One of the most cited facts about January 6th was a mock gallows brought by some protesters who named Vice President Michael Pence as a candidate for the noose. The media continued to reference and show the gallows in its coverage. It has shown less interest in the appearance of a guillotine at prior pro-Palestine protests, at the Trump inauguration, and in the protests on Saturday against Donald Trump.
The appearance of the noose on January 6th was roundly condemned, including on this blog, at the time, but then became a talking point on the left to show that this was a violent attempt to overthrow the government. Harvard Professor Lawrence Tribe has even claimed that Trump should have been charged with the attempted murder of Pence.
The media seems less alarmed by such images on the left. At the Hands Off! protest organized by Indivisible, some apparently felt it was better to focus on heads off and the divisibility of their political opponents.
The reappearance of the device associated with “The Terror” of the French Revolution was a crude handicraft this weekend and carried by just a couple of protesters. It was a small, rather pathetic version in comparison to the earlier replicas. It was only meant to convey the anger of these particular protesters about what should happen to the likes of Musk and Trump.
The point is not that everyone in this protest, or even this couple, was encouraging violence. After all, these were just two unhinged protesters among thousands. Rather, this is how we treated rage rhetoric that is the point, which I discuss in my book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
Rage is a curious thing. If you agree with the underlying grievance it is righteous, if you disagree, it is dangerous.
For those who hate Trump, it is merely the amplification of their views and emotions. Indivisible and many Democratic politicians have been fueling the claim that democracy is dying and that we are living under a fascistic or oligarchic regime. On its website, Indivisible claims:
This is a nationwide mobilization to stop the most brazen power grab in modern history. Trump, Musk, and their billionaire cronies are orchestrating an all-out assault on our government, our economy, and our basic rights—enabled by Congress every step of the way.
“They want to strip America for parts—shuttering Social Security offices, firing essential workers, eliminating consumer protections, and gutting Medicaid—all to bankroll their billionaire tax scam. They’re handing over our tax dollars, our public services, and our democracy to the ultra-rich.
If we don’t fight now, there won’t be anything left to save.”
The reappearance of the guillotine on the left is ironic given the analogies in my column this weekend of this rising radical movement to the Jacobins for the French Revolution.
What is missing now is just a couple powdered wigs, a tumbrel, and a catchy tune.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
Well, they do have one thing right: This is a nationwide mobilization to stop the most brazen power grab in modern history. They’re simply lying about the power that’s being grabbed, who it’s being grabbed from and where that power is being redirected. The Democratic party’s entire existence is rooted in the power of the purse. They learned this little nugget, attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville and they put it on steroids; The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money. Nefarious actors in the CIA, State Department and all their NGO cutouts have used that power to create a foreign welfare state, just as has been created domestically. This is our generations House divided war. Only this time the question is, are we all going to be slaves to government, or are we going to unchain ourselves from their bondage?
THE DAILY OKLAHOMAN
Sunday, December 9, 1951
This is the Hard Core of Freedom
By ELMER T. PETERSON
Two centuries ago, a somewhat obscure Scotsman named Tytler made this profound observation: “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy.”
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Henning Webb Prentis Jr.
The Prentis Cycle
In a 1943 address to the University of Pennsylvania entitled The Cult of Competency (later reprinted as Industrial Management in a Republic) Prentis described what has become known as The Prentis Cycle in which, he asserted, “popular self-government ultimately generates disintegrating forces from within”, as:
From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to apathy; from apathy to dependency; and from dependency back to bondage once more.[5]
In a 1946 book, Prentis renamed one stage of the cycle and added two stages. The cycle, as revised, is:
From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to courage; from courage to freedom; from freedom to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to fear; from fear to dependency; and from dependency back to bondage once more.[6]
Thank you for the history lesson. I truly mean that. It’s somewhat comforting to know my observations are correct.
The J6 noose was delivered very early in the morning by persons whose identities were obscured from security cameras. It has never, to my knowledge, been linked to any Trump supporters.
Anyone have any information to the contrary?
Proclamation 80—Calling Forth the Militia and Convening an Extra Session of Congress
“On April 15, 1861,…President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation calling forth the state militias, to the sum of 75,000 troops, in order to suppress the rebellion. He appealed ‘to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate, and aid this effort to maintain the honor, the integrity, and the existence of our National Union.’”
Proclamation 92—Warning to Rebel Sympathizers
“[On] July 17, 1862,…I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby proclaim to and warn all persons within the contemplation of said sixth section to cease participating in, aiding, countenancing, or abetting the existing rebellion or any rebellion against the Government of the United States and to return to their proper allegiance to the United States on pain of the forfeitures and seizures as within and by said sixth section provided.”
________________________________________________________________________________
Abraham Lincoln was a Great American President.
Now President Donald J. Trump MUST implement his rendition of “The Lincoln Era,” close the border, rescind rebel sanctuary cities, compassionately repatriate all illegal and unassimilable aliens, revoke birthright citizenship, make English the sole official language, commence a war to defeat the rebellion, impose martial law, suspend habeas corpus, “smash” rebel printing presses, networks, podcasts, and social media platforms, and imprison political opponents and rebel judges, all in order to save, not the Union, but the Nation, eradicate the communist American welfare state, and place America squarely back on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, including absolute freedom, free enterprise, free industries, free markets, private property, and minimal taxation and regulation, alongside infinitesimal constitutional government.
(SARC/ON)
May the Lord continue to bless and strengthen the good Professor; and may HE bless those that come here with honorable intentions. May HE protect, strengthen and prosper the peacekeepers among us. In the name of Christ the King of Kings, we pray HIS will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
so can we JAIL democrats by the 10000’s finally!
They are very clear how much they hate America and the CRIMES they commit!
Just watched Norm Eisen clearly admit they impeached Trump to COVER UP the Biden Bribery scam!
Small and pathetic is an apt description of woke leftists.
Yep
What does the left do when it has nothing to offer? It stages political theater, chants empty slogans, raises the guillotine, and screams about justice while setting the world on fire. It riots, loots, and burns. Creation is too challenging, and destruction is easy.
The rage is misplaced. Blame yourself.
Good advice. Too bad narcissists never take good advice.
Noahide Laws are coming… See NL#1
I guess the protesters yesterday did not understand that their statement was a total contradiction in facts.
Fact 1-they lost at the ballot box
Fact 2-there appear to be more leftwing billionaires than right wing.
Fact 3-the present administration has made changes to the process of changing how you send your social security to your bacnk because approx 30-40 % of bank change requests were fraudulent.
Fact 4-medicaid remains alive and well but illegal aliens are not entitled to medicaid
Fact 5-consumer protections remain in place but simply rolled back to a more sane level and strange that so many came forth as Biden was going out the door rather than having started from the first of his term
Fact 6-I guess they were not worried about the billions that Biden took from Medicare in 2022 and 2023 that reduced services in Medicare advantage plans, or that Obama “stole” billions from Medicare to fund the misnamed “affordable care act’
Fact 7-Who was going to pay the protesters demonstration fees if their billionaire sponsors don’t get their billions . I mean, “will they have to demonstrate for free?”
Fact 9-bears repeating they lost at the ballot box.
Fact 10-Trump said that this was what he was going to do. Did they think he he was going to act like the new Christian Democrat leader in Germany who talked about all he was going to do about immigration and other things the populace wanted and then once elected basically said “just kidding, I’m not going to do any of that”.
Fact 10-Wall street suddenly realized on Thursday that Trump meant what he said about tariffs. A wise person would probably have started thinking about all of that during the 2nd week in November 2024 and planning for it.
Fact 11-the brownshirts forgot to wear their brown shirts
A Guillotine is far too impractical as a weapon and paper mache is so retro. And those that started using the guillotine often ended up as the main attraction a few months to years down the road.
Good list, GEB 🙂
TRUMP IS IN OFFICE FOR ONE REASON ONLY-HE LIED ABOUT IMMEDIATELY BRINGING DOWN THE COST OF GROCERIES. Even HE admits that. Do you have any reliable source for what you claim are the facts you wrote here? TRUMP also LIED about Project 2025–he denied that he even knew what it was–and now, that’s exactly what he is implementing. He brought on board most of the authors of Project 2025. Americans opposed it in 2024 and still do. How does one “plan for” tariffs? Who knows with a chronic, habitual liar like Trump–someone who flies by the seat of his pants and is purely transactional– might pull next? The tariffs were on…then they were off… then said he was just using it for a negotiating tool….then said he meant it…then he said they were temporary…then he said they are permanent. Corporations and Wall Street cannot tolerate uncertainty. How could you plan for one month from now, much less 6 months or 6 years from now, if you are a corporation or an investor? You can’t, which is why we won’t see some influx of new factories.
From “Huff Post”:
“Retired Army Gen. Mark Milley, who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, now says Trump is a “total fascist” and “fascist to the core,” according to a forthcoming book by Bob Woodward, the famed Watergate journalist.
“He is the most dangerous person ever,” Milley told Woodward for his book “War,” according to The Guardian. “I had suspicions when I talked to you about his mental decline and so forth, but now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is now the most dangerous person to this country.”
From “CNN”:
Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson painted a scathing picture of his old boss President Donald Trump as someone who made uninformed decisions that were not based in reality – a stark contrast to Trump’s top diplomat Mike Pompeo, who is heaping praise on the outgoing President in his final days in office.
“His understanding of global events, his understanding of global history, his understanding of U.S. history was really limited. It’s really hard to have a conversation with someone who doesn’t even understand the concept for why we’re talking about this,” Tillerson said in a lengthy interview with Foreign Policy conducted prior to Wednesday’s assault on the Capitol that was published this week.
Tillerson, who was ousted in March 2018, told the magazine, “I used to go into meetings with a list of four to five things I needed to talk to him about, and I quickly learned that if I got to three, it was a home run, and I realized getting two that were meaningful was probably the best objective.”
He added that he “started taking charts and pictures with (him) because I found that those seemed to hold his attention better.”
From “CNN”:
“John Kelly, the longest-serving White House chief of staff for Donald Trump, offered his harshest criticism yet of the former president in an exclusive statement to CNN.
Kelly set the record straight with on-the-record confirmation of a number of damning stories about statements Trump made behind closed doors attacking US service members and veterans, listing a number of objectionable comments Kelly witnessed Trump make firsthand.
“What can I add that has not already been said?” Kelly said, when asked if he wanted to weigh in on his former boss in light of recent comments made by other former Trump officials. “A person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them.’ A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.’ A person who demonstrated open contempt for a Gold Star family – for all Gold Star families – on TV during the 2016 campaign, and rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense are ‘losers’ and wouldn’t visit their graves in France.
“A person who is not truthful regarding his position on the protection of unborn life, on women, on minorities, on evangelical Christians, on Jews, on working men and women,” Kelly continued. “A person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is all about. A person who cavalierly suggests that a selfless warrior who has served his country for 40 years in peacetime and war should lose his life for treason – in expectation that someone will take action. A person who admires autocrats and murderous dictators. A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law.
“There is nothing more that can be said,” Kelly concluded. “God help us.”
In the statement, Kelly is confirming, on the record, a number of details in a 2020 story in The Atlantic by editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, including Trump turning to Kelly on Memorial Day 2017, as they stood among those killed in Afghanistan and Iraq in Section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery, and saying, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?”
Those details also include Trump’s inability to understand why the American public respects former prisoners of war and those shot down in combat. Then-candidate Trump of course said in front of a crowd in 2015 that former Vietnam POW Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican, was “not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” But behind closed doors, sources told Goldberg, this lack of understanding went on to cause Trump to repeatedly call McCain a “loser” and to refer to former President George H. W. Bush, who was also shot down as a Navy pilot in World War II, as a “loser.””
THIS is why we are in trouble, people–take it from those who know Trump.
Yes, we’ve heard all of this before. And in response to this, democrats elected a corrupt mental patient and an imbecile to the white house, and people decided they liked Trump’s style of leadership a lot more. I am assuming that you won’t be supporting Trump’s bid for a third term?
No, Tom–“people” didn’t decide any such thing. Trump got a mere plurality of the votes–less than half of those cast–and would NOT have gotten those BUT FOR the lie about groceries–even he admits this. From “Fox News”:
“President-elect Trump says his White House victory last month comes down to two things.
“I won on the border, and I won on groceries,” the president-elect said in an interview on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”
Trump then drilled down on the high grocery prices that millions of Americans are paying as a key reason for his convincing White House victory over Vice President Kamala Harris.”
There is no “style of leadership”–Trump is a narcissistic sociopath driven by whims. There won’t be any “third term”. He’s not likely to finish this one–the one he stole by lying. If the predicted recession comes and morphs into an outright depression–which some are already predicting, and if the midterms turn out as most of us hope–he might just get impeached.
Trump plus Kennedy did get a majority of the popular vote.
HANDS OFF RADICAL DEM movement paid for by Soros and others.
We are well aware of, and disgusted by, the double standards within our nation that extends to government officials, the media/education industries and other NGO organizations that exist within the tent of progressive/left ideologies. This us not news but it factual.
If the “Hands Off!”protesters in DC had instead been in any way supporting Trump or Musk: they would have been urged on by undercover agents working for the FBI and other 3-letter Federal agencies; some objects alleged to be pipe bombs would have mysteriously appeared and have been attributed to the protesters on zero evidence; many of them would have been enticed by those undercover agents to enter a Federal building where official business was allegedly being transacted, where one of them, who was not engaged in anything resembling violent or threatening behavior, would have been shot in the head and killed by a cowardly cop who briefly ducked out of his hiding place, and who would ultimately be exonerated of his heinous act of murder and (to this very day) face no negative consequences for it.
We the People should bring back Capitol (Hill) Punishment for Politicians that defy and desecrate the Laws and the spirit of the Constitution.
If Politicians are stealing then they loose (amputate) a Hand, If a Politician is engaging in the interest of themselves at the cost of the Citizen of the Republic, them off with their Heads. Etc. etc. … An eye for an Eye literally,
It works in other place of the World, why not put it to work here. The Political Criminal are the same wherever They are. So why should the Punishment br universal as well.
Politicians take for granted that the Public is ignorant. Maybe loosing your Hands or chopping off their most prized possession will effect a change on Capitol Hill.
(They break the Spirit of the Constitution with every appropriations Bill – e.g.: The national debt ($36.22 T))
Term Limits – most literally!
“Term Limits – most literally!”
The most “literal” proposal for term limits (in the sense you mean) that I ever saw was made on the old (pre-web) Byte (Magazine) Information Exchange (BIX) forums by a member named Lt. Col. William F. Clardy (USAF, ret, iirc). Col. Clardy suggested that every citizen should be permitted campaign to to be elected to a public office, and, if successful, serve a single term, and retire in peace. He went on to suggest that any of those officeholders should be entitled to seek and secure reelection, with one stipulation. The reelection candidate would be required to agree to be publicly executed at the completion of the second term. I somewhat liked the idea when Clardy proposed it in the early to mid 1990s, I favor it much more strongly today.
YES – Secound that Motion !!!
Senator John Cornyn just gave us a refreshing idea. Let’s give this past election time to see if it works. That’s more than 77 million majority voters telling the guillotine instant gratification minority “No, we’re not going to let you veto our vote.” That’s the reply to guillotine rage speech that threatens guillotine action. Bringing the ship of state into drydock is ineluctably not a fast food trip to McDonald’s.
Sorry – link was troublesome – translation
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I wonder if the phishing cr@p that is beginning to appear here with greater frequency is from one of the persistent left/woke trolls who has lost a subsidy from USAID funds…
You MAGA morons will believe ANYTHING. From “Snopes”:
“Claim:
Professional protesters can be hired through the website ProtestJobs.com.
Rating:
False
About this rating
Large-scale political protests are typically accompanied by claims that many of the protesters are actually persons who have no vested interest in the issue being contested, but are instead actors hired to play the part of protesters.
Although paid protesters are not a concept completely within the realm of fiction, in recent years the concept has been spoofed via multiple fake advertisements and websites established offer pretend services providing protesters (or supporters) for political events.
One such website that garnered renewed attention during the May 2020 protests over the police-custody death of George Floyd in Minneapolis was ProtestJobs.com, a service that purports to “connect our network of professional protesters with protest organizers using advanced analytics and artificial intelligence to determine the best match”:
DemandProtest.com and ProtestJobs.com were similar “paid protesters for hire” websites that sprang into being around the same time (i.e., coincident with President Donald Trump’s January 2017 inauguration), and went dormant soon afterwards. The former garnered a fair amount of right-wing news coverage and then was quickly revealed as a hoax, while the latter drew little attention and quietly petered out after a few weeks before essentially admitting the site was satirical in nature”
STOP REPEATING LIES.
Anyone who says “You MAGA morons will believe ANYTHING” and then provides a reference from Snopes is not a person to be taken seriously.
The Leftist mob is restless and it’s leaders in both Congress and the media will not stop feeding the beast. I’m beginning to think the antics and crimes of Antifa and BLM during Trump’s first term will unfortunately pale compared to the excesses, death and destruction we will see in the next 4 years. We put up with an incompetent disciple of The Squad for 4 years and waited our turn to vote them out. The Left mob is not like us. And before some yahoo mentions J6, remember that was a disorganized group who spent three hours meandering through the capitol in a one-off. We are NOT the same.
I never thought of the gallows on the Capitol Grounds on January 6th, when the mob really wanted to kill Mike Pence, was a “mock gallows.” My impression then–as now–was that it was very real, and had they caught the Vice President that day, he would have been killed by hanging. In truth, Pence was one of the main heroes towards the end of their term. Wonder why Prof. Turley thinks that that gallows wasn’t real?
I dunno….maybe this:
https://x.com/TaylerUSA/status/1508947329113636864
What Turley fails to mention is that Trump KNEW his fans were hunting for Pence, that they had a gallows and intended to lynch him, and he sat on his ass for over 3 hours and did NOTHING.
How do you know what Trump knew?
Because his family–especially Ivanka–reported that they were begging him to call it off before things got worse. He refused. He enjoyed the results of the power he held over gullible people and wanted revenge against Pence for refusing to knuckle under.
Not sure when or where that video was from, but that was not yesterday in DC.
The author clearly states the video was from “the inauguration”. Presumably, the January 20, 2025 inauguration.
If it weren’t for double standards, progressives would have none at all.
If only everyone showed the same outrage when prolife protesters are targeted and censored, but no. Prolifers must be classified as a non-protected class excluded from this motley crew of intersectionality. “No protection from the University does YOUR speech, you Bible thumping sexist, racist, homotransphobe!”
Whatever it takes, is the motto of the radical Left.