On it's face, it's a worldview that's utterly spineless and self serving. It assumes that the violent morons who'd jump at the chance to inflict violence -will- win whatever confrontation they incite by being violent idiots, and appeasing them is the only way to avoid people getting hurt.
It's honestly just a re-flavoring of the concern trolls and sea lions in the Russian Invasion thread acting like the only way forward are peace talks and capitulation with the aggressors because fighting back in any way makes you just as bad as them. And in both cases, it assumes that the troglodytes who'd threaten violence to achieve their aims won't just keep threatening violence after getting what they want.
Though this is all assuming that's why he's pushing this dumbass narrative, and not because he -wants- these violent jackasses to seize control and do whatever they want without opposition.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/f...ons-during-jan
I swear, this is an official Department of Justice release!A Florida man
Weird formatting starting every paragraph with a tab, but at least most paragraphs are the minimum of two sentences.A Florida man was sentenced today on a felony and six misdemeanor charges related to his conduct during the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. His actions and the actions of others disrupted a joint session of the U.S. Congress convened to ascertain and count the electoral votes related to the 2020 presidential election.
Anthony Sargent, 47, of St. Augustine, Fla., was sentenced to 60 months in prison for the felony count of civil disorder and misdemeanor charges that included the destruction of property; entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds; disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds; engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds; disorderly conduct in a Capitol building; and act of physical violence in the Capitol grounds or buildings.
Sargent pleaded guilty, on July 21, 2023, in the District of Columbia. In addition to the prison term, U.S. District Court Judge Dabney L. Friedrich ordered 36 months of supervised release, and restitution of $2,980.
According to court documents, during the January 6 attack on the Capitol, Sargent grabbed and pushed a police officer to prevent him from detaining another rioter; twice shoved two officers away from the Capitol as they tried to retreat to safety; twice threw a heavy object at a set of doors leading into the Capitol with the intent to break the doors’ glass panels, while officers stood behind those doors; and encouraged other rioters to damage the same set of doors. Sargent’s violence was not spontaneous—as a member of the Proud Boys, he vocalized his support for a riot and civil war on the group’s messaging platform in the days leading up to January 6.
Several open-source videos depict Sargent attempting to breach the north entrance to the Capitol building. In one of the videos, court documents state that Sargent is seen pushing with the mob against officers guarding the building.
After the officers retreated into the Capitol, Sargent and other rioters pursued them. Sargent and the rioters, however, were stopped by a set of doors locked by the officers.
Shortly thereafter, Sargent picked up a heavy rock-like object approximately the size of a softball and twice hurled it at the inner set of doors. When Sargent threw the object, police officers stood directly behind the doors.
Later that day, in the same area, a police officer entered the crowd to attempt to detain a rioter who assaulted another officer. As the officer moved towards the rioter, Sargent physically separated the officer from the rioter and prevented the officer from apprehending the rioter. Sargent then grabbed and pushed that officer away from his post at the North Door and into the mob of rioters.
Sargent was arrested on Sept. 21, 2021, in St. Augustine.
This case was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and the Department of Justice National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section. Valuable assistance was provided by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida.
This case was investigated by the FBI’s Washington and Jacksonville Field Offices, which identified Sargent as BOLO (Be on the Lookout) #158 on its seeking information photos. Valuable assistance was provided by U.S. Capitol Police and the Metropolitan Police Department.
In the 35 months since Jan. 6, 2021, more than 1,230 individuals have been charged in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol, including more than 440 individuals charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement, a felony. The investigation remains ongoing.
Anyways, lawbreakers continue to find that the arm of the law is indeed quite long, which is great shit.
Ask me about Deceiver's Vengeance, the Argus Scrolls, or why Tyn does not approve.
Good work can still be improved upon.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/inter...b036ecab461422
So the "peaceful protest" organizers, with the full knowledge of the White House apparently, lied to the Park Service to secure their permit. Not just lied by omission, but intentionally and willfully lied in denying any intention to march, when they clearly had an intention to march and had communicated that intention to their contacts inside the Trump administration, who were fully aware of this.The group that organized the pro-Donald Trump rally in front of the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, knowingly misled government officials about plans for attendees to march on the U.S. Capitol, according to a new investigation from the Interior Department’s internal watchdog.
The report, published Monday by Interior’s Official of Inspector General, includes text messages from Kylie Kremer ― the rally’s organizer, and a representative of the group Women for America First ― and one potential event speaker. The Interior report does not name the individuals, but the exchange between Kremer and Mike Lindell, the MyPillow CEO and Trump ally, was previously made public by the House Jan. 6 select committee.
“This stays only between us, we are having a second stage at the Supreme Court again after the ellipse. POTUS is going to have us march there/the Capitol,” Kremer wrote to Lindell on Jan. 4. “It cannot get out about the second stage because people will try and set up another and Sabotage it. It can also not get out about the march because I will be in trouble with the national park service and all the agencies but the POTUS is going to just call for it ‘unexpectedly.’”
“If anyone tells you otherwise, it’s not accurate info,” she continued. “Only myself and [White House liaison] know full story of what is actually happening and we are having to appease many people by saying certain things.”
The Interior report does not identify the White House liaison in question.
Officials with the National Park Service who were involved in permitting and preparing for the rally expressed shock when Interior investigators showed them the text exchange.
“One official stated it ‘bl[ew her] mind’ because the NPS repeatedly asked WFAF whether there would be a march and, according to the NPS official, the WFAF representative ‘was just adamant there was gonna be no march,’” the report states. “Another NPS official with whom we spoke similarly stated, ‘we asked [the WFAF representative] repeatedly if she was going to do a march ... So, um, basically she lied to all of us.’”
“NPS officials stated that, even though knowledge of the march would not have led to denial of WFAF’s permit, it would have affected how they prepared for the demonstration and engaged with other affected jurisdictions and law enforcement officials,” investigators wrote in the report.
“Specifically, NPS officials stated that, had they known there would be a march from the Ellipse to the U.S. Capitol, they would have requested information from WFAF regarding the planned march route and expected time of the march and coordinated with law enforcement and other relevant officials,” the report continues. “They also stated that they would have made sure WFAF had enough marshals to help safely direct people from the Ellipse to the march route and that the appropriate roads were closed. The NPS officials explained that these actions would have been taken to ensure that the march was ‘conducted in a safe manner’ and ’that the Capitol [wa]s aware that there’s a march coming up to their jurisdictions.’”
WFAF declined to speak with Interior investigators, the report notes. The group could not immediately be reached for comment Monday.
Just another drop in the, "This is why you should never, ever trust MAGA folks. They can and will lie to you. All the time. Constantly."
https://apnews.com/article/charles-d...d6a1caa423a205
Well, for now. As we've unfortunately seen with too many defendants, once they get their verdict and sentencing many change their tunes and are suddenly unrepentant for their crimes.A former leader of the far-right Proud Boys extremist group was sentenced on Tuesday to more than three years behind bars for joining a plot to attack the U.S. Capitol nearly three years ago.
Charles Donohoe was the second Proud Boy to plead guilty to conspiring with other group members to obstruct the Jan. 6, 2021, joint session of Congress for certifying President Joe Biden’s electoral victory. His sentence could be a bellwether for other Proud Boys conspirators who agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors.
Donohoe, 35, of Kernersville, North Carolina, apologized to his family, the law-enforcement officers who guarded the Capitol on Jan. 6 and “America as a whole” for his actions on Jan. 6.
“I knew what I was doing was illegal from the very moment those barricades got knocked down,” he said.
U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly sentenced him to three years and four months in prison. Donohoe could be eligible for release in a month or two because he gets credit for the jail time he already has served since his March 2021 arrest.
The judge said Donohoe seems to be doing everything in his power to make amends for his crimes.
“I think you’ve got all the ingredients here to put this behind you,” Kelly said.
Hopefully this guy actually means it and sticks with it, but all the same.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/jus...g-o-rcna130593
The Jan. 6 insurrectionists aren't safe anywhere, not even on dating apps.Nearly three years ago, a young professional in the nation's capital was sitting in her apartment after the Jan. 6 attack and saw that the FBI was looking for help identifying the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol. So she opened up the Bumble dating app, changed her political beliefs to conservative and got to swiping.
The woman reached out to several Donald Trump supporters who the app showed were in the Washington, D.C. area, hoping to elicit confessions from those who had flooded into the city because they believed his lies about the 2020 presidential election.
On Wednesday, one of the Bumble users she turned in to the FBI pleaded guilty to assaulting law enforcement officers with chemical spray and a metal whip.
Andrew Taake, a 35-year-old from Texas, pleaded guilty to assaulting law enforcement officers with a deadly and dangerous weapon, admitting that he used both bear spray and the metal whip to attack officers, during a hearing before U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols in Washington. Taake, who had been ordered held in pretrial detention after his arrest in July 2021, appeared in a sparsely filled courtroom on Wednesday in an orange prison jumpsuit.
Witness 1 is a god-damned hero. Also, of course it takes remarkably little ego-stroking for many lawbreakers to brag about how they broke the law. Many lawbreakers are not very smart people.The woman referred to as "Witness 1” in Taake's FBI affidavit has previously recalled how "comically minimal ego-stroking" from her led Trump supporters to give her information about their activities on Jan. 6.
Ladies, when men tell you we're just that simple: Please believe us. We are really, just that simple most of the time. As a guy, I can confirm than many, many men are incredibly simple creatures.“I felt a bit of ‘civic duty’ I guess, but truthfully, I was mostly just mad and thinking, f--- these guys,” she said, speaking anonymously for fear of online reprisal.
Her strategy, she said, was saying "Wow, crazy, tell me more” to guys on repeat until they gave her enough for her to send their information to the FBI.
*taps sign above*“They just wanted to regurgitate a lot of these ideas to somebody, and it seemed like I was a willing participant,” she said. “It definitely didn’t take a lot of arm twisting to get them to start talking about it. Basically me being like 'Wow, so cool — then what? What else?' was pretty much all it took.”
“One of my friends was like, ‘You basically got all these confessions just being, like, Haha! Then what?’” she said.
Honestly, taking a likely time/geostamped selfy after being pepper sprayed while participating in a riot/insurrection is such a galaxy brain move I'm shocked he so easily confessed his crimes to a total stranger on a dating app.“Were you near all the action?” she asked.
“Yes,” Taake replied. “From the very beginning.” He sent along a selfie he took shortly after being pepper sprayed.
Weak excuse Witness 1, but we'll allow it for your service.In the days following the attack, she continued chatting with Taake, falsely telling him that she couldn't video chat because she was at a beer garden with friends. She attempted to gather more intel, asking him if he planned on coming back for Joe Biden's inauguration.
“Maybe depending on what happens with election,” Taake wrote. "Biden still isn’t in office . . . and there is too much criminal stuff to come out. There are many many Patriots ready and willing to head back depending what happens."
Bad news for Taake: There was no criminal stuff that came out. There were no patriots willing to head back.
Hey, no hate for a former felon here. If you serve your time you come back to society and hopefully try to do better, and if that means self employment as a handyman and such then rad. Whatever you need to get your life back in order and thrive.Taake, a self-employed handyman who owned a pressure-washing business, had a felony record, but authorities found multiple guns at his home when they took him into custody.
But uh...it doesn't sound like he was lawfully allowed to have weapons as a former felon?
UUUHHHHHTaake was on bond in a separate case when he stormed the Capitol, with a pending charge for soliciting a minor online; court records in Harris County, Texas, show that case is still active.
We keep saying that the crowd complaining loudest about "groomers" and accusing everyone else of being pedos has some serious pedo issues in their own house and should probably get that in order first.
Case in point. Again.
Emphasis not mine. I believe that's emphasis from the magistrate judge.Taake's "willingness to physically assault officers with bear spray and a metal whip, while on bond and conditions of release for the felony offense of solicitation of a minor, demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that he poses a concrete threat both to the community and to specific individuals,” a federal magistrate judge wrote, bolding for emphasis, when ordering Taake detained until trial.
His sentencing was set for March 26.
Bless Witness 1, I hope she has a very, very happy holiday.“FINALLY,” the woman told NBC News on Wednesday. “It’s been wild to see him still defend that attack all this time and makes me even more glad he was caught for it.”
"I regret exactly nothing lol," the woman told NBC News on Wednesday.
So, how bad is it for the former mayor of NY? He was just ordered to immediately pay the $148 million settlement to prevent him from liquidating his assets and running away with them.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...19d1fd1d&ei=12
Judge orders Rudy Giuliani to immediately pay defamed Georgia poll workers
Judge Beryl Howell ordered Rudy Giuliani Wednesday to immediately pay $148 million to two Georgia poll workers who successfully sued him for defamation, court records show.
In a scathing 13-page order, Howell demands immediate enforcement to shorten the odds that Giuliani dodge the judgment in favor of Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, explained legal analyst Harry Litman.
"He has far less ability to play tricks with or get rid of whatever assets he has," Litman said. "Big development and latest of series of sledgehammer blows against Rudy."
Judge Howell describes Giuliani as an "uncooperative litigant" and dismisses Giuliani's contention that, despite mounting debts, he would not "conceal his assets."
"Giuliani feebly counters concerns about him hiding assets, stating that 'there is no evidence in the record of any attempt by [him] to dissipate assets,'" the order says.
"This statement simply ignores the ample record in this case of Guiliani's efforts to conceal or hide his assets by failing to comply with discovery requests, including 'plaintiffs' requests for financial information.'"
MSNBC analyst Lisa Rubin notes Giuliani can ask for a stay on Howell's ruling.
"But to get one, he’ll likely have to post a bond in the full amount of damages awarded," she said.
Freeman and Moss sued Giuliani for defamation after he accused the pair of funneling fake votes into the Georgia presidential election in 2020.
What Giuliani claimed was a USB drive full of faked ballots, the women later testified to Congress was a ginger mint
Dontrike/Shadow Priest/Black Cell Faction Friend Code - 5172-0967-3866
I'll note that having to put up $148m in a bond to seek a stay and appeal the decision also means that the moment that stay is over or the appeal loses, that bond basically just gets handed directly to the plaintiffs. That's the point of the bond; demonstrate you have the capacity to pay so it's clear you're not just fighting a delaying action to manipulate your assets to evade payment.
So a follow up on the Rudy saga. He finds One-Eyed Willy's treasure, scores a touchdown and carries a ring to Mordor. No, sorry, that would be Sean Astin who played those roles.
Rudy Giuliani decides to take a page out of Alex Jones playbook and declare bankruptcy. Bold move Rudy, lets see how it goes.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...8865be09&ei=14
Seems like Rudy hasn't been paying his bills all over town.Rudy Giuliani files for bankruptcy after $148M defamation judgment
A week after losing a $148 million defamation case, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in a New York court, according to a court filing.
Giuliani listed his net worth between $1 million and $10 million, but claimed to owe between $100 million and $500 million, according to his bankruptcy petition.
"The filing should be a surprise to no one," Ted Goodman, a political adviser to Giuliani, said in a statement.
A federal jury last week, following a week-long trial, ordered Giuliani to pay nearly $150 million to former Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss for defaming them with false accusations that they committed election fraud while counting ballots in Georgia's Fulton County on Election Day in 2020.
Giuliani owes more than $151 million to various creditors, according to his petition.
In addition to last week's $148 million judgment, Giuliani listed potential liabilities related to lawsuits he faces from President Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden and from voting machine companies Smartmatic and Dominion.
Giuliani also owes more than $989,000 to New York State and the IRS for outstanding taxes in 2021 and 2022, according to his petition, as well as owing $3.7 million to multiple law firms.
"No person could have reasonably believed that Mayor Giuliani would be able to pay such a high punitive amount," Goodman said regarding last week's defamation award. "Chapter 11 will afford Mayor Giuliani the opportunity and time to pursue an appeal, while providing transparency for his finances under the supervision of the bankruptcy court, to ensure all creditors are treated equally and fairly throughout the process."
The judge overseeing the defamation case on Wednesday granted a request from Freeman and Moss to expedite their $148 million judgment against Giuliani, saying that the mother and daughter have "good cause" to fear Giuliani may attempt to avoid paying them.
The judge said that other civil cases filed against Giuliani "raise the risk that Giuliani has even greater motivation to hide his financial assets from potential future judgments against him."
Last edited by gondrin; 2023-12-21 at 07:06 PM.
Removing Trump doesn't go far enough. Every Republican Senator and Rep that was complicit in Jan 6 should be removed from their respective state/district's primary ballot.
If the American legal system functioned properly, the moment that anyone was convicted of insurrection or conspiracy to commit sedition or the like, 14th Amendment violations would have been prosecuted against any representative in office who'd given any of the convicted or their organizations any kind of public support or encouragement either towards Jan 7 or at any time in the aftermath. Calling the investigations a "witch hunt", calling them "patriots", anything like that, you've violated the 14th Amendment by giving aid or comfort to insurrectionists. Immediately removed from office and barred from ever running for public office at the federal level ever again.
The American legal system isn't mean to be just, though. It's meant to keep private prisons profitable.
Ok, I guess Rudy is now begging for money from his supporters. Only you can support "America's Mayor" for a mere low price of $10/month to hear him ramble on about, well, whatever.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...e1e88f09&ei=12
Rudy Giuliani demands cash from subscribers after filing for bankruptcy
Fresh off filing for bankruptcy, Donald Trump's former lawyer Rudy Giuliani kicked off the new year by demanding greenbacks from his backers.
Giuliani made a plea to his fan base to pay him a tenspot Monday when he launched a new show "America's Mayor Confidential," Newsweek was first to report.
"Don't forget to subscribe," Giuliani said on his other show "America's Mayor Live." He then added, "and ten bucks."
Giuliani also spread the word directly on X, but the message appears not to have gone according to plan.
"Do yourself and me a big favor and join our premier program America's Mayor Confidential so we become a close knit team for 2024," according to the Giuliani wrote. "Go to @RudyWGiuliani on X and subscribe for $10 per month so we can be an army by mid-next year."
Replied CandyCan3-1, "Rudy, it iS showing “account suspended.”
Monday's show features a bespectacled Giuliani sitting behind a microphone discussing previous GOP debate highlights, propping up Trump and alleging President Joe Biden corruption.
"Iran's going to have to decide if they're going to make their big move before Mr. Appeasement is out of office," he said during the Jan. 1 show.
The figure once lauded as "America's Mayor" for his about-face response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks is reporting debts of up to $500 million on assets that total no more than $10 million.
Days after a jury ordered Giuliani to pay Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss $148 million in defamation damages, the mother and daughter again asked the court to sanction him.
Giuliani alleged the pair helped rigged the vote for President Joe Biden by passing USB drives “like vials of heroin or cocaine” during the ballot counting in Fulton County, Georgia.
But the allegation was proven false when Moss testified to Congress her mother had given her a “ginger mint.”
The American legal system is functioning as intended. And it does far more than keep private prisons profitable. It's designed to protect the ruling class (High Net Worth individuals), and control the working class (try conducting a small business like Donald Trump conducted his real estate business for even a year and you'll be out of business, bankrupt, and jailed), while providing the bare minimum for a structure to keep society and the economy running (which in turn, is what keeps the HNWIs wealthy and makes it possible for them to live well on their wealth).
You're right that justice is, if not an afterthought, something intended to be present as little as possible, but no less.
When it comes to Trump and January 6th, the real failure isn't the legal system - it's an emergent failure in the political system. Regardless of whether they're convicted, or even whether they're technically guilty, Donald Trump and the freedom caucus should have been tossed out on their rear ends after January 6th by any functioning political body. And that doesn't even have anything to do with democracy, basic decency, freedom, or justice - Donald Trump is bad for stability, and he's bad for a government that needs to actually function. He's the sort of politician who, like Hitler or Mussolini, devours the entire state while producing nothing of real value. (He's also terrible for democracy, justice, freedom, etc, but even if you just want a government that does the very basics, he fails.) Instead, the GOP is marching in lockstep for him, never doing more than idly flirting with the idea of a Trump-free future for America or the GOP. That means the Republican Party has failed as an institution. (Not that the Democrats are doing great, but they haven't failed on a remotely similar level.)
That political system in turn doesn't function properly as what I suspect is a legacy of the Cold War, and changes that took place in its aftermath, with the net result of fracturing America and corroding its institutions.
"In today’s America, conservatives who actually want to conserve are as rare as liberals who actually want to liberate. The once-significant language of an earlier era has had the meaning sucked right out of it, the better to serve as camouflage for a kleptocratic feeding frenzy in which both establishment parties participate with equal abandon" (Taking a break from the criminal, incompetent liars at the NSA, to bring you the above political observation, from The Archdruid Report.)
Weirdly, he deleted the tweet directing folks to @ RudyWGiuliani since that account was suspended and now has this one -
https://twitter.com/RudyGiuliani/sta...11614558114271
Directing folks to this account because spelling his own Twitter handle is hard - https://twitter.com/RudyGiulani
Truly, only the best and brightest.
I can't believe I'm actually going to defend Hitler, but at least that guy managed swing a depressive economic downturn upwards, create loads of jobs and industry while also removing loads of punishments that Germany got thrown post ww1.
Sure, a lot of horrible things also happened, and most if not all production work was for the ww2 war machine, but he did make something of value.
We owe Hitler for the invention of the autobahn. He at least have that win. Trump doesn't have anything like that.