The show that never ends…
Tag: riots
Boston University Professor Calls Property “a Racist Construct” and Justifies the Violent Protests of the George Floyd Riots
Saida Grundy, a Boston University assistant professor, called property a racist construct and urged people to refrain from judging the actions of minority communities to events such as the death of George Floyd.
In a video posted by the University, Grundy says that the looting during the riots that followed the George Floyd case is similar to Black Americans “looting themselves” out of the place of being slaves. The video was produced to mark the second anniversary of Floyd’s death.
“We hear President Biden say, you know, I understand your frustrations but don’t destroy property,” Grundy said in the University’s video. “Well, when you say that to Black people who historically have been property, one of our greatest weapons against injustice was the looting of ourselves as property from the system of slavery.”
“And what we see in communities is they’re reacting to the very racism of what we call property,” Grundy added.
Leaked memo says Biden administration is preparing for violence after abortion ruling
The Department of Homeland Security is preparing for an increase in political violence after the Supreme Court hands down its official ruling on Roe v. Wade in the coming weeks, according to a leaked memo reported Wednesday.
First Axios and then Fox News published details from a May 13 memo revealing that federal law enforcement is investigating threats made on social media to “burn down or storm” the Supreme Court building. Pro-abortion-rights activists began making such threats earlier in the month when a draft majority opinion leaked to Politico indicated the court had voted to uphold Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban and overturn the landmark Roe decision.
Pro-abortion protesters have called for a “summer of rage,” with the expectation that the court will roll back abortion rights. Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices have already endured potentially illegal protests outside their private homes, and the headquarters of a pro-life organization was attacked with a Molotov cocktail in Madison, Wisconsin.
Video of Oath Keepers Rescuing 16 Police Officers Deflates Jan. 6 Sedition Narrative, Attorneys Say
A video widely circulated in 2021 that shows a Capitol Police lieutenant asking members of the Oath Keepers for rescue help at the U.S. Capitol blows a hole in the seditious conspiracy charges brought against the group by federal prosecutors, two defense attorneys say.
In the video, Lt. Tarik Khalid Johnson asks a group of men to help him get more than a dozen trapped Capitol Police officers out of the Capitol and through a tightly packed crowd of protesters on the building’s east steps.
It was widely reported in January 2021 that Johnson wore a red Make America Great Again cap on Jan. 6 as a ruse to “trick” supporters of President Donald Trump into helping him rescue fellow officers from the Capitol. He was later suspended for wearing the MAGA cap. Johnson is a registered Democrat, according to online records.
The men who answered the call to help were members of the Oath Keepers, a nationwide group of current and former military, law enforcement, and first responders who have been targeted by federal prosecutors for allegedly conspiring to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The video is at least the second example showing the Oath Keepers coming to the aid of Capitol Police inside the building that day.
Would a group of men seditiously plotting an attack on the Capitol, allegedly to prevent certification of Electoral College votes, rush into the building to extract police trapped inside—all while being followed by a filmmaker?
80 ‘Suspicious Actors’ and ‘Material Witnesses’ Under Scrutiny by Jan. 6 Defense Attorneys
Defense attorneys seek to identify and investigate 80 suspicious actors and material witnesses, some of whom allegedly ran an entrapment operation against the Oath Keepers on January 6, 2021, and committed crimes including the removal of security fencing, breaching police lines, attacking officers, and inciting crowds to storm into the Capitol.
In a motion (pdf) and supplement (pdf) filed after 11 p.m. on May 5 in federal court in Washington, attorney Brad Geyer listed 80 people, some of whom he said could be government agents or provocateurs. The people are seen on video operating in a coordinated fashion across the Capitol grounds on January 6, the attorney alleged.
Geyer’s suggestion of an entrapment scheme will resonate with dozens of January 6 defense attorneys, coming shortly after two men were acquitted of an alleged plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D). There was a hung jury on charges against two other defendants. The jury in that case was allowed to consider FBI entrapment as a defense.
Geyer, who represents Oath Keepers defendant Kenneth Harrelson, is seeking a court order from U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta compelling federal prosecutors to help identify the individuals and disclose whether they were working for law enforcement or any government agency on January 6. Geyer wrote that the information is exculpatory, which compels the government to produce it. Other Oath Keepers defendants are expected to join in the motion.
Science fiction is crazy stuff…
A High-Ranking Proud Boy Is Now Snitching for the Feds
Federal prosecutors appear to have made their biggest breakthrough yet in their sprawling investigation into the violent riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. A high-ranking Proud Boy has flipped, agreeing to testify in any and all cases where his testimony might be “deemed relevant by the government.”
It’s the latest example of the government strengthening its case against the far-right street-fighting gang that’s become a national household name since its leaders and dozens of members have been charged in relation to the Capitol riot.
Late last week, the Justice Department announced that Charles Donohoe, leader of the North Carolina Proud Boys chapter, had pleaded guilty to two charges—conspiring to disrupt the certification of the 2020 election results, and assaulting, resisting, or impeding law enforcement officers.
Donohoe was charged with conspiracy along with five prominent Proud Boys, including the group’s former national chairman Enrique Tarrio.
But Donohoe’s agreement with the government could have cascading effects beyond his case.
20 Federal ‘Assets’ Embedded at Capitol on Jan. 6, Court Filing Says
At least 20 FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives “assets” were embedded around the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, a defense attorney wrote in a court filing on April 12.
The disclosure was made in a motion seeking to dismiss seditious conspiracy and obstruction charges against 10 Oath Keepers defendants in one of the most prominent Jan. 6 criminal cases.
David W. Fischer, attorney for Thomas E. Caldwell of Berryville, Virginia, filed a 41-page motion to dismiss four counts on behalf of all Oath Keepers case defendants before U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta in Washington, D.C.
Caldwell is charged in the indictment, but is not a member of the Oath Keepers, he told The Epoch Times in March.
American Stasi: ‘Citizen Sleuths’ Are Ratting Out Jan. 6 Protestors Who Haven’t Been Arrested
The Left’s phony Jan. 6 “insurrection” witch hunt isn’t going to die down anytime soon. The Democrats still hope to use it to stigmatize and marginalize virtually all of their opposition as “insurrectionists” that all decent lovers of “our democracy” (that is, the Left’s hegemony) should shun. And although it is now almost a year and a half since the Terrible Event That Was Worse Than 9/11 and Pearl Harbor, there are more Jan. 6 prosecutions all the time, thanks to “citizen sleuths” who are ratting out protestors who were at the Capitol on the fateful day.
There are so many snitches that the system is being overwhelmed. NBC News reported Wednesday that “aided by citizen sleuths who keep identifying Jan. 6 rioters, the Justice Department is finding that it has more cases than lawyers to prosecute them.” Accordingly, “the Justice Department is asking Congress for additional funds to prosecute those cases — a list that keeps growing.” It’s growing because “multiple online sleuths in a network of ‘Sedition Hunters’ working’ to find Jan. 6 participants have told NBC News that they’ve successfully identified to the FBI hundreds of additional Jan. 6 rioters — including dozens who are pictured on the FBI’s Capitol Violence website.” And the feds, of course, are only too eager to act upon the information these rats feed them.
One snitch said nobly that he had plenty more work to do: “There are hundreds still to go,” he said, “speaking anonymously to avoid retaliation from supporters of the rioters.” Yeah, you know, he doesn’t want trouble from those dangerous traitors who were going to overthrow the government led by a few grandmothers and a guy with Viking horns. But however ridiculous it is, the narrative must be perpetuated, and so the “sleuth” remains anonymous.
NBC notes that “by pouring [sic; they mean poring] over terabytes of photos and video footage from Jan. 6, citizen investigators have been able to identify hundreds of participants in the Capitol attack. More than 2,500 people made their way inside the Capitol, officials have estimated, and there are more than 350 individuals still listed on the FBI’s Capitol Violence website who have not yet been arrested.” The anonymous rat said proudly: “We’re maybe 30 percent into arrests, with more to come. And still not all crimes discovered.” Another rat was tempted to lose hope that the evildoers would ever get what was coming to them, given the fact that the FBI was “backlogged so far” with cases the feds hadn’t moved on. He said nobly that his hope would falter, and then be renewed: “Sometimes I kind of lose faith, and then they keep plugging away.” How inspiring.
Another rat was ready to be patient: “The scope of the investigation is so large that even 15 months in, to expect the government to scale in such a way that all cases have already been brought forward, is just unrealistic. As long as justice continues to be served, even if it’s slower than I would like, I’m OK with it. As long as I see them arresting people, and finalizing the cases, and pushing the plea deals through where it makes sense, I’m Ok with that.” As long as I see them destroying lives in a hyper-politicized witch hunt over nothing, I’m OK with that.
Journalists Attack the Powerless, Then Self-Victimize to Bar Criticisms of Themselves
The daily newspaper USA Today is the second-most circulated print newspaper in the United States — more than The New York Times and more than double The Washington Post. Only The Wall Street Journal has higher circulation numbers.
On Sunday, the paper published and heavily promoted a repellent article complaining that “defendants accused in the Capitol riot Jan. 6 crowdfund their legal fees online, using popular payment processors and an expanding network of fundraising platforms, despite a crackdown by tech companies.” It provided a road map for snitching on how these private citizens — who are charged with serious felonies by the U.S. Justice Department but as of yet convicted of nothing — are engaged in “a game of cat-and-mouse as they spring from one fundraising tool to another” in order to avoid bans on their ability to raise desperately needed funds to pay their criminal lawyers to mount a vigorous defense.
In other words, the only purpose of the article — headlined: “Insurrection fundraiser: Capitol riot extremists, Trump supporters raise money for lawyer bills online” — was to pressure and shame tech companies to do more to block these criminal defendants from being able to raise funds for their legal fees, and to tattle to tech companies by showing them what techniques these indigent defendants are using to raise money online.
The USA Today reporters went far beyond merely reporting how this fundraising was being conducted. They went so far as to tattle to PayPal and other funding sites on two of those defendants, Joe Biggs and Dominic Pezzola, and then boasted of their success in having their accounts terminated:
As of Wednesday afternoon, the Biggs fundraiser was listed as having received $52,201. Pezzola had received $730. Biggs’ campaign disappeared from the site shortly after USA TODAY inquired about it….
Friday, a USA TODAY reporter donated to Pezzola’s fundraiser using Stripe. Stripe told USA TODAY it does not comment on individual users. A USA TODAY reporter was able to make a $1 donation to Pezzola’s fundraiser using Venmo, a payment app owned by PayPal. After being alerted by USA TODAY, Venmo removed the account.
Soon a PayPal account took its place. PayPal caught that and removed it, too.
Wow, what brave and intrepid journalistic work: speaking truth to power and standing up to major power centers by . . . working as little police officers for tech giants to prevent private citizens from being able to afford criminal lawyers. Clear the shelves for the imminent Pulitzer. Whatever you think about the Capitol riot, everyone has the right to a legal defense and to do what they can to ensure they have the best legal defense possible — especially when the full weight of the Justice Department is crashing down on your head even for non-violent offenses, which is what many of these defendants are charged with due to the politically charged nature of the investigation.
The right to a vigorous defense has always been a central cause of mine as a lawyer and a journalist (it also used to be a central cause of left-wing groups like the ACLU, years ago; it was that same principle that caused then-candidate Kamala Harris to solicit donations last summer that went to protesters charged with violent rioting). A federal prosecutor was recently referred for disciplinary procedures for publicly threatening to charge some of these Capitol protesters with sedition, one of the gravest crimes in the U.S. Code. That is how grave the legal jeopardy is faced by these people trying to raise money for lawyers.
What makes all of this extra grotesque is that, as The Washington Post reported, most of those charged with various crimes in connection with the January 6 Capitol riot, including many whose charges stem just from their presence inside the Capitol, not the use of any violence, are people with serious financial difficulties: not surprising for a country in the middle of a major economic and joblessness crisis, where neoliberalism and global trade deals have destroyed entire industries and communities for decades:
Nearly 60 percent of the people facing charges related to the Capitol riot showed signs of prior money troubles, including bankruptcies, notices of eviction or foreclosure, bad debts, or unpaid taxes over the past two decades, according to a Washington Post analysis of public records for 125 defendants with sufficient information to detail their financial histories. . . . The group’s bankruptcy rate — 18 percent — was nearly twice as high as that of the American public, The Post found. A quarter of them had been sued for money owed to a creditor. And 1 in 5 of them faced losing their home at one point, according to court filings.
This USA Today article is thus yet another example of journalists at major media outlets abusing their platforms to attack and expose anything other than the real power centers which compose the ruling class and govern the U.S.: the CIA, the FBI, security state agencies, Wall Street, Silicon Valley oligarchs. To the extent these journalists pay attention to those entities at all — and they barely ever do — it is to venerate them and mindlessly disseminate their messaging like stenographers, not investigate them. Investigating people who actually wield real power is hard.
Hellbound and Down 
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