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From Riot to Insurrection to Terrorism: January 6th Continues to be a Tragedy in the Eye of the Beholder

For years, I have maintained that January 6th was a disgraceful riot but not an insurrection. That issue came to a head with the litigation over disqualifying former president Donald Trump and similar calls to block dozens of Republican incumbents from ballots. Now, the protest that became a riot has been elevated from an insurrection to a terrorist attack.  Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and other democrats are using the description despite no one being charged with insurrection or terrorism.

On Sunday, Ocasio-Cortez declared to CNN host Jake Tapper that “We’re talking about an individual who ordered essentially a terrorist attack on the Capital of the United States in order to retain power.”

In fairness to Ocasio-Cortez, she is not alone in such characterizations. For example, many of us were surprised when FBI Director Christopher Wray condemned the January riot at the U.S. Capitol as “domestic terrorism.” From a strictly legal basis, it was wildly inaccurate, in my view.

Liberal publications like Politico have railed against the Justice Department for not charging terrorism. That has been supported by some law professors.

Those charged for their role in the attack that day are largely facing trespass and other less serious charges — rather than insurrection or sedition. While the FBI launched a massive national investigation, it did not find evidence of an insurrection. While a few were charged with seditious conspiracy, no one was charged with insurrection. Trump has never been charged with either incitement or insurrection.

The media has fueled these claims. One year after the riot, CBS News mostly downplayed and ignored the result of its own poll showing that 76 percent viewed it for what it was, as a “protest gone too far.”

They argue that this riot could simply be treated as “calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct.” However, so could other protests that result in property damage and criminal acts.  We have seen other legislative proceedings shutdown by protesters with members removed from the floor. The question is where to draw the line to avoid the arbitrary classification of some protests as terrorism and others as unlawful access or trespass.

Nancy Pelosi called protesters at her home Russian plants. Politicians called a protest on the Tennessee House floor “an insurrection.” Such rhetoric excess easily inflames the public, but it creates lasting erroneous views of the law. That in turn can pose a real threat to free speech as the line between demonstrations and terrorism are blurred.

Ocasio-Cortez’s view of what constitutes the crime of terrorism is dubious for many, particularly after she declared that racketeering is not a crime. However, there is pressure to ramp up rhetoric as we approach the 2024 elections. To start to call opponents or critics terrorists has long been a problem on both ends of the political spectrum.

231 thoughts on “From Riot to Insurrection to Terrorism: January 6th Continues to be a Tragedy in the Eye of the Beholder”

  1. Perhaps she could change her name from Ms. AOC to ‘Misnomer’.

    noun
    -a misapplied or inappropriate name or designation.
    -an error in naming a person or thing.

    Would swear I’ve read of a similar practice somewhere… In a book by Orwell?

  2. Seventy six percent of Americans believe that it was a protest that got out of hand. The leftist refer to their socialist handbook. On page 42 it clearly states, “Repeat the lie often enough and people will come to believe it”. Concerning Jan 6, one could easily state that it was a mostly peaceful demonstration seeing that no fires were raging in the background. People running from a burning court house were most likely terrorized. Oh wait! That was in Portland, Seattle and Minneapolis. My bad.

    1. Also watch the footage of when Trump was inaugurated.
      Protests, fires, windows smashed, violence…
      Remember, in addition to ‘repeat the lie’ is ‘never mention it’.

      1. Also, the reason they boarded up most Democrat cities during 2020 election. They weren’t expecting riots from the right….

  4. I have been saying this since obama was put in office – we are 2 distinct, separate, oppositional nations inhabiting the same real estate and only one culture can survive while the other must retreat. Which one is it going to be; shall we stay free as our founding fathers envisioned, or will we allow the rabble at the bottom and the misguided elites at the top turn this once great nation into a 3rd world catchall for all the worlds detritus?

  5. 1/6 was a giant set-up, that is the disgrace. The execution of Ashli Babbit by a moron cop (now a Captain – shocker) is a disgrace. The involvement of local and federal agents in the preparation and escalation of the demonstrations is a disgrace. The lack of media scrutiny and the media conspiracy to cooperate with the Feds is a disgrace. The actions and judgements of the Federal court is a disgrace.

    The fact that the dems have nothing else to run on other than booga-booga-boo is not a disgrace because that would have required grace previously.

    The fact that there are not true armed insurrections since the Federal courts started leaving people in solitary and then prison for more than a couple days is, frankly, a disgrace. If there has ever been cause for an “insurrection” it is in response to the faked insurrection.

    1. I am wondering if the vital forces that allowed our citizens to create, expand and previously defend this nation have been stripped away through decades of propagandized indoctrination by our media/education industry and also decades of processed fast foods that have turned so many of us into walking tubs of lard to out of breath to have time to digest the news while we stuff our faces to more food than would supply a small village in Africa for a week.

  6. Desperate people do desperate things! Sadly, the Democrat party knows that Joe Biden is a very flawed and failing man – hardly one who should be the President of the United States. They also know that Kamala Harris could not get elected without Joe Biden. Thus, the need to disqualify Trump and others. The real terrorism are the many acts of those who use the law, public opinion and a hate group to alter our ability to speak. I am more frightened of what the nation is becoming under the left’s tremendous need to destroy people and withthe ends justifying the means. Last week a fellow told me it didn’t matter if a prosecutor was dishonest, as long as the trial goes on (and the outcome to his linking. The context was the prosecutor in the GA case.) This is alarming. People who are afraid of being prosecutor for speaking up as the left pushes for total control.

    So, words do matter. Sticks and Stones — the nursey rhyme says words will never hurt me. But they will. They will break our hearts, steal away our confidence, break our spirit, take away our conscious, and most of all our lives. We are treading on very serious grounds if this continues. Words lead to action and if this assault from the left continues, we are walking away from being a strong nation. There is always a price to be paid for one’s actions — now or later. Consequences are the fallout of actions taken.

    Biden isn’t leading a nation, he is leading a political party, and one he can’t control. He mimics words that he is given to say so ‘hold on to your horses’ folks, the real show is now starting as the elections heats up. We will see if what unfolds.

  7. Please cease regaling us with images of that nauseating, braindead bartender-cum-member of the House whose equally neurologically impaired constituency are at their wits end due to her lack of attention to their needs. There’s an election coming. Send her packing, fools!!

  8. And the BLM riots across the United States in 2020 were “mostly peaceful” during the summer of love. Democrats will hammer the two-tier standard of justice all the way to November 5th.

  9. Look up the word [ Insurrection } and the cessation of the stupidity should stop.

    1. Yet, AOC and other idiot Democrats continue to claim there was an insurrection, a terrorist attack when there clearly was not one.
      The CBS own poll shows American know that, yet they continue to ignore their own poll and try to spin their narrative.
      And they wonder why the public has so little faith and confidence in them.

      1. “Yet, AOC and other idiot Democrats continue to claim there was an insurrection, a terrorist attack when there clearly was not one.”

        Upstate, Fishwings is a Democrat. He can’t think. He still believes the summer riots by BLM were peaceful even though people died. If he had a brain in his head, he could defend his position or choose one defensible. Since he can’t, he proves he has the mental abilities of a guppie.

    2. FishAnus tried this desperate Soviet Democrat schtick

      Look up the word [ Insurrection } and the cessation of the stupidity should stop.

      And while implying you actually did that, here you are: still doubling down on the Soviet Democrat cocktail of police state fascism and stupidity.

      The question for FishAnus and the other Soviet Democrats is this: if January the 6th was an insurrection by whatever definition they want used, why wasn’t the earlier much longer and far more violent attempted assault on the White House that caused the Secret Service to evacuate the president while the White House was under attack ALSO an insurrection?

      How about The 2020 Year Of Mostly Peaceful Occupying And Burning Federal Buildings? The occupation of city blocks by force of assault weapons?

      Also insurrection, FishAnus? Or are all those far more violent and far more destructive actions by the Soviet Democrats street thugs in Pantifa and Black Liars And Marxists NOT insurrection? If not, why?

      Because it’s not insurrection when the Soviet Democrats and their street thugs do it?

      Polling is increasingly showing that Soviet Democrat liars like FishAnus and Dennis McIntyre are at the point where they’re harming their attempted defense of Bribery Biden, The Big Guy

    3. FishWings said: “the cessation of the stupidity should stop.”

      Take some lessons in fundamental English grammar and you might learn to avoid contradicting your own (assumed) point. Stopping the cessation of a stupidity would leave whatever the “stupidity” was intact.

    4. Fishy. nobody is charged using the dictionary. The are charged using the criminal code.

      You are always wrong, because you get the simple things wrong.

    2. Jim22 said: “AOC – RICO does anything else need to be written?”

      Alexandria Occasional Cortex probably supposes that “RICO” refers to a Caribbean island just East of the Dominican Republic.

  11. I predicted the Democrats would be ratcheting up the FEAR rhetoric as we get closer and closer to election day.
    Soon, everything will be an act of terrorism, an insurrection. Anyone and everyone not a Democrat will be literally a Nazi, Hitler, a racist, sexist, homophobe, transphobe, potatophobe. Trying to kill the planet for not driving a EV or not eating plant based fake meat.

    “I do give a $hit about who wins the next election. And outdated racial pandering is one reason Democrats lose elections,” Maher said. “When Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi put on Kente cloth, I don’t think it earned them one vote for their powerful emotional ties to Ghana.”

    “Here in California, we’re now segregating kidnapping. Really,” he continued. “California doesn’t just have AMBER alerts for missing children. We have ‘Ebony alerts’ for Black children and ‘feather’ alerts for Native American kids. What is that, you look for them by listening on the ground?”

    That, ^^, is how dumb Democrats have become. And Bill Maher is pointing it out.

  12. Evil advances where the response is weak.
    We aren’t even allowed to speak the truth.

  13. Jon when are you going to admit that there is a 2 tier system….Democrats can commit crimes….republicans can be jailed for NO Committing Crimes?

  14. so years in solitary confinement for trespassing the capital? Where as BLM rioters who attacked government…walk free?

    A woman was Murder on the day…unarmed….anyone go to jail…or can COPS now just SHOOT republicans dead at will?

    Everyone with a brain knows that Democrats Organized January 6th. We need to jail Fascist Democrats from across government by the THOUSANDS for their crimes! Think Nuremberg Trials!

    1. From the second I watched it on TV until this very moment that incident was obviously a murder. Cold blooded murder. And the creep who did it has yet to be charged or put on trial because Democrats and Republicans alike have refused to do it. If nothing else it should tell us that at the end of the day, it is us vs. them when it comes to political violence. And they are going to have their ways. No Republican is going to stand up against it.

      1. The creep who did it is Lieutenant Michael Byrd.
        His name should be known throughout the world.
        He murdered Ashley Babbitt.
        Instead of facing justice, the cold-blooded murderer got promoted.

  15. Let me know when we JAIL the REAL traitors…the Russian Hoax actors?
    Where DEMOCRATS and RINOS across government used a foreign spy, a Russian, etc to OVER THROW THE President and JAIL people around him?

    “Our” government has been taken over by Democrat Fascists!

  16. I’ve been saying for a while now that,

    “It would take an unpredictable act of God, an extraordinary turn of events, for me to vote for Trump in the 2024 general election.”

    Well folks, I’ve honestly got to tell you that the political left has been, and is currently, in the process of fabricating those “extraordinary turn of events”, one by one, and they’re piling them up in front of my door. They haven’t toppled the pile over my threshold yet but I’m guessing that their typical “October Surprise” propaganda push just before the election might push them over the threshold. I have confidence in their abilities to push false propaganda narratives but I really don’t want them to prove it to me during this election cycle.

    My request is that Democrats and their Pravda-USA media outlets stop what they’re doing and try to be the adults in the room for the next seven months.

    1. a Fascist Democrat can’t change their spots. They have placed brain dead amoral criminals at the top! This is like asking the Nazis in 1930’s to be nicer and relinquish power

  17. All of a piece with the criminalization of ‘disfavored speech’ now favored by the leftist academic/bureaucratic cultural bourgeoisie, a legacy heralding back to Jean Jacques Rousseau’s supremacy of the ‘General Will’ of the people ( la ‘Volonté Générale), and echoed in NeoMarxist Herbert Marcuse’s ‘repressive tolerance’ essay of 1965, the poison seed of political correctness and leftist censorship.

  18. Let hope that Loudermilk will hold new hearings about J6.
    There are so many odd aspects to it. It’s almost as if it were
    a massive entrapment operation.

      1. Steve W, I appreciate you saying that! There seems to be a lot of good videos on that channel. Thankfully, I am retired, and my part-time work is less than 15 hours per week, so I have plenty of time to watch these. And read.

    2. I wrote a blog back in December or 2022 specifically about fear…

      Fear Is A Hammer & We’re Nails

      Here is the first paragraph of that blog…

      “The hysterical public mindset in the United States is across-the-board and created by decades of wide-spread apocalyptic propaganda that’s been force fed to the public and slowly brainwashed the masses.”

  20. One year after the riot, CBS News mostly downplayed and ignored the result of its own poll showing that 76 percent viewed it for what it was, as a “protest gone too far.”

    Yeah. That. But the Democrats sell FEAR, every hour of every day. And so far, it has worked for them.

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