Blake
June 18 at 12:12 PM ET
Earlier this week, 21 congressional Republicans voted not to award Congressional Gold Medals to the police officers who protected the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. The stated purpose was often that they disagreed with specific language in the legislation — particularly that the riot constituted an “insurrection.”
But increasingly, key elements of the conservative movement have expressed another relevant objection involving Capitol Police officers’ conduct that day: suggesting Ashli Babbitt was a martyr.
Babbitt was the 35-year-old veteran whom a Capitol Police officer shot and killed while she was breaking into a sensitive area of the Capitol. In April, the Capitol Police officer who shot her was cleared of any wrongdoing in the shooting. But of late, pressing for answers on Babbitt’s death has become a cause celebre among some conservative activists.
What’s perhaps most notable about the effort is how slowly it has built. We had the graphic video of Babbitt’s death almost immediately after the Capitol riot. Very little has been added to the record since then, beyond the officer’s being cleared two months ago. But as the questioning of the narrative of the Capitol riot has grown — and with authorities still declining to identify the officer involved — a chorus has swelled around the Babbitt issue as well.
[‘The storm is here’: Ashli Babbitt’s journey from capital ‘guardian’ to invader]
Shortly after the Capitol riot, Babbitt’s death was often held up on the right as a tragedy, but not necessarily one resulting from police misconduct or political persecution.
Then-Fox Business host Lou Dobbs on Jan. 7 lamented Babbitt’s death but suggested that a backlash wasn’t likely or necessary.
“Does anyone on the left this evening seriously believe the death of Ashli Babbitt at the hands of a Capitol Police officer justifies civil unrest for even a few minutes, or certainly months afterwards?” Dobbs said. “I do not. I don’t know anyone who does.”
On Jan. 9, Fox News contributor Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service agent, was asked specifically about how the Babbitt situation was handled, and he warned against “Monday morning quarterbacking.”
“Well, in general, there are two big failures I see here that are obvious,” Bongino said. “Let me just say this, of course, it is always going to be Monday morning quarterbacking. I mean, there’s no other easy way to put it.”
Indeed, at that point, there were few efforts to claim any wrongdoing in Babbitt’s death.
The next month, though, that began to change. Fox host Tucker Carlson responded to a Nicholas Kristof column noting Babbitt was a viewer of Carlson’s show, which often featured the kind of baseless conspiracy theories about election fraud that spurred the Capitol rioters. Carlson leaned into the idea that perhaps Babbitt shouldn’t have been shot.
“But what kind of country is it where nobody says, ‘Well, wait, that’s kind of sad,’” Carlson said. “They shot an unarmed woman? Is that really a death-penalty offense?”
But it was still months before the effort to suggest Babbitt’s shooting might have been wrong truly took off.
After the officer was cleared in April, Carlson lamented that “when you’re fighting insurrectionists, you don’t have to explain yourself; you just hyperventilate about QAnon and then you do whatever you want.”
Carlson also upped the ante when it came to pitching the likes of Babbitt and her fellow rioters as tragic figures: “When a group of sad, disenfranchised people who have been left out of the modern economy show up at your office, you don’t have to listen to their complaints.”
He also labeled the death a “homicide” — a word that implies criminality by the shooter: “Only one person actually was a homicide victim. That was Ashli Babbitt. She was a protester.”
By May, the theory that Babbitt’s death was wrong gained a supporter in Congress, with Rep. Paul A. Gosar (R-Ariz.) going so far as to claim at a hearing with FBI Director Christopher A. Wray that Babbitt was “executed.” (This was the hearing in which other Republicans who would eventually vote against the Congressional Gold Medals would also downplay the riot, including Georgia Rep. Andrew S. Clyde, who said early images of Trump supporters streaming into the Capitol looked like a “normal tourist visit.”)
Gosar this week doubled down on the “executed” claim, adding that the police officer was “lying in wait.” This drew a rebuke from Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who said it was “disgusting and despicable to see Gosar lie about that day and smear the men and women who defended us.”
Fox’s Laura Ingraham has also increasingly dabbled in this. On Jan. 6, she conducted a sympathetic but largely fact-focused interview with an eyewitness to the shooting. The witness said of Babbitt: “She wasn’t being violent; she wasn’t breaking anything. She just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Between then and now, Ingraham occasionally mentioned Babbitt as the only shooting victim of the riot — a regular argument to suggest the situation wasn’t actually that violent. But this month, Ingraham has repeatedly run segments calling for answers.
Fox News host Mark Levin last week wdescribed Babbitt as essentially someone minding her own business when she was shot.
“The only person killed that day was this veteran who was in the building, who didn’t have a weapon, who wasn’t threatening anybody,” Levin said. “She was walking around with the rest, and boom.”
(Babbitt was, in fact, climbing through a broken window of doors that officers were struggling mightily to keep closed to rioters.)
Carlson this week cited Russian President Vladimir Putin as having raised valid concerns about Babbitt’s death. (Whatever one thinks about the circumstances of her death, Putin’s record on human rights makes pretty clear this is less about justice and more about deflection.)
And social media has practically exploded this week with fringe conservative figures — who have real followings — suggesting that Babbitt was a patriot who was unjustly killed.
It’s all a logical progression of the effort to recast the Jan. 6 riot, for two reasons:
It contributes to the narrative that it wasn’t that bad — and even that these were simply well-meaning protesters trying to make their voices heard

It raises claims of a double standard and hypocrisy when it comes to police shootings. (“Well, we certainly didn’t hear that when the tables were turned,” Wisconsin GOP Sen. Ron Johnson said on Levin’s show. “Again, it’s the concern about the unequal application of justice and a lot of concern.”)
And for those reasons, the chorus seems likely to keep growing. Thus far, it’s mostly relegated to social media, fringe members like Gosar and conservative talkers (who pitch this as just raising questions, while being sympathetic to Babbitt). But there’s little doubt the revisionism will only mushroom from here — despite the lack of any new real evidence beyond what we all saw five months ago.

Fox News host Mark Levin last week wdescribed Babbitt as essentially someone minding her own business when she was shot.
“The only person killed that day was this veteran who was in the building, who didn’t have a weapon, who wasn’t threatening anybody,” Levin said. “She was walking around with the rest, and boom.”

Did this guy even watch the videos?  Breaking through a barricaded door to gain access to the members inside.  Walking around with the rest?

Man this guy is something.  Talk about a troublemaker...

JeBurkhardt

That was no 'regular site seeing tour" the way some on the right would like people to see it retroactively. It was a straight up attack on the the Capitol with the intention of disrupting the legal certification of an election at best, and inflicting harm or worse on elected officials. Babbit was part of a mob breaking down the doors to get to congress people, and ended up dead because of it. She was not just walking around taking in the sites.    

mickeyrat

 

Donald Trump Joe Biden Arkansas Riots Arrests Capitol siege AR State Wire Nancy Pelosi

Judge: No car show trip for man arrested in Capitol riot

18 Jun 2021

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A federal judge on Friday said he won't allow an Arkansas man arrested after he was photographed sitting at a desk in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office during the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot to travel for a classic-car swap meet.

U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Cooper rejected the request by Richard Barnett to loosen the restrictions on how far he can travel while he's awaiting trial.

Barnett is allowed to travel only up to 50 miles (80 kilometers) from his residence while he is on home detention awaiting trial. Barnett's attorney said the Gravette, Arkansas, man needed to be able to travel to make a living buying and selling classic cars.

Petit Jean Mountain, where the car show is being held, is 200 miles (320 kilometers) from Gravette.

“The Court is not persuaded that the defendant cannot pursue gainful employment within a 50-mile radius of his home as permitted by the current conditions," Cooper's order said.

Barnett, 61, was among supporters of President Donald Trump who stormed the Capitol as lawmakers assembled to certify Joe Biden’s victory over Trump. Prosecutors say Barnett was carrying a stun gun when he entered the building.

Federal prosecutors opposed Barnett's request and said his conduct while awaiting trial — including an interview with Russian State Television — indicates more conditions, not fewer, were needed.

JeBurkhardt

mickeyrat said:

 

Donald Trump Joe Biden Arkansas Riots Arrests Capitol siege AR State Wire Nancy Pelosi

Judge: No car show trip for man arrested in Capitol riot

18 Jun 2021

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A federal judge on Friday said he won't allow an Arkansas man arrested after he was photographed sitting at a desk in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office during the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot to travel for a classic-car swap meet.

U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Cooper rejected the request by Richard Barnett to loosen the restrictions on how far he can travel while he's awaiting trial.

Barnett is allowed to travel only up to 50 miles (80 kilometers) from his residence while he is on home detention awaiting trial. Barnett's attorney said the Gravette, Arkansas, man needed to be able to travel to make a living buying and selling classic cars.

Petit Jean Mountain, where the car show is being held, is 200 miles (320 kilometers) from Gravette.

“The Court is not persuaded that the defendant cannot pursue gainful employment within a 50-mile radius of his home as permitted by the current conditions," Cooper's order said.

Barnett, 61, was among supporters of President Donald Trump who stormed the Capitol as lawmakers assembled to certify Joe Biden’s victory over Trump. Prosecutors say Barnett was carrying a stun gun when he entered the building.

Federal prosecutors opposed Barnett's request and said his conduct while awaiting trial — including an interview with Russian State Television — indicates more conditions, not fewer, were needed.

I see signs for businesses hiring all over the place. My guess is that he would consider it an insult what is being offered for pay, while still being against raising wages for workers.

The guy is a hero of the Kremlin now! 

Merkin Baller

JeBurkhardt said:

mickeyrat said:

 

Donald Trump Joe Biden Arkansas Riots Arrests Capitol siege AR State Wire Nancy Pelosi

Judge: No car show trip for man arrested in Capitol riot

18 Jun 2021

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A federal judge on Friday said he won't allow an Arkansas man arrested after he was photographed sitting at a desk in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office during the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot to travel for a classic-car swap meet.

U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Cooper rejected the request by Richard Barnett to loosen the restrictions on how far he can travel while he's awaiting trial.

Barnett is allowed to travel only up to 50 miles (80 kilometers) from his residence while he is on home detention awaiting trial. Barnett's attorney said the Gravette, Arkansas, man needed to be able to travel to make a living buying and selling classic cars.

Petit Jean Mountain, where the car show is being held, is 200 miles (320 kilometers) from Gravette.

“The Court is not persuaded that the defendant cannot pursue gainful employment within a 50-mile radius of his home as permitted by the current conditions," Cooper's order said.

Barnett, 61, was among supporters of President Donald Trump who stormed the Capitol as lawmakers assembled to certify Joe Biden’s victory over Trump. Prosecutors say Barnett was carrying a stun gun when he entered the building.

Federal prosecutors opposed Barnett's request and said his conduct while awaiting trial — including an interview with Russian State Television — indicates more conditions, not fewer, were needed.

I see signs for businesses hiring all over the place. My guess is that he would consider it an insult what is being offered for pay, while still being against raising wages for workers.

The guy is a hero of the Kremlin now! 

The interview with with Russian State Television is the cherry on top of this shit sundae. 

mrussel1

Merkin Baller said:

JeBurkhardt said:

mickeyrat said:

 

Donald Trump Joe Biden Arkansas Riots Arrests Capitol siege AR State Wire Nancy Pelosi

Judge: No car show trip for man arrested in Capitol riot

18 Jun 2021

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A federal judge on Friday said he won't allow an Arkansas man arrested after he was photographed sitting at a desk in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office during the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot to travel for a classic-car swap meet.

U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Cooper rejected the request by Richard Barnett to loosen the restrictions on how far he can travel while he's awaiting trial.

Barnett is allowed to travel only up to 50 miles (80 kilometers) from his residence while he is on home detention awaiting trial. Barnett's attorney said the Gravette, Arkansas, man needed to be able to travel to make a living buying and selling classic cars.

Petit Jean Mountain, where the car show is being held, is 200 miles (320 kilometers) from Gravette.

“The Court is not persuaded that the defendant cannot pursue gainful employment within a 50-mile radius of his home as permitted by the current conditions," Cooper's order said.

Barnett, 61, was among supporters of President Donald Trump who stormed the Capitol as lawmakers assembled to certify Joe Biden’s victory over Trump. Prosecutors say Barnett was carrying a stun gun when he entered the building.

Federal prosecutors opposed Barnett's request and said his conduct while awaiting trial — including an interview with Russian State Television — indicates more conditions, not fewer, were needed.

I see signs for businesses hiring all over the place. My guess is that he would consider it an insult what is being offered for pay, while still being against raising wages for workers.

The guy is a hero of the Kremlin now! 

The interview with with Russian State Television is the cherry on top of this shit sundae. 

who did an interview with Russian TV?

Bentleyspop

mrussel1 said:

Merkin Baller said:

JeBurkhardt said:

mickeyrat said:

 

Donald Trump Joe Biden Arkansas Riots Arrests Capitol siege AR State Wire Nancy Pelosi

Judge: No car show trip for man arrested in Capitol riot

18 Jun 2021

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A federal judge on Friday said he won't allow an Arkansas man arrested after he was photographed sitting at a desk in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office during the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot to travel for a classic-car swap meet.

U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Cooper rejected the request by Richard Barnett to loosen the restrictions on how far he can travel while he's awaiting trial.

Barnett is allowed to travel only up to 50 miles (80 kilometers) from his residence while he is on home detention awaiting trial. Barnett's attorney said the Gravette, Arkansas, man needed to be able to travel to make a living buying and selling classic cars.

Petit Jean Mountain, where the car show is being held, is 200 miles (320 kilometers) from Gravette.

“The Court is not persuaded that the defendant cannot pursue gainful employment within a 50-mile radius of his home as permitted by the current conditions," Cooper's order said.

Barnett, 61, was among supporters of President Donald Trump who stormed the Capitol as lawmakers assembled to certify Joe Biden’s victory over Trump. Prosecutors say Barnett was carrying a stun gun when he entered the building.

Federal prosecutors opposed Barnett's request and said his conduct while awaiting trial — including an interview with Russian State Television — indicates more conditions, not fewer, were needed.

I see signs for businesses hiring all over the place. My guess is that he would consider it an insult what is being offered for pay, while still being against raising wages for workers.

The guy is a hero of the Kremlin now! 

The interview with with Russian State Television is the cherry on top of this shit sundae. 

who did an interview with Russian TV?

This f#%ckin guy....

mrussel1

Ha, no way.  I did not know that.  My God, what has happened to these people?  They are completely over the edge. 

Merkin Baller

Imagine how much fun people in Russia are having watching those interviews? 

What a f’ing embarrassment. 

In other news, saw this on Twitter this AM. Thought it was worth sharing & couldn’t agree more with the final tweet: 

Halifax2TheMax

If you haven’t spent any time taking in OANN, you really need to. Their/there/they’re reporting is partly responsible for the direction this country is headed. I watched Grover Norquist be interviewed and the leading questions and his answers were unbelievable. It didn’t hurt that they had a 6’2’ leggy, blonde busty Russian vixen interviewing him but she kept looking at her phone to see what to say next. No Kaitlin Collins that one. And all of the voice over film reporting sounded like the announcers had marbles in their/there/they’re mouths. Even the studio host gave off a smarmy Frat boy, fucker Carlson wannabe vibe. I don’t know how that shit passes as “news,” or how they get credentials. Come to find out, a reporter for OANN is also bankrolling the fraudit in Arizona. ‘Murica.

tempo_n_groove

Halifax2TheMax said:

If you haven’t spent any time taking in OANN, you really need to. Their/there/they’re reporting is partly responsible for the direction this country is headed. I watched Grover Norquist be interviewed and the leading questions and his answers were unbelievable. It didn’t hurt that they had a 6’2’ leggy, blonde busty Russian vixen interviewing him but she kept looking at her phone to see what to say next. No Kaitlin Collins that one. And all of the voice over film reporting sounded like the announcers had marbles in their/there/they’re mouths. Even the studio host gave off a smarmy Frat boy, fucker Carlson wannabe vibe. I don’t know how that shit passes as “news,” or how they get credentials. Come to find out, a reporter for OANN is also bankrolling the fraudit in Arizona. ‘Murica.

That alternative news channels like OANN and NEWSMAX have been chipping away at FOX' viewership.  Carlson still leads them all though.

They are painful to watch but a must if you want to see what kind of fuckery is coming.

Halifax2TheMax

Both high school drop outs, one a convicted felon. In possession of firearms. And I think he meant to say "hood" instead of "mask." 'Murica and freedumb. The future is not looking so bright.

Unmasking the far right: An extremist paid a price when his identity was exposed online after a violent clash in Washington

In a flash, Laura Jedeed was surrounded by screaming men. The freelance journalist was filming a group of Trump supporters walking the streets of the District after the “Million MAGA March” on Nov. 14 when a man wearing an American flag gaiter mask approached her, stepped on her toes and began yelling.

“What’s up, you stupid b----?” the man shouted, his mask slipping down his face.

Jedeed yelled at the man to stop touching her. A crowd formed around her and another journalist, with unmasked men screaming at them from all directions. Jedeed kept her camera rolling, and when she got away from the crowd, she uploaded video of the incident to YouTube and Twitter, and it went viral.

Reaction was swift.

The man in the flag mask was quickly identified as Washington state resident Edward Jeremy Dawson by a local antifa group. Twitter users mining public records later released his address and phone number.

The video was amplified by Christian Exoo, a prominent anti-fascist activist who tweeted it out to his 50,000-plus followers. Exoo also included contact information for Dawson’s employer.

Two days later, Dawson lost his job as an ironworker, his employer citing his actions in D.C. His wife, Michelle, uploaded a tearful self-shot video to Twitter announcing his firing, and later that month she was asked to hand in her vest and badge at a Walmart in Battle Ground, Wash., where she worked as an online-order fulfiller. She thinks she was fired over her politics but acknowledges that she had missed a substantial amount of work because of back problems.

Anonymous abusive callers deluged the Dawsons’ cellphones, with some urging the couple to kill themselves, the Dawsons said.

The disclosure online of Dawson’s personal information — a phenomenon known as doxing — is part of a growing effort by left-wing activists to punish members of far-right groups accused of violent behavior by exposing them to their employers, family and friends. The doxing of Dawson highlights the effect the tactic can have — unemployment and personal upheaval followed by a new job that pays much less than his old one — but also the limits of the technique: Dawson is unrepentant for his role in galvanizing a mob to harass Jedeed and continues to espouse far-right views.

Indeed, some on the left, including Jedeed, who is a well-known activist in Portland, Ore., have qualms about the tactic and how effective it can be in the fight against extremism.

“From a practical perspective, I feel like being unemployable is going to push him in a more extreme direction,” Jedeed said. “On the other hand, you shouldn't be able to act like that and then have nothing happen to you.”

The tactic also has been employed by the far right to target not just their leftist opponents but also the families of mass shooting victims, who have been harassed by those claiming the attacks were fabricated.

Antifa activists say that hateful rhetoric is protected by the First Amendment but that that doesn’t mean those who advocate or use violence as part of their ideology shouldn’t be exposed, including to their employers. They argue that doxing is a nonviolent response to violence.

Conservatives typically portray militant antifascists as the far-left equivalent of violent armed groups on the hard right, but right-wing extremist attacks and plots greatly eclipse those from the far left and cause more deaths, a Washington Post analysis showed. The FBI regards far-right extremists as the most active and lethal domestic terror threat.

“Our focus is on protecting our communities by making it as hard as possible to be a Nazi,” said Exoo, a part-time library employee at St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y., who also teaches classes on public records and social media research to activists. “We can’t always change hearts, but at least organizing is going to be harder for [Dawson] in the future.”

Fervent supporters

The Dawsons consider themselves friends and followers of Joey Gibson, who founded Patriot Prayer in 2016.

The far-right group has rallied dozens of times in the Portland area and engaged in violent clashes with anti-fascist counterprotesters.

Michelle Dawson first attended a Patriot Prayer rally in 2019. “He talked a lot about freedom and God,” she said of Gibson. “I’ve seen his fire and I’ve seen that he had a voice and he wasn’t afraid to use it.”

In 2019, Michelle Dawson won a seat on the city council in Yacolt, Wash., just north of Portland, running on a gun rights platform. A high school dropout from Utah, she said she never had any interest in politics until after Donald Trump was elected president. She voted in a presidential election for the first time in 2020.

“I was the kind of person that didn’t talk about politics,” she said. “I felt like my vote didn’t matter.”

Her husband also dropped out of high school, in 11th grade, eventually landing a job as an ironworker in Ridgefield, Wash. He says he started abusing drugs and alcohol and soon became addicted to crystal meth. He was arrested for felony possession of a controlled substance in 2007 and spent six years in a Washington state prison.

Dawson said he got clean in prison.

“I came out, got rid of every friend that ever had anything to do with it and started building,” he said. “Met my wife, got married, bought a home, bought trucks, toys. It’s totally changed my life.”

The couple joined Patriot Prayer and became regulars at gatherings, often with other far-right factions including the Oath Keepers and Three Percenters and hate groups such as Identity Evropa.

Dawson says he doesn’t consider himself a white nationalist and doesn’t see anything wrong with such beliefs.

“How is white nationalism racist?” he asked. “Is it racist to be proud of who you are? There’s nothing more racist than saying ‘Black lives matter,’ yet I’m the racist one when I say all lives matter?”

The Dawsons also became fervent supporters of Trump and were drawn to D.C. in November because they believed the falsehood then gathering strength on the right that Trump had won the election.

“I like everything that Trump stood for,” said Michelle Dawson. “I loved how he loved our country.”

Her husband said he also arrived in D.C. still mourning a friend, Aaron Danielson, 39, who was shot and killed after a pro-Trump caravan ride through Portland by Michael Reinoehl, an anti-fascist demonstrator, who was himself shot and killed by a federal fugitive task force days later.

“So yeah,” Dawson said, “I had a little anger with me going to D.C.”

The MAGA march was over and Dawson, who said he had been drinking, and a group of about 20 others were wandering around downtown when someone saw Jedeed filming and shouted that she was an “antifa journalist.”

The 34-year-old had spent the day covering the march and was a known figure at such events. “I’m fascinated by the way Trump has transformed the right,” Jedeed said.

She had been writing about the allure of Patriot Prayer in particular for several years and had earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Reed College for a thesis titled “Making Monsters: Right-Wing Creation of the Liberal Enemy.”

Jedeed had grown up in a family steeped in a deeply conservative vein of libertarianism known as objectivism, a philosophy developed by the late author Ayn Rand.

She joined the Army after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and served with the 82nd Airborne Division in signals operation and analysis, including two tours in Afghanistan. But she became disillusioned with the war and said her beliefs gradually moved left.

“I was a big believer in the war on terrorism,” Jedeed said. “I thought bringing freedom and democracy to oppressed people would be cool, but it was pretty hard to escape the fact that the Afghans did not want us there. . . . And you think, ‘We’re not the good guys here.’ ”

Jedeed’s time in the military, she thinks, has given her the ability to remain calm in moments of high tension, and that’s how she reacted to those attempting to intimidate her in Washington.

Dawson says that when he approached Jedeed and stepped on her foot, he was “being pushed from behind.” There is, however, no one behind him at that moment, according to the footage of the incident.

Dawson led the group of hecklers in chants of ‘F--- antifa!’ and repeatedly bumped into Jedeed. “How does it feel to be a Nazi fascist?” he yelled at her.

“This was as bad as it’s ever been,” said Jedeed, who has been involved in other confrontations with far-right activists. “I’ve studied the way they make propaganda and I know that the only way out is to be as calm and assertive as possible and not rise to the bait.”

After multiple men berated Jedeed and one slapped away her camera, Jedeed asked, “Do you realize how bad you look right now?”

The mood suddenly shifted. A few moments later, Dawson offered to lead Jedeed out of the fracas.

“So I kind of knew at that point in time that I needed to defuse the situation,” Dawson said. “I was pushing Proud Boys and patriots out of the way to get her to safety. I mean, I wasn’t harassing anyone. I just wanted to make her feel just a little bit scared.”

Jedeed recalled, “He actually leads me out of the cluster — after initiating it. I'm so glad he did it, but I’m not really willing to give him a lot of credit for it, because he created that.”

She said she stayed up all night in her hotel room with the door locked and chained, sleepless over the possibility that the men who surrounded her might locate her, because they were all staying in the same hotel and had seen each other that morning.

“I still have dreams where they find me,” Jedeed said.

No regrets

The work of learning Dawson’s identity had been done months in advance by Rose City Antifa, whose anonymous members organize against far-right groups and work to identify frequent far-right rally attendees in and around Portland before they’ve committed a crime.

“Our decision to identify people has less to do with our desire for them to experience tons and tons of immediate consequences, and more to do with tracking their behavior,” said a representative of the group, who spoke on the condition of anonymity citing security issues.

Doxing is having an effect on some far-right groups, particularly less committed members who may have drifted into the far right, said Daniel Martinez HoSang, a Yale University associate professor and co-author of the 2019 book “Producers, Parasites, Patriots: Race and the New Right-Wing Politics of Precarity.”

“There seems to be a visceral pleasure that brings people into these groups, and that is really interrupted when people have to deal with the repercussions at home and at work,” he said. “They’re not ideologically hardcore about this stuff. They get wrapped up in this story that’s quite divorced from their day-to-day lives.”

Doxing works, Dawson said. He guesses that 60 percent of his friends in the movement have been doxed and that some have had to move and change jobs.

The targets of doxing are increasingly responding in the courts, alleging they were harassed by doxers.

Exoo, for instance, is being sued by a handful of people he has doxed, including Daniel D’Ambly, a New Jersey man who faced death threats and lost his job as a printing employee at the New York Daily News after Exoo exposed his affiliation with the New Jersey European Heritage Foundation, a white supremacist organization, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

The suit accuses Exoo and Twitter of interference with commerce by threats or violence. Exoo has filed a motion to dismiss the suit.

The Dawsons installed a security system at their home, moved their firearms to spots with easier access, deactivated their social media accounts and stopped answering their phones. When Dawson’s wife left the house to attend rallies, she wore a bulletproof vest.

“I was terrified for my life,” she said.

“It’s just not fun. And it’s not right,” Dawson said. “It should be illegal.”

The couple said their children had mixed reactions to the video. Dawson’s 19-year-old daughter didn’t see what the big deal was, Dawson said. Michelle Dawson said her 18-year-old daughter was disgusted with her: “But she’s 18, so she’s all, ‘Orange man is bad. George Floyd shouldn’t have died. Blah, blah, blah.’ She hates what I do.”

The Dawsons asked that their children not be contacted directly.

Dawson said he is upfront with potential employers about his online reputation and has struggled to find work. His current job pays considerably less than his old one, he said.

But he said he has no regrets and would do only one thing differently.

“I’d do it all again,” he said, “but with the mask on.”

Doxing is part of a growing effort by left-wing activists to punish extremists by exposing their violent behavior - The Washington Post

tempo_n_groove

Halifax2TheMax said:

Both high school drop outs, one a convicted felon. In possession of firearms. And I think he meant to say "hood" instead of "mask." 'Murica and freedumb. The future is not looking so bright.

Unmasking the far right: An extremist paid a price when his identity was exposed online after a violent clash in Washington

In a flash, Laura Jedeed was surrounded by screaming men. The freelance journalist was filming a group of Trump supporters walking the streets of the District after the “Million MAGA March” on Nov. 14 when a man wearing an American flag gaiter mask approached her, stepped on her toes and began yelling.

“What’s up, you stupid b----?” the man shouted, his mask slipping down his face.

Jedeed yelled at the man to stop touching her. A crowd formed around her and another journalist, with unmasked men screaming at them from all directions. Jedeed kept her camera rolling, and when she got away from the crowd, she uploaded video of the incident to YouTube and Twitter, and it went viral.

Reaction was swift.

The man in the flag mask was quickly identified as Washington state resident Edward Jeremy Dawson by a local antifa group. Twitter users mining public records later released his address and phone number.

The video was amplified by Christian Exoo, a prominent anti-fascist activist who tweeted it out to his 50,000-plus followers. Exoo also included contact information for Dawson’s employer.

Two days later, Dawson lost his job as an ironworker, his employer citing his actions in D.C. His wife, Michelle, uploaded a tearful self-shot video to Twitter announcing his firing, and later that month she was asked to hand in her vest and badge at a Walmart in Battle Ground, Wash., where she worked as an online-order fulfiller. She thinks she was fired over her politics but acknowledges that she had missed a substantial amount of work because of back problems.

Anonymous abusive callers deluged the Dawsons’ cellphones, with some urging the couple to kill themselves, the Dawsons said.

The disclosure online of Dawson’s personal information — a phenomenon known as doxing — is part of a growing effort by left-wing activists to punish members of far-right groups accused of violent behavior by exposing them to their employers, family and friends. The doxing of Dawson highlights the effect the tactic can have — unemployment and personal upheaval followed by a new job that pays much less than his old one — but also the limits of the technique: Dawson is unrepentant for his role in galvanizing a mob to harass Jedeed and continues to espouse far-right views.

Indeed, some on the left, including Jedeed, who is a well-known activist in Portland, Ore., have qualms about the tactic and how effective it can be in the fight against extremism.

“From a practical perspective, I feel like being unemployable is going to push him in a more extreme direction,” Jedeed said. “On the other hand, you shouldn't be able to act like that and then have nothing happen to you.”

The tactic also has been employed by the far right to target not just their leftist opponents but also the families of mass shooting victims, who have been harassed by those claiming the attacks were fabricated.

Antifa activists say that hateful rhetoric is protected by the First Amendment but that that doesn’t mean those who advocate or use violence as part of their ideology shouldn’t be exposed, including to their employers. They argue that doxing is a nonviolent response to violence.

Conservatives typically portray militant antifascists as the far-left equivalent of violent armed groups on the hard right, but right-wing extremist attacks and plots greatly eclipse those from the far left and cause more deaths, a Washington Post analysis showed. The FBI regards far-right extremists as the most active and lethal domestic terror threat.

“Our focus is on protecting our communities by making it as hard as possible to be a Nazi,” said Exoo, a part-time library employee at St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y., who also teaches classes on public records and social media research to activists. “We can’t always change hearts, but at least organizing is going to be harder for [Dawson] in the future.”

Fervent supporters

The Dawsons consider themselves friends and followers of Joey Gibson, who founded Patriot Prayer in 2016.

The far-right group has rallied dozens of times in the Portland area and engaged in violent clashes with anti-fascist counterprotesters.

Michelle Dawson first attended a Patriot Prayer rally in 2019. “He talked a lot about freedom and God,” she said of Gibson. “I’ve seen his fire and I’ve seen that he had a voice and he wasn’t afraid to use it.”

In 2019, Michelle Dawson won a seat on the city council in Yacolt, Wash., just north of Portland, running on a gun rights platform. A high school dropout from Utah, she said she never had any interest in politics until after Donald Trump was elected president. She voted in a presidential election for the first time in 2020.

“I was the kind of person that didn’t talk about politics,” she said. “I felt like my vote didn’t matter.”

Her husband also dropped out of high school, in 11th grade, eventually landing a job as an ironworker in Ridgefield, Wash. He says he started abusing drugs and alcohol and soon became addicted to crystal meth. He was arrested for felony possession of a controlled substance in 2007 and spent six years in a Washington state prison.

Dawson said he got clean in prison.

“I came out, got rid of every friend that ever had anything to do with it and started building,” he said. “Met my wife, got married, bought a home, bought trucks, toys. It’s totally changed my life.”

The couple joined Patriot Prayer and became regulars at gatherings, often with other far-right factions including the Oath Keepers and Three Percenters and hate groups such as Identity Evropa.

Dawson says he doesn’t consider himself a white nationalist and doesn’t see anything wrong with such beliefs.

“How is white nationalism racist?” he asked. “Is it racist to be proud of who you are? There’s nothing more racist than saying ‘Black lives matter,’ yet I’m the racist one when I say all lives matter?”

The Dawsons also became fervent supporters of Trump and were drawn to D.C. in November because they believed the falsehood then gathering strength on the right that Trump had won the election.

“I like everything that Trump stood for,” said Michelle Dawson. “I loved how he loved our country.”

Her husband said he also arrived in D.C. still mourning a friend, Aaron Danielson, 39, who was shot and killed after a pro-Trump caravan ride through Portland by Michael Reinoehl, an anti-fascist demonstrator, who was himself shot and killed by a federal fugitive task force days later.

“So yeah,” Dawson said, “I had a little anger with me going to D.C.”

The MAGA march was over and Dawson, who said he had been drinking, and a group of about 20 others were wandering around downtown when someone saw Jedeed filming and shouted that she was an “antifa journalist.”

The 34-year-old had spent the day covering the march and was a known figure at such events. “I’m fascinated by the way Trump has transformed the right,” Jedeed said.

She had been writing about the allure of Patriot Prayer in particular for several years and had earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Reed College for a thesis titled “Making Monsters: Right-Wing Creation of the Liberal Enemy.”

Jedeed had grown up in a family steeped in a deeply conservative vein of libertarianism known as objectivism, a philosophy developed by the late author Ayn Rand.

She joined the Army after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and served with the 82nd Airborne Division in signals operation and analysis, including two tours in Afghanistan. But she became disillusioned with the war and said her beliefs gradually moved left.

“I was a big believer in the war on terrorism,” Jedeed said. “I thought bringing freedom and democracy to oppressed people would be cool, but it was pretty hard to escape the fact that the Afghans did not want us there. . . . And you think, ‘We’re not the good guys here.’ ”

Jedeed’s time in the military, she thinks, has given her the ability to remain calm in moments of high tension, and that’s how she reacted to those attempting to intimidate her in Washington.

Dawson says that when he approached Jedeed and stepped on her foot, he was “being pushed from behind.” There is, however, no one behind him at that moment, according to the footage of the incident.

Dawson led the group of hecklers in chants of ‘F--- antifa!’ and repeatedly bumped into Jedeed. “How does it feel to be a Nazi fascist?” he yelled at her.

“This was as bad as it’s ever been,” said Jedeed, who has been involved in other confrontations with far-right activists. “I’ve studied the way they make propaganda and I know that the only way out is to be as calm and assertive as possible and not rise to the bait.”

After multiple men berated Jedeed and one slapped away her camera, Jedeed asked, “Do you realize how bad you look right now?”

The mood suddenly shifted. A few moments later, Dawson offered to lead Jedeed out of the fracas.

“So I kind of knew at that point in time that I needed to defuse the situation,” Dawson said. “I was pushing Proud Boys and patriots out of the way to get her to safety. I mean, I wasn’t harassing anyone. I just wanted to make her feel just a little bit scared.”

Jedeed recalled, “He actually leads me out of the cluster — after initiating it. I'm so glad he did it, but I’m not really willing to give him a lot of credit for it, because he created that.”

She said she stayed up all night in her hotel room with the door locked and chained, sleepless over the possibility that the men who surrounded her might locate her, because they were all staying in the same hotel and had seen each other that morning.

“I still have dreams where they find me,” Jedeed said.

No regrets

The work of learning Dawson’s identity had been done months in advance by Rose City Antifa, whose anonymous members organize against far-right groups and work to identify frequent far-right rally attendees in and around Portland before they’ve committed a crime.

“Our decision to identify people has less to do with our desire for them to experience tons and tons of immediate consequences, and more to do with tracking their behavior,” said a representative of the group, who spoke on the condition of anonymity citing security issues.

Doxing is having an effect on some far-right groups, particularly less committed members who may have drifted into the far right, said Daniel Martinez HoSang, a Yale University associate professor and co-author of the 2019 book “Producers, Parasites, Patriots: Race and the New Right-Wing Politics of Precarity.”

“There seems to be a visceral pleasure that brings people into these groups, and that is really interrupted when people have to deal with the repercussions at home and at work,” he said. “They’re not ideologically hardcore about this stuff. They get wrapped up in this story that’s quite divorced from their day-to-day lives.”

Doxing works, Dawson said. He guesses that 60 percent of his friends in the movement have been doxed and that some have had to move and change jobs.

The targets of doxing are increasingly responding in the courts, alleging they were harassed by doxers.

Exoo, for instance, is being sued by a handful of people he has doxed, including Daniel D’Ambly, a New Jersey man who faced death threats and lost his job as a printing employee at the New York Daily News after Exoo exposed his affiliation with the New Jersey European Heritage Foundation, a white supremacist organization, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

The suit accuses Exoo and Twitter of interference with commerce by threats or violence. Exoo has filed a motion to dismiss the suit.

The Dawsons installed a security system at their home, moved their firearms to spots with easier access, deactivated their social media accounts and stopped answering their phones. When Dawson’s wife left the house to attend rallies, she wore a bulletproof vest.

“I was terrified for my life,” she said.

“It’s just not fun. And it’s not right,” Dawson said. “It should be illegal.”

The couple said their children had mixed reactions to the video. Dawson’s 19-year-old daughter didn’t see what the big deal was, Dawson said. Michelle Dawson said her 18-year-old daughter was disgusted with her: “But she’s 18, so she’s all, ‘Orange man is bad. George Floyd shouldn’t have died. Blah, blah, blah.’ She hates what I do.”

The Dawsons asked that their children not be contacted directly.

Dawson said he is upfront with potential employers about his online reputation and has struggled to find work. His current job pays considerably less than his old one, he said.

But he said he has no regrets and would do only one thing differently.

“I’d do it all again,” he said, “but with the mask on.”

Doxing is part of a growing effort by left-wing activists to punish extremists by exposing their violent behavior - The Washington Post

Doxing, the modern form of guerilla warfare.

mickeyrat

 

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No jail time in 1st riot sentence; Oath Keeper pleads guilty

By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER and MICHAEL KUNZELMAN

Today

An Indiana woman on Wednesday became the first defendant to be sentenced in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and avoided time behind bars, while a member of the Oath Keepers extremist group pleaded guilty in a conspiracy case and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in a major step forward for the massive investigation.

The two developments signal that the cases against those charged in the deadly siege are slowly advancing, even as the U.S. Department of Justice and the courthouse in Washington, D.C., struggle under the weight of roughly 500 federal arrests across the U.S. And it comes as Republicans in Washington attempt to downplay the violence committed by members of the mob supporting former President Donald Trump.

Graydon Young, who was accused alongside 15 other members and associates of the Oath Keepers of conspiring to block the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s presidential victory, pleaded guilty to two counts: conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding. It was the first guilty plea in the major conspiracy case brought against members of the group.

The second charge calls for up to 20 years in prison, but U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta said federal sentencing guidelines call for Young to serve between 5 1/4 years and 6 1/2 years behind bars. Prosecutors may seek even less time in exchange for his cooperation against other defendants.

Young, 55, of Englewood, Florida, was arrested in February and charged in the sweeping conspiracy case accusing members of the Oath Keepers of coming to Washington prepared to use violence and intent on stopping the certification of the vote. Authorities said in court documents that Young joined the Florida chapter of the Oath Keepers in December, writing that he was “looking to get involved in helping ...”

Later that month, Young reached out to a company that does firearms and combat training about a rifle class for four people, according to the indictment. Authorities say Young, wearing a helmet and tactical vest, was part of the military-style “stack” seen on camera marching through the crowd before entering the Capitol building.

Young's attorneys didn't immediately respond to emails sent Wednesday seeking comment.

Another Oath Keepers member, Jon Ryan Schaffer, has also pleaded guilty in the riot, but was not charged in the conspiracy case. Schaffer has agreed to cooperate with investigators and potentially testify against other defendants.

Anna Morgan Lloyd, 49, of Indiana, was ordered by a federal judge to serve three years of probation, perform 120 hours of community service and pay $500 in restitution after admitting to unlawfully entering the Capitol. She pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor charge under a deal with prosecutors.

After the riot, Lloyd described Jan. 6 on Facebook as the “best day ever."

On Wednesday, she apologized to the court, her family and “the American people,” saying she went to Washington that day to peacefully show her support for Trump.

“I’m ashamed that it became a savage display of violence that day. And I would have never been there if I had a clue it was going to turn out that way,” Lloyd told the judge. “It was never my intent to be a part of anything that’s so disgraceful to our American people.”

In seeking probation for Lloyd, prosecutors noted that she was not involved in any violence and destruction or preplanning and coordination of the Capitol breach. Lloyd was invited by her hairdresser to drive to Washington to hear Trump speak, her attorney wrote in court documents.

U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth said he was giving her a “break,” but didn’t want others to think that probation — and not a stiffer sentence — would be the norm.

“Legally, I could give you the six months, but is that really what we want our judiciary to do?” the judge asked.

Lamberth said he struggled with what would be an appropriate sentence for Lloyd because he views the riot as a serious crime. “This wasn’t a peaceful demonstration the way it turned out. It was not an accident,” he said. “It was intended to and brought a halt to the very functioning of our government.”

He said he was “especially troubled” by some lawmakers who are seeking to rewrite the history of the Capitol riot.

“I don’t know what planet they were on, but there were millions of people in this country that saw what happened on Jan. 6 and that saw what you saw and what you just described: a disgrace to our country,” the judge said.

In a letter to the judge asking for leniency, Lloyd wrote that she was a registered Democrat but that she and her husband began supporting Trump in 2016 because “he was standing up for what we believe in.”

After her arrest, Lloyd’s lawyer gave her a list of books and movies to help her “see what life is like for others in our country,” Lloyd wrote. Lloyd said she has sought to educate herself by watching movies such as “Schindler’s List” and the History Channel’s “Burning Tulsa” and reading Bryan Stevenson’s “Just Mercy.”

“I’ve lived a sheltered life and truly haven’t experienced life the way many have,” Lloyd wrote. “I’ve learned that even though we live in a wonderful country things still need to improve. People of all colors should feel as safe as I do to walk down the street.”

Four other people — a Tennessee man, a Maryland man and a Virginia couple — have pleaded guilty to the same misdemeanor charge in the last two weeks.

Earlier Wednesday, another man, Robert Maurice Reeder of Maryland, admitted to entering the Capitol, but his lawyer said he didn’t force his way inside and didn’t damage any property or hurt anyone.

Before his arrest, an attorney for Reeder provided federal authorities with a compilation of photos and videos that he took with his cellphone at the Capitol. A video seemed to show Reeder chanting, “Fight for Trump!” and he recorded an assault on a Capitol police officer, according to the FBI.

“You need to retreat!” Reeder apparently told the officer, an FBI agent wrote in a court filing.

A prosecutor said Tennessee resident Brian Wayne Ivey, who pleaded guilty on Tuesday, entered the Capitol through a window that somebody else broke with a riot shield and spent roughly 30 minutes inside the building.

Joshua Bustle of Virginia, who pleaded guilty alongside his wife, will also be seeking probation, his lawyer said. Jessica Bustle’s attorney described them as “good, decent, hardworking people,” who were urged to come to Washington by “very powerful people and groups.”

“They are not criminals or insurrectionists or rioters. They were not looking to break laws when they came to DC on the 6th. They violated minor laws on the 6th and they have accepted responsibility and accountability for doing so,” Jessica Bustle’s attorney, Nabeel Kibria, wrote in an email.

tempo_n_groove

The convicted will help bring on bigger sentences for the bigger fish a report on NPR said.  The report said that the ones convicted are helping with ongoing investigations.  That is good.