Day: July 15, 2021

Closing Thought–15Jul21

Do you serve in the National Guard?

You already serve overseas in our many many conflicts……(something I do not think is a good idea in this time of crises at home….you are needed here not in some far off country that few can find on a map)….

If you do serve with the NG then if I were you I would start to worry….it seems the plan is to use the NG more and more overseas…..

The top general of the US National Guard said the reserve force will be used “more, not less” in the coming years as the Pentagon shifts its focus and budget priorities.

“Given the uncertain future and budget priorities, we expect the Department of Defense to rely on the National Guard more, not less,” said Gen. Daniel Hokanson, the chief of the National Guard Bureau, in a statement published earlier this year. “Therefore, we must be ready to execute our three core missions; fighting America’s wars, securing the homeland, and building enduring partnerships.”

Since last year, the National Guard has been deployed to deal with a number of domestic issues, including the occupation of Washington DC in the wake of the January 6th incident at the Capitol building. On top of the domestic missions, the National Guard is still deployed across the world.

According to Military.com, there are currently 20,000 National Guard troops deployed across the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. The Pentagon’s over-reliance on the National Guard to fight wars overseas prompted activists to push state legislation that would give the federal government less power to deploy National Guard to combat zones.

The Defend the Guard Act would prevent a state’s National Guard from being deployed to combat zones unless Congress had declared war. The legislation could give the power to states to block the use of their National Guard and has been introduced to multiple state legislatures.

As the Pentagon is shifting its focus to contain China, priority is being put on new technology research and advanced warfighting capabilities in the space and cyber realms. Reflecting this, the National Guard is looking to establish a reserve group that would focus on space, known as a Space Guard. In May, Gen. Hokanson told Congress that establishing a Space Guard is one of his most “pressing concerns.”

(antiwar.com)

Not great news but hopefully ALL states will move to protect their citizen soldiers….from the obscenities of war on foreign shores.

But will they?

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

 

Imagine A Country Like This

This is an excellent look at the direct of this country through the pen of Paul Street……

Imagine a nation so reactionary and racist that “Black Lives Matter” is considered a “radical slogan” inside its borders.

Imagine a nation so racially unequal that the median household wealth of its Black households is equal to 7 cents on the dollar of its median white households.

Imagine a nation so sexist that its women make 82 cents for every dollar men make while 15% to 20% of its women have been raped and girls and women are regularly subjected to sexual harassment and domestic violence.

Imagine a nation so sexist that its women’s rights to control their own bodies and reproductive decisions are under constant patriarchal assault.

Imagine a nation so racist that its states pass laws suppressing the votes of non-whites and forbidding honest teaching about the country’s long and ongoing history of racial oppression, including two and a half centuries of Black slavery.

Imagine a nation so classist that it taxes its teachers, secretaries, and waitresses at a higher rate than it taxes its parasitic corporate and financial oligarchs.

Imagine a nation so classist and plutocratic that it lets a lethal pandemic produce an increase in its already obscene over-concentration of wealth while hundreds of thousands of its citizens die from the disease.

Imagine a “democracy” so classist and plutocratic that it can only and barely replace its fascist billionaire president with a conservative corporate toady who promised his wealthy backers in advance that “No one’s standard would change, nothing would fundamentally change” when he became chief executive.

Imagine a nation that claims to be the homeland and headquarters of democracy while its politics and government are structured to render majority public opinion irrelevant beneath the hidden rule of an underlying un-elected class dictatorship of capital.

There is more to think about….read on……

Imagine a Nation Like This

Any thoughts?

Closing with a classic John Lennon tune…..

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Insurrection Update #7

I have taken upon myself to keep the memory of the events in and around the 06 January in the minds of my readers…….NOTHING about that day should ever be forgotten.

I will try to write about the events of the day and any info that pertains to the situation in the continuing saga of the insurrection……

These militias…those overweight in- bred mental midgets some of the same thinking has flexed it’s muscle in Washington (the state not the city)….

Tensions are rising in Whidbey Island, Seattle, after residents say a right-wing extremist group is tearing the fabric of the community apart, The Daily Beast reports.

The tension started when the The Washington III Percent militia took control of the local Grange association (a community gathering place) and began rejecting membership applications from anyone not aligned with them. Now, III Percenter flags and bumper stickers have increasingly popped up around town and left-wing rallies.

“They’ve been trying to do this for quite some time now: Extremists running for office, local elections, you know, county councils, state legislatures, things like that,” said Daryl Johnson, a former Homeland Security analyst who runs DT Analytics. “Once it creeps in, if nobody challenges, it becomes the new norm.”

https://www.rawstory.com/far-right-militia-takes-hold-of-island-town-in-washington-they-re-becoming-the-new-norm/

Those participants on 06 January are trying to delete their footprint off social media ahead of their arrest…..proves they are ‘guilty’….

At least 49 people charged in connection with the riots were accused of deleting incriminating content off their social media and phones, the AP found, but only a handful have actually faced charges for tampering with online content.

Experts told the AP, deleting the content shows how desperate the defendants were to manipulate evidence against them once they realized they were in legal trouble and that could make getting a plea deal or any other kind of leniency difficult.

https://www.insider.com/capitol-rioters-deleted-social-media-posts-of-their-involvement-2021-7

The spineless in-breds in the “patriotic’ Oath Keepers are doing what cowards do….turn on everyone around them….

According to a report from the Daily Beast’s Kelly Weill, members of the Oath Keepers militia— reportedly comprised of former law enforcement officers and military vets — are breaking ranks and pointing fingers at each other as they pursue plea bargain deals related to their participation in the Jan 6th Capitol insurrection.

While the Wall Street Journal has been reporting on internal strife as members question how the organization’s founder Stewart Rhoades is funding his “lifestyle” with their dues, others are more concerned with staying out of jail. And if that means providing investigators with information about their compatriots for a lighter sentence or charges being dropped — they don’t have a problem with that.

“In recent weeks, a steady drumbeat of Oath Keepers and their associates have pleaded guilty to crimes related to the Jan. 6 break-in at the U.S. Capitol, and agreed to cooperate with further investigations into the deadly riot. For the Oath Keepers, more so than almost any other group that participated in the break-in, those cooperation agreements could prove troubling to members anxious about catching charges,” Weill wrote. “Of the more than 500 people charged in the riot, members of the Oath Keepers are among the only defendants accused of conspiracy for allegedly plotting the assault on the building, in an attempt to block the certification of President Joe Biden’s election victory.”

https://www.rawstory.com/oath-keepers-riot-2653648268/

Like I said just what I would expect spineless cowards to do.

But what is next?

Some say that August may be the next attempt by these slugs…..and it could, if it occurs, could get messy….

You want to know what has doomed Nancy Pelosi’s attempts to get a bipartisan agreement to investigate the violent assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6? Every time she has talked about why we need a bipartisan commission or the select committee, she said they were necessary “so nothing like this will ever happen again.” 

Republicans aren’t against investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection because they fear it will make them look bad. They’re against doing anything to make sure that such an insurrection doesn’t happen again.

The assault on the Capitol is already damaging to the Republican Party image, at least to outsiders. The Capitol was attacked by a violent mob of Trump supporters. It’s doubtful there were any Democrats among them. The assault took place immediately after a Trump rally on the Ellipse and was incited by the then-president. Several Republican members of Congress joined Trump in addressing the crowd, along with other famous party stalwarts like Rudy Giuliani. It was a Republican rally with a Republican crowd. So was the mob at the Capitol.

https://www.salon.com/2021/07/03/the-next-insurrection-they-dont-have-the-votes-but-theyve-got-the-guns/

One leader had a model of the Capitol….

Federal investigators seized an unusual piece of evidence from a Pennsylvania man indicted last month for his role in the Capitol riot—a Lego replica of the building he allegedly stormed. Robert Morss, 27, is accused of leading fellow rioters in what prosecutors say was “one of the most intense and prolonged clashes” with officers on Jan. 6. According to court documents obtained by Smoking Gun, FBI investigators seized an array of firearms from his home—as well as what the court filings described as a “fully constructed U.S. Capitol Lego set.” The prosecutors didn’t say whether Morss used his toy to help plan the Capitol insurrection.  Another item seized from Morss was a notebook containing a “Step by Step to Create Hometown Militia,” with steps such as “Ambush” and “Battle Drills” and reminders to “Bring Assault Rifle” and “4 Magazines.”

DOJ charges Floridians in their part in the insurrection…..

The Justice Department unveiled a major indictment Thursday against five Floridians accused of attacking at least seven police officers during the US Capitol insurrection.

Prosecutors say the defendants, all from the Tampa Bay area, repeatedly attacked members of Washington, DC’s police force. They allegedly used stolen riot shields and flagpoles to assault officers in the head and neck, and later resorted to punching, kicking, and elbowing the officers.
 
The indictment includes 19 criminal counts, which is among the most for a Capitol riot case.
 
Then there are those the claim the ‘Bible made them do it’…..
According to a report from the Daily Beast’s Kelly Weill, one of the Capitol rioters taken into custody by the FBI has chosen to represent herself on charges of multiple counts of violent entry, disruptive conduct, and obstruction of Congress — and is citing the Bible as part of her defense.

Prosecutors maintain that Pauline Bauer, owner of a Pennsylvania pizza parlor, took part in the Jan 6th insurrection and reportedly told Capitol police “bring Nancy Pelosi out here now… we want to hang that f*cking b*tch.”

Weill reports that Bauer is using a sovereign citizen defense — saying she doesn’t recognize the laws of the U.S. government — and that she is operating under “divine guidance.”

https://www.rawstory.com/capitol-riot-2653744510/

One insurrectionist gets out with “Time Served”….

A defendant in the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol was given a six-month jail sentence Monday, but because he’s been held since the week after the riot, Michael Curzio will go free Wednesday. Judge Carl Nichols said in federal court that he lacked the authority to impose a longer sentence anyway, CNN reports. “I think that six-month sentence is appropriate here,” Nichols said, nothing that “Mr. Curzio will have, in two days, served that entire sentence.” Curzio took the standard deal offered to riot defendants who didn’t commit violence, pleading guilty to one count of unlawfully protesting in the Capitol and being fined $500 for repairs to the building. “Obviously, I was in the wrong,” Curzio said in court, per ClickOrlando. “I did do it.”

Curzio’s record is the reason he hadn’t been released before trial. He was convicted of attempted murder for shooting the boyfriend of his ex-girlfriend. While in prison, Curzio became a member of a white supremacist gang. He has said that he did that for his own protection and that he’s no longer an active member. But he still has gang tattoos and Nazi markings. On Jan. 6, prosecutors said, Curzio was in a group that invaded the Capitol Visitors Center. Police arrested Curzio and others after they didn’t leave when ordered to. Curzio said he didn’t hear the order to leave but said, “I did parade, demonstrate and picket.” He said he complied during his arrest. “I accept responsibility for my actions and what I did,” Curzio told the judge. More than a dozen other riot defendants are awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty.

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