I Guess it's Time to Discuss January 6th

[Chip]

It's why Wyoming was never the cattle industry it wanted to be (aside from being late to the game). You had to get the cows out before winter. Instead, it ended up being a wild-west show. A facsimile.

One of the places I worked. Flat prairie?



Cows out to where? You know zip. I fed cattle from a horse-drawn bobsled in winter. Can you drive a team? Saddle a horse? Wipe your arse with one hand?

Or just spew DOD government lies and Tucker Carlson repeats?

[Chip]

Enough about me.

Back to the criminals and their punishments.

[dneal]

It's why Wyoming was never the cattle industry it wanted to be (aside from being late to the game). You had to get the cows out before winter. Instead, it ended up being a wild-west show. A facsimile.

One of the places I worked. Flat prairie?



Cows out to where? You know zip. I fed cattle from a horse-drawn bobsled in winter. Can you drive a team? Saddle a horse? Wipe your arse with one hand?

Or just spew DOD government lies and Tucker Carlson repeats?

Are you kidding? Prairie in the foreground, mountains in the background.

You fed cattle from a bobsled. In winter. In the 20th century. You’re a wannabe cowboy, regaling us in your LARP’ing adventures.

I grew up in Missouri, rode horses and raised cattle. My grandfather had old tack and harness in the hayloft. I know what a trace line is and its purpose. None of that was used anymore because we used 20th century technology instead.

I wonder how our states are ranked in the cattle industry? Wyoming should be on top, right?

Enough about me.

If only this were the case.

[TSherbs]

Back to the criminals and their punishments.

And, if DeSantis wins the presidency, their subsequent pardons (so he has suggested).

[724Seney]

It's why Wyoming was never the cattle industry it wanted to be (aside from being late to the game). You had to get the cows out before winter. Instead, it ended up being a wild-west show. A facsimile.

One of the places I worked. Flat prairie?



Cows out to where? You know zip. I fed cattle from a horse-drawn bobsled in winter. Can you drive a team? Saddle a horse? Wipe your arse with one hand?

Or just spew DOD government lies and Tucker Carlson repeats?

Are you kidding? Prairie in the foreground, mountains in the background.

You fed cattle from a bobsled. In winter. In the 20th century. You’re a wannabe cowboy, regaling us in your LARP’ing adventures.

I grew up in Missouri, rode horses and raised cattle. My grandfather had old tack and harness in the hayloft. I know what a trace line is and its purpose. None of that was used anymore because we used 20th century technology instead.

I wonder how our states are ranked in the cattle industry? Wyoming should be on top, right?

Enough about me.

If only this were the case.

Am I the only one who sees the irony in the fact that this guy (@chip) was the OP in "The Loser loses again" thread?"
For a "professional" writer, he certainly struggles in his effort(s) to compose a story that is even remotely creditable...........

[Chip]

Another snap from my dream vacation at the dude ranch.



Prairie? That's the Continental Divide in the backgound and a glacially-scoured river valley front. The flattop is a lateral moraine. Not in your knowledge set, I reckon.

Sounds like you went on weekend visits to the old family farm and climbed up in the barn. Wowee! In Missouri, cattle (like hogs) are raised on farms, not grazed on the range. Got any pics of yourself in the saddle?

If you guys weren't so sad, you'd be a joke.

[Chip]

Back to the topic:

US seeks to fine January 6 rioters to claw back donations they raked in

Prosecutors are asking judges to impose fines on top of prison sentences to offset donations from supporters of Capitol rioters

Associated Press
28 May 2023

Less than two months after he pleaded guilty to storming the US Capitol on January 6 2021, Texas resident Daniel Goodwyn appeared on Tucker Carlson’s then Fox News show and promoted a website where supporters could donate money to Goodwyn and other rioters whom the site called “political prisoners”.

The justice department now wants Goodwyn to give up more than $25,000 he raised – a clawback that is part of a growing effort by the government to prevent rioters from being able to personally profit from participating in the attack that shook the foundations of American democracy.

An Associated Press review of court records shows that prosecutors in the more than 1,000 criminal cases from January 6, are increasingly asking judges to impose fines on top of prison sentences to offset donations from supporters of the Capitol rioters. Dozens of defendants have set up online fundraising appeals for help with legal fees, and prosecutors acknowledge there’s nothing wrong with asking for help for attorney expenses. But the justice department has, in some cases, questioned where the money is really going because many of those charged have had government-funded legal representation.

Most of the fundraising efforts appear on GiveSendGo, which bills itself as “The #1 Free Christian Fundraising Site” and has become a haven for January 6 defendants barred from using mainstream crowdfunding sites, including the more widespread GoFundMe, to raise money. The rioters often proclaim their innocence and portray themselves as victims of government oppression, even as they cut deals to plead guilty and cooperate with prosecutors. Their fundraising success suggests that many people in the US still view the rioters as justified and cling to the baseless belief that Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election from Donald Trump. The former president himself has fueled that idea, pledging to pardon rioters if he is elected again.

Markus Maly, a Virginia man scheduled to be sentenced next month for assaulting police at the Capitol, raised more than $16,000 from an online campaign that described him as a “January 6 POW” and asked for money for his family. Prosecutors have requested a $16,000-plus fine, noting that Maly had a public defender and did not owe any legal fees. “He should not be able to use his own notoriety gained in the commission of his crimes to ‘capitalize’ on his participation in the Capitol breach in this way,” a prosecutor wrote in court papers.

So far this year, prosecutors have sought more than $390,000 in fines against at least 21 riot defendants, in amounts ranging from $450 to more than $71,000, according to the AP’s tally. Judges have imposed at least $124,127 in fines against 33 riot defendants this year. In the previous two years, judges ordered more than 100 riot defendants to collectively pay more than $240,000 in fines. Separately, judges have ordered hundreds of convicted rioters to pay more than $524,000 in restitution to the government to cover more than $2.8m in damage to the Capitol and other January 6-related expenses.

More rioters facing the most serious charges and longest prison terms are now being sentenced. They tend to also be the prolific fundraisers, which could help explain the recent surge in fines requests.

Earlier this month, the judge who sentenced Nathaniel DeGrave to more than three years in prison also ordered him to pay a $25,000 fine. Prosecutors noted that the Nevada resident “incredibly” raised over $120,000 in GiveSendGo fundraising campaigns that referred to him as “Beijing Biden’s political prisoner” in “America’s Gitmo” – a reference to the Guantánamo Bay detention center. “He did this despite seeking to cooperate with the government and admitting he and his co-conspirators were guilty since at least November 2021,” a prosecutor wrote.

Lawyer William Shipley, who has represented DeGrave and more than two dozen other January 6 defendants, said he advises clients to avoid raising money under the auspices of being a political prisoner if they intend to plead guilty. “Until they admit they committed a crime, they’re perfectly entitled to shout from the rooftops that the only reason they’re being held is because of politics,” Shipley said. “It’s just first amendment political speech.” Shipley said he provided the judge with documentation showing that DeGrave raised approximately $25,000 more than what he paid his lawyers.

The government’s push for more fines comes as it reaches a milestone in the largest federal investigation in American history: over 500 defendants have been sentenced for January 6 crimes.

A jury convicted romance novel cover model John Strand of storming the Capitol with Simone Gold, a California physician who is a leading figure in the anti-vaccine movement. Now prosecutors are seeking a $50,000 fine on top of a prison term for Strand when a judge sentences him on Thursday. Strand has raised more than $17,300 for his legal defense without disclosing that he has a taxpayer-funded lawyer, according to prosecutors. They say Strand appears to have “substantial financial means”, living in a home that was purchased for more than $3m last year.

Goodwyn, who appeared on Carlson’s show in March, will be sentenced next month.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...e_iOSApp_Other

[TSherbs]

Back to the topic:

US seeks to fine January 6 rioters to claw back donations they raked in

Prosecutors are asking judges to impose fines on top of prison sentences to offset donations from supporters of Capitol rioters

[SIZE=3][FONT=Book Antiqua]Associated Press
28 May 2023

Less than two months after he pleaded guilty to storming the US Capitol on January 6 2021, Texas resident Daniel Goodwyn appeared on Tucker Carlson’s then Fox News show and promoted a website where supporters could donate money to Goodwyn and other rioters whom the site called “political prisoners”.

The justice department now wants Goodwyn to give up more than $25,000 he raised – a clawback that is part of a growing effort by the government to prevent rioters from being able to personally profit from participating in the attack that shook the foundations of American democracy.

An Associated Press review of court records shows that prosecutors in the more than 1,000 criminal cases from January 6, are increasingly asking judges to impose fines on top of prison sentences to offset donations from supporters of the Capitol rioters. Dozens of defendants have set up online fundraising appeals for help with legal fees, and prosecutors acknowledge there’s nothing wrong with asking for help for attorney expenses. But the justice department has, in some cases, questioned where the money is really going because many of those charged have had government-funded legal representation.

Most of the fundraising efforts appear on GiveSendGo, which bills itself as “The #1 Free Christian Fundraising Site” and has become a haven for January 6 defendants barred from using mainstream crowdfunding sites, including the more widespread GoFundMe, to raise money. The rioters often proclaim their innocence and portray themselves as victims of government oppression, even as they cut deals to plead guilty and cooperate with prosecutors. Their fundraising success suggests that many people in the US still view the rioters as justified and cling to the baseless belief that Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election from Donald Trump. The former president himself has fueled that idea, pledging to pardon rioters if he is elected again.

Markus Maly, a Virginia man scheduled to be sentenced next month for assaulting police at the Capitol, raised more than $16,000 from an online campaign that described him as a “January 6 POW” and asked for money for his family. Prosecutors have requested a $16,000-plus fine, noting that Maly had a public defender and did not owe any legal fees. “He should not be able to use his own notoriety gained in the commission of his crimes to ‘capitalize’ on his participation in the Capitol breach in this way,” a prosecutor wrote in court papers.

So far this year, prosecutors have sought more than $390,000 in fines against at least 21 riot defendants, in amounts ranging from $450 to more than $71,000, according to the AP’s tally. Judges have imposed at least $124,127 in fines against 33 riot defendants this year. In the previous two years, judges ordered more than 100 riot defendants to collectively pay more than $240,000 in fines. Separately, judges have ordered hundreds of convicted rioters to pay more than $524,000 in restitution to the government to cover more than $2.8m in damage to the Capitol and other January 6-related expenses.

More rioters facing the most serious charges and longest prison terms are now being sentenced. They tend to also be the prolific fundraisers, which could help explain the recent surge in fines requests.

Earlier this month, the judge who sentenced Nathaniel DeGrave to more than three years in prison also ordered him to pay a $25,000 fine. Prosecutors noted that the Nevada resident “incredibly” raised over $120,000 in GiveSendGo fundraising campaigns that referred to him as “Beijing Biden’s political prisoner” in “America’s Gitmo” – a reference to the Guantánamo Bay detention center. “He did this despite seeking to cooperate with the government and admitting he and his co-conspirators were guilty since at least November 2021,” a prosecutor wrote.

Lawyer William Shipley, who has represented DeGrave and more than two dozen other January 6 defendants, said he advises clients to avoid raising money under the auspices of being a political prisoner if they intend to plead guilty. “Until they admit they committed a crime, they’re perfectly entitled to shout from the rooftops that the only reason they’re being held is because of politics,” Shipley said. “It’s just first amendment political speech.” Shipley said he provided the judge with documentation showing that DeGrave raised approximately $25,000 more than what he paid his lawyers.....

Very interesting. I did not know about this.

Suckers are born every minute. Grifters, too.

[Chip]

The spawn of Pappy Trump.

[dneal]

Another snap from my dream vacation at the dude ranch.

Again, that explains why Wyoming was never the cattle industry the Kevin Costner inspired character trope makes it out to be. If you're tending cattle on horseback in the snow, with all that prairie in the state, in the 20th century; you might be a poser (or an idiot).

Prairie? That's the Continental Divide in the backgound and a glacially-scoured river valley front. The flattop is a lateral moraine. Not in your knowledge set, I reckon.

Sounds like you went on weekend visits to the old family farm and climbed up in the barn. Wowee! In Missouri, cattle (like hogs) are raised on farms, not grazed on the range. Got any pics of yourself in the saddle?

If you guys weren't so sad, you'd be a joke.

Yes, prairie. The eastern 3rd of Wyoming is prairie. Mountains (to include the Continental Divide) are in the west/southwest. I keep saying the same thing, and you keep pretending you're contradicting me with pictures of prairie and mountains in the background.

Florida raises more cattle than Wyoming. Florida.

Missouri raises around 3 times the cattle of Wyoming. It comes in 2nd or 3rd annually with Oklahoma. No chaps or "yee-haw I'm a cowboy" needed.

You guys are good at pretending, the legacy of Bill Cody and other wild west fantasy; and apparently haven't given it up.

Do you graze cattle up in those mountains? or in the flat land? What do you call that "range"? What type of grass is that that grows there? Prairie, perhaps?

[724Seney]

Rhinestone Cowboy.gif

[TSherbs]

This wack job: 2+ years

https://apnews.com/article/capitol-r...0c3e47cb840d6b

[Chip]

Still waiting for those horseback pics.

[Chuck Naill]

When I saw your cowboy photo, I thought it was Richard Petty.

[Chip]

Who's that? Some NASCAR guy?

[Chuck Naill]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Petty

[TSherbs]

Fools turning on their fool friends.

More January 6 sentences for Oath Keepers.

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/0...hodes-00099681

[Chip]

Saw a story in The Guardian.

Convictions, but not much courage.

[Chip]

‘They fought for freedom’: the nightly vigil to sanctify the January 6 rioters

On DC’s ‘Freedom Corner’, activists are convinced the January 6 attackers are political prisoners persecuted by the government

Chris Stein
3 Jun 2023

The clock had just struck 9pm when Jeff Sabol, a Colorado man accused of dragging a police officer down a flight of stairs at the US Capitol on January 6 and beating him, placed a call from inside Washington’s jail. Dozens of yards and several layers of concrete and razor wire away, on E Street Southeast, Tommy Tatum, a hulking Mississippian who had been present at the Capitol on January 6 but not arrested, stood with a microphone in one hand and a cellphone in the other.

“Hey, are you guys out there? We’ve had some technical difficulties for a variety of reasons,” Sabol’s voice rang out from the phone and over a sound system, drawing cheers from a group of about 15 people who had gathered, carrying American flags and wearing shirts with slogans such as “Abolish the FBI”.

Sabol’s voice grew echoey, and the sounds of others filled the room behind him. “Thirty seconds!” he cried. And then, the two groups, one confined behind the jail’s walls over charges they attacked the Capitol in a failed attempt to keep Donald Trump from losing power and the other made up of their friends and loved ones on the sidewalk outside, sang the American national anthem in unison: “O say can you see …”

Thus concluded the 303rd evening of the “Freedom Corner”, perhaps the only regular public protest by Trump supporters in America’s capital city, where the demand is accountability – not for the former president, but for the government they believe is persecuting them.

The target of their demonstration is Washington DC’s city jail, where an overwhelmingly Black inmate population has long endured terrible conditions. Over the past two years, the Freedom Corner protesters have been joined by some of the hundreds of people swept up in the sprawling federal investigation into the violence on January 6, prompting demonstrators to gather outside on a corner sandwiched between the building and the tilted headstones of the Congressional Cemetery to decry the injustice within.
marchers with american flags

“These are really good guys. They’re fathers, they’re uncles, they’re veterans. Most of them have served this country. They fought for us, they fought for our freedom,” said Helena Gibson, a regular attendee of the vigil who was present at the Capitol on January 6 but said she did not enter the building. “Because these are really great amazing mentors, stand-up men, they don’t deserve what’s happening to them.”

The storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters immediately after a speech by the then president has been linked to nine deaths, and saw the halls of the 223-year-old building turned into a war zone. Rioters surrounded and beat overwhelmed police officers, sent lawmakers and the then vice-president, Mike Pence, fleeing and attacked with such violence his Secret Service detail asked others to say goodbye to their families for them.

But the Republican party’s right wing has invested in downplaying the incident, even though the mayhem played out on live television, was explored in detail by a bipartisan congressional committee who said Trump and his allies may have broken the law, and is the subject of an investigation by special counsel Jack Smith that could lead to charges against the former president.

On the same day last March when the Fox News host Tucker Carlson aired an episode of his now-cancelled show featuring footage he claimed proves the January 6 rioters were, in fact, “sightseers”, the Republican congressman Mike Collins tweeted: “I’ve seen enough. Release all J6 political prisoners now.” In the unlikely event that happens, they would be met with open arms on Freedom Corner. Ringed in by orange traffic barriers and watched by several police cars, attendees set out snacks on a portable table, run the banners of Donald Trump and the United States up a flagpole and livestreamed the entire two-and-a-half-hour gathering on multiple cellphones.

“I definitely think people committed crimes that day. I mean, it’s never been our opinion, my opinion, that no one should be charged,” said Nicole Reffitt, a Texas woman whose husband, Guy Reffitt, was last year sentenced to seven and a quarter years in prison after a jury convicted him of obstructing Congress, interfering with police officers and threatening his own children – one of whom turned him in to the authorities. “I believe my husband was overly charged. And, you know, and then he was persecuted for the events of that day, and not necessarily for what he really did.”

The vigils began last year on the day her husband was sentenced, said Reffitt, one of the first attendees at Freedom Corner, along with Micki Witthoeft, the mother of Ashli Babbitt, who was shot dead by police in the Capitol during the attack. Since then, they have attracted activists from across the country.

Carrying a pole with a US flag over her shoulder, as some of the rioters did during the attack, Jamie Crowe said she has traveled to Freedom Corner more than 30 times from Pennsylvania “to support the people that are patriots that marched to the Capitol peacefully”.

Though polls have found about a quarter of Republican voters approve of January 6, a majority of Americans do not share that view. Crowe said she was not in Washington when the attack happened, but watched coverage on television. Asked how she could view the same images the rest of America did yet reach a different conclusion about the riot, Crowe said: “I love this country more than you can imagine.”

As she spoke, the vigil was holding its nightly roll call of those who died and had been arrested. “Hero,” the crowd intoned with the bang of a tambourine after each name. “And we’ll do like we do every night. We’ll say her name,” Tamara Perryman announced after the names were read, then led the crowd in repeating, “Ashli Babbitt, Ashli Babbitt.”

“We just want justice, fair justice, like anybody would want,” said Perryman, whose husband, Brian Jackson, was arrested last year on charges related to lobbing a flagpole at officers defending the Capitol. “If throwing that flag was truly assault, then give him his assault charge and let him go home. Because that is not a year in prison, nor is it eight to nine years in prison [the sentence he could face’],” Perryman said.

Last year, 34 January 6 defendants, including Reffitt’s husband, Guy, signed a document submitted in a federal court filing asking that they be moved to the US military prison in Guantánamo Bay if conditions in Washington’s jail do not improve. “My husband’s never been in jail, so I had no idea how the system was,” Reffitt said, describing how her husband has endured inedible food and has slept without a pillow, because prisoners are not allowed to have them. “These are humans in here, and this is not how you rehabilitate anybody,” Reffitt said.

Melissa Wasser, policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union of the District of Columbia, sees plenty to protest at the city’s jail. Her group has sued over detention conditions, and documented everything from flooding in the facility’s showers to instances where staff has punished prisoners by withholding food and water.

“I’m glad that there there’s been more coverage of the jail in these conditions. Again, you know, it should not have taken the complaints of these white January 6 defendants and their families for people to act on this,” Wasser said. “Local residents, advocates, family members of the mostly Black residents have been raising these problems for years.” A spokesperson for the city’s department of corrections declined to comment. Statistics released in January show 90% of those in the department’s custody are Black in a city where the group makes up about 45% of the population. In a database National Public Radio maintains of January 6 defendants, most appear to be white.

“These guys and their families were shocked beyond belief. They could not believe that an American citizen of any stripe, of any race, of any criminal background could be treated this way,” said Joe McBride, an attorney who has represented multiple January 6 defendants, three of whom ended up in the capital city’s lock-up. “These guys were like, ‘I have rights, rights, I have rights.’ And I had to explain to them, at great pain, that their government doesn’t give a flying fuck about them.”

But McBride is no fan of detainees’ tendency to call up the Freedom Corner on prison phones to chat, nor of the developing community of counter-protesters. “It was good for a time, but it appears to me that that event has reached its natural conclusion, and could potentially now be causing more harm than good,” he said. In a solidly Democratic city where many residents feel put upon by repeated instances of pro-Trump demonstrators showing up from out of town during his presidency, Freedom Corner may be Washington’s most hated regular protest, and has attracted a dedicated group of opponents.

On Monday’s Memorial Day holiday, the Freedom Corner crew marched from the Capitol to their usual spot about two miles away, but were joined along their route by their chief nemesis: a livestreamer named Anarchy Princess. “Terrorists coming, watch out, there’s terrorists behind me,” the counter-protester, wearing a baseball cap and aviator sunglasses, cried into a megaphone as the group walked. “The Nazis are behind me, Trump’s little cry baby losers, they insurrected the Capitol, are behind me. Fuck Ashli Babbitt!”

As the group neared their destination, where a large and noisy group of counter-protesters had also massed, video showed Witthoeft – Babbitt’s mother – pushing Anarchy Princess, and later grabbing a megaphone she was using to broadcast siren noises and smashing it on the ground. Police arrested Witthoeft the following day. Witthoeft was released later on Tuesday evening, and told the Guardian she planned to keep the vigils up “until I feel like I’m done doing what I need to do, and I don’t feel that way yet”. Anarchy Princess could not be reached for comment.

After finishing their singing of the national anthem on Tuesday evening, the group on the corner trained their eyes on the prison’s windows, where January 6 detainees have, in the past, been able to make their lights flicker in a tribute to their streetside supporters. That wasn’t happening that night.

“They’ve moved them so we can no longer see them flashing the lights,” said a protester who went by the pseudonym Dude and sported a gray camouflage National Rifle Association hat. Perryman wasn’t so sure. Earlier in the night, Sean McHugh, who was found guilty in April of charges related to attacking Capitol police officers with bear spray, had called Freedom Corner and said he had to move cells because of a mold outbreak.

“Some things truly are coincidence and just a matter of happenstance,” Perryman said. “But it is easy to get into that mindset where, ‘Oh gosh, are they really messing with me or am I just paranoid?’ You know what I mean?”


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...e_iOSApp_Other

[TSherbs]

Four more sedition sentences of multiple years of prison:

https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/f...capitol-breach