I'd argue the KKK is not a good example. The Ku Klux Klan Act was passed in 1871 to target and stop the klan (src: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan_Act ). This was successful until the Klan was refounded in 1915, thanks to the movie "The Birth of a Nation".
DailyMail tends to have some of the more accurate reporting. They always cite their content (unlike say, CNN - go check, they always self-reference).
You can see the letters in the article. I don’t know what to say, it’s clearly there. Same with the news broadcast on NBC, watched it live just searched a video and Twitter popped up).
That all looks political to me... I'll stick with reviewing content with citations (and reviewing associated citations). Wikipedia is fairly partisan.
Thus far, as stated, it's clear to me DailyMail provides more citations I can use to confirm the data myself. I guess to your point, I don't believe them, the New York Times, NPR, NBC, etc unless I can confirm the data myself.
I think he is implying it may be used on political enemies or just generally for discretionary prosecution that disproportionately targets those who fall out of favor with the powerful.
Administrations change and you better be ok with future executives inheriting powers that you create.
One person’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter, especially domestically. Nelson Mandela is a fine example of one of the greatest humans in history who was defined by the South African government as a domestic terrorist during apartheid.
That this is essentially a low-key Stasi that can and will be used to improperly go after political dissidents under the guise of "domestic terrorism."
The entire campaign/programming around "protecting our democracy" was the precursor psychological operation so the population goes along with single party rule.
NBC News was running this last year (more priming): https://ww3.bongino.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/dhsadviso.... It's all clever wordplay designed to manipulate the public into thinking people who disagree politically are terrorists (absent any actual proof that they have intent/motive/etc to commit acts of terror). It's the same logic that's held people from January 6th in solitary confinement without charges of insurrection (despite the media parroting/programming that it was an insurrection).
You're implying that democrats are doing all this PsyOps preparing to rule the country indefinitely? From where I sit, democrats are lame ducks who are set to get swept in 22 and 24.
No. The whole Democrat vs Republican thing is itself a psyop to drive the country apart (divide and conquer). It's about normalization of single-party rule in general. The end goal being willful acceptance of global governance. The public face of that, typically, is someone who is a democrat but there are plenty of republicans (neocons) in on it, too.
This new unit is just a way to flush out the straggler dissidents who will get in the way.
I don't believe that. It would take too much work to have a coverup like that, especially as total nitwits are elected to congress constantly. To address that, you'd have to say that no, people are divided into two camps with an infinite chasm between them: the ones in the know, and the total idiots. The far more plausible and minimal explanation is that it's a complex power balance that can tip unpredictably.
You're overthinking it. You can have a few in the know coordinating the direction while the eager idiots follow. It's happened time and time again throughout history.
You don't need the presidency for that. You just need to be the majority party in congress because the majority party controls the committees and agenda. Congressional midterm elections are this year.
Right, but the presidential branch doesn't do investigations, or congressional hearings, or have the subpoena power that the congressional branch does (like we're seeing in the Jan 6th committee). They have a lot of investigatory power. They can release documents and emails. They can swear in testimony. They can hold you in contempt.
So there is no presidential branch. There is an executive branch. There also isn't a congressional branch. There is a legislative branch.
The executive branch conducts investigations, issues subpoenas and certain agencies can directly hold you in contempt if you don't respond to a subpoena others can ask a court to find you in contempt of court. After all the FBI, DEA, ATF, CBP among many more law enforcement agencies are part of the executive branch.
Pedantic arguments aside, congress does all of that too.
> The executive branch conducts investigations,
>> Essentially, the Court held that the Constitution's text implies a power to investigate given its power to legislate.
> issues subpoenas
>> the U.S. Supreme Court clarified Congress's power to issue subpoenas in a 1917 case (Marshall v. Gordon), stating that "in virtue of the grant of legislative authority there [was] a power implied to deal with contempt."
> certain agencies can directly hold you in contempt
>> The authority of Congress to cite an individual with criminal contempt is found in Title 2, Section 192 of the U.S. Code.
> others can ask a court to find you in contempt of court
>> Either chamber of Congress may start the process in a committee (such as the House Judiciary Committee) and may rely on the legislative counsel's office like the Office of Senate Legal Counsel for help drafting a contempt resolution. Once the resolution is drafted and voted out of committee, it then goes to the full House or Senate (depending on where it originates) for a simple majority vote.
Yes, Congress does issue subpoenas and conduct investigations as stated in your original post and I didn't disagree with you on this point, but you also claimed that the "presidential branch" doesn't do these things. The main point of my reply is that the executive branch does do those things also.
The DoJ is in federal executive branch. President is top of chain-of-command of executive branch. In fact, the constitution itself [0] states the [federal] executive power is vested in the president. Disconnect is probably not an accurate word to describe the relationship between DoJ and President.
True but the president can’t fire the whole department and hire a new one. They have enough trouble when the want to fire the USAG if the other party doesn’t want to see change.
A key point that many people seem to miss. A band of unhinged, bloodthirsty right wingers, staged a preempted coup, targeting politicians, and did not bring the guns that they're famous for amassing? Clearly this was not what it's being made out to be. Never let a crisis go to waste I suppose...
But did enter the Capitol building with hand held weapons, body armor, zip ties to subdue people, and were heard talking about locating members of Congress. Enough with the disingenuousness.
But no guns. Why would they plan a violent insurrection/coup without guns? Moreover, the "handheld weapons" consisted largely of sticks and flagpoles, with some bearspray...you know, things you'd bring to a riot? And zipties were found on one or two participants.
The only disingenuousness here is the attempt to manufacture an insurrection out of a riot.
Several of the insurrectionists did have guns. The protest began peacefully, and turned violent following Trump's speech, where he urged the crowd to "fight like hell". These people aren't normal like you and I. They are extremely impressionable and subject to radicalization. Listen to the Channel 5 interview with the QAnon Shaman on YouTube. Does that strike you as someone that is capable of functioning in civil society?
it was a dry run. if you look at the column of ex army rangers proceeding single file up the steps, you see a very well trained militia. they didn't bring guns because the invasion of the capitol was a propaganda / psychological operation. to show marginal and sympathetic right wingers that this was all real, and happening, and to elicit a response from the government.
guns would have upped the ante on the core organizers and resulted in their decimation at the hands of local federal forces. This was just the beginning. from the angry anti government comments in this thread, their effort looks to be succeeding.
These people worship trump. If they thought what they did could work why would they show their hand in purposefully ineffectual manner? Any evidence it was planned just as a way to demonstrate what they are capable of. I’ve seen zero reporting on your theory.
It was a protest turned aggressive, it was in no way an insurrection, no evidence has been presented that was the intent of the group what so ever.
Also why would you even bother doing it that way? You could use far fewer people who are coordinated and go after the politicians at their homes where there is much less security.
Because the entire point of it was to pressure Congress into forcing the election of Trump by interfering with the counting of electoral votes which had already taken place. After exhausting all their legel remedies, the last thing they thought they could do was scare Congress and Pence.
Plenty of videos of people in the crowd caught saying that they were seeking the chamber and congressional members to stop the certification. Admitting you’re trying to stop the process is an act of resistance against the government.
>> It was a protest turned aggressive, it was in no way an insurrection, no evidence has been presented that was the intent of the group what so ever.
>[...] Admitting you’re trying to stop the process is an act of resistance against the government.
So you're saying resisting the government = insurrection? Is picketing outside of government offices (ie. the kind where you block people/cars from entering/leaving a building) an "insurrection"? Or does it only apply to capitols? Suppose you got a bunch of picketers to surround your state capitol, and representatives couldn't enter, would that be an insurrection?
There's a pretty clear dividing line in the fact that violence was involved or attempted.
So, yes, you can picket government buildings all you want, but the moment you start killing security and seeking to kill representatives, you've insurrected or are a party to an insurrection.
> Insurrection - a violent uprising against an authority or government.
No, they are riots, because they are missing the second half of the insurrection requirement.
> a violent uprising against an authority or government.
2 elements needed to be insurrection, Violence, and against authority or government.
BLM riots are violent, but not targeted at the government.
The Jan 6 insurrection was both violent and against the government. They disrupted government operations to try and change the results of an election. Can you find a definition of insurrection that wouldn't include the Jan 6 riots?
Can you name a BLM riot which was targeted at the government?
In fact, wouldn't all of the BLM movements accurately be described as targeted at the government because they were explicitly aimed at enacting change in government institutions like the police?
In another post you say that "until a BLM protest attempts to use force to overthrow a city, state, or federal government, it's a riot at best when violence is involved." But how do you classify the CHAZ in Seattle, where force was used to overthrow city and state governments and establish an "autonomous" zone where guns and violence were the only recognized power by the occupiers?
Regardless of what the dictionary.com definition is, something tells me that most people wouldn't label a bunch of BLM activists that refuse to disperse as "insurrectionists".
Refusing to disperse isn't a violent attack on the government. At best, when BLM protests do become violent, they are riots. Until a BLM protest attempts to use force to overthrow a city, state, or federal government, it's a riot at best when violence is involved.
I've not seen anyone having a problem calling BLM riots riots when they happen. I've seen a lot of people struggle to call Jan 6 a riot or insurrection.
They only got that far because they were deemed (correctly) to be not a real threat and allowed in. The police could have mowed them down but they (rightly) decided it was better to just let it go and be embarrassed than to slaughter rioters in front of the capitol. Same goes for BLM rioters. I'd rather be in a country that allows a bit of chaos rather than using the full, deadly force of the state.
Sorry, but that's ridiculous. There's no scenario where a bunch of cops with pistols would have opened fire on a crowd that large. They would have been instantly overwhelmed.
1. Cops in the US have a lot more than pistols. Assault rifles, flash bangs, tear gas, not quite tanks, f'ing helicopter gunships.
2. Live fire was way more than these guys bargained for. If they heard gunshots, even just pistol fire, and saw bodies dropping they would have scattered.
The insurrectionists at the Capitol killed and injured Capitol police officers. If Mike Pence had been complicit with their wishes not to certify the election, we'd be living in a dictatorship. It was a very serious and pivotal moment for the country.
If Mike Pence had been complicit, they wouldn't have needed the rioters. I agree that "it" was serious, but the "it" was Trump's attempt to not certify the results of the election, not so much the protest/demonstration/riot/incursion into the Capitol.
Mike Pence did what he was supposed to, under severe pressure to do otherwise.
The country (especially the left) owes him a huge debt of gratitude.
Why is is it not relevant? Surely there's a difference between a bunch of people LARPing as terrorists[1], and a bunch of ex-spec ops soldiers that actually have a plan?
Maybe not have seized power but they certainly could have killed a number of elected officials including Pelosi and Pense. That might have had a stifling effect on future elected officials who otherwise would not have listened to the President’s wishes.
The coup is not about the people with trump flags seizing power. It's about trump and congresspeople inside the building trying to reject the vote certification by using the anger of the people outside as justification. And yes, there's a plausible way GOP could have seized power. It's hard to see beyond the total national chaos that rejecting the certification would have caused, but the chaos would have absolutely been an asset to the coup attempt.
>It's about trump and congresspeople inside the building trying to reject the vote certification by using the anger of the people outside as justification. And yes, there's a plausible way GOP could have seized power.
According to that logic, does any sort of protest outside the capitol = "coup attempt"? After all, you don't need to actually need people breaking in to cite "anger of the people outside".
> According to that logic, does any sort of protest outside the capitol = "coup attempt"?
No, because other types of protests outside the Capitol (i.e. over abortion, environmental issues, civil rights, war), and their related tactics within Congress are not aimed at stopping the constitutional process of certifying a lawful election.
That's is quite literally what differentiates a coup from the others: A coup uses force and threat to unlawfully take control of the government.
Normal protests outside the Capitol are about influencing the legislative process, which is a completely different function of Congress. But even then, it would be unlawful to influence the legislative process by threat or use of force.
So it's only a coup if it's "aimed at stopping the constitutional process of formalizing a lawful election"? Why is the "constitutional process of" passing bills not protected?
responding to your edits:
>That's is quite literally what differentiates a coup from the others: A coup uses force and threat to unlawfully take control of the government.
But using force to prevent the legislature from functioning when they're not certifying elections is fine?
>Normal protests outside the Capitol are about influencing the legislative process, which is a completely different function of Congress. But even then, it would be unlawful to influence the legislative process by threat or use of force.
I'm specifically talking about protests that involve denying access to the legislature, not just a bunch of people protesting in the free speech zone.
> So it's only a coup if it's "aimed at stopping the constitutional process of formalizing a lawful election"?
Correct. A coup is by definition an illegal attempt to take control of government. In a democracy, attempting to prevent a lawful election from being certified is a type of coup.
> Why is the "constitutional process of" passing bills not protected?
It is protected. If an insurrection invaded the Capitol to influence the legislative process, that would be illegal. Anyone involved in organizing or carrying that out would be charged with crimes.
> If an insurrection invaded the Capitol to influence the legislative process
You're losing track of the thread. A few comments up we were discussing whether violent action was needed at all, because the parent poster was talking about "trying to reject the vote certification by using the anger of the people", which could plausibly be achieved without any violent action (eg. a bunch of angry protesters).
> Anyone involved in organizing or carrying that out would be charged with crimes.
> You're losing track of the thread. A few comments up we were discussing whether violent action was needed at all
Coups enacted by politicians are facilitated by the breakdown of law and order and loss of security around the processes of power in government, the most delicate of those being lawful transitions of power. Violence assists by removing security and law and order.
> which could plausibly be achieved without any violent action (eg. a bunch of angry protesters).
A bunch of angry protesters shouting in the demonstration area have no leverage beyond drawing media attention to their cause.
People physically invading the halls of Congress and threatening lawmakers are doing something fundamentally more powerful, and also illegal.
> but not "insurrection", apparently?
I didn't say which crimes. Prosecutorial strategy is a real thing and the bread and butter of the Dept of Justice. It makes far more sense to roll up low-level offenders with lesser offenses to build cases against higher level conspirators. This is, for example, how organized crime has been successfully prosecuted.
>the most delicate of those being lawful transitions of power [...]
>People physically invading the halls of Congress and threatening lawmakers are doing something fundamentally more powerful, and also illegal.
So the insurrection-ness of a protest/riot increases during "lawful transitions of power"? Suppose this premise was true, does that mean something like this[1] is also an insurrection (or "almost [...] a coup"), because it happened during a "lawful transitions of power" for a supreme court justice?
>A bunch of angry protesters shouting in the demonstration area have no leverage beyond drawing media attention to their cause.
Sounds like you're agreeing with me. ie. you can't cite "anger of the people outside" as a potential reason for "reject the vote certification".
>People physically invading the halls of Congress and threatening lawmakers are doing something fundamentally more powerful, and also illegal.
Not disputing it's illegal, just that it's not an "insurrection".
>I didn't say which crimes. It makes far more sense to roll up low-level offenders with lesser offenses to build cases against higher level conspirators.
What are you saying here, that the lack of prosecution for insurrection is totally consistent with an "insurrection" taking place, because they'll eventually work their way up to the real conspirators and charge them with insurrection? Well, it's been a year now, and nothing resembling an insurrection charge has surfaced.
> Suppose this premise was true, does that mean something like this[1] is also an insurrection (or "almost [...] a coup"), because it happened during a "lawful transitions of power" for a supreme court justice?
No. For one, that protest was during the nomination debate, not the actual swearing in by the Chief Justice, so not a transition of power. It was also not a violent mob.
It absolutely a differentiator that the Jan 6 scenario was a violent mob forcing their way into the Capitol to overturn an election. No amount of semantic judo or whataboutism will make the utter brutality of that mob equivalent to a nonviolent protest.
Finally, the Supreme Court nomination protesters were arrested for when they tried to block lawmakers from getting to their offices. They are no different in their manner of protest than nonviolent pro-life/anti-abortion protesters who have obstructed members of Congress at the Capitol, and neither are like the Jan 6 perpetrators.
If you watch the most violent parts of all of those protests, it's hard to understand how smashing a police officer's face in a door and beating another with a fire extinguisher can be considered equivalent to holding open an elevator and shouting "shame" at a Senator.
> A few comments up we were discussing whether violent action was needed at all
A very cogent question. The answer is no. Originally the plan was for Mike Pence to unilaterally decertify various states. This version of the coup would have required no violence.
But Pence refused to decertify the election, because he recognized he did not have the power to do so. He communicated this intention to Trump the morning of Jan 6. At this point, violence was the last resort to delay the certification on Jan 6.
Right, but the parent post was talking about "using the anger of the people outside as justification". You could make the same argument about refusing to pass a bill, using "the anger of the people outside as justification".
> there's no plausible way the people there would have seized power.
Sure, there is. Make Pence incapable of presiding, convince (this may not be necessary if the person is already a sympathizer), by inducements or threats, the person acting as President of the Senate to act in the manner Trump and various political allies had encouraged Pence to and which Pence had refused and simply decline to present certain state electoral votes, denying an immediate majority and either requesting friendly state legislatures to send alternate ballots, or preceding to vote by states in each house in the absence of a majority.
The “they couldn't have seized power” argument only works when you consider the people physically inside the Capitol as a separate force completely unrelated to the people that set out the goals in writing, the people that—publicly and unambiguously—told the people to go to the Capitol to get Congress to follow the goals set out in writing, and the people in State legislatures and in Congress who had publicly backed the goals set out in writing.
The point was had they been more successful (kill a few congressman, take some hostage) trump could have successfully declared martial law and stayed in power.
> there's no plausible way the people there would have seized power.
The sitting President was the one who attempted the coup. He didn't need to seize power -- he already held power. The objective of the insurrection on Jan 6 was to prevent the transfer of power, which they absolutely almost did.
To be fair, the "global war on terror" is trying to tackle a problem that can easily move itself and spread to countries that often have barely functioning or extremely corrupt governments.
Is there something illegal about being far-right or being in a militia?
How about we just clamp down on anyone doing bad things (including day-care bomber McVeigh), rather than going after people for their political beliefs. You sound like you're advocating for domestic terrorism yourself if you want people with guns to go after those of your chosen political target merely exercising 1A and 2A rights.
10 U.S. Code § 246 - Militia: composition and classes
The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
Most military age males are in a militia.
>Every state has laws
Ignoring the fact that not all states have laws that specifically ban militias in general (just certain use of them), why on earth would DoJ (federal gov) be enforcing state law? What FEDERAL law bans organizations of men, already part of militia by US Code, from fraternizing together?
The paper you say just say the law prohibits militias "from engaging in activities reserved for the state militia, including law enforcement activities. Some, including California, also prohibit paramilitary activity during or in furtherance of a civil disorder."
Then it goes on to cite the California misdemeanor for doing so, in state law.
Why would DoJ (feds) be investigating misdemeanor state law in California?
I did not mean to imply they should. Rather to refute the common view that self organized private militias are allowed or even somehow encouraged and have some kind of official status.
The source provided by throw0101a shows that 21 states allow organization of private military unit without any authorization of state government at all. The 'common view' that they are 'allowed' seems to be rooted in reality.
> This report identifies, for each of the 50 states, the constitutional and statutory provisions relevant to paramilitary and private militia activity. Importantly, each state has at least one constitutional or statutory provision that applies to the type of paramilitary and private militia activity that may arise at future rallies similar to the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.
> ICAP has categorized the relevant state laws into four groups: (1) constitutional provisions requiring the subordination of the military to civilian authorities; (2) statutes restricting unauthorized private militia activity; (3) anti-paramilitary-activity criminal laws; and (4) prohibitions on the false assumption of the uniform or duties of a peace officer or member of the military. The report describes these categories in more detail below and notes which states have statutes or constitutional provisions falling into each category. Following that summary is a chart listing each state’s relevant provisions, and finally each constitutional or statutory provision in full, organized by state. The chart also includes annotations of relevant case law.
You're totally taking that section of USC out of context. It specifies only the criteria for membership in an organized or unorganized militia. What either is allowed to do is determined by state constitutions and laws. As already noted, every state has significant restrictions on those actions. For example, here's some information on those laws in my own state of Massachusetts.
Massachusetts Constitution: The Massachusetts Constitution forbids private military units from operating outside state authority, providing that “the military power shall always be held in exact subordination to the civil
authority, and be governed by it.” Mass. Const. pt. I, art. XVII.
Massachusetts Statutes – Prohibition on private military units: Massachusetts law makes it illegal for groups of people to organize as private militias without permission from the state. ... Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 33 §§ 1, 130–31.
===
Phrases like "exact subordination" and "permission of the state" are not just window dressing. They're legally binding. You might consider yourself a member of such a militia, but to operate as such - notably to perform any military or law enforcement function - you must be under state or federal command.
As the above document also mentions, every state has similar restrictions. They might differ in details, but the message is the same: without state or federal command, your "sovereign militia" can do no more than cosplay (and sometimes not even that) without getting into legal trouble.
It's not just telling you the criteria for membership, it's telling you who's in it. Again, most military age male citizens of US are in a militia, whether you like it or not.
>You might consider yourself a member of such a militia
You can consider yourself in or out the militia or not. That doesn't make it fact, from a legal perspective. For government's purposes though I would use government's law, which tells us able-bodied military age males, generally, are in a militia.
> notably to perform any military or law enforcement function - you must be under state or federal command.
Um, the thread we're both replying to was about 'every state has laws making it illegal to be a member of a private armed militia.' You're arguing about something entirely different here, that is about state laws (not under purview of DoJ) that limit uses of militia.
>Pedantic comment of the day, and on HN that's quite a contest. There's no functional difference between those two things.
Yes there is. If the criteria for membership in a club is that you have to be an able bodied male, that doesn't mean every able bodied male is a member of the club. It means an able bodied male could potentially choose to join the club. The US Code says they're in the club whether they want to or not.
>No, I'm arguing the same point you were originally, until you were conclusively proven wrong and moved the goalposts.
My point was never that a militia could perform same actions as military or law enforcement, YOU were the one who moved the goalposts. You didn't prove jack shit wrong.
> Is there something illegal about being far-right or being in a militia?
If they are participating in domestic terrorism, which is defined as (18 USC § 2331(5))
> activities that (A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the U.S. or of any state; (B) appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and (C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S.
It's a divisive topic and the comment is adding almost zero information plus a bunch of snark. That's not what we want here. (This has nothing to do with who one agrees or disagrees with on the topic.)
"Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
Good. Between insurrections in DC, women's clinics burning down, church fires, etc., etc., etc., we need a federal-level team coordinating efforts against this stuff.
The federal government executed a search warrant on the Branch Dravidian compound. It was a legally executed warrant and 4 government agents were killed in a gun battle. After this the FBI surrounded the compound for 51 days before using tear gas to storm the compound. A fire started (possibly due to FBI incompetence) and a lot of people died. This does not qualify as domestic terrorism. If a government can’t enforce a search warrant then it’s pretty much useless.
It’s weird to use Waco and not a multitude of other legitimate examples of government law enforcement overreach. At any rate, none of those would qualify for the label “domestic terrorism” in the strict sense of the word but would suffice for a broader point you might be trying to make. To wit, are there adequate checks on the abuse of police power. The answer is no and one group that tried to bring up this issue, ironically given your apparent political leaning, is BLM. Police in the U.S. regularly mete out non judicial punishments and there are virtually no real checks against this.
The common ground, perhaps, that we share is that government overreach and abuse of police powers ought to be addressed in a meaningful way before expanding police powers or creating new investigative units. Especially when the charge is to stop domestic terrorism. That phrase can be twisted and abused in a such a manner that a non violent advocate like Martin Luther King could be labeled a domestic terrorist.
>'The answer is no and one group that tried to bring up this issue, ironically given your apparent political leaning, is BLM'
Is this supposed to be some smear at me suggesting I don't believe many very real claims that have been made by black demographic regarding police abuse? What do you even mean by this being ironic?
>The federal government executed a search warrant on the Branch Dravidian compound
That's the most charitable view I think I've ever heard described defending what happened at Waco. You believe what happened was 'legally executed'? Or that those killed were legally executed? I'm not sure if number of people who died means anything in terms of who was right and who was wrong, but it's pretty telling you mention the 4 government agents that died by number but don't number the 25 dead children (mostly burned alive) and 2 pregnant women. This all after Koresh could have just been grabbed peacefully outside the compound rather than in a standoff. Afterwords agents POSED over the rubble and dead bodies.
But a few paragraphs of us describing Waco isn't going to do justice to ourselves or fellow HNers, so please the few of you who haven't read about it please study and make your own decision.
Lastly:
I didn't say Waco had to be interpreted by the reader as 'domestic terrorism', I said they (DoJ) should start with the 'domestic terrorism organization' that carried it out. Do you understand the difference? You can decide for yourself what agency or body(ies) that applies to.
I’ll rephrase to clear misunderstandings. A legal warrant was obtained and federal agents attempted to exercise that warrant. Whilst attempting to carry out the warrant a gun battle ensued in which 4 federal agents were killed and 7 or so members of the cult were killed. After 51 days federal agents stormed the compound and quite a few people including children died.
All of the blame rests on the people in charge of the cult. Nothing they did was moral or justifiable. A government should have the power to exercise legally obtained warrants. Otherwise it is a useless government.
>I’ll rephrase to clear misunderstandings. A legal warrant was obtained and federal agents attempted to exercise that warrant. Whilst attempting to carry out the warrant a gun battle ensued in which 4 federal agents were killed and 7 or so members of the cult were killed. After 51 days federal agents stormed the compound and quite a few people including children died.
I take this as basically accurate.
>All of the blame rests on the people in charge of the cult. Nothing they did was moral or justifiable. A government should have the power to exercise legally obtained warrants. Otherwise it is a useless government.
You make a lot of presumptions about what I've said about Waco. ALL I said was DoJ should start with the 'domestic terror organization' that fired upon civilians at Waco and Ruby Ridge. I said nothing about morality, whether the WARRANT was justified, or even who the blame for Waco rests on.
This is starting to look like your own rabbit-hole we're going down where you think something you say about who is to blame at Waco discredits the ONLY assertion I made about Waco (which was civilians were fired upon.) It's starting to look like your own personal vendetta, one I'm very confused of the reason behind.
>All of the blame rests on the people in charge of the cult.
Even I don't have this level of confidence as to what proportion of blame to assign to who at Waco. The fact that you've reached such confidence about an event where we still lack full accuracy of details, is one of the most stunning and clear cases of Dunning-Kruger-esque effect I've seen on HN.
Regarding a useless government? Nah I think the government can still maintain functional ability to execute a search warrant without executing in in the way the fatal siege was executed in Waco.
Calling a federal law enforcement agency a domestic terror agency over Waco is precisely what I’m objecting to for the reasons I’ve given. I’m not making assumptions on what you’ve said in this regard. I’m explaining why I think using “domestic terror organization” with regard to Waco is not justified.
It is incorrect in my opinion to use Waco as an example of a law enforcement agency being in any way comparable to a domestic terror organization.
Dunning-Kruger has nothing to do with this exchange. That effect is an observation that less intelligent people tend to overrate their abilities more than higher intelligent people. I’ve not rated my abilities at all in any of these exchanges.
>Dunning-Kruger has nothing to do with this exchange. That effect is an observation that less intelligent people tend to overrate their abilities more than higher intelligent people. I’ve not rated my abilities at all in any of these exchanges.
False again. Dunning-Kruger is not about intelligence. It is about 'the cognitive bias whereby people with low ability at a task overestimate their ability.' If you're saying you don't assign yourself any ability to determine if someone was to blame, then I guess you're also saying your claim of 'all the blame' being with the cult leaders to merely be a meaningless statement made by someone devoid of any confidence in their ability to make it.
"Dunning-Kruger-esque": I'm referring to the limited ability we have to know what actually happened at Waco, which you then parley into the ability to outright assign that you have the ability to know where ALL the blame lies for what happened at Waco.
>Calling a federal law enforcement agency a domestic terror agency over Waco is precisely what I’m objecting to for the reasons I’ve given.
How many times must I repeat myself? I said DoJ should start with 'the domestic terror agency that fired upon civilians at Waco and Ruby Ridge.' Again, where are you pointing out that I said that I was calling them domestic terrorists BECAUSE of Waco? We've belabored this straw-man over again, it's not what I said.
I haven’t judged my abilities or rated them in our exchange and therefore Dunning-Kruger does not apply. You can’t know by how much I overrate myself or under rate myself; I’m just giving opinions. Just like you are giving an opinion about some federal law enforcement agencies being domestic terror organizations. This opinion of yours does not mean you think you are an expert or that you are overrating yourself. I could make the same baseless Dunning-Kruger accusation about you but I don’t because I actually understand that this cognitive bias pertains perceptions of oneself’s abilities and neither of us have made any self observations in our respective abilities.
If you don’t believe Waco makes the law enforcement agencies in question domestic terror organizations then why bring up Waco? What is it that causes those agencies to be domestic terror organizations and why not give those reasons instead of bringing up Waco? These are rhetorical questions by the way.
So you just went off spouting all the blame lied on the 'cult' [or leaders thereof] without even bothering to make the slightest judgement whether you had the ability to say that.
I didn't expect such a stunning admission, but at least we got the truth.
You stated an opinion about some law enforcement agencies being domestic terrorist organizations. You did not up this assertion. You provided no evidence other than to mention Waco. Was this opinion of yours, the certainty with which you made it, an example of Dunning-Kruger? If not then when is my stated opinion that federal agencies deserve no blame for Waco such an example?
It’s strange that you don’t see how your reasoning about Dunning-Kruger applies to what you’ve written. You should strive to be consistent in your reasoning and apply it to your own arguments. It’s sloppy thinking to engage thusly.
Well you admitted that you didn't assess your ability to make the statement. That you basically just spouted it off without thinking if you had the ability to say it truthfully: 'I haven’t judged my abilities.' So I agree, that isn't Dunning-Kruger on your part, just sloppy thinking. I withdraw the Dunning-Kruger statement based on your admission.
I think we have way more information about the government and these agencies when looking at our national history, than just looking at single event Waco. With much more information, we have higher ability to make a statement. This is precisely why I did not say BECAUSE of Waco.
But sure, Dunning-Kruger is merely observation of human trait, and not a sin at face. I think it's a lot more forgivable merely to actually over-estimate yourself after genuinely attempting to do so accurately. If I'm guilty of over-estimating my ability to think DoJ should investigate domestic terrorist organization that fired upon civilians at Waco, that can be your opinion.
More forgivable than straight up not even assessing if you have ability to truthfully assign ALL of blame for dozens of horrible deaths with members of 'cult', but making the accusation anyway, which you have so sloppily done.
I think the commenter was just trying to even the political playing field.
The threat list you provided seemed like it was from someone left-leaning. It did not mention the commonly-occurring mayhem, riots, vandalism, and arson coming from people describing themselves as affiliated with Leftist organizations (sorry, I cannot find better wording here. I am not trying to sound partisan here.)
Yes. Leftist activists tend to be pretty unenthusiastic about this stuff because any new tools, powers, or resources will be turned on us eventually.
Shit just in the last few years we've had pipeline protestors charged with domestic terrorism, BLM protestors facing gang enhancement felony charges for property damage (paint not arson if that matters).
It's good that the government is ready to back down its stance of "ignore extremist violence as long as they call themselves patriots" but I don't want to find out what the tucker carlson administration would do with a domestic terrorism task force ya know?
My only confusion is that I believed that they surely must have had a domestic counterterrorism unit previously?
I mean if they didn't, what are we paying them for?
No wonder Walmarts, schools and places of worship are getting shot up.
I guess it's good they created one now, but if they didn't have a unit with dedicated resources on the domestic terrorism problem previously, it really does demonstrate a lack of military sense.
I'm certain the US government had more than one of these units prior to this announcement. I sense this is probably more of an organizational realignment more than anything else, kind of like how "The Space Force" was created by carving out elements from the other branches, mainly the Air Force, and calling it something new.
DOJ has a National Security Division, headed by the Assistant Attorney General
for National Security. Within the DOJ National Security Division, there is a Counter-Terrorism Section, headed by the Deputy Assistant Attorney General
for Counter-Terrorism. The Counter-Terrorism Section deals with all cases of terrorism, whether international or domestic.
My interpretation of this story, is they are creating a dedicated team of people within the Counter-Terrorism Section to handle "domestic" terrorism, rather than having the same team(s) handle a mixture of "international" and "domestic" cases.
It really is a nothing story. It is nothing like the Space Force – that involved a major legal change in the high-level military structure, changing reporting lines for senior officials (the Air Force's space head was elevated to membership of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), this seems to just involve a change in the internal team structure of an existing government office (a section of a division of a department). They just want to make it sound like they are doing something.
How do you decide what is "international" and what is "domestic" terrorism anyway? If someone is recruited by Islamic State to commit a terrorist attack, that's international. But if some lone wolf radicalises themselves by spending hours a day watching Islamic State propaganda videos, and that inspires them to commit a terrorist attack – is that "international" or "domestic"? And how is that different from if the lone wolf had spent hours a day watching QAnon videos instead?
Military sense is a general term. A homeowner can use military sense in setting up his home security for instance. Intelligence and nation state level security organizations can also have military sense.
The term scales. There are many, many lessons learned in the service that have application to the civilian world. If those lessons will be received by the learners.
> The US military is forbidden from domestic enforcement action, except in certain circumstances. Google "posse commitatus" for details.
Kind of. The Posse Comitatus Act doesn't apply to the Navy. However, the DoD and/or the DoN has regulations that align with the Posse Comitatus Act. So it's not the military as a whole which is forbidden, just part of it, and the other part can change their own rules to allow it.
You can say a lot of things about the Jan 6 rioters. But you can't call them terrorists. They didn't go after civilians. They went straight at the government.
The government having a monopoly on legitimate violence is politics 101. I agree that arguing by definition is bad form, but like beating someone up because they aren't letting you into the capital building so you can disrupt the counting of the votes for your political opponents is an extreme violent way of going about things. Encouraging such violence destabilized politics and encourages your opponents to start using violence too leading to an escalating cycle. You don't want to call that terrorism fine, but it is a very bad thing.
I’m assuming you are referring to BLM and those who support them. I don’t know of anyone who supported the destruction of entire city centers. One person convicted of burning a building down in Minneapolis was not from Minneapolis and was a right wing supporter. I do know that people felt that police abuses had gone too far and with impunity. In places like Minneapolis police no longer had the consent of the governed. Quoting the Declaration of Independence:
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Perhaps you view the protestors as terrorists but I suggest this is a twisting of that term. I do not embrace a domestic office of terrorism for the same reason that I oppose the Department of Homeland security. We Americans have become a divided people wallowing in fear of those fellow countryman who adhere to the wrong ideology. It is too easy for a demagogue to usurp the normal functioning of the law enforcement to go after “domestic terrorism”. Too many people will willingly support the infringement of the rights of those with the wrong ideology.
One thing we should all agree with is that major police reforms are badly needed.
I live a couple blocks from CHOP/CHAZ. There was no destruction. I got my haircut every couple weeks at a business inside CHOP. Everything was and still is entirely normal.
This type of mentality is what lead to forever wars in the Middle East. How about we don't establish organizations that will likely be used to infringe on the rights of innocents?
When times are good and trust is high you get lone wolves like McVeigh and Kaczynski. The fact that extremist groups are able to do much of anything means their message resonates and therefore they can secure members and resources. These politicians are too busy complaining that the bird is annoying in to see the canary in the coal mine. If things were looking up people wouldn't be joining extremist movements. No task force will fix that.
So for all those years of fighting Islamic terrorism they did not need such unit despite huge domestic population of potential collaborators. But now they do. It sure going to end well...
Because there's been an uptick in domestic terrorism? As in not from foreign nationals (eg Islamic terrorists). The richest country in the world with the biggest military almost failed a year ago. Something should be done about it.
Yeah, it's called the entirety of congress and the peaceful transition of power. Peaceful transition of power is a fragile miracle and almost having it ripped apart is not something to downplay. Say what you will, I will live in the real world.
I earnestly cannot understand what a tiny minority of people trespassing could have done to destroy anything meaningful. Our country has survived much worse. Don't forget that same building was once burned down by a hostile invading force.
Saying "tiny minority of people" is a flaccid lie. Watch the footage and stop lying.
When has the country failed to have a peaceful transition of power? When has the entirety of congress been ripped apart by a mob of a thousand extremists? When has USA survived worse?
My point is that the building was literally burned down and our country bounced back to the point where most people probably don't even know it happened. There's nothing sacred about the Capitol building itself or honestly the people in it. Our collective commitment to democracy doesn't exist in a physical location.
Ripped apart? Really? Imagine the damage if BLM had been there. And don't pretend like there isn't a long history of their extensive damages.
The U.S.A. has survived literally splitting itself in half, and having a war against itself. Despite a presidential assassination. I'm pretty sure people who were videoed saying "we gotta keep it peaceful guys, we have the right to peacefully assemble" after Capitol cops told them to stay civil, are not nearly has bad of a threat.
Congress was set to certify the election that day. Had the insurrection succeeded, Mike Pence likely would have been killed (remember the "hang Mike Pence" slogan?), along with Democrats in Congress. This would have allowed Trump to remain "president" indefinitely, especially because any election he wouldn't win would be "fraudulent". It was an extremely important moment for our country.
The law says what the process is on Jan 6. It is silent as to what happens if the process on Jan 6 is disrupted. There is no law that brings them back together, so if they don’t finish their job on that day, they would have entered a Constitutional grey area, a kind of hack of the electoral process system. Trump needed such a hack because the regular order would have, and did, end with him losing power. This is why Pence refused to leave the Capitol, McConnell insisted on finishing the certification that night, and Trump’s associates were furiously calling Senators to continue delaying the certification (even after the insurrection).
If they had killed Mike Pence I have absolute faith they would have been thrown in jail forever and the Speaker would have taken over his duties certifying the election. If all that's standing between us and fascism/anarchy is 2,000 people choosing to walk into the Capitol we are already lost.
The duty of certifying the election falls to the President of the Senate, not Speaker of the House. It would have been up to Republicans to replace him. It’s possible in such a scenario they would have replaced him with someone who was willing to decertify the election and initiate a contested election, which would have then enabled Trump to be installed over Joe Biden.
Almost half the country incorrectly believed that it won the election, as did the sitting president, and a large fraction of congress (147 Republicans, to be exact).
It's trivial to tip that sort of situation into a successful coup. All you need is a convenient excuse (All electronic/late/mail-in/democratic ballots are fraud, and should be disqualified! There's a state of emergency in the capitol!).
Do you think democracy just keeps working, regardless or whether or not all the mechanisms that ensure the transfer of power were carried out? If certification of the results is unnecessary, why do we do it? At what exact point is the winner of an election determined? It's not when CNN/MSNBC/FOX call the race. It's not when the last ballot gets counted. It's not when the electoral college votes. It's not when <some common sense thing> happens, because the law doesn't care about your common sense.
It happens when Congress certifies the results. If Congress certifies that Mickey Mouse won the election, that's who you'll be seeing at the inauguration. If the only people voting to certify are those 147 Republicans, guess who will be getting certified?
The transfer of power after an election is binary process. It either happens, or it doesn't. Any binary process, by definition, has at least one single point of failure. In the United States, one of those points of failure is certification.
The transfer of power is the most important aspect of a democracy. It has to happen correctly, every single time.
> Do you think democracy just keeps working, regardless or whether or not all the mechanisms that ensure the transfer of power were carried out?
As long as they happen in a relatively timely manner, as they were in this case. Our democracy does not live in a building, there is no switch to turn it off. The Capitol Building and everyone in it could disappear in a wormhole and I'm confident we would retain our democracy, logistical nightmare aside.
Yes, actually. Well, I think the better question is this: is there some magical switch that stops power-hungry people, endorsed by the President of the United States, from seizing extraconstitutional power? The answer is no.
The coup plot has been confessed to already on live TV by one of the coup plotters. They even gave their plan a name: the "Green Bay Sweep"
1. No matter the outcome, claim victory. In the event of an electoral loss, claim fraud ad nauseum. The former President began this campaign on election night before all votes were even counted.
2. Begin a campaign of discrediting the election results. By the time the race was called for Biden, the former President refused to concede and claimed the election was rigged. He has persisted with this claim to this very day.
3. Use the pretense of a fraudulent election to overturn states results. A pressure campaign mounted to overturn election results in a number of states. It was directed at local elections officials all the way up to US attorneys, Secretaries of State, and the Governor of Georgia.
4. Use overturned state elections results to try to cause a contested election. This is the scenario where neither candidate reaches 270 votes, and the decision is sent back to the House of Representatives. In this scenario, the House delegates get one vote per state delegation. Since Republicans hold the majority of state delegations, they could install Trump as president despite the fact that he lost fair and square.
The question is, how do you get to a contested election? Well, there's a process, but the hope of the Green Bay Sweep was that Pence would just unilaterally do it himself, but he needed a pretext. Hence the legal campaign, but it lost 62/63 legal cases so that didn't work. There was also a pressure campaign on the AG, but he didn't budge -- Bill Bar claimed there was no evidence of fraud and quit before he could be fired. They attempted to install a Trump loyalist Jeffry Clark who would claim there was evidence of fraud, but the entire senior leadership at DOJ threatened to quit if that were to have happened, which would have ruined the pretense. There was the likely criminal effort the former President took to threaten the governor of GA with prosecution if he didn't doctor the election results to favor Trump. That failed as well.
The lack of concrete evidence of fraud did not deter this pressure campaign. Eventually the White House wanted Pence to decertify the election results even without a pretext. They wanted him to flatly assert nebulous and unspecific fraud occurred in PA, MI, WI, AZ, and GA, and that the electoral votes for those states should be thrown out. While the campaign to find evidence failed (because there was none to find), there were still GOP members of the House and Senate willing to go along with the plan if Pence would do his part of refusing to certify the contested states. During the counting of the certificates, objections were raised by GOP Rep. Gosar, and GOP Senator Cruz when AZ was called. This turned the counting of the votes from a perfunctory ceremony that would take a few minutes of counting 50 pages, into a 2 hour debate as to the merits of their claim. They had planned to do this for all contested states, for a total of 10 hours of delay. Given the makeup of the House and Senate at the time, each objection was doomed to fail, but their purpose was to buy time.
Why did they have to buy time? To give Trump the opportunity to incite the mob, which he did masterfully along with his son, Mo Brooks, and Rudy Giuliani who urged "trial by combat". At this point there were two ways to get to a contested election. (1) Pence plays his role and baselessly denies certification, assume powers that are not granted to him by the Constitution or any law. (2) Completely circumvent the certification and try to get friendly states to send alternate slates of electors.
But by the morning of Jan 6, Pence had already made up his mind and informed Trump that he intended to...
Can you explain why we're calling this a coup when nobody has been charged with anything related to a coup/insurrection/treason etc?
You wrote a huge text wall as if that helps your point, but missed the most obvious - nobody in the Department of Justice actually thinks there was a coup attempt.
If someone tells you they have a plan to affect a fraud which would prevent the transfer of power from the duly-elected executive and instead divert that power to someone else, what word would you use to describe this plan?
Also, you can't assert that no one at DOJ thinks this is a coup attempt. All you can assert is that no one at DOJ has said so publicly, which is not a very strong evidence of anything, since that's how they operate in a general sense. It takes a long time to bring charges for anything at the federal level, and this particular charge needs to be more airtight than anything they've ever charged in the past. It may also be that they are afraid of looking partisan in doing so, and are waiting for a referral from the bipartisan Jan 6 committee.
I am not sure if you are still monitoring these replies, but if you are I would just like to bring to your attention this development from today, which speaks directly to your assertion that DoJ does not view Jan 6 as an insurrection:
Stewart Rhodes — founder and leader of the extremist group Oath Keepers, whose members are accused of being key players in the Jan. 6 attack on Congress — has been indicted and arrested, people familiar with the matter said Thursday.
The 56-year-old, who was at the Capitol that day but has said he did not enter the building, is the most high-profile person charged in the investigation so far. He and 10 others were charged with seditious conspiracy, these people said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.
Jan 6 is an ongoing story, it’s developing in real time. DoJ is working up the chain of command. They’ve been working on the rubes and foot soldiers for the past year. Now they are going after lieutenants with seditious conspiracy charges. Once those charges start sticking (and they will) the DoJ will go after the generals of the Jan 6 insurrection.
Where? Where is this uptick? Unorganized lone wolf shooters belonging to no particular ideological movement or group, who haven't made an appearance since the start of the pandemic? How many bombings have there been? Where are the political murders? Hostage crises?
Or is this a response to nationwide, coordinated BLM rioting and violence? Unlikely given the messaging over organized "white supremacist" terrorism which, somehow, has yet to materialize, beyond its use as a political cudgel...
Those are exactly the events I was referencing. None of those were organized, coordinated, or affiliated with any particular ideology. What exactly is a task force going to do to stop such random attacks beyond entrapment?
Just because terrorism is stochastic doesn't mean it shouldn't be addressed. The mustache twirling villains don't exist and if they do they're not breaking laws, just adjusting mindshare.
> "It's not to worry about the next person. The current administration is the current concern"
As it absolutely should be. The current administration should always be the current concern… (Until voting day, of course, when the next administration should be the current concern.)
It doesn't matter if they're your political opponent or political ally. If they're a terrorist they're a terrorist and should be prosecuted as such. No need for insurrection apologetics.
Terrorism charges against all these nut jobs are long overdue. From antifa to the mullet mujahedin. We've got the camera footage. We've got the phone records. We've got the internet traffic. Use this new wing of the DoJ to settle all family business as it were. Sweep them all up. From foot soldier right up to financier.
>"If they're a terrorist they're a terrorist and should be prosecuted as such. No need for insurrection apologetics."
Ah yes, but who will distinguish between terrorism and protest? The CHAZ/CHOP certainly had the hallmarks of an insurrection, too.
Edit: Ultimately, the decision/determination to charge someone with "terrorism" will be made by a District Attorney or some Attorneys General. These positions are all political in nature and the people holding these offices are under a great deal of pressure behind-the-scenes. THAT is where my trepidation comes from, as political adversary vs. political ally has a massive influence in who gets charged with what.
I think extremists will force the government's hand.
They never saw a mall they didn't want to burn. Nor a black church they didn't want to shoot up. When they do, and we all know they will, we can run the contact tracing and sweep up everyone from the foot soldier to the financier. We can even shine extremely bright lights on the orbiters and affiliates of these people to let them know we're watching and strangle their action avenues.
So in the end it won't matter. These people can't help themselves. All we need to do is watch and wait. The people in power will either accede to crushing these loonies, or we'll crush the loonies and the careers of the people in power in the process.
Domestic terrorism cannot be allowed to become commonplace. It's time to take things back in hand.
Watching malls burn had me mad, and then watching traitors carting electronic devices off from the Capitol building on their way over to Glover Park to hand them over to the Russians was the final straw. It's long past time extremists are excised from our society.
Are we talking "triggering inter-generational trauma" terrorism or "promoting ideas that inspire AnarchoCommunist riots" terrorism? Because the government will pick one or the other before long
Can't you say that about anything? The IRS, DOJ, NSA, Supreme Court. You can claim they were all created by whatever party was in majority power, to go after their political opponents. And it often is politically advantageous to claim BS like that.
Unless you're making the extreme point that democratic republics are intractable, because individual government employees will necessarily bend the rules to favor their own party, then you're not making any point at all.
Sure you can. That is why I am in favor of limiting the scope of these organizations. Individual employees can, and do, bend and selectively apply the rules. That doesn't necessarily make democratic republics intractable - the continued existence of the US proves that.
(Yes, the same rules apply regardless of which flavor of politics an account is battling for. Actually those accounts resemble each other far more than they resemble anybody else—and we don't need any of them here. It destroys the curious conversation this place is supposed to exist for.)
And in an attempt to find a universally accepted starting point, a definition: "terrorism - the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion"
I'd hope that everyone can agree it's worthwhile having a dedicated branch of the DoJ looking at incidents of lawbreaking that meet that definition, even if perpetrated by legal residents of the US.
Quantity of death should have no impact on whether something is terror or not. 10 people died at Astroworld, that was obviously not a terror attack. If the Boston bombings had merely injured people instead of killed them--or even if it had miraculously failed and hurt no one--we would obviously still call that a terror attack. No one is going to be scared to visit the Capitol on January 6, 2022 or 2023, unlike how people were afraid to go to las vegas or the Boston marathon after the attacks.
The comment you're replying to is an example of what they meant by Trump derangement syndrome. People convince themselves of things that are blatantly just not accurate because "orange man bad".
Trump's and Giuliani's incessant campaign can be seen as domestic terror: "to intimidate and coerce a civilian population", "to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion". The capitol "tourist visit" were boots on the ground, and can themselves be seen as both terrorists and victims of terror. They were intimidated and coerced by trump ("your country will be taken from you unless you fight like hell", etc.) into themselves using force and violence to coerce congress into overthrowing the vote certification. Ultimately DOJ and the courts will settle this discussion.
The FBI is part of the DoJ, and typically has task forces comprised of personnel from both organizations. So, this is tantamount to saying "We take domestic terrorism seriously enough to assign dedicated resources to it."
> "terrorism - the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion."
Interesting side effect of this definition is that because the main effect of terrorism is not material or human casualties, but terror, it's usually less damaging way of waging a war than conventional warfare. There are typically more civilian casualties in conventional warfare where civilians are just collateral than terrorist campaigns that target civilians.
> The costs of terrorism very often come mostly from the fear and consequent reaction
(or overreaction) it characteristically inspires (qualities stoked by the terrorism indus-
try), not from its direct effects which are usually comparatively limited. Therefore,
policies designed to deal with terrorism should focus more on reducing fear and anxiety
as inexpensively as possible than on objectively reducing the rather limited dangers
terrorism is likely actually to pose. Doing nothing (or at least refraining from
overreacting) after a terrorist attack is not necessarily unacceptable, and, despite
U. S. overreaction, the campaign against terror is generally going rather well because,
no matter how much they might disagree on other issues (most notably on war in Iraq),
there is a compelling incentive for states to cooperate to deal with a common problem
‘terrorism industry, an entity that includes not only various risk entrepreneurs and bureaucrats, but also
most of the media and nearly all politicians.
> The Kavanaugh protesters did the exact same thing just a year prior
Minus the whole forced entry thing.
> and nobody was arrested
Also untrue (or at least equivalently untrue. People were charged with crimes, although afaict all misdemeanors because there was no forced entry or threats of violence)
I think that's not true. I'm sympathetic to this sort of violence not being dissimilar from some violence on the left. Things like storming police stations, but people were arrested (https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/04/politics/kavanaugh-protests-u...) and it seems to me like waiting in line to sit in the observation gallery and then making some noise or confronting people isn't the same as pushing past police barricades and killing people or dragged them into a crowd and beat them (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/11/us/capitol-mob-violence-p...). I'm a person who often falls into false equivalents so it's very important for me to be reminded that these aren't the same
Ah no you are right apologies, that was based on initial reports by the police and since it has come out that in fact none of the beatings directly killed anyone. Probably. He did die the next day of a stroke so the timing is still a tad suspicious. What is your point here? Are you admitting that yes 1/6 was in fact way more of a deal than the Kavanaugh protests?
> Pretty sure everyone working inside the Capital that day felt terrified.
that's exactly the point poster is making; there was a distinct disconnection between the terror that 'everyone working inside the Capital that day felt' , and the actions/personalities/feelings/emotions portrayed by those considered 'terrorists' that day.
I can't think of any other 'terror' event ('event' chosen in an effort to be non partisan) that took place that way, even when considering suicide bombers and hijackers -- there is clear evidence that the 'terrorists' in those respective incidents felt fear and terror themselves during the act.
the 'terrorists' involved in the Capital event had big smiles on their faces, posed for pictures, texted with friends, drove together in large groups, got together on social media publicly and invited their friends and families to come join them in (what they called) protest.
I have no doubt that those in the Capital were afraid -- but to view this as just the same as any 'terrorist' activity in the past is, too, missing nuance and context.
I don't know what happened, and I don't know what it was -- but I know it wasn't anything like 9/11 or the Oklahoma City Bombing , two events that stick in my head as 'terrorism' , writ large.
There were two kinds of people at the Jan 6 insurrection, and yes it was an insurrection.
The first kind of people were the ones with big smiling faces, posing for pictures, taking selfies, etc. They are the ones crying in open court, claiming they thought they were there protecting democracy at the president's behest. They are not terrorists, but idiots radicalized by a lie.
The other group were organized militias Proud Boys, 1st Amendment Praetorians, 3%ers, Boogaloos, etc. They came prepared in tactical gear, communication gear, they moved in formation, and they even stashed caches of guns and ammunition in nearby hotels in case things got really bad. These people are the actual terrorists, the former group are useful idiots. They were necessary to complete the objective: to occupy the capitol and delay the certification of the vote. These people were embedded in the protest at the capitol and were instrumental in egging on the crowd more. For example, they are recorded on bullhorns, shouting out tweets from the President as they occurred. Notably, this one:
Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!
There are recordings of militia members reading these tweets over bullhorns at the Capitol, inciting the mob even further and giving rise to chants of "Hang Mike Pence".
So let me say it one more time: The plan was to delay certification in order to cause a contested election. The delay had to come by occupying the capitol because Pence refused to decertify the election. Militia members could not breach the capitol on their own, hence why they needed the help of rubes who are now flowing into jail cells across the country due to their actions that day.
Obviously there's a lot more that needs to come out to put all of the pieces together, but the picture is getting clearer and clearer. If you stopped paying attention on Jan 7 2021, there's a lot of info that's come to light that shows Jan 6 insurrection was the pointy tip of a month's long premeditated effort to overthrow the US government.
Anyway, to your point, I don't think it's appropriate to discern a terrorist based on their personal state of mind regarding their acts of terrorism. To flip your point on its head, if McVeigh had done exactly what he did but took a selfie and smiled while he did it, wouldn't he still be a terrorist?
are you serious? what do you think the tactical gear is - anything with a pattern?
> they even stashed caches of guns and ammunition in nearby hotels
ah yes. the true sign of domestic terrorists executing a coup planned for months - intentionally not bringing your guns.
> to occupy the capitol and delay the certification of the vote
this makes so little sense i cant even formulate a reply. you think they had a plan, and that plan was to bring nothing and do nothing in order to temporarily delay a vote that could be done over video conference... why, again?
> The plan was to delay certification in order to cause a contested election.
...what? theres no rule that if the certification gets delayed, the election is suddenly invalid. what is this, the 5-minute rule?
> are you serious? what do you think the tactical gear is - anything with a pattern?
I am referencing militia groups like the Oath Keepers, who dressed in fatigues, vests, helmets, gas masks, eye protection, gloves, boots, bore insignia, moved in formation, communicated over radios... they were prepared and organized.
> ah yes. the true sign of domestic terrorists executing a coup planned for months - intentionally not bringing your guns.
Oath keepers did in fact bring guns [1].
There are many other instances of guns and other weapons being found. Anyway, I'm not sure what the fixation is on guns because a mob without guns is more effective at doing exactly what was needed -- to get into the Capitol and delay the certification of the vote. An unarmed mob will not be met with lethal force by police for some reason in America, no matter how violent it is. The summer BLM protests proved that. So really if your objective is to get into the capitol, the worst idea in the world would be to shoot your way in; if you attempt this, the police will automatically go straight to lethal force. It's true that the mob outnumbered police, but police outnumbered militia members, and they would have lost that fight. I think if bodies started hitting the floor and bullets started flying, the regular rubes that comprised 99% of the mob that day would have scattered into the streets of DC.
> to temporarily delay a vote that could be done over video conference
Well that's just the thing... once you delay the vote there's no guarantee that the session would ever be reconvened. I already explained the plan in another post, but it's clearly laid out in the Eastman memos [2]. The point is that Pence on the morning of January 6 finalized his position that he would not decertify the election. That was their last hope at preventing Joe Biden from being president because it's essentially irreversible.
I believe not even the Supreme Court could overturn a bicameral certification of the election results. What authority would they use? There's nothing in the Constitution that would give them the power to review such a solemn power granted exclusively to the legislative branch. So if Trump had any hope of remaining as POTUS, it rested on preventing that certification from going forward at any cost. Hence the mob.
> ...what? theres no rule that if the certification gets delayed, the election is suddenly invalid. what is this, the 5-minute rule?
US Code Title 3 Chapter 1 Section 15 lays out exactly what happens on Jan 6. It does not have anything to say about what happens if Jan 6 is delayed. There is no process enshrined in law to handle that outcome. Evidently, the authors of the law did not anticipate a violent mob incited by the the loser of the election would attempt to delay the process.
It was extremely important to delay that certification as long as possible, because it allowed this behind-the-scenes pressure campaign to continue, and it prevented the transition of power from commencing.
On January 6, Rudy Giuliani articulated in a voicemail exactly why they needed a delay in certification so badly [3]:
the only strategy we can follow is to object to numerous states and raise issues so that we get ourselves into tomorrow—ideally until the end of tomorrow.
And why did they need that delay? Giuliani continues:
I know we would delay you a lot, but it would give us the opportunity to get the legislators who are very, very close to pulling their vote, particularly after what McConnell did today. It angered them, because they have written letters asking that you guys adjourn and send them back the questionable ones and they'll fix them up.
This was about an hour before the joint session reconvened after insurrectionists were cleared from the building. Giuliani was urging to delay the proceedings at least 20 hours, probably more, during which he would continue his pressure campaign against state legislat...
The world would be a better place if more politicians and their ilk were terrified of the people.
More walls, security, and protections for them means less freedom for us.
They've had walls up for just a year and what do we have? Federal mandates for medical procedures, 9 supreme court justices deciding whether or not 30% of people will lose their jobs or have a forced medical procedure.
>Actually the people who formed the US say otherwise. The tree of liberty is watered with the blood of tyrants.
There should be a law against using a quote from an American founding father without understanding its original context or the subtlety and dry wit of literate, pre-internet language. The person who wrote that was not saying what you think they were, nor were their beliefs about political violence what you think they were.
Also, just for the record, because you seem to be one of those, that person was also a supporter of vaccinations when the science was in its infancy, the risks were little understood and vaccines actually were dangerous.
I like how you're basically like "he didn't mean it like that" and then go on to not support your claim at all lmao.
I'd be a supporter of vaccines as well if they were a new scientific technology, not corrupted by big pharma for profit / to make infinite customers. The COVID shots are not a vaccine either it's why we're still in this mess. If you still deny that reality after all that has happened and continues to happen then no one can help you.
Let's see here. YOU pay for the vaccine with YOUR tax dollars, every shot administered also is paid with YOUR tax dollars, marketing paid with YOUR tax dollars, mandates paid with YOUR tax dollars. And we have the most infections / deaths ever occuring around the world.
Accept that you're being scammed and you might start to understand why the tree of liberty needs the blood of tyrants.
Given how the FBI (and our other intelligence agencies) have repeatedly performed covert actions like besmirching MLK and running influence campaigns, I'm not so sure the word "extraordinary" applies.
I'm a cynic on this, to be sure. Read this post with that in mind. I take no stance on the GP's assertion. I just wanted to chime in about how untrustworthy I now am.
Being baited by the feds is a meme on both the left and right. Stereotypes like that do not become so universal and perpetuated without a decent foundation of truth to build upon.
the presupposition this is an extraordinary claim is false. the us government has been willing and able to do things like this for decades, and has a public track record of having done so.
>Another informant, an Iraq War veteran, was so deeply involved in the militant group that he rose in the ranks to become the second in command. He also encouraged members to work with other suspects and even offered to foot the bill to get people to and from meetings. He is also accused of urging the alleged mastermind of the kidnapping plot to carry it out before laying the trap for him to be arrested. [0]
>There were at least 12 FBI informants involved in the investigation to thwart the alleged scheme by a militia group known as the “Wolverine Watchmen” — but the agents actually took an active part in it right from its inception, according to court filings, evidence and dozens of interviews reviewed by BuzzFeed News — and now some members of the group are accusing the feds of entrapment. [1]
Bear in mind that given the nature of the subject, the frequency of "involvement" by three letter agencies is probably a lot higher than what is reported publicly.
>those people actually got inside and just milled around. there was no plot, no mission.
"Babbitt was part of the crowd that gained access to a hallway outside the Speaker’s Lobby, which leads to the House chamber. She was shot once by an officer as she tried to climb through the broken glass window of a door to the lobby, which had been barricaded from the inside with furniture."
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/14/officer-who-killed-capitol-r...
That seems to be an adequate contradiction to your comment.
because she climbed through a window? you think that necessiates a federal program treating its citizens as adversaries and changes the tone of jan 6 from unplanned riot to domestic terrorism?
All those people, just randomly showing up in the same place at the same time and all deciding to walk on down to the US Capitol to break in and stop votes from being counted... totally unplanned.
im not making the claim the gathering was an accident. framing it as an insurrection or coup (instead of protest/riot) is laughable, and now we reap what we sow. time for better government oversight of us unruly citizens.
Are you seriously THAT unaware of how the entire US electoral process works? The entire point of the January 6th insurrection was to bully Mike Pence into either refusing to count the certified ballots of certain states to throw the election to the House of Representatives, where Republicans held a majority at the time, or to delay the counting long enough that they would have to again go with those alternative means. They wanted to invalidate the election by force.
> domestic terror? go watch the fucking videos. those people actually got inside and just milled around. there was no plot, no mission.
Depends which videos you decide to watch. After the capitol was breached the people who just walked in were pretty tame (these people are also only being charged with very minor crimes and serving around 60 days in jail, for example: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/11/04/capi...).
At the beginning of the riots the people actually storming barriers and assaulting police officers were definitely not just "milling around".
> isnt it established fact the fbi had agents actively provoking the mob? known persons on video involved, not being prosecuted?
no? sources?
> id hate for the the congresspeople to be beholden to the people they work - especially the ones that diaagree with them.
So your argument is that the best way to keep congresspeople (sic) accountable is to trespass, disrupt standard government procedures, and assault police officers?
Where do you get "paramilitary" from? This is the Justice Department, not the FBI. All the article says is:
> the new unit will be part of the National Security Division and will work to "ensure that these cases are properly handled and effectively coordinated" across the department and around the country.
That seems to imply a bureaucratic effort, nothing like what you're claiming.
> those people actually got inside and just milled around. there was no plot, no mission.
Some photos suggest otherwise [1].
> isnt it established fact the fbi had agents actively provoking the mob? known persons on video involved, not being prosecuted?
> "We have seen a growing threat from those who [...] ascribe to extremist anti-government and anti-authority ideologies," Matthew Olsen, the assistant attorney general of the department's National Security Division, told a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
I wonder what the discussions are like between the domestic security agencies (FBI, NSA, etc.) and the foreign insecurity agencies (CIA, NED, BRL, etc). Doesn't this undermine the efforts of the latter to e.g. overthrow governments in foreign nations?
> Last week he makes a very divisive speech, with language like "I will stand here in the breach to fight this battle" -- is he throwing down fighting words to incite people?
After Congress was attacked to try to overturn an election, I think "battle" isn't the wrong word.
> Last week he makes a very divisive speech
It divides people who want to overturn elections from those who don't, I guess. That doesn't seem like a bad thing.
Call it whataboutism, but his predecessor's speeches were much more divisive, and for worse reasons.
Here's a quote from him before the capitol attack [1]:
> “Republicans are constantly fighting like a boxer with his hands tied behind his back. It’s like a boxer. And we want to be so nice. We want to be so respectful of everybody, including bad people. And we’re going to have to fight much harder. …
> “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them, because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”
To summarise: Fight, but don't be violent. Go to the capitol, cheer, but actually don't, and definitely don't be weak. We're getting hit and we're so nice [nothing else said, but that's definitely implied to be a bad thing].
I wouldn't do it differently if I wanted to incite violence while keeping a way of pretending I didn't in court.
In 2062, US healthcare costs continue to rise. Congress gets together to discuss a bill to fix it. Increasing healthcare funding would put them 5% in deficit.
They could reduce the military budget which takes up 50% of the total. Afterall, the US hasn't had a war since it pulled out of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan 40 years ago. Yet, funding has continued going up. The Cabinet chief of domestic terrorism argues that funding is needed for domestic efforts.
Those in support argue that the National institute of Domestic terrorism's (NIDT) funds are key to academic research in the sciences, meta verse and improved AI sentience.
Those in opposition argue that their funding breakdown is a black box, and they need to be audited. The NIDT must be held accountable to the constitution.
Compromise is struck. The Congress approves another 10$ billion for an audit and accountability department in the NIDT. Another $10b are allocated to an exploratory team on healthcare policy. President XÆA-12 calls it a historic moment.
The power output of the Kafka and Orwell grave-power-plants is 10GW higher today. All is right in this world.
Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Income Security are better thought of as insurance and pension systems that happen to be run by the government. This is why they're ear-marked in federal budgets and listed separately on your paycheck.
FBI et all use real terrorists as informants to generate plots then claim they stopped them, all the while those informants get off scott free and without accountability. Something like 97% of domestic terror plots adhere to this modus operandi. But its ok, just like censorship, dumbely assume its good because it will only go after those evil others... until the day you realize oops it goes after everyone but now its too late. So tired of people refusing to see the patterns at play with this stuff.
One of the best books on this is The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI's Maufactured War on Terrorism by Trevor Aaronson. My 97% is based on a memeory of that number being used by Mr. Aaronson in a talk he gave at politics and prose, so the exact percentage may be different the point is that it is the case in the vast majority.
I find the reference to Jan 6th funny. It tells me this is political theater and not a real attempt to stop domestic terrorism at all.
And honestly, where's the domestic terrorism? The closest thing I can think of was the Vegas shooting, not known to be ideologically motivated. Before that it was the Boston marathon, which was foreign nationals, before that 9/11, which was foreign actors. And before that, Oklahoma city...
January 6th? Really? Let's get real for a second on this one, partisans on the left claim this was terrorism when it wasn't and partisans on the right claim BLM protests are terrorism when they aren't. These are all protests that got a little out of hand. Do we really want a task force to deal with rowdy protests and prosecute them the same as the Boston bomber? What kind of country do you want to live in?
But that's partisan, is there anything talking about "terrorism" as in, equally abhorrent acts without regard to partisanship?
The article referenced has the January 6th protest listed there and then claims no deaths from left wing attacks, even though there are plenty of left wing protests comparable to January 6th in which people were killed. They are comparable, so it seems to me to be cherry picking what you'd call "terrorism." Any source that calls January 6th terrorism or BLM protests terrorism are not to be taken seriously for this reason. Either they both are or they both aren't, and I don't want to start calling every single disobedient act terrorism just because some people get out of hand, that's a slippery slope.
The arricle puts jihadist and other right wing related violence under one umbrella, so as to pad the numbers it would seem. You can call jihadism "right wing" and you'd be right, but you'd be ignoring an ideological distinction so plainly obvious that one would be warranted in presuming said ignorance is deliberate.
We have a well-funded national security 'state' in the United States, and a decreasing appetite to impose our will abroad. Looking inward/domestically seems like the natural response by organizations that want to stay alive and continue doing what they do.
I'm not surprised that there is increasing rhetoric of the 'domestic terrorism' threat from our officials/traditional media, that doesn't have to be tied to increasing objective harm to the public by such threats. I would not expect this rhetoric to die down anytime soon, unless there are sufficient opportunities abroad for our security state/military to invest in.
I know partisans want to hop on the bandwagon when their political opposition is being lambasted as the 'domestic terrorists' by the media/our officials, but they should really think hard about the precedent and power that they are bequeathing our security state. The application of that power will not just be limited to be used only on those YOU don't like.
I'm not Trumper, but honestly, I don't think this will end well. Words like "terrorism" and "extremism" are inherently subjective ideological judgements, and subjective ideological classification should has no place in domestic law enforcement.
Also the way I'm hearing "extremists" and "extremism" used feels like people drawing up lines for a civil war.
I'm pretty much a leftist but not supportive of either party.... but as I see the divides between liberals and conservatives (of which I'm neither) ... are (according to some news outlets) already starting a 'cold' civil war.
If there really is a cold civil war, seems this might be to me a way for someone to at least gain the upperhand and put the military force behind one side or another...
as fractured as D.C. is...and w/ elections coming up, and 2024 up in the air... I can't even tell which side would be in charge of the nation + military.
I can see civil wars though coming from many angles:
The current divide/conquer tactics creating polarization (check), and then it's just us vs them...(lib/cons)...
Or it could be the labor class vs the elites. Because times are going to get rougher. We've got depression/stress rampant. Homelessness is rising. Wages are stagnant or were, maybe rising now because of actual labor rising up a bit... but still rent/housing is skyrocketing to the point they need to rise up in the first place...
Unfortunately most people don't have any class consciousness, so it'll probably be the first one... I wish it were the second one...or the fabled "poor eating the rich scenario" ... but might be 20 more years till we get there..
3rd option is governors and congress maybe decide to do a do-over and hold a constitutional congress and maybe re-organize more loosely like the EU as smaller city states. This would be a dream to me but hopefully we could organize into smaller states maybe where there's like 100 or even 500 autonomous cities that self-govern and maybe have some 10 year meeting of all governors to re-ratify the constitution, and add any changes, etc.
A small fed govt would still exist for foreign affairs, and interstate agency management. Military would be a coalition force from all the city-states. People who live in really rural places might even live completely outside of a 'country' so to speak, if it's unincorporated, but would still have the rights as if they were in one.. like access to fire department and emergency services etc...
to get the best scenarios...requires level heads and cooperation from decent politicians who have our best interests at heart.... so, we're f*ked.
So much doubt peddling, and disinformation spewed on these types of posts is astounding. I think we should permanently flag topics like these as they lead to repeated circular arguments about whether or not jan 6 was a big deal or if burning down a planned parenthood constitutes terrorism, everything is fine domestically, all terrorists are outside (or not fine, depending on which TV station your mind is plugged into), BLM AntifaCommunists China HunterBiden and other stupid bullshit.
I find it so stupid that the people of a country with one of the most oppressive law enforcement legislations on the planet is getting triggered by a bureaucratic change because a 'protest went out of hand'. You have a problem with this? Go out and vote, write to your representative, run for office. Where the fuck were you when the Patriot Act passed?
These threads truly put to test the typical HN claims about site and comment quality.
I’d argue that they’re off topic solely off of the description in the guidelines, but things have shifted so that the widest interpretations of the “on-topic” criteria are what determine that.
320 comments
[ 1.7 ms ] story [ 242 ms ] threadThe Oklahoma City bombing took place on April 19, 1995.
I heard the government moves slow but that is crazy.
Potential Terror threats (from HHS):
- Opposition to COVID measures
- Claims of election fraud, believe Trump will be reinstated
- 9/11 holidays and religious holidays
Relevant (today, started 10/2021): https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10391397/Biden-educ...
Potential Terror threats (from DOJ):
- Parents at school boards
You can see the letters in the article. I don’t know what to say, it’s clearly there. Same with the news broadcast on NBC, watched it live just searched a video and Twitter popped up).
You're joking, right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daily_Mail#Reliability
Thus far, as stated, it's clear to me DailyMail provides more citations I can use to confirm the data myself. I guess to your point, I don't believe them, the New York Times, NPR, NBC, etc unless I can confirm the data myself.
...
One person’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter, especially domestically. Nelson Mandela is a fine example of one of the greatest humans in history who was defined by the South African government as a domestic terrorist during apartheid.
The entire campaign/programming around "protecting our democracy" was the precursor psychological operation so the population goes along with single party rule.
NBC News was running this last year (more priming): https://ww3.bongino.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/dhsadviso.... It's all clever wordplay designed to manipulate the public into thinking people who disagree politically are terrorists (absent any actual proof that they have intent/motive/etc to commit acts of terror). It's the same logic that's held people from January 6th in solitary confinement without charges of insurrection (despite the media parroting/programming that it was an insurrection).
This new unit is just a way to flush out the straggler dissidents who will get in the way.
https://archive.is/uFSlR
The executive branch conducts investigations, issues subpoenas and certain agencies can directly hold you in contempt if you don't respond to a subpoena others can ask a court to find you in contempt of court. After all the FBI, DEA, ATF, CBP among many more law enforcement agencies are part of the executive branch.
> The executive branch conducts investigations,
>> Essentially, the Court held that the Constitution's text implies a power to investigate given its power to legislate.
> issues subpoenas
>> the U.S. Supreme Court clarified Congress's power to issue subpoenas in a 1917 case (Marshall v. Gordon), stating that "in virtue of the grant of legislative authority there [was] a power implied to deal with contempt."
> certain agencies can directly hold you in contempt
>> The authority of Congress to cite an individual with criminal contempt is found in Title 2, Section 192 of the U.S. Code.
> others can ask a court to find you in contempt of court
>> Either chamber of Congress may start the process in a committee (such as the House Judiciary Committee) and may rely on the legislative counsel's office like the Office of Senate Legal Counsel for help drafting a contempt resolution. Once the resolution is drafted and voted out of committee, it then goes to the full House or Senate (depending on where it originates) for a simple majority vote.
https://www.findlaw.com/litigation/legal-system/contempt-of-...
[0] https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/arti...
no, we didn't. there's no plausible way the people there would have seized power.
The only disingenuousness here is the attempt to manufacture an insurrection out of a riot.
To minimize the chances they got shot at by police (only 1 person was). They wanted to overturn the election, not die.
But just in case they needed it, this group had an armed backup force waiting at a hotel in VA:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/quick-reac...
guns would have upped the ante on the core organizers and resulted in their decimation at the hands of local federal forces. This was just the beginning. from the angry anti government comments in this thread, their effort looks to be succeeding.
Page 12.
Also why would you even bother doing it that way? You could use far fewer people who are coordinated and go after the politicians at their homes where there is much less security.
This isn't some new information.
>[...] Admitting you’re trying to stop the process is an act of resistance against the government.
So you're saying resisting the government = insurrection? Is picketing outside of government offices (ie. the kind where you block people/cars from entering/leaving a building) an "insurrection"? Or does it only apply to capitols? Suppose you got a bunch of picketers to surround your state capitol, and representatives couldn't enter, would that be an insurrection?
So, yes, you can picket government buildings all you want, but the moment you start killing security and seeking to kill representatives, you've insurrected or are a party to an insurrection.
> Insurrection - a violent uprising against an authority or government.
BLM protests can get pretty violent. Are they insurrections?
> a violent uprising against an authority or government.
2 elements needed to be insurrection, Violence, and against authority or government.
BLM riots are violent, but not targeted at the government.
The Jan 6 insurrection was both violent and against the government. They disrupted government operations to try and change the results of an election. Can you find a definition of insurrection that wouldn't include the Jan 6 riots?
Can you name a BLM riot which was targeted at the government?
In fact, wouldn't all of the BLM movements accurately be described as targeted at the government because they were explicitly aimed at enacting change in government institutions like the police?
In another post you say that "until a BLM protest attempts to use force to overthrow a city, state, or federal government, it's a riot at best when violence is involved." But how do you classify the CHAZ in Seattle, where force was used to overthrow city and state governments and establish an "autonomous" zone where guns and violence were the only recognized power by the occupiers?
It’s literally the definition: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/insurrection
I've not seen anyone having a problem calling BLM riots riots when they happen. I've seen a lot of people struggle to call Jan 6 a riot or insurrection.
We call that a riot.
2. Live fire was way more than these guys bargained for. If they heard gunshots, even just pistol fire, and saw bodies dropping they would have scattered.
Mike Pence did what he was supposed to, under severe pressure to do otherwise. The country (especially the left) owes him a huge debt of gratitude.
https://apnews.com/article/politics-government-and-politics-...
If it's irrelevant as to their chances of success, it certainly seems like that's a coup.
[1] https://twitter.com/thegrugq/status/1314237833276612609
It’s about making ground, inch by inch.
According to that logic, does any sort of protest outside the capitol = "coup attempt"? After all, you don't need to actually need people breaking in to cite "anger of the people outside".
No, because other types of protests outside the Capitol (i.e. over abortion, environmental issues, civil rights, war), and their related tactics within Congress are not aimed at stopping the constitutional process of certifying a lawful election.
That's is quite literally what differentiates a coup from the others: A coup uses force and threat to unlawfully take control of the government.
Normal protests outside the Capitol are about influencing the legislative process, which is a completely different function of Congress. But even then, it would be unlawful to influence the legislative process by threat or use of force.
responding to your edits:
>That's is quite literally what differentiates a coup from the others: A coup uses force and threat to unlawfully take control of the government.
But using force to prevent the legislature from functioning when they're not certifying elections is fine?
>Normal protests outside the Capitol are about influencing the legislative process, which is a completely different function of Congress. But even then, it would be unlawful to influence the legislative process by threat or use of force.
I'm specifically talking about protests that involve denying access to the legislature, not just a bunch of people protesting in the free speech zone.
Correct. A coup is by definition an illegal attempt to take control of government. In a democracy, attempting to prevent a lawful election from being certified is a type of coup.
> Why is the "constitutional process of" passing bills not protected?
It is protected. If an insurrection invaded the Capitol to influence the legislative process, that would be illegal. Anyone involved in organizing or carrying that out would be charged with crimes.
You're losing track of the thread. A few comments up we were discussing whether violent action was needed at all, because the parent poster was talking about "trying to reject the vote certification by using the anger of the people", which could plausibly be achieved without any violent action (eg. a bunch of angry protesters).
> Anyone involved in organizing or carrying that out would be charged with crimes.
but not "insurrection", apparently?
Coups enacted by politicians are facilitated by the breakdown of law and order and loss of security around the processes of power in government, the most delicate of those being lawful transitions of power. Violence assists by removing security and law and order.
> which could plausibly be achieved without any violent action (eg. a bunch of angry protesters).
A bunch of angry protesters shouting in the demonstration area have no leverage beyond drawing media attention to their cause.
People physically invading the halls of Congress and threatening lawmakers are doing something fundamentally more powerful, and also illegal.
> but not "insurrection", apparently?
I didn't say which crimes. Prosecutorial strategy is a real thing and the bread and butter of the Dept of Justice. It makes far more sense to roll up low-level offenders with lesser offenses to build cases against higher level conspirators. This is, for example, how organized crime has been successfully prosecuted.
>People physically invading the halls of Congress and threatening lawmakers are doing something fundamentally more powerful, and also illegal.
So the insurrection-ness of a protest/riot increases during "lawful transitions of power"? Suppose this premise was true, does that mean something like this[1] is also an insurrection (or "almost [...] a coup"), because it happened during a "lawful transitions of power" for a supreme court justice?
[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/09/28/brett-kavanau...
>A bunch of angry protesters shouting in the demonstration area have no leverage beyond drawing media attention to their cause.
Sounds like you're agreeing with me. ie. you can't cite "anger of the people outside" as a potential reason for "reject the vote certification".
>People physically invading the halls of Congress and threatening lawmakers are doing something fundamentally more powerful, and also illegal.
Not disputing it's illegal, just that it's not an "insurrection".
>I didn't say which crimes. It makes far more sense to roll up low-level offenders with lesser offenses to build cases against higher level conspirators.
What are you saying here, that the lack of prosecution for insurrection is totally consistent with an "insurrection" taking place, because they'll eventually work their way up to the real conspirators and charge them with insurrection? Well, it's been a year now, and nothing resembling an insurrection charge has surfaced.
No. For one, that protest was during the nomination debate, not the actual swearing in by the Chief Justice, so not a transition of power. It was also not a violent mob.
It absolutely a differentiator that the Jan 6 scenario was a violent mob forcing their way into the Capitol to overturn an election. No amount of semantic judo or whataboutism will make the utter brutality of that mob equivalent to a nonviolent protest.
Finally, the Supreme Court nomination protesters were arrested for when they tried to block lawmakers from getting to their offices. They are no different in their manner of protest than nonviolent pro-life/anti-abortion protesters who have obstructed members of Congress at the Capitol, and neither are like the Jan 6 perpetrators.
If you watch the most violent parts of all of those protests, it's hard to understand how smashing a police officer's face in a door and beating another with a fire extinguisher can be considered equivalent to holding open an elevator and shouting "shame" at a Senator.
A very cogent question. The answer is no. Originally the plan was for Mike Pence to unilaterally decertify various states. This version of the coup would have required no violence.
But Pence refused to decertify the election, because he recognized he did not have the power to do so. He communicated this intention to Trump the morning of Jan 6. At this point, violence was the last resort to delay the certification on Jan 6.
The rally was organized under the headline "Stop the Steal." It was very explicitly the intent to prevent the peaceful transition of power.
Sure, there is. Make Pence incapable of presiding, convince (this may not be necessary if the person is already a sympathizer), by inducements or threats, the person acting as President of the Senate to act in the manner Trump and various political allies had encouraged Pence to and which Pence had refused and simply decline to present certain state electoral votes, denying an immediate majority and either requesting friendly state legislatures to send alternate ballots, or preceding to vote by states in each house in the absence of a majority.
The “they couldn't have seized power” argument only works when you consider the people physically inside the Capitol as a separate force completely unrelated to the people that set out the goals in writing, the people that—publicly and unambiguously—told the people to go to the Capitol to get Congress to follow the goals set out in writing, and the people in State legislatures and in Congress who had publicly backed the goals set out in writing.
Which is a bizarre level of willful blindness.
The sitting President was the one who attempted the coup. He didn't need to seize power -- he already held power. The objective of the insurrection on Jan 6 was to prevent the transfer of power, which they absolutely almost did.
To be fair, the "global war on terror" is not even pretending to trying to tackle a problem it largely created
Given historical evidence, there's a chance it will actually be successful, as it was done in the past.
After the Oklahoma City bombing the FBI went after the far-right militia movement, and clamped down on it.
* https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/since-oklahoma-cit...
* https://www.vox.com/2016/1/5/10712084/oregon-militia-history...
* https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-militias-timeline-idU...
How about we just clamp down on anyone doing bad things (including day-care bomber McVeigh), rather than going after people for their political beliefs. You sound like you're advocating for domestic terrorism yourself if you want people with guns to go after those of your chosen political target merely exercising 1A and 2A rights.
The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
Most military age males are in a militia.
>Every state has laws
Ignoring the fact that not all states have laws that specifically ban militias in general (just certain use of them), why on earth would DoJ (federal gov) be enforcing state law? What FEDERAL law bans organizations of men, already part of militia by US Code, from fraternizing together?
Then it goes on to cite the California misdemeanor for doing so, in state law.
Why would DoJ (feds) be investigating misdemeanor state law in California?
https://www.law.georgetown.edu/icap/wp-content/uploads/sites...
> ICAP has categorized the relevant state laws into four groups: (1) constitutional provisions requiring the subordination of the military to civilian authorities; (2) statutes restricting unauthorized private militia activity; (3) anti-paramilitary-activity criminal laws; and (4) prohibitions on the false assumption of the uniform or duties of a peace officer or member of the military. The report describes these categories in more detail below and notes which states have statutes or constitutional provisions falling into each category. Following that summary is a chart listing each state’s relevant provisions, and finally each constitutional or statutory provision in full, organized by state. The chart also includes annotations of relevant case law.
* https://www.law.georgetown.edu/icap/wp-content/uploads/sites...
https://www.law.georgetown.edu/icap/wp-content/uploads/sites...
Some choice quotes:
===
Massachusetts Constitution: The Massachusetts Constitution forbids private military units from operating outside state authority, providing that “the military power shall always be held in exact subordination to the civil authority, and be governed by it.” Mass. Const. pt. I, art. XVII.
Massachusetts Statutes – Prohibition on private military units: Massachusetts law makes it illegal for groups of people to organize as private militias without permission from the state. ... Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 33 §§ 1, 130–31.
===
Phrases like "exact subordination" and "permission of the state" are not just window dressing. They're legally binding. You might consider yourself a member of such a militia, but to operate as such - notably to perform any military or law enforcement function - you must be under state or federal command.
As the above document also mentions, every state has similar restrictions. They might differ in details, but the message is the same: without state or federal command, your "sovereign militia" can do no more than cosplay (and sometimes not even that) without getting into legal trouble.
>You might consider yourself a member of such a militia
You can consider yourself in or out the militia or not. That doesn't make it fact, from a legal perspective. For government's purposes though I would use government's law, which tells us able-bodied military age males, generally, are in a militia.
> notably to perform any military or law enforcement function - you must be under state or federal command.
Um, the thread we're both replying to was about 'every state has laws making it illegal to be a member of a private armed militia.' You're arguing about something entirely different here, that is about state laws (not under purview of DoJ) that limit uses of militia.
Pedantic comment of the day, and on HN that's quite a contest. There's no functional difference between those two things.
> You're arguing about something entirely different here
No, I'm arguing the same point you were originally, until you were conclusively proven wrong and moved the goalposts.
Yes there is. If the criteria for membership in a club is that you have to be an able bodied male, that doesn't mean every able bodied male is a member of the club. It means an able bodied male could potentially choose to join the club. The US Code says they're in the club whether they want to or not.
>No, I'm arguing the same point you were originally, until you were conclusively proven wrong and moved the goalposts.
My point was never that a militia could perform same actions as military or law enforcement, YOU were the one who moved the goalposts. You didn't prove jack shit wrong.
If they are participating in domestic terrorism, which is defined as (18 USC § 2331(5))
> activities that (A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the U.S. or of any state; (B) appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and (C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S.
* https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2331
I'm not aware of (m)any active (far-)left militias in recent years, though in the past there were some, e.g.:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_Underground
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
"Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
It’s weird to use Waco and not a multitude of other legitimate examples of government law enforcement overreach. At any rate, none of those would qualify for the label “domestic terrorism” in the strict sense of the word but would suffice for a broader point you might be trying to make. To wit, are there adequate checks on the abuse of police power. The answer is no and one group that tried to bring up this issue, ironically given your apparent political leaning, is BLM. Police in the U.S. regularly mete out non judicial punishments and there are virtually no real checks against this.
The common ground, perhaps, that we share is that government overreach and abuse of police powers ought to be addressed in a meaningful way before expanding police powers or creating new investigative units. Especially when the charge is to stop domestic terrorism. That phrase can be twisted and abused in a such a manner that a non violent advocate like Martin Luther King could be labeled a domestic terrorist.
>'The answer is no and one group that tried to bring up this issue, ironically given your apparent political leaning, is BLM'
Is this supposed to be some smear at me suggesting I don't believe many very real claims that have been made by black demographic regarding police abuse? What do you even mean by this being ironic?
>The federal government executed a search warrant on the Branch Dravidian compound
That's the most charitable view I think I've ever heard described defending what happened at Waco. You believe what happened was 'legally executed'? Or that those killed were legally executed? I'm not sure if number of people who died means anything in terms of who was right and who was wrong, but it's pretty telling you mention the 4 government agents that died by number but don't number the 25 dead children (mostly burned alive) and 2 pregnant women. This all after Koresh could have just been grabbed peacefully outside the compound rather than in a standoff. Afterwords agents POSED over the rubble and dead bodies.
But a few paragraphs of us describing Waco isn't going to do justice to ourselves or fellow HNers, so please the few of you who haven't read about it please study and make your own decision.
Lastly: I didn't say Waco had to be interpreted by the reader as 'domestic terrorism', I said they (DoJ) should start with the 'domestic terrorism organization' that carried it out. Do you understand the difference? You can decide for yourself what agency or body(ies) that applies to.
All of the blame rests on the people in charge of the cult. Nothing they did was moral or justifiable. A government should have the power to exercise legally obtained warrants. Otherwise it is a useless government.
I take this as basically accurate.
>All of the blame rests on the people in charge of the cult. Nothing they did was moral or justifiable. A government should have the power to exercise legally obtained warrants. Otherwise it is a useless government.
You make a lot of presumptions about what I've said about Waco. ALL I said was DoJ should start with the 'domestic terror organization' that fired upon civilians at Waco and Ruby Ridge. I said nothing about morality, whether the WARRANT was justified, or even who the blame for Waco rests on.
This is starting to look like your own rabbit-hole we're going down where you think something you say about who is to blame at Waco discredits the ONLY assertion I made about Waco (which was civilians were fired upon.) It's starting to look like your own personal vendetta, one I'm very confused of the reason behind.
>All of the blame rests on the people in charge of the cult.
Even I don't have this level of confidence as to what proportion of blame to assign to who at Waco. The fact that you've reached such confidence about an event where we still lack full accuracy of details, is one of the most stunning and clear cases of Dunning-Kruger-esque effect I've seen on HN.
Regarding a useless government? Nah I think the government can still maintain functional ability to execute a search warrant without executing in in the way the fatal siege was executed in Waco.
It is incorrect in my opinion to use Waco as an example of a law enforcement agency being in any way comparable to a domestic terror organization.
Dunning-Kruger has nothing to do with this exchange. That effect is an observation that less intelligent people tend to overrate their abilities more than higher intelligent people. I’ve not rated my abilities at all in any of these exchanges.
False again. Dunning-Kruger is not about intelligence. It is about 'the cognitive bias whereby people with low ability at a task overestimate their ability.' If you're saying you don't assign yourself any ability to determine if someone was to blame, then I guess you're also saying your claim of 'all the blame' being with the cult leaders to merely be a meaningless statement made by someone devoid of any confidence in their ability to make it.
"Dunning-Kruger-esque": I'm referring to the limited ability we have to know what actually happened at Waco, which you then parley into the ability to outright assign that you have the ability to know where ALL the blame lies for what happened at Waco.
>Calling a federal law enforcement agency a domestic terror agency over Waco is precisely what I’m objecting to for the reasons I’ve given.
How many times must I repeat myself? I said DoJ should start with 'the domestic terror agency that fired upon civilians at Waco and Ruby Ridge.' Again, where are you pointing out that I said that I was calling them domestic terrorists BECAUSE of Waco? We've belabored this straw-man over again, it's not what I said.
If you don’t believe Waco makes the law enforcement agencies in question domestic terror organizations then why bring up Waco? What is it that causes those agencies to be domestic terror organizations and why not give those reasons instead of bringing up Waco? These are rhetorical questions by the way.
So you just went off spouting all the blame lied on the 'cult' [or leaders thereof] without even bothering to make the slightest judgement whether you had the ability to say that.
I didn't expect such a stunning admission, but at least we got the truth.
It’s strange that you don’t see how your reasoning about Dunning-Kruger applies to what you’ve written. You should strive to be consistent in your reasoning and apply it to your own arguments. It’s sloppy thinking to engage thusly.
I think we have way more information about the government and these agencies when looking at our national history, than just looking at single event Waco. With much more information, we have higher ability to make a statement. This is precisely why I did not say BECAUSE of Waco.
But sure, Dunning-Kruger is merely observation of human trait, and not a sin at face. I think it's a lot more forgivable merely to actually over-estimate yourself after genuinely attempting to do so accurately. If I'm guilty of over-estimating my ability to think DoJ should investigate domestic terrorist organization that fired upon civilians at Waco, that can be your opinion. More forgivable than straight up not even assessing if you have ability to truthfully assign ALL of blame for dozens of horrible deaths with members of 'cult', but making the accusation anyway, which you have so sloppily done.
That leads to the situation where any violence is allowed, and I don't want to live in that society.
The threat list you provided seemed like it was from someone left-leaning. It did not mention the commonly-occurring mayhem, riots, vandalism, and arson coming from people describing themselves as affiliated with Leftist organizations (sorry, I cannot find better wording here. I am not trying to sound partisan here.)
Shit just in the last few years we've had pipeline protestors charged with domestic terrorism, BLM protestors facing gang enhancement felony charges for property damage (paint not arson if that matters).
It's good that the government is ready to back down its stance of "ignore extremist violence as long as they call themselves patriots" but I don't want to find out what the tucker carlson administration would do with a domestic terrorism task force ya know?
This sounds like it's creating a central function instead of leaving it to regional JTTFs.
How can they form a new unit when Washington is trashed, but stand by when inner city neighborhoods are set afire? History wouldn't judge that kindly.
I mean if they didn't, what are we paying them for?
No wonder Walmarts, schools and places of worship are getting shot up.
I guess it's good they created one now, but if they didn't have a unit with dedicated resources on the domestic terrorism problem previously, it really does demonstrate a lack of military sense.
My interpretation of this story, is they are creating a dedicated team of people within the Counter-Terrorism Section to handle "domestic" terrorism, rather than having the same team(s) handle a mixture of "international" and "domestic" cases.
It really is a nothing story. It is nothing like the Space Force – that involved a major legal change in the high-level military structure, changing reporting lines for senior officials (the Air Force's space head was elevated to membership of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), this seems to just involve a change in the internal team structure of an existing government office (a section of a division of a department). They just want to make it sound like they are doing something.
How do you decide what is "international" and what is "domestic" terrorism anyway? If someone is recruited by Islamic State to commit a terrorist attack, that's international. But if some lone wolf radicalises themselves by spending hours a day watching Islamic State propaganda videos, and that inspires them to commit a terrorist attack – is that "international" or "domestic"? And how is that different from if the lone wolf had spent hours a day watching QAnon videos instead?
The US military is forbidden from domestic enforcement action, except in certain circumstances. Google "posse commitatus" for details.
The term scales. There are many, many lessons learned in the service that have application to the civilian world. If those lessons will be received by the learners.
Kind of. The Posse Comitatus Act doesn't apply to the Navy. However, the DoD and/or the DoN has regulations that align with the Posse Comitatus Act. So it's not the military as a whole which is forbidden, just part of it, and the other part can change their own rules to allow it.
https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act
Terrorism - the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion
They were exactly terrorists. Also, insurrectionists...
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Perhaps you view the protestors as terrorists but I suggest this is a twisting of that term. I do not embrace a domestic office of terrorism for the same reason that I oppose the Department of Homeland security. We Americans have become a divided people wallowing in fear of those fellow countryman who adhere to the wrong ideology. It is too easy for a demagogue to usurp the normal functioning of the law enforcement to go after “domestic terrorism”. Too many people will willingly support the infringement of the rights of those with the wrong ideology.
One thing we should all agree with is that major police reforms are badly needed.
Is there some magical switch inside the Capitol which can turn off our democracy? I really don't understand the constant hyperbole about 1/6.
When has the country failed to have a peaceful transition of power? When has the entirety of congress been ripped apart by a mob of a thousand extremists? When has USA survived worse?
My point is that the building was literally burned down and our country bounced back to the point where most people probably don't even know it happened. There's nothing sacred about the Capitol building itself or honestly the people in it. Our collective commitment to democracy doesn't exist in a physical location.
The U.S.A. has survived literally splitting itself in half, and having a war against itself. Despite a presidential assassination. I'm pretty sure people who were videoed saying "we gotta keep it peaceful guys, we have the right to peacefully assemble" after Capitol cops told them to stay civil, are not nearly has bad of a threat.
It's trivial to tip that sort of situation into a successful coup. All you need is a convenient excuse (All electronic/late/mail-in/democratic ballots are fraud, and should be disqualified! There's a state of emergency in the capitol!).
Do you think democracy just keeps working, regardless or whether or not all the mechanisms that ensure the transfer of power were carried out? If certification of the results is unnecessary, why do we do it? At what exact point is the winner of an election determined? It's not when CNN/MSNBC/FOX call the race. It's not when the last ballot gets counted. It's not when the electoral college votes. It's not when <some common sense thing> happens, because the law doesn't care about your common sense.
It happens when Congress certifies the results. If Congress certifies that Mickey Mouse won the election, that's who you'll be seeing at the inauguration. If the only people voting to certify are those 147 Republicans, guess who will be getting certified?
The transfer of power after an election is binary process. It either happens, or it doesn't. Any binary process, by definition, has at least one single point of failure. In the United States, one of those points of failure is certification.
The transfer of power is the most important aspect of a democracy. It has to happen correctly, every single time.
According to who? The polling companies that predicted a landslide for Hillary in '16?
As long as they happen in a relatively timely manner, as they were in this case. Our democracy does not live in a building, there is no switch to turn it off. The Capitol Building and everyone in it could disappear in a wormhole and I'm confident we would retain our democracy, logistical nightmare aside.
The coup plot has been confessed to already on live TV by one of the coup plotters. They even gave their plan a name: the "Green Bay Sweep"
1. No matter the outcome, claim victory. In the event of an electoral loss, claim fraud ad nauseum. The former President began this campaign on election night before all votes were even counted.
2. Begin a campaign of discrediting the election results. By the time the race was called for Biden, the former President refused to concede and claimed the election was rigged. He has persisted with this claim to this very day.
3. Use the pretense of a fraudulent election to overturn states results. A pressure campaign mounted to overturn election results in a number of states. It was directed at local elections officials all the way up to US attorneys, Secretaries of State, and the Governor of Georgia.
4. Use overturned state elections results to try to cause a contested election. This is the scenario where neither candidate reaches 270 votes, and the decision is sent back to the House of Representatives. In this scenario, the House delegates get one vote per state delegation. Since Republicans hold the majority of state delegations, they could install Trump as president despite the fact that he lost fair and square.
The question is, how do you get to a contested election? Well, there's a process, but the hope of the Green Bay Sweep was that Pence would just unilaterally do it himself, but he needed a pretext. Hence the legal campaign, but it lost 62/63 legal cases so that didn't work. There was also a pressure campaign on the AG, but he didn't budge -- Bill Bar claimed there was no evidence of fraud and quit before he could be fired. They attempted to install a Trump loyalist Jeffry Clark who would claim there was evidence of fraud, but the entire senior leadership at DOJ threatened to quit if that were to have happened, which would have ruined the pretense. There was the likely criminal effort the former President took to threaten the governor of GA with prosecution if he didn't doctor the election results to favor Trump. That failed as well.
The lack of concrete evidence of fraud did not deter this pressure campaign. Eventually the White House wanted Pence to decertify the election results even without a pretext. They wanted him to flatly assert nebulous and unspecific fraud occurred in PA, MI, WI, AZ, and GA, and that the electoral votes for those states should be thrown out. While the campaign to find evidence failed (because there was none to find), there were still GOP members of the House and Senate willing to go along with the plan if Pence would do his part of refusing to certify the contested states. During the counting of the certificates, objections were raised by GOP Rep. Gosar, and GOP Senator Cruz when AZ was called. This turned the counting of the votes from a perfunctory ceremony that would take a few minutes of counting 50 pages, into a 2 hour debate as to the merits of their claim. They had planned to do this for all contested states, for a total of 10 hours of delay. Given the makeup of the House and Senate at the time, each objection was doomed to fail, but their purpose was to buy time.
Why did they have to buy time? To give Trump the opportunity to incite the mob, which he did masterfully along with his son, Mo Brooks, and Rudy Giuliani who urged "trial by combat". At this point there were two ways to get to a contested election. (1) Pence plays his role and baselessly denies certification, assume powers that are not granted to him by the Constitution or any law. (2) Completely circumvent the certification and try to get friendly states to send alternate slates of electors.
But by the morning of Jan 6, Pence had already made up his mind and informed Trump that he intended to...
Can you explain why we're calling this a coup when nobody has been charged with anything related to a coup/insurrection/treason etc?
You wrote a huge text wall as if that helps your point, but missed the most obvious - nobody in the Department of Justice actually thinks there was a coup attempt.
Also, you can't assert that no one at DOJ thinks this is a coup attempt. All you can assert is that no one at DOJ has said so publicly, which is not a very strong evidence of anything, since that's how they operate in a general sense. It takes a long time to bring charges for anything at the federal level, and this particular charge needs to be more airtight than anything they've ever charged in the past. It may also be that they are afraid of looking partisan in doing so, and are waiting for a referral from the bipartisan Jan 6 committee.
Jan 6 is an ongoing story, it’s developing in real time. DoJ is working up the chain of command. They’ve been working on the rubes and foot soldiers for the past year. Now they are going after lieutenants with seditious conspiracy charges. Once those charges start sticking (and they will) the DoJ will go after the generals of the Jan 6 insurrection.
Or is this a response to nationwide, coordinated BLM rioting and violence? Unlikely given the messaging over organized "white supremacist" terrorism which, somehow, has yet to materialize, beyond its use as a political cudgel...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_terrorism_in_the_Unit...
There's been a huge uptick in white supremacist terrorism in the US since 2015.
Charleston church shooting (2015)
Charlottesville car attack (2017)
Pittsburgh synagogue shooting (2018)
Escondido mosque fire and Poway synagogue shooting (2019)
El Paso Walmart shooting (2019)
As it absolutely should be. The current administration should always be the current concern… (Until voting day, of course, when the next administration should be the current concern.)
This nonsense has gone on long enough.
Ah yes, but who will distinguish between terrorism and protest? The CHAZ/CHOP certainly had the hallmarks of an insurrection, too.
Edit: Ultimately, the decision/determination to charge someone with "terrorism" will be made by a District Attorney or some Attorneys General. These positions are all political in nature and the people holding these offices are under a great deal of pressure behind-the-scenes. THAT is where my trepidation comes from, as political adversary vs. political ally has a massive influence in who gets charged with what.
They never saw a mall they didn't want to burn. Nor a black church they didn't want to shoot up. When they do, and we all know they will, we can run the contact tracing and sweep up everyone from the foot soldier to the financier. We can even shine extremely bright lights on the orbiters and affiliates of these people to let them know we're watching and strangle their action avenues.
So in the end it won't matter. These people can't help themselves. All we need to do is watch and wait. The people in power will either accede to crushing these loonies, or we'll crush the loonies and the careers of the people in power in the process.
Domestic terrorism cannot be allowed to become commonplace. It's time to take things back in hand.
We need more of this line of thinking in the US.
Watching malls burn had me mad, and then watching traitors carting electronic devices off from the Capitol building on their way over to Glover Park to hand them over to the Russians was the final straw. It's long past time extremists are excised from our society.
Yeah, I’m sure this will go over well.
Unless you're making the extreme point that democratic republics are intractable, because individual government employees will necessarily bend the rules to favor their own party, then you're not making any point at all.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
(Yes, the same rules apply regardless of which flavor of politics an account is battling for. Actually those accounts resemble each other far more than they resemble anybody else—and we don't need any of them here. It destroys the curious conversation this place is supposed to exist for.)
And in an attempt to find a universally accepted starting point, a definition: "terrorism - the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion"
I'd hope that everyone can agree it's worthwhile having a dedicated branch of the DoJ looking at incidents of lawbreaking that meet that definition, even if perpetrated by legal residents of the US.
Follow up question - with thousands of hours of footage of the events, has anybody been charged with any murders?
Last question, why would you post an intentionally misleading statement like that, do you think it helps your argument or hurts it?
Interesting side effect of this definition is that because the main effect of terrorism is not material or human casualties, but terror, it's usually less damaging way of waging a war than conventional warfare. There are typically more civilian casualties in conventional warfare where civilians are just collateral than terrorist campaigns that target civilians.
Six Rather Unusual Propositions about Terrorism https://politicalscience.osu.edu/faculty/jmueller/6PROPS.PDF
> The costs of terrorism very often come mostly from the fear and consequent reaction (or overreaction) it characteristically inspires (qualities stoked by the terrorism indus- try), not from its direct effects which are usually comparatively limited. Therefore, policies designed to deal with terrorism should focus more on reducing fear and anxiety as inexpensively as possible than on objectively reducing the rather limited dangers terrorism is likely actually to pose. Doing nothing (or at least refraining from overreacting) after a terrorist attack is not necessarily unacceptable, and, despite U. S. overreaction, the campaign against terror is generally going rather well because, no matter how much they might disagree on other issues (most notably on war in Iraq), there is a compelling incentive for states to cooperate to deal with a common problem
‘terrorism industry, an entity that includes not only various risk entrepreneurs and bureaucrats, but also most of the media and nearly all politicians.
The term "domestic terrorism" means activities that—
(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State;
(B) appear to be intended—
(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and
(C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States
Minus the whole forced entry thing.
> and nobody was arrested
Also untrue (or at least equivalently untrue. People were charged with crimes, although afaict all misdemeanors because there was no forced entry or threats of violence)
> and nobody claimed to being terrified that day
Probably because they weren't the same.
Only only person died in the 1/6 protest, and it was one of the protesters (shot and killed by a police officer).
that's exactly the point poster is making; there was a distinct disconnection between the terror that 'everyone working inside the Capital that day felt' , and the actions/personalities/feelings/emotions portrayed by those considered 'terrorists' that day.
I can't think of any other 'terror' event ('event' chosen in an effort to be non partisan) that took place that way, even when considering suicide bombers and hijackers -- there is clear evidence that the 'terrorists' in those respective incidents felt fear and terror themselves during the act.
the 'terrorists' involved in the Capital event had big smiles on their faces, posed for pictures, texted with friends, drove together in large groups, got together on social media publicly and invited their friends and families to come join them in (what they called) protest.
I have no doubt that those in the Capital were afraid -- but to view this as just the same as any 'terrorist' activity in the past is, too, missing nuance and context.
I don't know what happened, and I don't know what it was -- but I know it wasn't anything like 9/11 or the Oklahoma City Bombing , two events that stick in my head as 'terrorism' , writ large.
The first kind of people were the ones with big smiling faces, posing for pictures, taking selfies, etc. They are the ones crying in open court, claiming they thought they were there protecting democracy at the president's behest. They are not terrorists, but idiots radicalized by a lie.
The other group were organized militias Proud Boys, 1st Amendment Praetorians, 3%ers, Boogaloos, etc. They came prepared in tactical gear, communication gear, they moved in formation, and they even stashed caches of guns and ammunition in nearby hotels in case things got really bad. These people are the actual terrorists, the former group are useful idiots. They were necessary to complete the objective: to occupy the capitol and delay the certification of the vote. These people were embedded in the protest at the capitol and were instrumental in egging on the crowd more. For example, they are recorded on bullhorns, shouting out tweets from the President as they occurred. Notably, this one:
There are recordings of militia members reading these tweets over bullhorns at the Capitol, inciting the mob even further and giving rise to chants of "Hang Mike Pence".So let me say it one more time: The plan was to delay certification in order to cause a contested election. The delay had to come by occupying the capitol because Pence refused to decertify the election. Militia members could not breach the capitol on their own, hence why they needed the help of rubes who are now flowing into jail cells across the country due to their actions that day.
Obviously there's a lot more that needs to come out to put all of the pieces together, but the picture is getting clearer and clearer. If you stopped paying attention on Jan 7 2021, there's a lot of info that's come to light that shows Jan 6 insurrection was the pointy tip of a month's long premeditated effort to overthrow the US government.
Anyway, to your point, I don't think it's appropriate to discern a terrorist based on their personal state of mind regarding their acts of terrorism. To flip your point on its head, if McVeigh had done exactly what he did but took a selfie and smiled while he did it, wouldn't he still be a terrorist?
are you serious? what do you think the tactical gear is - anything with a pattern?
> they even stashed caches of guns and ammunition in nearby hotels
ah yes. the true sign of domestic terrorists executing a coup planned for months - intentionally not bringing your guns.
> to occupy the capitol and delay the certification of the vote
this makes so little sense i cant even formulate a reply. you think they had a plan, and that plan was to bring nothing and do nothing in order to temporarily delay a vote that could be done over video conference... why, again?
> The plan was to delay certification in order to cause a contested election.
...what? theres no rule that if the certification gets delayed, the election is suddenly invalid. what is this, the 5-minute rule?
I am referencing militia groups like the Oath Keepers, who dressed in fatigues, vests, helmets, gas masks, eye protection, gloves, boots, bore insignia, moved in formation, communicated over radios... they were prepared and organized.
> ah yes. the true sign of domestic terrorists executing a coup planned for months - intentionally not bringing your guns.
Oath keepers did in fact bring guns [1].
There are many other instances of guns and other weapons being found. Anyway, I'm not sure what the fixation is on guns because a mob without guns is more effective at doing exactly what was needed -- to get into the Capitol and delay the certification of the vote. An unarmed mob will not be met with lethal force by police for some reason in America, no matter how violent it is. The summer BLM protests proved that. So really if your objective is to get into the capitol, the worst idea in the world would be to shoot your way in; if you attempt this, the police will automatically go straight to lethal force. It's true that the mob outnumbered police, but police outnumbered militia members, and they would have lost that fight. I think if bodies started hitting the floor and bullets started flying, the regular rubes that comprised 99% of the mob that day would have scattered into the streets of DC.
> to temporarily delay a vote that could be done over video conference
Well that's just the thing... once you delay the vote there's no guarantee that the session would ever be reconvened. I already explained the plan in another post, but it's clearly laid out in the Eastman memos [2]. The point is that Pence on the morning of January 6 finalized his position that he would not decertify the election. That was their last hope at preventing Joe Biden from being president because it's essentially irreversible.
I believe not even the Supreme Court could overturn a bicameral certification of the election results. What authority would they use? There's nothing in the Constitution that would give them the power to review such a solemn power granted exclusively to the legislative branch. So if Trump had any hope of remaining as POTUS, it rested on preventing that certification from going forward at any cost. Hence the mob.
> ...what? theres no rule that if the certification gets delayed, the election is suddenly invalid. what is this, the 5-minute rule?
US Code Title 3 Chapter 1 Section 15 lays out exactly what happens on Jan 6. It does not have anything to say about what happens if Jan 6 is delayed. There is no process enshrined in law to handle that outcome. Evidently, the authors of the law did not anticipate a violent mob incited by the the loser of the election would attempt to delay the process.
It was extremely important to delay that certification as long as possible, because it allowed this behind-the-scenes pressure campaign to continue, and it prevented the transition of power from commencing.
On January 6, Rudy Giuliani articulated in a voicemail exactly why they needed a delay in certification so badly [3]:
And why did they need that delay? Giuliani continues: This was about an hour before the joint session reconvened after insurrectionists were cleared from the building. Giuliani was urging to delay the proceedings at least 20 hours, probably more, during which he would continue his pressure campaign against state legislat...More walls, security, and protections for them means less freedom for us.
They've had walls up for just a year and what do we have? Federal mandates for medical procedures, 9 supreme court justices deciding whether or not 30% of people will lose their jobs or have a forced medical procedure.
Giving more weight to people willing to threaten violence won't fix your problems.
More precisely: making a freely elected government more vulnerable to violence won't yield an improvement.
There should be a law against using a quote from an American founding father without understanding its original context or the subtlety and dry wit of literate, pre-internet language. The person who wrote that was not saying what you think they were, nor were their beliefs about political violence what you think they were.
Also, just for the record, because you seem to be one of those, that person was also a supporter of vaccinations when the science was in its infancy, the risks were little understood and vaccines actually were dangerous.
I'd be a supporter of vaccines as well if they were a new scientific technology, not corrupted by big pharma for profit / to make infinite customers. The COVID shots are not a vaccine either it's why we're still in this mess. If you still deny that reality after all that has happened and continues to happen then no one can help you.
Let's see here. YOU pay for the vaccine with YOUR tax dollars, every shot administered also is paid with YOUR tax dollars, marketing paid with YOUR tax dollars, mandates paid with YOUR tax dollars. And we have the most infections / deaths ever occuring around the world.
Accept that you're being scammed and you might start to understand why the tree of liberty needs the blood of tyrants.
Extraordinary claims like yours require careful and thorough proof. And no it's not established.
I'm a cynic on this, to be sure. Read this post with that in mind. I take no stance on the GP's assertion. I just wanted to chime in about how untrustworthy I now am.
>Another informant, an Iraq War veteran, was so deeply involved in the militant group that he rose in the ranks to become the second in command. He also encouraged members to work with other suspects and even offered to foot the bill to get people to and from meetings. He is also accused of urging the alleged mastermind of the kidnapping plot to carry it out before laying the trap for him to be arrested. [0]
>There were at least 12 FBI informants involved in the investigation to thwart the alleged scheme by a militia group known as the “Wolverine Watchmen” — but the agents actually took an active part in it right from its inception, according to court filings, evidence and dozens of interviews reviewed by BuzzFeed News — and now some members of the group are accusing the feds of entrapment. [1]
Bear in mind that given the nature of the subject, the frequency of "involvement" by three letter agencies is probably a lot higher than what is reported publicly.
0. https://news.yahoo.com/fbi-informants-had-bigger-role-213400...
1. https://nypost.com/2021/07/21/men-accused-in-plot-to-kidnap-...
"Babbitt was part of the crowd that gained access to a hallway outside the Speaker’s Lobby, which leads to the House chamber. She was shot once by an officer as she tried to climb through the broken glass window of a door to the lobby, which had been barricaded from the inside with furniture." https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/14/officer-who-killed-capitol-r...
That seems to be an adequate contradiction to your comment.
im not making the claim the gathering was an accident. framing it as an insurrection or coup (instead of protest/riot) is laughable, and now we reap what we sow. time for better government oversight of us unruly citizens.
It's not "laughable," it's what happened.
No.
> i guess the constitution is an outright joke these days.
Interestingly we can agree on this. I see the foot soldiers being punished but the ring leader is still acting like he's rich and untouchable.
Depends which videos you decide to watch. After the capitol was breached the people who just walked in were pretty tame (these people are also only being charged with very minor crimes and serving around 60 days in jail, for example: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/11/04/capi...).
At the beginning of the riots the people actually storming barriers and assaulting police officers were definitely not just "milling around".
> isnt it established fact the fbi had agents actively provoking the mob? known persons on video involved, not being prosecuted?
no? sources?
> id hate for the the congresspeople to be beholden to the people they work - especially the ones that diaagree with them.
So your argument is that the best way to keep congresspeople (sic) accountable is to trespass, disrupt standard government procedures, and assault police officers?
There has been a great deal of this outside of January 6th this year. I saw a burning police car for the first time in my life this summer.
Where do you get "paramilitary" from? This is the Justice Department, not the FBI. All the article says is:
> the new unit will be part of the National Security Division and will work to "ensure that these cases are properly handled and effectively coordinated" across the department and around the country.
That seems to imply a bureaucratic effort, nothing like what you're claiming.
> those people actually got inside and just milled around. there was no plot, no mission.
Some photos suggest otherwise [1].
> isnt it established fact the fbi had agents actively provoking the mob? known persons on video involved, not being prosecuted?
No. Care to provide sources?
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/10/us-capitol-m...
I wonder what the discussions are like between the domestic security agencies (FBI, NSA, etc.) and the foreign insecurity agencies (CIA, NED, BRL, etc). Doesn't this undermine the efforts of the latter to e.g. overthrow governments in foreign nations?
After Congress was attacked to try to overturn an election, I think "battle" isn't the wrong word.
> Last week he makes a very divisive speech
It divides people who want to overturn elections from those who don't, I guess. That doesn't seem like a bad thing.
Call it whataboutism, but his predecessor's speeches were much more divisive, and for worse reasons.
Here's a quote from him before the capitol attack [1]:
> “Republicans are constantly fighting like a boxer with his hands tied behind his back. It’s like a boxer. And we want to be so nice. We want to be so respectful of everybody, including bad people. And we’re going to have to fight much harder. …
> “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them, because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”
To summarise: Fight, but don't be violent. Go to the capitol, cheer, but actually don't, and definitely don't be weak. We're getting hit and we're so nice [nothing else said, but that's definitely implied to be a bad thing].
I wouldn't do it differently if I wanted to incite violence while keeping a way of pretending I didn't in court.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/10/us/trump-speech-riot.html
They could reduce the military budget which takes up 50% of the total. Afterall, the US hasn't had a war since it pulled out of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan 40 years ago. Yet, funding has continued going up. The Cabinet chief of domestic terrorism argues that funding is needed for domestic efforts.
Those in support argue that the National institute of Domestic terrorism's (NIDT) funds are key to academic research in the sciences, meta verse and improved AI sentience. Those in opposition argue that their funding breakdown is a black box, and they need to be audited. The NIDT must be held accountable to the constitution.
Compromise is struck. The Congress approves another 10$ billion for an audit and accountability department in the NIDT. Another $10b are allocated to an exploratory team on healthcare policy. President XÆA-12 calls it a historic moment.
The power output of the Kafka and Orwell grave-power-plants is 10GW higher today. All is right in this world.
They're collected separately (and they're also really badly designed, but whatever).
So I rather us look at the amount we're spending on stuff that doesn't get a different line item on our paychecks.
Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Income Security are better thought of as insurance and pension systems that happen to be run by the government. This is why they're ear-marked in federal budgets and listed separately on your paycheck.
/s
Can you support this assertion?
And honestly, where's the domestic terrorism? The closest thing I can think of was the Vegas shooting, not known to be ideologically motivated. Before that it was the Boston marathon, which was foreign nationals, before that 9/11, which was foreign actors. And before that, Oklahoma city...
January 6th? Really? Let's get real for a second on this one, partisans on the left claim this was terrorism when it wasn't and partisans on the right claim BLM protests are terrorism when they aren't. These are all protests that got a little out of hand. Do we really want a task force to deal with rowdy protests and prosecute them the same as the Boston bomber? What kind of country do you want to live in?
The article referenced has the January 6th protest listed there and then claims no deaths from left wing attacks, even though there are plenty of left wing protests comparable to January 6th in which people were killed. They are comparable, so it seems to me to be cherry picking what you'd call "terrorism." Any source that calls January 6th terrorism or BLM protests terrorism are not to be taken seriously for this reason. Either they both are or they both aren't, and I don't want to start calling every single disobedient act terrorism just because some people get out of hand, that's a slippery slope.
The arricle puts jihadist and other right wing related violence under one umbrella, so as to pad the numbers it would seem. You can call jihadism "right wing" and you'd be right, but you'd be ignoring an ideological distinction so plainly obvious that one would be warranted in presuming said ignorance is deliberate.
I'm not surprised that there is increasing rhetoric of the 'domestic terrorism' threat from our officials/traditional media, that doesn't have to be tied to increasing objective harm to the public by such threats. I would not expect this rhetoric to die down anytime soon, unless there are sufficient opportunities abroad for our security state/military to invest in.
I know partisans want to hop on the bandwagon when their political opposition is being lambasted as the 'domestic terrorists' by the media/our officials, but they should really think hard about the precedent and power that they are bequeathing our security state. The application of that power will not just be limited to be used only on those YOU don't like.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_Palo_Verde,_Arizona_der...
Also the way I'm hearing "extremists" and "extremism" used feels like people drawing up lines for a civil war.
If there really is a cold civil war, seems this might be to me a way for someone to at least gain the upperhand and put the military force behind one side or another...
as fractured as D.C. is...and w/ elections coming up, and 2024 up in the air... I can't even tell which side would be in charge of the nation + military.
I can see civil wars though coming from many angles:
The current divide/conquer tactics creating polarization (check), and then it's just us vs them...(lib/cons)...
Or it could be the labor class vs the elites. Because times are going to get rougher. We've got depression/stress rampant. Homelessness is rising. Wages are stagnant or were, maybe rising now because of actual labor rising up a bit... but still rent/housing is skyrocketing to the point they need to rise up in the first place...
Unfortunately most people don't have any class consciousness, so it'll probably be the first one... I wish it were the second one...or the fabled "poor eating the rich scenario" ... but might be 20 more years till we get there..
3rd option is governors and congress maybe decide to do a do-over and hold a constitutional congress and maybe re-organize more loosely like the EU as smaller city states. This would be a dream to me but hopefully we could organize into smaller states maybe where there's like 100 or even 500 autonomous cities that self-govern and maybe have some 10 year meeting of all governors to re-ratify the constitution, and add any changes, etc.
A small fed govt would still exist for foreign affairs, and interstate agency management. Military would be a coalition force from all the city-states. People who live in really rural places might even live completely outside of a 'country' so to speak, if it's unincorporated, but would still have the rights as if they were in one.. like access to fire department and emergency services etc...
to get the best scenarios...requires level heads and cooperation from decent politicians who have our best interests at heart.... so, we're f*ked.
I find it so stupid that the people of a country with one of the most oppressive law enforcement legislations on the planet is getting triggered by a bureaucratic change because a 'protest went out of hand'. You have a problem with this? Go out and vote, write to your representative, run for office. Where the fuck were you when the Patriot Act passed?
I’d argue that they’re off topic solely off of the description in the guidelines, but things have shifted so that the widest interpretations of the “on-topic” criteria are what determine that.