I’ll bet you can’t guess who Joe Biggs, Dominic Pezzola, Zachary Rehl, Ethan Nordean, and Henry “Enrique” Tarrio would be voting for next year if their rights to vote were not unceremoniously stripped from them and they were not locked up behind iron bars and steel doors in federal penitentiaries, having been convicted for the roles they played in assaulting the Capitol on January 6, 2021. All five are so-called Proud Boys, members of a white nationalist organization that has clashed violently with anti-fascist protesters at events around the country over the past six years.
These are all young men. They will no doubt be released before serving their full sentences. And I’m betting they will go right back to trying to overthrow the US government by force. They should all have been condemned to life without parole.
They have to do at least 80 % of their sentence before being considered for release. Once released, I don't think they're going to be able to do much besides collect welfare and complain about being ex-cons. Their names are infamous, I'm sure their probation and terms of release won't be easy, either.
On the contrary, depending on how a future degenerating of our democracy evolves, they'll be lionized by the far right and their billionaire backers - that's where we are already, not in a more rational world of political responsibility and legal norms.
Trump could still win the presidential election next November 5, 2024, by taking full advantage of every single bit of the crooked, unconstitutional, quasi-fascist chicanery the unspeakably anti-American, unpatriotic, determinedly amoral GOP has served up on the local, state, and federal level and continues to push:
A longtime Republican lawyer who aided former President Donald Trump's effort to overturn the 2020 election told GOP donors that the party should be working to roll back voting on college campuses and other initiatives aimed at expanding ballot access, according to audio obtained by progressive journalist Lauren Windsor.
"What are these college campus locations?" Cleta Mitchell, a top GOP attorney and fundraiser asked during a presentation at the Republican National Committee's donor retreat in Nashville last weekend.
"What is this young people effort that they do? They basically put the polling place next to the student dorm so they just have to roll out of bed, vote, and go back to bed," lamented Mitchell, an avid voter suppression campaigner who has represented Republican organizations, individual lawmakers, and right-wing groups such as the National Rifle Association.
According toThe Washington Post, which reviewed a copy of Mitchell's Nashville presentation, the GOP attorney's remarks "offered a window into a strategy that seems designed to reduce voter access and turnout among certain groups, including students and those who vote by mail, both of which tend to skew Democratic."
"Mitchell focused on campus voting in five states—Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Virginia, and Wisconsin—all of which are home to enormous public universities with large in-state student populations," the Post reported Thursday. "Mitchell also targeted the preregistration of students, an apparent reference to the practice in some states of allowing 17-year-olds to register ahead of their 18th birthdays so they can vote as soon as they are eligible."
******* I'll stop here, this information is all over the internet and it's only going to accelerate, we are dealing with determined, crooked, anti-American, cynical, amoral, power-crazed opportunists whose entire collective raison d'etre is to win at all costs, why would they stop? Why would any of them experience, even cultivate, any form of metanoia?
Rhetoric practice ad hoc and no thesaurus needed, whatever floats your boat or trips you out, man, it's o.k. by me...Rock on, Judith, preach!
They're cosmically evil on Bond Villain scale, so why not, "Evil" has that sinister, ominous, spooky horror movie feel or a "Madame Anna Sebastian" in Notorious vibe, that Leopoldine Konstanin's mere glance could stop running water!
Before circling back to two notoriously obtuse critics of Notorious, as I intend to show, check this out when you have time, just posting the link - I am only to the point where this is happening:
Raymond Carver, leading short story writer of the day, used the key passage from The Unbearable Lightness of Being – about the ‘lightness’ imposed on human beings by having only one life – as the epigraph for his final collection Elephant (1988). Kundera provoked not just passionate advocacy but acts of devotion. Ian McEwan, a committed anti-Communist and notably reluctant literary journalist, reviewed both The Book of Laughter and Forgetting and Kundera’s next novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), in addition to interviewing him for Granta; Edmund White, newly celebrated as the author of A Boy’s Own Story (1982), translated from French his lecture on the tragedy befalling ‘Central Europe’; Susan Sontag turned theatre director to stage his play Jacques and his Master, at Harvard’s American Repertory Theater, in 1985. ***** Here's the link:
As a note on Notorious - actually I'll save this for next day or so when it COOLS OFF, the freakin' dewpoint is a miserable upper 60s, brutal heat last five days or so, been workin; in the coal mine that is this apt. anyway, because no good options on most of it needing to be done, period, heat or no heat,, besides, I value that film enough to give my full attention to "refuting" a couple of very confused and/or juts plain obtuse critics of it, "naysayers" admittedly amongst a 91% rottentomatoes. com critic's consensus it is an excellent film on multiple levels, but would be interested in your response to the arguments for and against as well.
One good thing about Federal sentencing is that they must serve a minimum of 85% of their sentences before being eligible for consideration of Parole. So they will be done a decent jolt, just not nearly enough in this aging Lefty Vietnam Vets mind.
Trump would pardon them and provoke a constitutional crisis, who knows how that would turn out?
"The libs and Democrats are going to insist these fine patriots the president has pardoned serve 85% of their unjust sentences! It's an outrage and we can't allow it" blah blah blah
Thanks again for your concise explanation of why this Labor Day and tomorrow are good reasons for DJT to be ineligible to hold office as the least penalty for ruining America.
The fact that DJT did not try to stop the attack, immediately, proves he is either guilty of trying to stop the count, and continue as President, or completely incompetent. Either way, our democracy needs to disqualify him from ever holding office.
Yes, upvoted because it is exactly what is needed, no, because "we are not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy," this is a voyage into uncharted, treacherous, extremely unstable waters as hot and unpredictable as the Gulf of Mexico waters spurring on a category 6 hurricane!
This is the way world ends: will we soon see category 6 hurricanes?
There is no such thing as a category 6 hurricane or tropical storm - yet. But a combination of warmer oceans and more water in the atmosphere could make the devastation of 2017 pale in comparison
It isn't ruined, just horribly off track. We can right things by voting, and getting everyone who cares about their freedom to vote, and help those who need it to get to the polls, and especially, tell everyone what they are going to lose if they don't get out the vote. (and that's far more than just the presidency.)
After about a year in the actual prison system, I think they will be regretting sincerely their support for Trump, especially when he is also convicted of the same crimes they did, in more serious fashion.
He won't pardon them because he won't be in a position to pardon anyone. He'll be convicted of one if not more federal crimes, and that means he can't even vote himself in. Whether or not he'll be in prison is a question that has to be answered, but I'm sure the BOP and the Secret Service can come to an agreement.
I am really looking forward to Tarrio's sentence. I hope the judge really takes the prosecution's recommendations (and the sentencing guidelines with enhancements..) seriously and throws the literal Federal Criminal rules at him.
20 years would be appropriate. He's about 39 now, twenty years will be enough for people to forget about him and his cadre of white supremacist cowards.
If they had an ounce of common sense, they'd ask themselves why he did not "pardon" them along with all the other insurrectionists before he left office?
Upvoted for the sincere optimistic faith in what should be the predictable result of Trump's unprecedented assaults on American democracy, caveats all over the place to warn of vastly over-confident assumptions about the very crooked system "expelling" the toxic Trump.
Their bravado and lying under oath about their intentions and actions speak for themselves. They do not regret what they did. True believers never do.
What do I call these sentences? A good start. We can only hope when their leader is put on trial justice will be done and they can all commiserate together in a Super Max.
It doesn’t matter what the sentences are for the underlings who carried out trump’s bidding as long as the instigator of the mob is still a free man. What a farce…holding the peons to account for their actions while the upper circle skate by with their teams of lawyers gaming the “justice” system.
Trump could not have done this alone. He always has a fall guy. Hopefully this will show the next people he tries to use, to question his power to save them.
The name makes me think of male peacocks, with "You're So Vain" on the soundtrack. The "Boys" part is also intriguing. Notice how often grown white men refer to themselves and each other as boys. Sometimes it's fairly innocuous, like "The Boys of Summer" and any number of bluegrass groups. Sometimes it isn't. I've even heard of the police referred to as "the boys in blue."
Okay, I'll see if I can find some. I do know some cartoonists who are very young, and very progressive, who have a small company that print graphic novels, about social issues.
Yeah, they'll say anything at their sentencing hearing, telling the judge that they've sworn off violence, that they've turned their lives around, that they were misled by a charismatic character who put the wrong ideas into their heads; eyes red with weeping, along with their families and supporters desperate not to believe what they are seeing before their eyes. And once their sentence had been imposed, and they were being led away by court officers, it was an entirely different story. Dominic Pezzola raises his fist in the air, smile on his face, and shouts out, "Trump won!"
Whether the judge presiding at Pezzola's sentencing hearing witnessed the latter's act of defiance before leaving the bench apparently has not been recorded, but the District Court judge will preside over many sentencing hearings over the course of his career as a District Court judge. Undoubtedly, the duty of imposing a lengthy prison sentence on a convicted defendant might be expected to stir feelings of compassion or in the situations that defendants appearing before that judge might have been more aptly described as victims of circumstance beyond their control, or have some element in their case that warrants compassion.
Not Mr. Pezzola; not by a longshot. With all of his weeping and wailing, sniveling and blubbering, he exits the courtroom pumping his fist, smiling, and acting as if he had his cause vindicated by a resounding acquittal even in that briefest of moments, when anything Pezzola could have done to convince the people surrounding him, his lawyer, his family, court officers, and curious members of the public, that he was indeed sincere in his repentance, and yet willing to take his punishment as a defeated but still sentient actor in this psychodrama, he could not hold together long enough to stay in character at least until he had left the courtroom. Instead, Pezzola gives everybody a defiant 'Fuck you!' To everyone within earshot. 'Trump won!' he yells to, no one in particular. Who knows, maybe the Bureau of prisons will allow Pezzola to hang a copy of Trump's mug shot above his bunk in whatever cellblock Pezzola that happens to end up in over the next decade. Maybe he was steeling himself for the ordeal of spending the next 10 years in federal lockup, assholes to elbows, with some really dangerous people, and he needs to get his mojo going to try to meet the rigors of prison life on something approaching even terms.
Maybe what he is doing is what some in the Marine Corps describe as 'embracing the suck', dealing with severe adversity fully aware that it's not going away anytime soon, and the best way to deal with the situation is to confront it head on. As an act of survival, that may be the only thing he could do. That's the one and only thing he did during that entire sentencing proceeding that comes across as genuine. Everything else was to impress the rubes. It's also the mark of a committed career criminal.
I would like to agree with you on that point, but unfortunately, the MAGAhats are actually more like the criminals. Both of them engage in self-delusion, and blame gaming. Both of them refused to accept responsibility for their actions. Both of them are looking for quick fixes. Both of them have severe deficits when it comes to empathizing with the people they have injured. Look at that screaming crowd attacking the United States Capitol Police on January 6. This evening, there was a three hour broadcast on MSNBC about the life and career of Rudolph Giuliani. Giuliani became the same kind of criminal he used to prosecute as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Criminals can be very moralistic; they just cannot see themselves as the bad guys deserving of punishment. Rudolph Giuliani and Donald Trump were evenly matched in their respective narcissistic personalities. Both of them believe that an 'anything goes' attitude towards other people. Neither of them can internalize any sort of appreciation that other people might have a different point of view. Neither of them can negotiate differences, seeking an acceptable compromise that benefits both of them, because neither of them can give up the idea that they can have what they want, when they want it, unconditionally, and without consequences to themselves. Rudolph Giuliani's term of office as mayor of New York City was a mirror image of Donald Trump's term of office as President of the United States. To each of them, political opposition to what they wanted to do, then and there, was an excuse to declare total war on their opponents. Both Giuliani and Trump knew each other to the core of their being. With any luck, both of them will be going to jail.
I don't work for the Bureau of Prisons, so I couldn't say. .However, I do know that peisoners are sent to work camps to do forestry and conservation work.
I believe security is a factor in where prisoners are assigned -- notice how white white-collar criminals tend to wind up in low- or minimum-security prisons? Those do generally have work programs. Unlike your basic white-collar criminal, however, these insurrectionists were involved in violence, and (at least in theory) you can't get more serious than trying to subvert the legislative branch of the federal government.
League of Degenerates led by the greatest of them all: Despicable Don! I have to wash my brain out with soap now. The things I’ve been thinking should never cross my mind.
Just don't drink bleach ! I'm sticking to Makers Mark these days, since all the Pappy van Winkle in this State got set aside for the Liquor Commissioners and never really became available to the regular taxpayers.
Thank you for keeping us updated on the convictions of those who wanted to overthrow our government in service to a self-indulgent liar who has never been held accountable for anything.
Historically anyone convicted, or even accused, of seditious conspiracy, if caught, didn’t live very long. Death was always the sentence, and the transition to death was in many cases horrendously cruel. Seditious conspiracy is another name for treason, and kings and queens were not amused by treasonous subjects. They reserved the worst imaginable punishments for treason to set an example, and as a deterrent. So the perpetrators of J6, the so-called Proud Boys, convicted of seditious conspiracy may cry a river over the perceived severity of their punishment, but they’re getting off lightly to say the least. The Brits, as an example, reserved ‘drawing-and-quartering’ for those found guilty of treason. It was progressive dismemberment while alive, butchery, until you died when the final step was to cut off your head even if you were already dead. Perhaps Messrs. Biggs, POezzola, Rehl, Nordean, and Tarrio should be made aware of how gently they are being treated.
Capital punishment can be justified when the crimes are against the state. Can include a few others however not germane to the subject that you so eloquently reminded folk. As long a hoomans remain uncivilized am ok with the methods you referenced. And a reminder to all, state executions were performed in full view of the public. For many good reasons.
Lest some forget, hanging the VP was called for by the MAGA mob, not lock Mike Pence up. Although we will never know what woulda' resulted had the mob captured LEOs, members of Congress and their staff, it's well within the realm of probability one or more woulda been killed in any number of awful ways. Is how mobs roll.
17, 18, 10 ? In al these Cases the Prosecution asked for 20+ years and the Judge tapped these scumbags with severely shorter sentences. If they had done this in the Countries their "idol" admires most, if they weren't thrown out of helicopters or off tall buildings, they would be looking at LWOP, at a minimum.
But remember, this was probably their first federal criminal offense, but I do wonder why the judge rejected nearly every single sentence recommendation. I don't know but if he's acting in the furtherance of his career should Trump come back? Pleasing his Federalist buddies?
Who knows.
what I do know is that for a few of us in 20 years time we won't be around to see any resurgence of this crew of morons and for that I'm pleased. Also: Trump won't be around, either.
I would not hold my breath if I were in the Proud Boys situation intent on relying on TFG to pardon them all should he be POTUS again( god forbid).When has this guy ever done what he said he would do anyway?You can be sure that if, given the chance, he will pardon his own buttocks, that’s for sure.Others, hmmmm...
I didn't, and don't, have time to look it up, but some crony—Stone?—expected a lifetime pardon and was bitter after 6 January that that didn't happen for him and a handful of others. Unlocking the stormtroopers' cells would of course be a strictly political move.
I couldn't remember and since I'm procrastinating about getting back to work I did look it up. ;-) He did pardon Stone, along with Manafort, Flynn, Jared Kushner's father, and a bunch of others, in December 2020. He pardoned a bunch more just before he left office. Among the ones reported pissed that he didn't get a pardon was Julian Assange. Lawyers Cipollone, Hershmann, Barr, and others reportedly warned Trump about pardoning himself, family members, and various members of Congress unless he was prepared to list the crimes they would likely be accused of. He wasn't happy, but he desisted.
One more reason to ensure tRump is not returned to the White House in 2024. I suspect, though, he has already forgotten, if he ever knew, who these violent and dangerous insurrectionists are. His loyalty, remember, only goes one way.
The MaGAT judge still gave them all all a huge break when he halved their sentences even below the guidelines. Hopefully that bit of chicanery will be rectified.
These are all young men. They will no doubt be released before serving their full sentences. And I’m betting they will go right back to trying to overthrow the US government by force. They should all have been condemned to life without parole.
They have to do at least 80 % of their sentence before being considered for release. Once released, I don't think they're going to be able to do much besides collect welfare and complain about being ex-cons. Their names are infamous, I'm sure their probation and terms of release won't be easy, either.
I sure do hope you’re correct!
On the contrary, depending on how a future degenerating of our democracy evolves, they'll be lionized by the far right and their billionaire backers - that's where we are already, not in a more rational world of political responsibility and legal norms.
Trump could still win the presidential election next November 5, 2024, by taking full advantage of every single bit of the crooked, unconstitutional, quasi-fascist chicanery the unspeakably anti-American, unpatriotic, determinedly amoral GOP has served up on the local, state, and federal level and continues to push:
cnn.com/2022/04/27/opinions/gop-blueprint-to-steal-the-2024-election-luttig/index.html
https://www.commondreams.org/news/gop-lawyer-2024-college-voting
JAKE JOHNSON
Apr 21, 2023
A longtime Republican lawyer who aided former President Donald Trump's effort to overturn the 2020 election told GOP donors that the party should be working to roll back voting on college campuses and other initiatives aimed at expanding ballot access, according to audio obtained by progressive journalist Lauren Windsor.
"What are these college campus locations?" Cleta Mitchell, a top GOP attorney and fundraiser asked during a presentation at the Republican National Committee's donor retreat in Nashville last weekend.
"What is this young people effort that they do? They basically put the polling place next to the student dorm so they just have to roll out of bed, vote, and go back to bed," lamented Mitchell, an avid voter suppression campaigner who has represented Republican organizations, individual lawmakers, and right-wing groups such as the National Rifle Association.
According toThe Washington Post, which reviewed a copy of Mitchell's Nashville presentation, the GOP attorney's remarks "offered a window into a strategy that seems designed to reduce voter access and turnout among certain groups, including students and those who vote by mail, both of which tend to skew Democratic."
"Mitchell focused on campus voting in five states—Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Virginia, and Wisconsin—all of which are home to enormous public universities with large in-state student populations," the Post reported Thursday. "Mitchell also targeted the preregistration of students, an apparent reference to the practice in some states of allowing 17-year-olds to register ahead of their 18th birthdays so they can vote as soon as they are eligible."
******* I'll stop here, this information is all over the internet and it's only going to accelerate, we are dealing with determined, crooked, anti-American, cynical, amoral, power-crazed opportunists whose entire collective raison d'etre is to win at all costs, why would they stop? Why would any of them experience, even cultivate, any form of metanoia?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metanoia_(psychology)
I will stop without the thesaurus and simply call the GQP pure EVIL.
Rhetoric practice ad hoc and no thesaurus needed, whatever floats your boat or trips you out, man, it's o.k. by me...Rock on, Judith, preach!
They're cosmically evil on Bond Villain scale, so why not, "Evil" has that sinister, ominous, spooky horror movie feel or a "Madame Anna Sebastian" in Notorious vibe, that Leopoldine Konstanin's mere glance could stop running water!
www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1015287-notorious
"Notorious" and "Vertigo" are my favorite Hitchcock movies.
Before circling back to two notoriously obtuse critics of Notorious, as I intend to show, check this out when you have time, just posting the link - I am only to the point where this is happening:
Raymond Carver, leading short story writer of the day, used the key passage from The Unbearable Lightness of Being – about the ‘lightness’ imposed on human beings by having only one life – as the epigraph for his final collection Elephant (1988). Kundera provoked not just passionate advocacy but acts of devotion. Ian McEwan, a committed anti-Communist and notably reluctant literary journalist, reviewed both The Book of Laughter and Forgetting and Kundera’s next novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), in addition to interviewing him for Granta; Edmund White, newly celebrated as the author of A Boy’s Own Story (1982), translated from French his lecture on the tragedy befalling ‘Central Europe’; Susan Sontag turned theatre director to stage his play Jacques and his Master, at Harvard’s American Repertory Theater, in 1985. ***** Here's the link:
https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/under-western-eyes?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Lit%20Hub%2
Definitely two of mine as well.
As a note on Notorious - actually I'll save this for next day or so when it COOLS OFF, the freakin' dewpoint is a miserable upper 60s, brutal heat last five days or so, been workin; in the coal mine that is this apt. anyway, because no good options on most of it needing to be done, period, heat or no heat,, besides, I value that film enough to give my full attention to "refuting" a couple of very confused and/or juts plain obtuse critics of it, "naysayers" admittedly amongst a 91% rottentomatoes. com critic's consensus it is an excellent film on multiple levels, but would be interested in your response to the arguments for and against as well.
85%, but they apparently get credit for any time served in pretrial confinement.
One good thing about Federal sentencing is that they must serve a minimum of 85% of their sentences before being eligible for consideration of Parole. So they will be done a decent jolt, just not nearly enough in this aging Lefty Vietnam Vets mind.
Trump would pardon them and provoke a constitutional crisis, who knows how that would turn out?
"The libs and Democrats are going to insist these fine patriots the president has pardoned serve 85% of their unjust sentences! It's an outrage and we can't allow it" blah blah blah
Brother.
Thanks again for your concise explanation of why this Labor Day and tomorrow are good reasons for DJT to be ineligible to hold office as the least penalty for ruining America.
The fact that DJT did not try to stop the attack, immediately, proves he is either guilty of trying to stop the count, and continue as President, or completely incompetent. Either way, our democracy needs to disqualify him from ever holding office.
Yes, upvoted because it is exactly what is needed, no, because "we are not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy," this is a voyage into uncharted, treacherous, extremely unstable waters as hot and unpredictable as the Gulf of Mexico waters spurring on a category 6 hurricane!
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/15/hurricane-category-6-this-is-how-world-ends-book-climate-change
Hurricanes
This is the way world ends: will we soon see category 6 hurricanes?
There is no such thing as a category 6 hurricane or tropical storm - yet. But a combination of warmer oceans and more water in the atmosphere could make the devastation of 2017 pale in comparison
It isn't ruined, just horribly off track. We can right things by voting, and getting everyone who cares about their freedom to vote, and help those who need it to get to the polls, and especially, tell everyone what they are going to lose if they don't get out the vote. (and that's far more than just the presidency.)
After about a year in the actual prison system, I think they will be regretting sincerely their support for Trump, especially when he is also convicted of the same crimes they did, in more serious fashion.
He won't pardon them because he won't be in a position to pardon anyone. He'll be convicted of one if not more federal crimes, and that means he can't even vote himself in. Whether or not he'll be in prison is a question that has to be answered, but I'm sure the BOP and the Secret Service can come to an agreement.
I am really looking forward to Tarrio's sentence. I hope the judge really takes the prosecution's recommendations (and the sentencing guidelines with enhancements..) seriously and throws the literal Federal Criminal rules at him.
20 years would be appropriate. He's about 39 now, twenty years will be enough for people to forget about him and his cadre of white supremacist cowards.
And Trump will be gone by then, too.
I have to admit, you have given me some pleasant thoughts, Mary.
If they had an ounce of common sense, they'd ask themselves why he did not "pardon" them along with all the other insurrectionists before he left office?
Upvoted for the sincere optimistic faith in what should be the predictable result of Trump's unprecedented assaults on American democracy, caveats all over the place to warn of vastly over-confident assumptions about the very crooked system "expelling" the toxic Trump.
Their bravado and lying under oath about their intentions and actions speak for themselves. They do not regret what they did. True believers never do.
What do I call these sentences? A good start. We can only hope when their leader is put on trial justice will be done and they can all commiserate together in a Super Max.
It doesn’t matter what the sentences are for the underlings who carried out trump’s bidding as long as the instigator of the mob is still a free man. What a farce…holding the peons to account for their actions while the upper circle skate by with their teams of lawyers gaming the “justice” system.
Trump could not have done this alone. He always has a fall guy. Hopefully this will show the next people he tries to use, to question his power to save them.
I wish I could not agree, but such is not the case.
Anybody else wonder what these boys are proud of?
Having NO brain, but still able to breathe. It’s quite remarkable.
I saw a great response to this on Facebook: In the world of horse-breeding, a "Proud Boy" is a gelding who acts like he still has his balls.
Hah! And I read somewhere that in the LGBTQ+ community, there's also a different meaning.
Just wondering!
The name makes me think of male peacocks, with "You're So Vain" on the soundtrack. The "Boys" part is also intriguing. Notice how often grown white men refer to themselves and each other as boys. Sometimes it's fairly innocuous, like "The Boys of Summer" and any number of bluegrass groups. Sometimes it isn't. I've even heard of the police referred to as "the boys in blue."
Nice.
😊😊😊😊😊 Laughing so hard the Cats ran out of the room.
Funny. (Sorry about your humorless cats ...)
Okay, there they go again!
😅
I wish you would scribble some stick people drawings, and create some political cartoons.
If only. I knew some great political cartoonists, though. That's a talent I do not have.
Okay, I'll see if I can find some. I do know some cartoonists who are very young, and very progressive, who have a small company that print graphic novels, about social issues.
Yeah, they'll say anything at their sentencing hearing, telling the judge that they've sworn off violence, that they've turned their lives around, that they were misled by a charismatic character who put the wrong ideas into their heads; eyes red with weeping, along with their families and supporters desperate not to believe what they are seeing before their eyes. And once their sentence had been imposed, and they were being led away by court officers, it was an entirely different story. Dominic Pezzola raises his fist in the air, smile on his face, and shouts out, "Trump won!"
Whether the judge presiding at Pezzola's sentencing hearing witnessed the latter's act of defiance before leaving the bench apparently has not been recorded, but the District Court judge will preside over many sentencing hearings over the course of his career as a District Court judge. Undoubtedly, the duty of imposing a lengthy prison sentence on a convicted defendant might be expected to stir feelings of compassion or in the situations that defendants appearing before that judge might have been more aptly described as victims of circumstance beyond their control, or have some element in their case that warrants compassion.
Not Mr. Pezzola; not by a longshot. With all of his weeping and wailing, sniveling and blubbering, he exits the courtroom pumping his fist, smiling, and acting as if he had his cause vindicated by a resounding acquittal even in that briefest of moments, when anything Pezzola could have done to convince the people surrounding him, his lawyer, his family, court officers, and curious members of the public, that he was indeed sincere in his repentance, and yet willing to take his punishment as a defeated but still sentient actor in this psychodrama, he could not hold together long enough to stay in character at least until he had left the courtroom. Instead, Pezzola gives everybody a defiant 'Fuck you!' To everyone within earshot. 'Trump won!' he yells to, no one in particular. Who knows, maybe the Bureau of prisons will allow Pezzola to hang a copy of Trump's mug shot above his bunk in whatever cellblock Pezzola that happens to end up in over the next decade. Maybe he was steeling himself for the ordeal of spending the next 10 years in federal lockup, assholes to elbows, with some really dangerous people, and he needs to get his mojo going to try to meet the rigors of prison life on something approaching even terms.
Maybe what he is doing is what some in the Marine Corps describe as 'embracing the suck', dealing with severe adversity fully aware that it's not going away anytime soon, and the best way to deal with the situation is to confront it head on. As an act of survival, that may be the only thing he could do. That's the one and only thing he did during that entire sentencing proceeding that comes across as genuine. Everything else was to impress the rubes. It's also the mark of a committed career criminal.
Note to parole board might make his outburst costly in long run
There's no parole in the federal system. There are gradations of confinement and security.
Nailed it Arthur
His cell mates might not be MAGATs, so he had best keep his mouth shut if he plans on a life after prison.
I would like to agree with you on that point, but unfortunately, the MAGAhats are actually more like the criminals. Both of them engage in self-delusion, and blame gaming. Both of them refused to accept responsibility for their actions. Both of them are looking for quick fixes. Both of them have severe deficits when it comes to empathizing with the people they have injured. Look at that screaming crowd attacking the United States Capitol Police on January 6. This evening, there was a three hour broadcast on MSNBC about the life and career of Rudolph Giuliani. Giuliani became the same kind of criminal he used to prosecute as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Criminals can be very moralistic; they just cannot see themselves as the bad guys deserving of punishment. Rudolph Giuliani and Donald Trump were evenly matched in their respective narcissistic personalities. Both of them believe that an 'anything goes' attitude towards other people. Neither of them can internalize any sort of appreciation that other people might have a different point of view. Neither of them can negotiate differences, seeking an acceptable compromise that benefits both of them, because neither of them can give up the idea that they can have what they want, when they want it, unconditionally, and without consequences to themselves. Rudolph Giuliani's term of office as mayor of New York City was a mirror image of Donald Trump's term of office as President of the United States. To each of them, political opposition to what they wanted to do, then and there, was an excuse to declare total war on their opponents. Both Giuliani and Trump knew each other to the core of their being. With any luck, both of them will be going to jail.
What sort of prison are these guys likely to wind up at, anyone have an idea?
I don't work for the Bureau of Prisons, so I couldn't say. .However, I do know that peisoners are sent to work camps to do forestry and conservation work.
I believe security is a factor in where prisoners are assigned -- notice how white white-collar criminals tend to wind up in low- or minimum-security prisons? Those do generally have work programs. Unlike your basic white-collar criminal, however, these insurrectionists were involved in violence, and (at least in theory) you can't get more serious than trying to subvert the legislative branch of the federal government.
League of Degenerates led by the greatest of them all: Despicable Don! I have to wash my brain out with soap now. The things I’ve been thinking should never cross my mind.
Just don't drink bleach ! I'm sticking to Makers Mark these days, since all the Pappy van Winkle in this State got set aside for the Liquor Commissioners and never really became available to the regular taxpayers.
Actually wine through an IV is very therapeutic.
I'm drinking a nice rose right now. Great minds think alike.
I love rosé. It's my favorite...and...as I am such a rebel...I drink out of season. My mother would be appalled.
Haha
Pappy 15? $$$
Pappy van Winkle, yuck. 😊
Thank you for keeping us updated on the convictions of those who wanted to overthrow our government in service to a self-indulgent liar who has never been held accountable for anything.
Historically anyone convicted, or even accused, of seditious conspiracy, if caught, didn’t live very long. Death was always the sentence, and the transition to death was in many cases horrendously cruel. Seditious conspiracy is another name for treason, and kings and queens were not amused by treasonous subjects. They reserved the worst imaginable punishments for treason to set an example, and as a deterrent. So the perpetrators of J6, the so-called Proud Boys, convicted of seditious conspiracy may cry a river over the perceived severity of their punishment, but they’re getting off lightly to say the least. The Brits, as an example, reserved ‘drawing-and-quartering’ for those found guilty of treason. It was progressive dismemberment while alive, butchery, until you died when the final step was to cut off your head even if you were already dead. Perhaps Messrs. Biggs, POezzola, Rehl, Nordean, and Tarrio should be made aware of how gently they are being treated.
Agree with every word.
Capital punishment can be justified when the crimes are against the state. Can include a few others however not germane to the subject that you so eloquently reminded folk. As long a hoomans remain uncivilized am ok with the methods you referenced. And a reminder to all, state executions were performed in full view of the public. For many good reasons.
Lest some forget, hanging the VP was called for by the MAGA mob, not lock Mike Pence up. Although we will never know what woulda' resulted had the mob captured LEOs, members of Congress and their staff, it's well within the realm of probability one or more woulda been killed in any number of awful ways. Is how mobs roll.
Too bad they let Alcatraz rot. These fuknutz should have to spend the rest of their lives rebuilding it rock by rock.
PERFECT!
17, 18, 10 ? In al these Cases the Prosecution asked for 20+ years and the Judge tapped these scumbags with severely shorter sentences. If they had done this in the Countries their "idol" admires most, if they weren't thrown out of helicopters or off tall buildings, they would be looking at LWOP, at a minimum.
But remember, this was probably their first federal criminal offense, but I do wonder why the judge rejected nearly every single sentence recommendation. I don't know but if he's acting in the furtherance of his career should Trump come back? Pleasing his Federalist buddies?
Who knows.
what I do know is that for a few of us in 20 years time we won't be around to see any resurgence of this crew of morons and for that I'm pleased. Also: Trump won't be around, either.
I would not hold my breath if I were in the Proud Boys situation intent on relying on TFG to pardon them all should he be POTUS again( god forbid).When has this guy ever done what he said he would do anyway?You can be sure that if, given the chance, he will pardon his own buttocks, that’s for sure.Others, hmmmm...
Inmate P01135809 did pardon some cronies, but as I recall the choices—who he did and who he didn't—were typically inexplicable.
IIRC they were all people he had some personal connection with, weren't they? This is not the case with the Proud Boys.
I didn't, and don't, have time to look it up, but some crony—Stone?—expected a lifetime pardon and was bitter after 6 January that that didn't happen for him and a handful of others. Unlocking the stormtroopers' cells would of course be a strictly political move.
I couldn't remember and since I'm procrastinating about getting back to work I did look it up. ;-) He did pardon Stone, along with Manafort, Flynn, Jared Kushner's father, and a bunch of others, in December 2020. He pardoned a bunch more just before he left office. Among the ones reported pissed that he didn't get a pardon was Julian Assange. Lawyers Cipollone, Hershmann, Barr, and others reportedly warned Trump about pardoning himself, family members, and various members of Congress unless he was prepared to list the crimes they would likely be accused of. He wasn't happy, but he desisted.
Just one more reason P01135890 must NOT be president of the united states of America!
I like POS 11780!
HAHA!
One more reason to ensure tRump is not returned to the White House in 2024. I suspect, though, he has already forgotten, if he ever knew, who these violent and dangerous insurrectionists are. His loyalty, remember, only goes one way.
The MaGAT judge still gave them all all a huge break when he halved their sentences even below the guidelines. Hopefully that bit of chicanery will be rectified.
How could it be rectified?
It cannot be rectified, at least legally.
DOJ can appeal the sentence. Will it? Who knows.
I don't know that to be factual, but suspect Garland will move on.