Fool me twice, etc.
“No one in law enforcement should be caught off guard if trouble breaks out before, during, or after the November presidential election,” Juliette Kayyem begins in The Atlantic.
It is not too soon for the Biden administration and the Department of Justice to start what-iffing a response, and to take seriously recommendations made by the January 6th Committee . It appears the administration means to get ahead of the next insurrection. “A show of readiness,” Kayyem writes, “can also deter people who might have learned the wrong lesson from the Capitol riot: that just a bit more violence might have changed the outcome of the 2020 election.” Because the most hardcore MAGA soldiers not already in jail (especially those with military training) will have learned from Jan. 6 how to do a coup and how not to.
Kayyem adds:
Any attempts to shore up the nation’s defenses against political violence might be misinterpreted—or intentionally misconstrued—by some of Trump’s supporters as an attempt by a Democratic administration to use federal power to interfere in the 2024 election. But the fact that everything Biden does at this stage will be seen through a politicized lens shouldn’t scare him into inaction.
If Trump and his supporters want to quibble with plans to protect election officials from external pressure during vote counts in Georgia and Wisconsin, or to protect members of Congress from rioters during the certification process, then they should do so out loud, before the election. But preparing for election turmoil shouldn’t be a partisan issue. The right keeps warning us of the potential for left-wing antifa violence; surely conservatives would want the executive branch to prevent it from affecting the vote certification if Trump wins. The best course is to lay out transparent plans to safeguard the electoral process no matter who is ultimately sworn in.
On one level, we all want to forget about the death and disruptions of COVID-19 pandemic that dominated 2020. It was a worldwide trauma. But people as committed as the Proud Boys and the Roger Stones and Christian nationalists will not go away. The figureheads will keep more distance from overt planning. But they may not need to do more than feed the desire of the fringe right for direct action. Trump, as Michael Cohen testified, knows well how to make his desires plain without stating them plainiy. His followers will take it upon themselves to give the Boss the violence he craves. Even MAGA judges know what the Boss wants:
In his sentencing memo Thursday, U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney made it clear why he was letting Tyler Laube off lightly.
It wasn’t just because of what Laube did or didn’t do – the defendant had already confessed to beating a journalist at a 2017 Southern California rally and pleaded guilty to violating riot laws as part of a white supremacist gang.
Laube deserved a light sentence, Carney said, because prosecutors should have focused on leftist groups.
In a 22-page memo, Carney repeatedly said prosecutors have “ignored” violence committed by Antifa and instead focused on targeting people like Laube – Trump supporters and members of the far right.
Ninety miles away on the same day, USA Today reminds readers, ANTIFA members were on trial:
In San Diego, the last two defendants in the “San Diego 11” – members of Antifa charged with committing violence against Trump supporters in January 2021 – were sitting before a jury. Their nine co-defendants have already been sentenced, some of them to years in prison, for their crimes.
Strongmen rise out of chaos, a friend noted yesterday. Provide enough chaos and people will demand one. It need not be as localized as the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Yes, some of these clowns are itching to “go to guns” with the left and the gummint. But direct confrontation and frontal assault may not be the only way to introduce chaos. For those unwilling to martyr themselves in a glorious shootout, attacks on utilities have already been field-tested and not all the terrorists prosecuted.
Some of the perps in the N.C. substation attacks may have been trained at Fort Bragg,
North Carolina and elsewhere.
We’ve looked at such attacks here, here, and here.
The FBI is still looking for the perps behind the Aug, 2023 Torrance, California substation attack. To my knowledge, the 2013 Metcalf, Calif. sniper attack on a substation remains unsolved. This is chaos on the cheap for armed RW reactionaries. The “how to” is in circulation. You know it is.
Lucklily for us, Trump will not be in control of the executive branch on Jan. 6 next year, or on Inauguration Day, win or lose. Better that the Biden adminstration is braced for whatever comes.
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