Very interesting, information-laden, article.
I would opine that today’s Republicans are good at tax cuts–for high earners–not taxes.
“Good at taxes” seems to imply conservative fiscal discipline–remember that?
Not really. I wasn’t that politically aware before Reagan, and he put the end to conservative fiscal discipline.
Go back to Barry Goldwater - the founder of modern conservatism in many ways . Kennedy was pushing for a major tax cut and Goldwater opposed it. He said it was just a “feel good” attempt to pander to voters and it was fiscally irresponsible.
Capitol Riot Weapons Include Bear Spray, Fire Extinguishers And Baseball Bats : NPR
Just letting you know that we haven’t forgotten. 
Right. “Weapon” does not automatically (sorry) mean “firearm”.
Shit, we got pictures of that guy in the House chambers with what, IIRC, he claimed was a gun.
But moreover, it doesn’t count if there weren’t charges pressed? Are we applying that standard to all the other recent riots?
When the phrase ‘armed insurrection’ is used, people are thinking guns, not pepper dpray and bats. You bring those to a riot, not to an attempt to overthrow the government.
Jan 6 was a typical situation of a mob that got out of control, just as the riots of the last year sometimes broke out into violence. Trump deserves some blame for riling them up, but it it was a rabble that descended on the Capitol, not a militia with a plan.
A much better case for ‘insurrection’ could be made of the Antifa folks who repeatedly attempt to burn down police stations and courthouses. Those are actual planned attacks, and not just spontaneous outbresks of violence when a mob gets out of control.
But the ‘neener neener’ over my use of ‘weapon’ instead of ‘gun’ gets you a small point, I guess, for my poor word selection. I was clearly talking about firearms when refuting the notion of an ‘armed insurrection’ when no one was charged with a firearms violation. Is that better?
And just recently the DOJ or FBI said they can find no credible threats against the government from the right, going all the way back to before the election.
Which word did I get wrong here?
This is factually false. Not every single person involved had planned this, but many had. They came to DC with a plan to try and use violence to overturn the election. Many said so in advance and bragged about it afterwards.
Clearly not, because that’s what the people who just tried to over throw the government brought with them. If you want to argue that these conservatives are fucking morons for bringing pepper spray to an insurrection, I won’t argue, but a fucking moronic attempt to overthrow the government is still an attempt to overthrow the government.
No, because it’s still wrong. At least three people involved in the capitol riot have been charged with firearms violations.
Also, the extreme reaction to this, essentially putting a standing army in Washington and surrounding the Capitol with fences and razor wire is so nutty I can only think of these reasons for it:
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To create an image of Republicans as being dangerous extremists to aid in the passage of their domestic extremism bill. If so, that’s reprehensible.
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Because they know they are about to pass a bunch of laws that will rile up enough people that they feel they need the protection. Also reprehensible.
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They truly believe there is some hidden cabal of militias or something just waiting for the moment to strike. That would fall into the ‘crazy as a loon’ category.
The Capitol has seen violence before, but it always came from the left. In 1983 the Senate was bombed by radical leftists belonging to the ‘Resistance Army’, a group actually dedicated to overthrowing the US government. They also plotted to kill Henry Kissinger, and had been involved in multiple bombings already. The group openly advocated for the overthrow of the U.S. government. They were actual armed insurrectionists.
Not only did the government not lock down the city over that, but the two women convicted and sent to jail for the bombing, Laura Whitehorn and Linda Evans (who was also convicted for illegally buying guns with a fake ID), became darlings of the left. Like their pals Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorn, they wound up with cushy jobs in academia or the lecture circuit. They all belonged to groups affiliated with:
One of the co-conspirators, Susan Rosenberg, had been arrested for explosives possession and other charges relating to three other bombings and got a 58 year sentence on the explosives charges. The bombing charges were dropped after she turned on her companions in a plea deal.
All three women had their sentences commuted by Bill Clinton, and Rosenberg landed on her feet by getting a job teaching at a college. It seems American colleges just love violent terrorists so long as they are left-wing. Rosenberg went on to be vice-chair of ‘Thousand Currents’, a non-profit that raises money for left-wing causes, primarily Black Lives Matter.
So if you’re looking for actual insurrectionists, start there. But even though there were multiple bombings and other attacks on government by the left in the 70’s and 80’s, none of them ever triggered a response like this.
But you put a couple of hundred yahoos in the Capitol with funny costumes and no plan for what to do when they got there, and suddenly you need a standing army in the Capitol. It’s a disgrace, and looks terrible to the rest of the world.
C’mon people, it’s not like we’re talking about Muslims…
Sam, I used to respect your opinions.
@Sam_Stone The reason for all the soldiers at the US Capitol was that there had previously been a coup attempt that actually breached the Capitol wherein Congress barely made it out in time. The plan had been variously to kill some Congresspeople and/or hold them hostage until Trump was declared the winner.
Some dangerous group who did not accomplish any of those things is not going to be remotely comparable. No, not even if they have the word “communist” in their name.
This decision was also not made solely by Democrats. The decision to bring in the troops was bipartisan. So trying to frame it as the Democrats attacking the Republicans does not make any sense.
Your argument feels more like the uninformed stuff I see on Facebook than the type of stuff I usually expect here. And so my reply is closer to how I respond on there.
The US already has a standing army, in Washington and everywhere else there are US troops. As I explained before, a “standing army” is just a permanent military force that is maintained by a government irrespective of peacetime or wartime status. The National Guard members currently guarding the Capitol are “deployed troops”. They are no more or less a “standing army” than all other members of the US military everywhere, and they’ll still be part of a standing army when their deployment in D.C. ends.
And nobody here is in any way trying to defend the terrorists in that nearly 40-year-old crime. This sort of desperate “whataboutism” to try to minimize the acts of the terrorists at the Capitol earlier this year is just pathetic.
Emphasis added.
Despite the fact that you’re trying to deny it, this is not some imaginary threat. There actually was a major violent riot in which thousands of people attacked the capital.
[quote=“Sam_Stone, post:107, topic:937288”]
When the phrase ‘armed insurrection’ is used, people are thinking guns, not pepper dpray and bats. You bring those to a riot, not to an attempt to overthrow the government.[/quote]
Nope. Traitors bring the weapons of their choice to an armed insurrection. The flagpole used to attack a police officer was, in fact, arms, as in weapon.
The intent of this so-called riot was to interfere with…actually, to overthrow an organ of the government of the United States of America. In other words, to wage war against the United States. Just because not everyone in that rabble had what you believe is the definitive definition of a weapon does not, by any stretch, mean they were not armed. And, as noted by another poster, there were firearms among the chosen weaponry of those traitors.
Not really. As noted above, there are people charged with firearms violations in this attack on the government of the United States. “Antifa” is not an organized mob of people who refuse to accept the legitimate running of the government. Trump’s rabble certainly was. Trump deserves all the blame for instigating this treason.
And you can can the sarcasm.
Sam, buddy, I hate to break this to you, but 1983 was forty years ago.
Live in the now.
Just breaking down Sam’s nonsensical arguments a bit further:
Here Sam seems to have overlooked the fact that the Capitol Complex fence installation and the National Guard deployment were initiated by the Republican administration of Donald Trump shortly after the insurrection attempt, as announced by Trump’s own nominee Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy on January 7.
Some conservatives nowadays may be trying to gloss over how shitless-scared and appalled many of them were a couple of months ago by all the “RINO traitor” and “#HangMikePence” type of talk coming out of the militant right wing. But the internet hasn’t forgotten. It was by no means only Democrats who were clamoring for better Capitol Complex security shortly after Jan. 6.
Furthermore, support for removing the Capitol fence (which was recently carried out) has been strongly bipartisan from the get-go, even though acting USCP chief Yogananda Pittman suggested some weeks after the attack that the fence should be made permanent. One of the most vocal opponents of leaving the fence in situ has been the vehemently anti-Trump D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser, btw.
We’ll make sure to let the Director of National Intelligence and Department of Homeland Security and Director of the FBI know that some rando Canadian considers their threat assessments “crazy as a loon”.
As Chief Pittman pointed out in my second link above, some security experts have in fact been advocating for permanent security fencing around the Capitol Complex for quite a while; she referenced a 2006 security assessment by the Secret Service advocating such a measure. I can’t find that assessment itself, which is classified, but it’s discussed in this 2007 Senate appropriations subcommittee meeting.
So while politicians and citizens of all political stripes have long been, and continue to be, staunchly (and I think rightly) resisting the idea of a permanent fence around the Capitol, it’s not surprising that people tasked with actually keeping the Capitol secure have been more receptive to the idea. And such advocacy in no way represents any type of nefarious “smear campaign” against Republicans.