A few weeks after his arrest for allegedly storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, the man known as the “QAnon Shaman,” Jacob Chansley, floated an idea that dozens of others have tried — that Trump himself deserved some of the blame for his actions.
Kicking things off…
Bring some of these people to testify at the January 6th Commission hearings. That should make a difference.
For months, stuck home due to the pandemic, he watched endless hours of the cable television station and eventually came to accept Trump’s bogus claims of a stolen election, Hurley told TPM.
This is why the infrastructure bill should provide funding for cable companies to provide premium cable channels at a minimal cost. Perhaps a federal government-sponsored revival of Red Shoes Diaries. If we must turn to soft porn to preserve our republic then I am in favor of it.
“A lot of these defendants — and I’m going to use this colloquial term, perhaps disrespectfully — but they’re all fucking short-bus people,” Watkins told TPM. “These are people with brain damage, they’re fucking retarded, they’re on the goddamn spectrum.”
“But they’re our brothers, our sisters, our neighbors, our coworkers — they’re part of our country. These aren’t bad people, they don’t have prior criminal history. Fuck, they were subjected to four-plus years of goddamn propaganda the likes of which the world has not seen since fucking Hitler.”
You know, I cuss a lot myself, and when it comes to certain descriptors that some will cry are offensive, I’m with the BBC official who told John Cleese early in the Python days, “There are people whom one would wish to offend.” That said, this pleader is a huge vulgar jerk. This is not how a professional person speaks for publication, and the language used is cruel and stupid. I hope for the shaman’s sake that he’s a better lawyer than he is a human being.
“A lot of these defendants — and I’m going to use this colloquial term, perhaps disrespectfully — but they’re all fucking short-bus people,” Watkins told TPM. “These are people with brain damage, they’re fucking retarded, they’re on the goddamn spectrum.”
I wish more lawyers talked like this.
Hasn’t everyone’s mother explained to them, “That if so and so told you to jump off a bridge, would you?” Obviously that didn’t stick.
How is it I agree with you…
And you at the same time?
On the one hand they are stupid and easily misled. On the other side they attempted to overthrow the government and committed burglary, murder, vandalism, and would likely have killed elected representatives if they knew where to find them. So they are responsible and deserve equally severe punishment. Stupid is not a defense.
The defense attorneys could discount their clients’ actions by claiming the diminished police protective force that Dotard and his minions ordered allowed and invited the mob to get inside.
Well, the guy’s being frank. He doesn’t know a damn thing about retardation or autism or I imagine anything of the sort, but he does speak plainly about the rioters’ personal judgment, let’s say. Personally I’d say they’re people of mostly normal intelligence who’ve been inculcated with and acted on stupid ideas about politics. The militia types, that’s a different story. But a lot of those folks are mostly normal. They’ll wave to you from the driveway, and lend you their hedge clippers. I don’t disagree with the gist of what he’s saying, but he talks like a vulgarian and I can’t respect that.
A: It better not.
Trouble is their moms never told them not to jump if the president of the United States told them to do it.
Lamberth wrote. “If defendant truly believes that the only reason he participated in an assault on the U.S. Capitol was to comply with President Trump’s orders, this shows defendant’s inability (or refusal) to exercise his independent judgment and conform his behavior to the law.”
Kudos to Judge Lamberth.
It’s all the reason needed to detain the suspect.
On the other hand, the many pleas that Trump told them to do it and Fox told them to do it are all good evidence to be used in prosecution of Trump and maybe the licence revocation of Fox “News”.
Maybe it will make a difference. Look at how many right-wing nut federal judges Trump and Bush appointed.
There is a right-wing bias in the entire criminal (in)justice system. Every single one of the Capitol rioters should have immediately been arrested on the PATRIOT Act terrorism charges that Republicans used to be so proud to support. Yet 5 months + later many of them are running free, committing further crimes.
For example:
Folks, we need to regard the work of another noble Englishman here if we are to take Cleese for a proper guide.
Colin Firth’s amygdala study has to be acknowledged as a profound insight into that ignorance/intelligence quotient so many of us are stumped over.
Some of these people are HIGHLY functional, in terms of intellectual capacity.
But they perceive reality from beneath a protective, animal instinct that they are trapped in. So no matter what they might understand, it is always clouded with suspicion, even knee-jerk contempt, because “survival”, not intelligence, rules their mental calculations.
It is more than just “intelligence”, it is how that intelligence is stored and recalculated and regurgitated.
I belabor this point some times, but it is crucial to our understanding of these seemingly “conflicted” Trump rioters, they are trapped in their lizard brains.
Trump fit them perfectly.
Just what the key might be, who knows? It may be that Homo-Sapiens have two branches, one amygdala trapped and one capable of free-thought. I’ve heard the term “Homo-Spiritus” applied to the new, high-minded version, but I wouldn’t want to spark any other sorts of debate.
Whether our social struggle with the “Trumpladytes” represents divergence of species might be worth wondering over.
They tend to breed with one another.
At both ends of the formula.
Especially nowadays.
“Foxitis”. LOL!
Actually, I suffer from “Maddowitis”. It causes me to recognize reality, not take violent action against the government when elections don’t go the way I was hoping, and causes me to admit that Joe Biden won a fair and secure election in 2020. Fortunately, I am able to deal with this brutal, crippling illness because a good friend of mine dropped off a little killer kusk last night. (Insert Sarah MacLachlan animal abuse song here.)
Unfortunately for us, D.C. police was overwhelmed and Mango Mussolini and his tools still controlled the levers of federal power. (ed.)
Unsurprisingly, there wasn’t a more vigorous response.
Well, stupidity is not a crime; but it’s not a valid defense either. And these bozos can’t claim insanity because they heard voices telling them to do it, if they acknowledge that those voices were coming from their TVs.
His mother never told him that, but his Trump-loving father constantly screamed at him, “You make a better fucking door than a window!” when they watched TV at night.