Today, a friend complained of the death of a young man in Portland, of the heart rending interview of his father on Hannity. Some deaths are memorialized, mourned and others disappear from the headlines. Deaths in gang shootings in Chicago of toddlers are given less attention than those of victims of drug overdose in police custody. Not surprisingly, ceremonial ritual respect is given to a police officer killed in defense of the capitol, while the family of a young veteran, a woman whose business was destroyed by the covid lock down, is not. One an “insurrectionist”, the other a defender. Antigone might understand the distinction, if lamenting it. Creon certainly would. Another woman is trampled. Medical emergencies happen. Chaos.
Later, suicides. Of those we speak softly, negation of life hard for strangers and even harder for families. I knew a mother who spent years denying her son was dead – long after she had buried him.
For three suicides following the 6th, we ask, as we always do of these, why? We wonder about a back story? Would it help us understand the fences about the capitol, the vitriol of the impeachment?
One was a rioter, a middle aged man, an officer in a bank, who had been charged by the police. Given the “everyone is an insurrectionist” rhetoric, being charged would make life difficult and being convicted? The proportions of why and what he did – and why and what was said, was charged – were important to him and might well be to us.
Then, the two suicides of defenders, one of a Capitol policeman and the other in the Washington force. They had their reasons – but are they ones we need to understand as citizens or only as sympathizers? Policemen are often of an honor culture who feel keenly their responsibility to protect. A friend posited another reason: resignations and firings are likely (though responsibility for inadequate preparation does not appeared to be the fault of the police but rather of politicians – seldom members of an honor culture). My friend observed that when the airline for whom her husband had piloted for decades went into bankruptcy (along with their pension fund), several pilots committed suicide. Middle aged, they were unlikely to find work of the same kind and pay; they had (according to the financial planner who served the group) chosen to leave their families in a stronger financial place than the coming bankruptcy would. The planner’s responsibility was to ensure those wishes were fulfilled. (She clearly was glad her husband had not chosen that path although 15 years later they have not yet received the appropriate pension.) Protecting family, protecting reputation – those are motives. Most suicides are prompted (if partially) by clinical depression. Back stories can be sad, but need not be, really, our business. But, given the political machinations before and after that day, the back stories might be telling.
This isn’t much of a post – I hope the comments are more substantive than it is.
Some newsy discussions:
For one, such responsibility was inherited – see CNN for what it is worth.
And Politico gives both officer’s names.
NBC gives details.
2/8 – Adding links
Banker
Another on him
The Financial Planner gives more information about Georgia’s employment; apparently he’d spent decades in finance and the order was because he had not “dispersed” when asked to by police. The difference between these arrests and those 4 years ago that protested Trump’s inauguration are telling and are not so much apples and oranges as some contend.
As I noted a few weeks ago, the “other” deaths from the Capitol have been basically ignored by the media. My only theory is that the media doesn’t want to talk about them because it would show that they weren’t violent white supremacists, they were just normal people.
Similarly, remember back a few years ago when the opioid crisis was in the news? Have you heard about that in the last few years? So you might think it was over, right? Nope. It’s worse than ever. But most of the victims are, again, people who the media doesn’t want you to sympathize with.
A good friend of mine from college killed himself this past summer. No one, not friends or family, can understand it, or could have possibly ever thought it possible.
“We must not see any person as an abstraction. Instead, we must see in every person a universe with its own secrets, with its own treasures, with its own sources of anguish, and with some measure of triumph.”
I don’t have any substantive comments to make. Thank you to everyone here for making this an oasis in a crazy world.
I think the Capitol “riot” was a planned operation by a cadre of agents provocateur. A number of genuine Trump enthusiasts got pulled into it foolishly. I still don’t understand why the Capitol police opened the doors and allowed people to wander through Statuary Hall. There was no arson or defacement of walls. I would like to know just who broke the windows that Ashli Babbit was climbing into. Why was she surrounded by armed police who seemed to be making no attempt to stop her. I have watched that video of her shooting a dozen times. Why did he shoot her and who is he? The first reports I saw (can’t recall where) described him as a black Brazilian immigrant who had a record of Trump hatred on social media. All that, of course, has disappeared.
I suspect most of the agents who organized it, aside from the Utah fellow who took the video of the shooting, will not be arrested or identified. Several of the more obvious participants have been identified and they have no Trump connection, like the Democrat activist who carried the Confederate flag. There is now an argument about whether he is a registered Democrat.
The outcome for the people arrested as a consequence of the January 6 “riot” will be very different from the 200 arrested after the January 17 riots following the inauguration of Trump.
Prosecutors charged Griffin with one minor count of trespassing as part of the Justice Department’s sweeping investigation into the events of January 6. Griffin, who is a county commissioner in New Mexico, never entered the Capitol but investigators scoured his social media account to find evidence that he was “well within the restricted area” of the building.
Griffin did not assault a police officer or break any windows or even steal an important leader’s laptop. His real crime, of course, is that he’s a supporter of Donald Trump””and his real threat to society, according to U.S. prosecutors and a federal judge, is that Griffin dares to doubt the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. (In his post-arrest interview, Griffin told the FBI “the election was stolen.”)
Arguing that Griffin is a flight risk and should remain in jail throughout his trial, government lawyers claimed his refusal to accept Joe Biden as the legitimately elected president would cause him to also “deny the authority of the judicial officers appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate.”
Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui, who was neither appointed by the president nor confirmed by the Senate, concurred. “This is an offense that, at bottom, was an attempt to stop democracy from moving forward because people were unhappy about the results of the election,”
He is in jail, held without bail.
The protestors from 2017, had all charges dismissed.
“He is in jail, held without bail.”
And of course the “end bail” movement couldn’t care less, but more importantly why is there no George Soros, Kamala Harris, etc., to bail out these people, either directly or through fundraising appeals. (And we all know of course that any attempt to set up a bail fund would be first immediately shut down, and then the donors doxxed and harassed.)
Honestly, I think it is a fair criticism to ask why Trump isn’t trying to help these people in any way, as far as we can tell.
I’d guess that people who lose their jobs after being attacked by the Cancel Culture are more likely to commit suicide than those who lose their jobs in a ‘normal’ way. Why? Because the worldwide reach of social media could easily lead to despair about the prospects of ever finding anything else.
I’m not a lawyer, but there is a concept in defamation law called Libel per Se, encompassing:
broadcast or written publication of a false statement about another which accuses him/her of a crime, immoral acts, inability to perform his/her profession, having a loathsome disease (like syphilis), or dishonesty in business. Such claims are considered so obviously harmful that malice need not be proved to obtain a judgment for “general damages,” and not just specific losses
(There is also Slander per Se)
It strikes me that many of the kinds of accusations that are propagated via social media should be considered under the Per Se category.
I see that Ron Johnson, WI Senator, has Has suggested that Nancy Pelosi may have had a role in the riot.
It has stirred up enough outrage on the left to suggest he might be on to something.
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin claimed Sunday that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was to blame for the riot at the US Capitol rather than President Donald Trump.
Johnson made the accusation in an interview on Sunday with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, where he discussed former president Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial, which is due to begin on Tuesday.
Trump was impeached for the second time on January 13, with House lawmakers voting to accuse him of inciting supporters to attack the Capitol in a speech he delivered to them beforehand.
The violence prompted the evacuation of lawmakers who were ratifying the November election results, and left five people dead.
While a few Republicans have spoken against Trump, others have continued to steadfastly defend him. One element of that has been by attempting to shift the blame elsewhere.
While seeking to defend Trump, Johnson said the impeachment was part of a plot to divert attention from Pelosi, and what she “knew” ahead of the riot.
Twitter, of course, erupted as usual.
I would like to know just who broke the windows that Ashli Babbit was climbing into.
Per those who watched the video he uploaded, before it vanished, the window was broken by the guy who was already facing charges for riots in…Utah? I think it was? As a member of BLM/AntiFa.
I’ve also heard that per the brother of the dead in the hospital cop, his brother had an existing health issue– and per the police themselves, he was injured well before Trump finished speaking, in a totally different area.
Those darn time-traveling Trumpsters.
Ann Althouse, who is no Trump fan is now obsessing about whether Trump was briefed by the FBI that they knew someone was planning a riot.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has confirmed that the breach at the Capitol was planned several days in advance of the rally, and therefore had nothing to do with the President’s speech on January 6th at the Ellipse. According to investigative reports all released after January 6, 2021, “The Capitol Police, the NYPD and the FBI all had prior warning that there was going to be an attack on the Capitol.”
Obviously, Trump’s lawyers think it’s exculpatory that there was an advance plan. But I have been saying the opposite. Here’s my January 10th post:
If Trump knew there was a plan to storm the Capitol building, then his speech to the crowd was an incitement, even though he never told the crowd to commit any act of violence.
She has a very good blog that I have read for years but she dislikes Trump and seems to think that the FBI, which has been up to its ears in the anti-Trump coup attempts since 2016, would warn him about plans by anti-Trump radicals.
Her blog has been lately flooded with leftist trolls. I have quit commenting but still skim some comments.
Not quite on topic of the OP, but relevant, I submit.
Please stop talking about an impeachment “trial”. Whatever has taken place is trivially obviously not a trial in any sense at all beyond that of “something to be endured”. Period. Full stop. To borrow a phrase. Nothing at all honest, clean, even legal or lawful about it. Even recognizing that the latter two (legal and lawful) can sometimes involve ugly dirtiness.
That it is not a trial one can immediately recognize by reading the relevant section of the Constitution. One does not even need to spend time pondering the intended original meaning, what led the writers to include the impeachment process in the Constitution. The words themselves speak explicitly enough that only a lawyer can misunderstand them, and then only by transparent obfuscation, oxymoron notwhithstanding. That it is not a trial one can immediately recognize by hearing those running the process declare achieving an impeachment would prevent an electorate overriding it.
I have no recommendation for a label. Lynching does not work. Tar and feathering does not work. Circus does not work. Gang rape does not work. But by no stretch should anyone call it a trial.
The trial meme deserves mockery, insult, snark, derision, scorn. Call it what it is. Laugh at it. Sneer at it. But do not call it a trial.
Oh, they’re “apples and oranges”.
The queation is, “which is which?”
The ones in 2016 were far more insurrection than anything on 1/6.
Lemme see if I get this Althouse crackpot theory right… The same FBI that willingly went along with and outright built the so-called “Russian Collusion” case against Trump warned him about a “planned attack” on Congress…?
Yeah, that’s perfectly plausible.
Roy:
We could call it the beginning of the American Yezhovschina, the Soviet “great purge” with Yezhov as the head of the secret police. You can bet that as soon as they can get away with it the Democrats, they will do the best they can to imitate the original.
Kirk:
Althouse tries to pretend that she is even handed, and even that she objects to some Democrat propositions; but in the end she is a loyal supporter of anything the Party decrees. She will contradict herself gladly to stay current with whatever the Agitprop of the moment is.
Subotai Bahadur
Did the FBI or other intell even warn the responsible police forces and the local guard? The lack of full defensive gear by the Capitol police argues they did not, at least in anyway reflective of the actual potential threat as it later materialized. The fact that the guard offered troops argues that they did pass the info. The last thing the guard wants to do is confront a rabble. It is also possible that they did, including informing the House and Senate leaders and some of them put a leash on the cops and may even have been the source of orders to open the fencing and doors while the rest tut-tuted to themselves. Cops don’t instinctively stand aside for trespassers.
On the suicides of the cops: a possible factor is disgust at the lack of equipping, enabling instructions (opening doors and fences; standing by), and lack of coordinated leadership might be a factor. If you are a true believer in a paramilitary or military organization, have invested years of service and then see it crumble around you in action; the gut shot could be beyond tolerance. People react differently. Just a thought for a line of inquiry. One or both of these deaths could have been the decisive result of issues entirely separate from the January 6th riot.
Many open avenues to probe, but next to zero chance any official investigation will go there. Too bad we don’t have an independent press to hold them accountable.
Anyone have any info of how many actually got inside the building and separately, how many have proven to be lefties?
Death6
“Anyone have any info of how many actually got inside the building and separately, how many have proven to be lefties?”
That of course will never be looked into. As far as I can tell, the vast majority of the folks were either Trump supporters or professional protest weirdos. It seems like they all walked in that side door that was opened for them, by the security guards who didn’t want the sort of violence they were seeing at the main entrance nearby. There was literally zero destruction from any of them. The vids show them walking between the ropes, and doing nothing to harm anything. The only damage that I’ve seen is from the few folks who were smashing that door that got Ashli Babbitt shot. We know that Utah BLM guy was right there. My strong suspicion is that all those dudes were BLaMtifa. The fact that we don’t know who any of them are is pretty strong evidence that way, I’d say.
I saw a number of rumors swirling around in the immediate aftermath that, ala the Benghazi Embassy, the security forces on the ground (Capitol Police) were extremely concerned about the potential for a breach of security on 6 January, kept asking for reinforcements, and kept getting turned down by the higher ups (Congressional leadership and/or the D.C. Mayor). That could be what Ron Johnson was referring to as I haven’t seen his specific allegation.
Two things that have to be kept in mind about the police response is that the DC Police is widely recognized as one of the most incompetent, ineffective departments in the country although the competition for the worst is getting fierce. The other is that the Capitol Police are essentially a bunch of museum guards. It’s a combination of political patronage and and little if any actual police work.
And now we still have tens of thousands of soldiers in DC with fences everywhere. They say they’re there for the impeachment trial, which I actually do believe, but not for security. They’re there as props, so the Dems can point to them and say they are necessary because of Trump’s incitement of insurrection. It’s an outrage, and every GOPer needs to be screaming about what a disgusting farce it is.
In Canada, suicide rates have dropped quite a bit in 2020. YMMV. ;)
Something I posted over at QuodVerum a few days ago seems relevant here – I’ve expanded it a bit:
Are these two things related?
1. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has displayed blatant contempt for the Capitol Police man who came to check on her welfare. Is an ‘All Cops are Bastards’ attitude widespread among Democrat legislators & staff, even when they’ve just been protected by those very cops? I suspect it is.
2. In less than a month since the riot, 2 D.C. policeman (1 CP and 1 D.C. cop) have killed themselves.
If CP morale (and DC law-enforcement morale generally) is very low, is that partly from the ungratefulness and contempt of many of those they protect?
Maybe not. Maybe the dead were Trump voters shocked by the number of idiot pro-Trumper (QAnon and Proud Boys) they had to fight. It must really suck to find that you can’t count on either side of the political spectrum to support you.
Is anyone investigating?
I question the premise of the “suicides” entirely. Statistically, with a police force that large, someone is going to die no matter what–If only from random causative factors like heart attacks. Are those attributable to the civil disturbance?
Unless you show me forensic evidence tying dead cops to the actions of rioters, like they shot them or beat them to death on video, I’m going to take any claims of causative factors skeptically. So the guy committed suicide–Why? Did his wife leave him? Did he get notified of a fatal disease? What else was going on in his life that was merely coincidental with the disturbances?
Suicide is one of those things where you generally just don’t know what the hell was really going on. I dealt with a couple in the military, and about the only linking factor to any of them was the sheer “WTF?!?!?!” factor. One young man was someone I was dealing with who was in a “position of trust”, and I’d inspected his work area the same week he flew to Hawaii and blew his brains out of his head in a rented car, parked outside his former supervisor’s quarters on base. There was no sign of anything out of the ordinary, none of the “usual indicators” for suicide risk, and no apparent reason. He’d just flown down to Hawaii, not telling anyone (which was a bit of a violation of the pass/leave policy), tried to speak with his old boss, finding out he was on a deployment away from Hawaii from the guy’s wife, and then he went out to the car and shot himself with a pistol that nobody ever figured out where the hell he got it from. The wife that talked to him was mind-boggled; the way she described it, she’d seen nothing at all indicating distress–The whole conversation was like “Hey, I was in town, thought I’d stop by to see Bob… Oh? He’s not here… OK, tell him I said “Hi!”…”, and then he walked off like he had not a care in the world. Following morning, someone on their way to work sees him slumped over in the car, dead. Cue massive multi-command freak-out, and nobody ever figuring out what the hell went wrong for the poor bastard. From what I remember of the forensic psychiatric autopsy they did, there was nothing at all conclusive or explanatory for any of that.
So, you tell me some guys working for the Capitol police committed suicide? Show me the evidence, please, before you attribute any of that to the disturbances. Coincidence ain’t causation, folks.
Maybe the dead were Trump voters shocked by the number of idiot pro-Trumper (QAnon and Proud Boys) they had to fight. It must really suck to find that you can’t count on either side of the political spectrum to support you.
Wow. I’ve just spent a few minutes marveling at these two sentences because it’s been a long time since I’ve seen so much wrong shoehorned into so few words.
First, from everything I’ve seen pro-Trump people- including the pitifully small number of Proud Boys and these imaginary QAnon hordes- aren’t interested in attacking law enforcement officers and don’t, period. Second, police officers follow orders from a chain of command, which is often or usually controlled by leftists who love murderers and other criminals, and who take special joy ordering police to ignore lawbreaking by antifa and BLM while demanding that pro-Trump people have every aspect of their lives scrutinized so they can be imprisoned for decades. Third, I can’t imagine that police are ignorant of the months of violent rioting that recently occurred, even if CNN won’t call it violent or rioting. Fourth, I can’t imagine that cops anywhere haven’t long noticed that the left- that is, the democrat party- isn’t on their side.
If police officers are now killing themselves at an increased rate, I’d imagine that the relentless hostility from the lawless American political establishment is why, not because some pro-Trump demonstrators adopted the tactics of the left and showed up to demonstrate.
“So, you tell me some guys working for the Capitol police committed suicide? Show me the evidence, please”
Same, but without the “please”.
The FBI and the entire IC are completely corrupt. I don’t take their word for anything at this point.
I’ve had a hard time understanding suicide, since I’m the exact opposite. If someone causes me pain & injustice, my first inclination is murder – not killing myself. There are exceptions. I perfectly understand why if you were in pain, or say a burden on your loved ones, you might “a quietus make With a bare bodkin.” But on the whole, the whole “I’ll show them, I’ll kill myself” seems nonsensical.
In viewing the media in this country, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I’ve often stated its like being in the USSR, but this is actually more of a reality than hyperbole. I see/read Media types deliberately lie or say things without evidence. The January 6th Riot is the same thing. As a result, I don’t believe anything I read about it in the MSM unless i can “fact check” it from other more reliable sources, or I can tweeze out the truth.
For example, if they report a fact that is Pro-Trump, I can more or less believe it, since they ordinarily wouldn’t report it. Or if they don’t provide details or try to suppress a story, I know its true. we knew Hunter Biden’s corruption story was true because all the MSM did was engage in censorship and name calling. And the same is true of the stolen election.
Regarding Jan 6th, we’re waiting for confirmation of what we already know is true. Namely, the officer wasn’t murdered but died for other reasons, and that the violent thugs who created most of the havoc and vandalism weren’t trump supporters or weren’t marching under Trump’s orders.
One more thing about Jan 6.
Where is the info on the death of the Capitol police officer?
No autopsy, no medical examiner report, no video and the body has been cremated !
I will again draw readers attention to Romania, and Eastern Europe in general, for accounts of what actual oppression looks like.
It has always been the liberals wanting to assert that they are persecuted, the nation just one step off fascism, held at bay only by the brave few. I have just shaken my head at people who want to see themselves as victims.
In 2020 the conservatives decided to take up that idea of how persecuted they are. I fully believe in media bias, that the DC federal agencies are largely Democrats that use the Washington Post as their house organ, and that bureaucracies self-protect their own even more than they try to advance their political agenda. But that is all.
A little info is starting to trickle out about the cop that shot and killed Ashli Babbit.
He is lawyered up, anyway. And a Lieutenant. Hmmm.
Biden’s been in office signing EOs left and right, the Dems are lying like crazy during a show trial, and prepping an absurd “covid relief” bill, and what are is the GOP focused on? Criticizing some random freshman House member, and either being silent about or criticizing Trump. Way to concentrate on what really matters, idiots. This is why “we” win elections but lose everything–the jokers in the GOP couldn’t care less about getting anything done, all they care about is making sure the jackals in the media shoving microphones in their faces and looking for some juicy fratricidal quote are happy…
Mike: Of course he’s lawyered up. So what? I don’t care about him. What I want to know is, who were all the dudes who were smashing the windows in that door? I betcha dollars to donuts that they ain’t Trump supporters.
What I want to know is, who were all the dudes who were smashing the windows in that door? I betcha dollars to donuts that they ain’t Trump supporters.
Good luck finding out. The cop who died has been cremated with no autopsy report available.
“What I want to know is, who were all the dudes who were smashing the windows in that door? I betcha dollars to donuts that they ain’t Trump supporters.
Good luck finding out. The cop who died has been cremated with no autopsy report available.”
You do wonder, right? Imagine if we had a national press corps who could actually investigate and find out the answers to questions like that. Imagine how awesome that could be!!! (insert sarcasm imogie here.)
I fully believe in media bias, that the DC federal agencies are largely Democrats that use the Washington Post as their house organ, and that bureaucracies self-protect their own even more than they try to advance their political agenda. But that is all.
My gosh, but isn’t that enough for conservatives to consider themselves persecuted? Essentially, the bureaucrats who de facto write laws and decide who those laws apply to and who can ignore them, are roughly all members of one political party. The media, which supposedly would expose wrongdoing by these same folks, is also made up of people of that same party. And these bureaucrats protect their own, which I take means that they will not turn them in if they catch them breaking the law.
I’m pretty sure if the shoe was on the other foot and it the left facing this situation they wouldn’t be shrugging their shoulders. They’d be complaining of persecution too- and I wouldn’t blame them.
Not only that, but it seems to me there is quite literally endless evidence that conservatives are in fact getting persecuted. For example, the people fired because they attended the January 6th Trump rally, even if they did nothing else. And of course, compare and contrast the treatment leftist rioters have received from the FBI- charges dropped, crimes ignored- with the treatment Trump supporters have received- I see billboards with a tipline so people can call the FBI, investigations involving 57 field offices, all busy scouring social media, etc etc. Plus, I’ve seen plenty of leftists demanding re-education camps for Trump supporters and the like. We shouldn’t wait to react until these people work themselves up into concluding that conservatives deserve our very own final solution to make us go away for good.
There’s a famous example of a Holocaust survivor who was asked something like what lessons did you learn from the experience? His answer was when someone says their going to kill you, believe them. We need to believe the left when tell us how much they hate us, and react accordingly.
Frankly, I’ve been shocked at the lack of interest in the murder of Ashli Babbitt. Maybe, I should have realized all the concern over George Floyd and the police shootings last summer was fake, and that no one really cared. Or maybe the word has gone out to all republicans that “respectable people” don’t talk about her murder.
And I use the word ‘murder’ deliberately. She was unarmed, she was not threat to anyone, and she was literally surrounded by policemen. Yet, she was shot in cold blood. This is no justification. As Dr. K has stated, its all there on tape, for anyone to watch. And none of our Republicans in Congress even raise the issue.
Not everyone in the media is quiet. I see that “Red State” has touched on the issue in their usual mealy-mouthed, half-assed, “Lets not offend the liberals” way. And only because Fox News’ Tucker Carlson mentioned it.
This country is becoming more and more insane. Things that would have been impossible in an earlier time, Like: two partisan nothing-burger impeachments, a stolen presidential election, 25,000 troops to protect cowardly congressman from their own shadows, social media and newspapers suppressing & censoring news stories to protect the Democrats, the Republican House leadership joining with pelosi to destroy a Republican President…are now considered “normal”. Amazing.
People keep expecting the Democrats and the media to “Get back to Normal” and moderate their insanity. But that’s not happening, and based on historical experiences like Russia 1917, Spain 1936, Cuba 1958, etc. its not going to happen. They have no stomach for fighting the extreme left. All their energy and hate goes in one direction.
I’m was truly astounded that in these two bogus, fake impeachments, the Democrat’s in Congress voted 47-0 in the Senate and almost unanimously in the house to impeach trump in Feb 2020, and the numbers will be almost the same this time. I expect the vote in the Senate to be 50-0 to convict. The Democrats literally DO NOT CARE what the evidence is. Nor do they care that this is a norm breaking, horrible precedent which “normalizes” the use of impeachment as a partisan weapon. The Republicans have already signaled that they will NOT retaliate, so we can we forward to the D’s impeaching any Republican President they don’t like. Assuming we can ever have another honest election and elect another Republican.
Of course they’re not going to “moderate their insanity”. They are consolidating their power. They were shook up by Trump’s election, and they have been determined for 5+ years to make sure that nothing can threaten their power again. It’s one thing to have talked about it last year, but quite another to see it happening right in front of us.
A relevant thread:
https://twitter.com/docMJP/status/1359816566104334342
The crazy thing about living through a regime change like this one is the combination of *denial* along with the increasing explicit justifications for oppression. The history books don’t tell you about all the people in willful denial as things escalated””who let it happen.
What keeps happening, over and over, are incidents with obvious parallels that reveal the nature of The Party now attempting to take complete control over America. To point out the obvious about it is to be fired and publicly reviled like ginacarano.
Meanwhile, of course they can say the same about their opponents. That’s the point of all this: “we can protest & riot w/impunity””you cannot.” Only The Party can make Nazi references. Etc. But if you aren’t a member of The Party & in denial, at this point I assume it’s willful.
Are people familiar with “the new class” concept of Djilas? I saw it referred to in the book about the Cultural Revolution I’m reading. It’s clear he’s talking about the PMC, but I’ve not been aware of him before. For all the talk of commies taking over the West in the last few decades, it’s clear that the story of the 20th/21st century everywhere, no matter the surface ideology, is the rise of this bureaucratic class everywhere as the dominant force in society. It sounds kind of like what they say about the late Ottoman empire, which unfortunately for us lasted for centuries…
Brian: “I saw it referred to in the book about the Cultural Revolution I’m reading.”
It would be interesting to share your observations once you have finished that book. There is a view that part of Mao’s reason for starting the Cultural Revolution and unleashing the Red Guards was specifically to destroy the self-serving bureaucracy which he saw developing within Communist China.
To return to today, the fact that Beijing Biden had masses of “Executive Orders” and policy actions ready to go as soon as he was slid into the White House suggests that a similar self-serving bureaucracy is in charge in the 90% Democrat-voting DC Swamp. Bureaucrats were not serving President Trump — they were planning their actions once they had got rid of him by means fair or foul. The message is that the only way any future President could make real changes in the Swamp would have to begin with a more civilized version of the Cultural Revolution to clear out the enemy agents in the bureaucracy.
That is not going to happen, unfortunately. But the incompetence of those same Swamp bureaucrats is bringing things to an end by destroying the economic base of the United States. And unlike the peons in the Ottoman Empire, we won’t have to wait centuries for that collapse.
I’m was truly astounded that in these two bogus, fake impeachments, the Democrat’s in Congress voted 47-0 in the Senate and almost unanimously in the house to impeach trump in Feb 2020, and the numbers will be almost the same this time.
The Democrats no longer rely on working people to fund the party, as in the old days with unions. Nancy Pelosi is still there in Congress because she has control of the tech money spigot and there is no other serious source of money for Democrats. The public employee unions fill the role of the old AFL-CIO but the Democrats require big money for the propaganda campaign that convinces their sheep-like voters to once again vote against their own best interests. Minimum wage at $15 will put millions out of work. The pipe fitters union endorsed Biden and he immediately destroyed 11,000 jobs and many more. Why ? The Clerisy Class is convinced that global warming/ climate change will destroy the planet.
For Democrats and about 1/2 the Republicans, politics is a career. What have Paul Ryan, Trent Lott, or Mitch McConnell ever done outside of politics ? ZERO.
But the incompetence of those same Swamp bureaucrats is bringing things to an end by destroying the economic base of the United States. And unlike the peons in the Ottoman Empire, we won’t have to wait centuries for that collapse.
I put the collapse in the next ten years, possibly five. Biden with his “stimulus” will add $2 trillion to the debt and that is in two months. Hemingway’s description of bankruptcy will be confirmed. The son of the author of the investment letter I read for 20 years ( Richard Russell), was, last I heard, farming in Oregon. Readying his family for the collapse. I hope he has enough ammunition. Food will be fought over.
Gavin: I’ve only just started, but from the translator’s introduction:
“Yang Jisheng, on the other hand, posits that the Cultural Revolution was a triangular game between Mao, the bureaucratic clique, and the rebel faction, and that the bureaucratic clique ultimately won, Mao lost, and the rebel faction bore the consequences of the loss.”
Re: Rcoroan Democrats tend to make politics personal, though Republicans may be getting there. Some democratic precincts vote at levels that seem unlikely given human nature’s stubborn refusniks in any group. Of course there may be other reasons.
I heard (and with my tendency to keep the television on as background this may be close to children playing telephone) yesterday that some group was matching names charged with votes in November and that a large number hadn’t voted. Impassioned Trumpists might not have voted in Georgia in January having given up on the system but why they wouldn’t in November seems strange. Some faces may have been provocateur mercenaries. Certainly breaking windows and letting the impassioned mob in was a pattern we’ve seen before.
The lack of transparency about so much in this and also in the long year of protests (especially of what often inspired those protests) leads to conspiracy theories – the worst possible outcome in any political body. But at this point it is kind of like the old paranoid lines – just because your paranoid doesn’t mean someone isn’t out to get you and just because you are drawn to conspiracy theories doesn’t mean there aren’t ones.
An interesting new theme in the leftist press.
If Trump is acquitted, prepare for Antifa rioting.
It’s now clear that Antifa is the DNC’s “kinetic” arm.
I’m not sure that is a wise plan but Democrats went crazy in 2016 and have not recovered.
I’m not sure that is a wise plan but Democrats went crazy in 2016 and have not recovered.
I saw this story at Ace of Spades too, and I find it hilarious. From the WaPo: If Republicans senators acquit Trump, they own the violence that follows. I find it touching at just how delusional it manages to be and how little these people understand what is actually going on. Weirdly, considering that I know these people hate me and want me dead, I actually pity them. Forgive me, I’ll get over it pretty quick.
Trump was never their problem. I think he was quite willing to work within the system, cutting deals with the left and the Gee Ohh Peeee establishment, and he was even willing to play along with the media. His reward was endless campaign of hatred and lies, breaking numerous laws and eventually culminating in an astonishingly brazen amount of fraud that overturned the legitimate election result.
Shrug. We tried and we failed. The system is incorrigible and cannot be reformed. Lesson learned. Life goes on and history still hasn’t ended, Francis.
Their real problem: The tens of millions of dissatisfied voters who have lost faith in the system and who have no stake in its continuance. They walked away from the gop in 2016 to embrace an orange-haired ex-democrat with endless ugly baggage despite relentless flailing efforts by the establishment to destroy him and shoehorn the cold dead carcass of Jeb! Bush’s political career into the GOP nomination. Ancient history now.
Back to current events. Now the WaPo- house organ of the regime- somehow thinks threatening Republican senators will go well for them. That’s the hilarity, because all outcomes are bad for them. If the threat succeeds, and Trump is convicted because the gop senators vote to convict. The GOP immediately splits and as a bonus loses any credibility as any sort of opposition party to the regime. This will hasten the replacement of the worthless Republican party by something that will actually represent the people who have been voting for it. If the threat doesn’t succeed, and the GOPes don’t vote to convict, then it will have exposed the impotence of the regime’s efforts to turn the gop and its voters against Trump. Again. But if Trump isn’t convicted and the WaPo’s threat comes to pass, and antifa starts burning again- well, as Mike K notes, it’s just yet more evidence that the demonrats are using violence as a tool- and the house organ of the regime just openly admitted that.
My best guess is that this is yet another flailing attempt by the regime to separate Trump from his base of support and it won’t amount to much more than a headline. But again history hasn’t ended and my take is that the regime continues to collapse. Puerile impotent threats, or alternately calibrated violence against dissidents, telegraphed well in advance, is roughly what I’d expect.
As someone who has said here that I think we are headed to civil war, I think all this will eventually result in open violence that will lead to more violence, etc etc. Antifa will attempt to burn out the wrong town, getting rewarded with a massacre by the inhabitants, or perhaps some people will resist new gun banning measures and get massacred by the ATF.
Shrug, again. We did our best to work within the system, alas…
Let’s remember that there are tens of thousands of NG still in DC, for no apparent reason. Any sort of violence, whether antifa or false flag, would be very helpful to give the Dems the excuse to jam more draconian laws through regarding guns, surveillance, etc.
At some point, BLM and Antifa may have trouble not rioting. The bloodlust of rioting, from violence can become habitual – life without it dull and meaningless. This may be the future. Ireland found it difficult to wean the IRA terrorists from that seductive high. But maybe I’m just borrowing trouble.
Any sort of violence, whether antifa or false flag, would be very helpful to give the Dems the excuse to jam more draconian laws through regarding guns, surveillance, etc.
At this point, I simply don’t think they care about such things as needing excuses. They’re going to do what they’re going to do. Their behavior reminds of me communists, who immediately start wrecking things when they take power, likely because they are communists.
The bloodlust of rioting, from violence can become habitual – life without it dull and meaningless.
I also don’t think the anitifa party violence- where they get to attack police who can’t fight back, or harass people in hotels- will last. The left has been busy teaching normal Americans to hate them, which matters. As someone wrote, for leftists violence is a knob to be turned up and down as needed to get what they want, but for conservatives it’s an on/off switch.
I don’t know when that switch will flip, but I certainly think the answer isn’t “never.”
Ginny…”At some point, BLM and Antifa may have trouble not rioting. The bloodlust of rioting, from violence can become habitual – life without it dull and meaningless.”
This is also true of many people who have adopted strong Prog opinions but who do not engage in physical violence (some of them are too old, in poor health, too timid, etc)…but their Prog-ism, and the circle of people they have developed around it, has become in some cases the center of their lives.
Sebastian Haffner, who wrote an important memoir of life in Germany between the wars, says that when the political and economic situation stabilized and the outlook was positive (briefly, as we now know), most people were very happy..but not everybody:
“A generation of young Germans had become accustomed to having the entire content of their lives delivered gratis, so to speak, by the public sphere, all the raw material for their deeper emotions”¦Now that these deliveries suddently ceased, people were left helpless, impoverished, robbed, and disappointed. They had never learned how to live from within themselves, how to make an ordinary private life great, beautiful and worth while, how to enjoy it and make it interesting. So they regarded the end of political tension and the return of private liberty not as a gift, but as a deprivation. They were bored, their minds strayed to silly thoughts, and they began to sulk.”
and
“To be precise (the occasion demands precision, because in my opinion it provides the key to the contemporary period of history): it was not the entire generation of young Germans. Not every single individual reacted in this fashion. There were some who learned during this period, belatedly and a little clumsily, as it were, how to live. they began to enjoy their own lives, weaned themselves from the cheap intoxication of the sports of war and revolution, and started to develop their own personalities. It was at this time that, invisibly and unnoticed, the Germans divided into those who later became Nazis and those who would remain non-Nazis.”
Continuing with the thoughts in the previous comment, here’s historian Friedrich Meinecke, about support for Naziism and other forms of political fanaticism:
“It often happens nowdays”¦that young technicians, engineers, and so forth, who have enjoyed an excellent university training as specialists, will completely devote themselves to their calling for ten or fifteen years and without looking either to the right or to the left will try only to be first-rate specialists. But then, in their middle or late thirties, something they have never felt before awakens in them, something that was never really brought to their attention in their education–something that we would call a suppressed metaphysical desire. Then they rashly seize upon any sort of ideas and activities, anything that is fashionable at the moment and seems to them important for the welfare of individuals–whether it be anti-alcoholism, agricultural reform, eugenics, or the occult sciences. The former first-rate specialist changes into a kind of prophet, into an enthusiast, perhaps even into a fanatic and monomaniac. Thus arises the type of man who wants to reform the world.”
I know people who seem to fit this pattern…they have never before shown any particular interest in politics and/or political philosophy (or any form of philosophy), but now are obsessive Progs.
Xennady: The Dems need no excuses, mostly, but a false flag event would give Manchin and a few others cover to vote for stuff they might not otherwise, and bring a bunch of GOPe pukes along.
This is the second eyewitness account of January 6 I have read.
A contingent of perhaps 30 to 50 Capitol Police emerged at the top of the inaugural platform above the VIP section and worked their way down to the spot where Biden will take his oath of office. It was after 1:17 p.m., according to my camera. They were armed with paintball-type long guns that fired capsules of pepper irritant, teargas launchers, and long guns that I could not identify from my position. Something was happening on the plaza level below them, but we couldn’t see.
To our left on the Senate side, a scuffle had already broken out, but we were so packed so tightly that we couldn’t see or hear. The biggest feature was the imposing edifice of the Capitol itself, the party-like guys up on the camera tower, and the endless crowd of people flowing in with colorful flags””American, MAGA, South Vietnamese, even one from Kazakhstan. Many eyes were on the Capitol police in their black tactical gear, bright yellow-green safety vests, and weapons.
Some out-of-towners wondered why the police were there when they were all pro-police and no Antifa were present. Others said they did see Antifa wearing backward MAGA hats, so the police must have been waiting for them. I quietly wondered why so few police were present for a crowd this or any size.
Long but worth reading.
I have wondered about McCarthy all along. Now we have evidence he is a swamper.
In a column on the vote to call witnesses by NeverTrump GOPe, we see this.
The Washington Republican said McCarthy told her that when he spoke to Trump that day and asked him to “publicly and forcefully” call off the Capitol assault, “the president initially repeated the falsehood that it was antifa that had breached the Capitol.”
“McCarthy refuted that and told the president that these were Trump supporters,” Beutler’s statement said. “That’s when, according to McCarthy, the president said: ‘Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.’”
The vote to call witnesses comes after Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell told his GOP colleagues in a letter he would vote to acquit Trump.
The Congresswoman behind this story is one of 11 GOPe in the House that voted for impeachment. It’s good to see the masks coming off.
Thanks, Mike, for the Federalist piece. Its analysis seems clear headed. It doesn’t give answers but does pose questions – who were those various groups he observed so closely, where were they from, how and why were they trained, why were they together at this place and time.
Listening to Jamie Raskin, this morning, describe the mob as “armed to the teeth” does not accord with this picture at all. There seems a lack of bullhorns on all sides – that first tool of rioters, police; it was strong voices he notes. As so many times in the last few years, we are being sold a narrative too soon, with too few facts. I’m beginning to feel we’ve been snookered just a bit too often: Michael Brown did not lift his hands, Floyd George died of an overdose, etc. etc. And yet here Raskin has a bullhorn.
Well, they found 7 swamp creatures to vote for impeachment.
Burr, of course, is no surprise. He was a disgrace as a chair of the Senate Intell committee and let Warner run it. The others we expected.
Now, let’s see if the WaPoo threat materializes.
Could State representatives in Utah, Alaska, etc vote to impeach those dumb Republicrats who unconstitutionally voted to impeach a private citizen?
Or maybe they could put in place a State law to have State sheriffs arrest the “Senators” when (if?) they ever return to their State, and bring them before the State House to explain their behavior?
One can dream! But the reality is that the Republicrat Party is dead.
The Dems need no excuses, mostly, but a false flag event would give Manchin and a few others cover to vote for stuff they might not otherwise, and bring a bunch of GOPe pukes along.
They’ve already had the false flag attack and I think the only thing necessary for the GOPes to turn on Trump would be a secret ballot for the impeachment, which for some reason McConnell could not arrange for them.
The real problem for the gop is that they’ve failed miserably to drive a wedge between Trump and his supporters, despite endless flailing effort. The dogs just aren’t eating the geee ohh peee dogfood anymore- and the establishment seems utterly unable to adapt. I’ve lately been getting emails touting Nimrata Haley, for example, which I take to mean that the establishment has chosen her to be the designated loser in 2024. Either the party is too stupid to understand that she will be a Jeb!-sized disaster or they figure they’ll just rig the primary vote next time. I think neither possibility will lead the gop to any sort of success. But the party seems to have the post-Trump script already written, and they’re going to play by it even if it makes no sense at all.
Listening to Jamie Raskin, this morning, describe the mob as “armed to the teeth” does not accord with this picture at all.
A typical lie. If the various Trump supporters had actually wanted to do more than protest, then they easily could have outgunned the capitol police force, especially since the offers for extra security were declined. But of course everyone knows conservatives won’t actually get violent, so there was no real threat and no reason not to decline the extra security, to make the false flag attack more convincing.
Burr, of course, is no surprise.
Burr reminds me especially of that old quip from Theodore Roosevelt, who said that when the Senate did roll call the members didn’t know whether to answer “present” or “not guilty.”
Meh. More than 7 GOPe Senators voted for Biden, you can be sure of that. No one said kicking those pukes out of power would be easy.