Originally published at: Democrats began the impeachment trial with this terrifying video of Jan 6 | Boing Boing
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This was about one year ago:
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§2383. Rebellion or insurrection
Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.
§2384. Seditious conspiracy
If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
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I can’t like that, because it reflects what happened. But it’s spot on.
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And if that’s not enough, the NY Times has a map showing smart phone tracking data from that day, and you can watch thousands of blips congregate in the ellipse, then begin moving to the capital building en masse.
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I tuned in right after the video, apparently, through PBS feed.
Trump’s first lawyer was a rambling pathetic pile of horseshit, and the second lawyer was an angry and over-caffeinated pile of horseshit who looked like he was going to have a heart attack any second.
Quoting a poem at the end really didn’t add credence to his argument it just added long-windedness.
The second guy made a couple points that might have been convincing but his overall argument was bullshit because both of them basically equate trying to hold Trump accountable as something that will simply divide the nation and is something that should just be moved on from. The essence of their argument was that.
They wrapped everything around avoiding the issue by trying to conflate trying Trump with violating the Constitution and disenfranchising people who voted for him, as if the facts and the violence and the death simply didn’t matter at all to them.
I was very proud of Pat Toomey, otherwise a shitheel from my own state, for joining Bob Casey for a full PA vote to continue.
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Yep. At home in a red state and this is the equivalent action being discussed
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Creepy. These are the same fools who decry BLM protests?
Trump is going down, hard, good riddance.
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That was difficult to watch, and I watched it more-or-less in real time. The domestic 9/11. Trump should much more than be impeached for his crimes.
They didn’t even show clips of his kids and inner circle at the party issuing highly provocative statements, what Rudy said at the rally, etc.
It’s time for more than Likes alone methinks. Thoughts, Discourse folks…?
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Case closed
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Fascists’ defense strategies have gone full circle. It used to be “I was only following orders.” Now it’s “I was only giving orders, how was I supposed to know anyone would follow them?”
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I have no illusions. The prosecution could have video of Trump giving the order to kill Pelosi followed by a Nazi salute, the defense could consist entirely of a banana, and Republicans will still vote to acquit. We’ll all be outraged for a week, then move on because there’s nothing we can do about it. Depressing.
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I want it all on the record anyway. Even if it only ends up being useful to future historians studying the collapse of the civilization once known as the United States.
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If you live in a state with a GOP Senator, there is something you can do…
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This is really the first time I’ve watched any of this, and it is deeply disturbing. He built them up for years to do exactly this, and it’s clear his real-time “response” was urging them forward, not back. No reasonable person could say that he was really telling anyone to go home when he kept saying “the election was stolen”. How else is an angry mob, at the Capitol, who came there because they thought the election was fraudulent, going to react when their Great Leader keeps telling them it’s true?
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a good analysis i heard was that his whole lost in the woods meandering routine was intended to separate the emotional and intellectual weight of the earlier democrats arguments so that what senators were left with before the vote on constitutionality was the (fake) rage of the second guy.
of course, it’s also possible he was just incompetent.
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Yep. After all the utterly outrageous stuff he did for 5 years, it was still jaw-dropping when the best he could do to try to tame the riot he started was to tweet out a video where he repeated the lie that the election was stolen and told the rioters “we love you, you’re very special.”
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The specific take you had was something that occurred to me multiple times.
the first guy was set up to disarm people enough to be derailed by the arguments of the second lawyer, almost as an emotional guide, to an argument that was presented as factual and rational when it had nothing to do with the original reasons addressed by the Democrats.
I’m pretty sure at this point that second lawyer is the guy who is going to make the real case for Trump and he’s spinning everything as an approach to disenfranchising people to vote and many other things that have nothing to do with on the face of what actually happened and why the impeachment is going forward.
He’s a proper scumbag in that sense.
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