#Pardon for Capitol rioters

[poliphoon]

This politics of pardon is unpardonable

President Donald Trump has not let his first-day-first-show fans down. In a sweeping show of political sectarianism, he has showered pardons and commutations on nearly 1,600 rioters charged for crimes connected to the Capitol attack on January 6th 2021. The amnesty is a new milestone in the sham politics of pardons in America. Sham because Mr Trump’s pardons are meant for seditious Republican…

[saywhat-politics]

Hours after taking office, Trump signed an executive order pardoning over 1,500 rioters and commuting the sentences of some extremist group members.

President Donald Trump, free from the burden of his own indictment for allegedly conspiring to subvert the results of the 2020 election, on Monday signed an executive order pardoning people who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

While signing a series of executive orders at the White House hours after his inauguration, Trump said he was pardoning about 1,500 defendants charged in the attack on the U.S. Capitol — including those who assaulted police —and issuing some commutations. 

[womenclature]

The Associated Press says they are “free," “fair," “factual,” “nonpartisan," and “unbiased," yet in the same breath uses words like “carnage,” “riot,” and “attack” to describe the events of January 6, 2021. The Associated Press is just another wolf trying to dress in sheep’s clothing. Such blatant lies should be prosecuted.

[destiel-news-channel]

[Image ID: The Destiel confession meme edited so that Dean answers 'At least two Capitol Rioters rejected Trump's pardon.' to Cas' 'I love you'. /End ID]

"Trump can shove his pardon up his ass,"

said Jason Riddle, who had been sentenced to 90 days in prison for two misdemeanor offences. Pamela Hemphill, a 71-year old woman, also refused her pardon with the words "The message is, if I took a pardon that what I did was OK. They were criminals. They broke the law. I broke the law. Pay the price." - source link

[townflex]

Capitol Rioter Turns Down Trump's Pardon: 'We Were Wrong That Day'

A convicted participant in the January 6 Capitol riot has publicly rejected a pardon from former President Donald Trump, calling it an insult to the rule of law and the Capitol police officers who were harmed during the violent attack. Pamela Hemphill, who served 60 days in prison after pleading guilty to her role in the insurrection, made the statement in an interview with the BBC. Hemphill,…

[politicalantibody]

Just another innocent tourist….

[simply-ivanka]

“Well, you know, the only one that was killed was a beautiful young lady named Ashli Babbitt … shot for no reason whatsoever.” —Donald Trump this week

Just before Christmas, when most of the Leftmedia talkingheads and scribes were bloviating about the possibility that Donald Trump would issue pardons to nonviolent January 6 protesters, Joe Biden issued a record list of 65 pardons and 1,634 clemencies for some very violent criminals.

Biden has now pardoned or granted clemency to more than 8,000 criminals, far more than any president in U.S. history. For context, Trump issued a total of 237 pardons and clemencies in his first term. Biden’s pardons came on the heels of his disgraceful pardon of Hunter Biden, despite his assurances that he would never do so. Of course, Biden will be most remembered for his endless list of lies over the course of his entire life on the taxpayer dole.

The big pardon and clemency giveaway was much like his last-minute presidential medals extravaganza. He awarded trophies mostly to his disreputable political benefactors.

So, what will Trump do with the convictions of nonviolent January 6, 2021, protesters in Washington? More than 1,400 people were charged with federal crimes associated with that protest, most with nonviolent offenses like trespassing. Over 900 people have been convicted. Amid tens of thousands of rally participants outside on the Capitol grounds, there were an estimated 50-75 offenders who committed violence or damaged the Capitol building.

Prosecute Michael Byrd for Killing Ashli Babbitt

Repost

[theonion]

President Donald Trump pardoned approximately 1,500 rioters who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Here is everything you need to know about the pardons and commutations.

[whyissupernaturaltrending]

January 21-28, 2025 - *a tired sigh*

It's the destiel meme and politics. Mostly. These usually simply amplify the general spn posting which then together causes a trend.

A few highlights of these past few days announced via the destiel meme and subsequently causing the trend, include (but are not limited to):

TikTok ban [x] [x]

TikTok unban [x]

Elon Musk doing a Nazi salute during Trump's inauguration twice [x]

Trump's executive order on only recognizing two sexes as assigned at birth (which was widely commented on in the news as his making everyone in the US female [x] [x] [x] [x])

Trump's flurry of executive orders, tariff-related news, and other statements [x] [x] [x] [x]

Jan 6 Capitol rioters' pardon and some of the rioters' rejection of it [x] [x] [x]

There were however some more positive highlights:

Thailand's same sex marriage law taking effect: [x] [x]

Dean Winchester's birthday which has a separate post here (as always with the birthday trends): [x]

The only commentary I'll offer to the first bulk of the news is this meme [source]:

All of this begs one more final question, @destiel-news-channel are you okay?

[deadpresidents]

"When inmates are released from federal prison, the Justice Department places a call to their victims, notifying them that the defendant who attacked them is now free. On Tuesday, the phones of U.S. Capitol Police and D.C. police officers were buzzing nonstop.

For Aquilino A. Gonell, a former Capitol Police sergeant, the automated calls began on Monday evening and continued into Tuesday morning after President Trump issued a sweeping legal reprieve to all of the nearly 1,600 defendants, including those convicted of violent crimes, in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Between 7:03 a.m. and 9:37 a.m., Mr. Gonell received nine calls from the Justice Department about the release of inmates.

Mr. Gonell, who was assaulted during the attack and retired because of the injuries he suffered, was as outraged and distraught as he was shortly after the violence.

"It's a miscarriage of justice, a betrayal, a mockery, and a desecration of the men and women that risked their lives defending our democracy," he said of the nearly 1,600 pardons and 14 commutations.

More than 150 police officers from the two agencies were injured during the assault on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob four years ago. Some were hit in the head with baseball bats, flagpoles and pipes. One lost consciousness after rioters used a metal barrier to push her down as they marched to the building.

Now many of those officers described themselves as struggling and depressed in response to Mr. Trump freeing their attackers."

-- Here's a gift article to bypass the paywall and read Luke Broadwater's New York Times article, "Police Express Outrage Over Trump's Jan. 6 Pardons".

[aeolianblues]

This was a really insightful listen. She's an older former MAGA supporter who was at Jan 6, but has refused Trump's pardon. She says she was misinformed, what I found interesting was how she described it. She said all these sources around her (on social media) she could find were telling her the election was 'being stolen by democrats', and she mentions it coming from seemingly 'knowledgeable people who had 2 or 3 PhDs'. She wasn't an extremist, but was someone who had worked as an alcohol and drugs councillor who had been sold on a 'communism' boogeyman. The misinformed concerned citizen. The penny finally dropped when she realised how many times any evidence she brought up to the contrary was rejected as 'fake', she described it as being part of a con.

She reckons the pardons are so that Trump can have his own violent thugs prowling the streets in his name. And she's probably right. When else has trump ever given a fuck about the useful idiots that have done his bidding?

[saywhat-politics]

Vice President JD Vance defended the pardons of Jan. 6 rioters Sunday on “Face The Nation,” going against his comments earlier this month when he said violent rioters should not be pardoned.

Vance told “Face The Nation” moderator Margaret Brennan that violence against a police officer is “not justified,” but that the “weaponized” Department of Justice was “unconstitutional” in its charges against the rioters.

[socialjusticeinamerica]

Only two.

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

He threw a homemade bomb at Capitol police officers that detonated in the building.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

January 22, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Jan 23, 2025

Marc Caputo of Axios reported today that Trump’s decision to pardon or commute the sentences of all the January 6 rioters convicted of crimes for that day’s events, including those who attacked police officers, was a spur of the moment decision by Trump apparently designed to get the issue behind him quickly. “Trump just said: ‘F*ck it: Release ‘em all,’” an advisor recalled.

Rather than putting the issue behind him, Trump’s new administration is already mired in controversy over it. NBC News profiled the men who threw Nazi salutes, posted that they intended to start a civil war, vowed “there will be blood,” and called for the lynching of Democratic lawmakers. These men, who attacked police with bear spray, flag poles, and a metal whip and choked officers with their bare hands, are now back on the streets.

That means they are also headed home to their communities. Jackson Reffitt, who reported his father Guy’s participation in the January 6 riot and was a key witness against him, told reporters he fears for his life now that his father is free. Jackson recorded his father’s threat against talking to the authorities. “If you turn me in, you’re a traitor,” his father said, “and traitors get shot.” “I’m honestly flabbergasted that we've gotten to this point," Jackson told CNN. “I’m terrified. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

The country’s largest police union, the Fraternal Order of Police, has spoken out against the pardons, as has the International Association of Chiefs of Police. The Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote: “Law and order? Back the blue? What happened to that [Republican Party]?” “What happened [on January 6, 2021] is a stain on Mr. Trump’s legacy,” it wrote. “By setting free the cop beaters, the President adds another.”

Mark Jacob of Stop the Presses commented: “Republicans—the Jailbreak Party.”

One of the pardoned individuals is already back in prison on a gun charge, illustrating, as legal analyst Joyce White Vance said, why Trump should have evaluated “prior criminal history, behavior in prison, [and] risk of dangerousness to the community following release. Now,” she said, “we all pay the price for him using the pardon power as a political reward.” On social media, Heather Thomas wrote: “So when all was said and done, the only country that opened [its] prisons and sent crazy murderous criminals to prey upon innocent American citizens, was us.”

MSNBC’s Kyle Griffin reported that Stewart Rhodes of the Oath Keepers, who was convicted of sedition and sentenced to 18 years in prison, met with lawmakers on Capitol Hill this afternoon.

For the past two days, the new Trump administration has been demonstrating that it is far easier to break things than it is to build them.

In his determination to get rid of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) measures, Trump has shut down all federal government DEI offices and has put all federal employees working in such programs on leave, telling agencies to plan for layoffs. He reached back to the American past to root out all possible traces of DEI, calling it “illegal discrimination in the federal government.” Trump revoked a series of executive orders from various presidents designed to address inequities among American populations.

Dramatically, he reached all the way back to Executive Order 11246, signed by President Lyndon Baines Johnson in September 1965 to stop discriminatory practices in hiring in the federal government and in the businesses of those who were awarded federal contracts. Johnson put forward Executive Order 11246 shortly after Congress passed the Voting Rights Act to protect minority voting and a year after Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, both designed to level the playing field in the United States between white Americans, Black Americans and Americans of color.

In an even more dramatic reworking of American history, though, the Trump administration has frozen all civil rights cases currently being handled by the Department of Justice and has ordered Trump’s new supervisor of the civil rights division, Kathleen Wolfe, to make sure that none of the civil rights attorneys file any new complaints or other legal documents.

Congress created the Department of Justice in 1870…to prosecute civil rights cases.

Today, Erica L. Green reported for the New York Times that Trump’s team has threatened federal employees with “adverse consequences” if they refuse to turn in colleagues who “defy orders to purge diversity, equity and inclusion efforts from their agencies.” Civil rights lawyer Sherrilyn Ifill commented: “Can’t wait until these guys have to define in court a ‘DEI hire’ and ‘DEI employees.’”

Trump’s team has told the staff at Department of Health and Human Services—including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH)—to stop issuing health advisories, scientific reports, and updates to their websites and social media posts. Lena H. Sun, Dan Diamond, and Rachel Roubein of the Washington Post report that the CDC was expected this week to publish reports on the avian influenza virus, which has shut down Georgia’s poultry industry.

Trump has also set out to make his mark on the Department of Homeland Security. Trump yesterday removed the U.S. Coast Guard commandant, Admiral Linda Lee Fagan, and ordered the Coast Guard to surge cutters, aircrafts, boats and personnel to waters around Florida and borders with Mexico and to “the maritime border around Alaska, Hawai’i, the U.S. territories of Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands,” to stop migrants. The service is already covering these areas as well as it can: last August, the vice commandant of the Coast Guard, Admiral Kevin Lunday, told the Brookings Institution that the service was short of personnel and ships.

As Josh Funk reported in the Associated Press, Trump also fired the head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), responsible for keeping the nation’s transportation systems safe. He also fired all the members of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee, mandated by Congress after the 1988 bombing of PanAm flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, to review safety in airports and airlines.

Hannah Rabinowitz, Evan Perez, and Kara Scannell of CNN reported that Trump has pushed aside senior Department of Justice lawyers in the national security division, prosecutors who work on international affairs, and lawyers in the criminal division, all divisions that were involved in the prosecutions involving Trump.

Trump has also suspended all funding disbursements for projects funded by the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, laws that invested billions of dollars in construction of clean energy manufacturing and the repair of roads, bridges, ports, and so on, primarily in Republican-dominated states.

Breaking things is easy, but it is harder to build them.

During the campaign, Trump repeatedly teased the idea that he had a secret plan to end Russia’s war against Ukraine in a day. This morning, in a social media post, he revealed it. He warned Russian president Vladimir Putin that he would “put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries.”

In fact, President Barack Obama and then–secretary of state John Kerry hit Russia with sanctions after its 2014 invasion of Ukraine, and under President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, the U.S. and its allies have maintained biting sanctions against Russia. At the same time, Russia’s trade with the U.S. has fallen to lows that echo those of the period immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union.

“Making a ridiculous post about tariffs on Truth Social was his secret plan to end the war in 24 hours?” wrote editor Ron Filipkowski of MeidasNews. “What a ridiculous clown show. Idiocracy.”

Yesterday, Trump held an event with chief executive officer Sam Altman of OpenAI, chairman and chief technology officer Larry Ellison of Oracle, and chief executive officer Masayoshi Son of SoftBank to roll out a $500 billion investment in artificial intelligence, although Ja’han Jones of MSNBC explained that it’s not clear how much of that investment was already in place. In any case, Trump’s sidekick Elon Musk promptly threw water on the announcement, posting on X, “They don’t actually have the money.” He added “SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority.”

Musk has his own plan for developing AI tools and is in a legal battle with OpenAI. Altman retorted: “this is great for the country. i realize what is great for the country isn’t always what’s optimal for your companies, but in your new role i hope you’ll mostly put [America] first.” As Jones noted, the fight took the shine off Trump’s big announcement.

As for turning his orders into reality, Trump has turned that responsibility over to others.

Mark Berman and Jeremy Roebuck of the Washington Post noted today that Trump’s executive orders covered a wide range of topics and then simply told the incoming attorney general to handle them. A key theme of Trump’s campaign was his accusations that Biden was using the Justice Department against Trump and his loyalists; Berman and Roebuck point out that Trump “appears to want the Justice Department to act as both investigator and enforcer of his personal and policy wishes.”

This morning, Meryl Kornfield and Patrick Svitek of the Washington Post, with the help of researcher Alec Dent, reported on Trump’s first meeting with House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Senate majority leader John Thune (R-SD). Trump frequently repeated, “promises made, promises kept,” but offered no guidance for how he foresees getting his agenda through Congress, where the Republicans have tiny margins. Both Johnson and Thune pointed out that it will be difficult to get majorities behind some of his plans.

According to Kornfield and Svitek, Trump stressed “that he doesn’t care how his agenda becomes law, just that it must.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON