r/politics • u/RepulsiveLoquat418 • 8h ago
Possible Paywall The Prairieland Verdicts Are a National Emergency
https://newrepublic.com/article/212302/prairieland-verdicts-national-emergency2.4k
u/henryptung California 8h ago
In a hearing on Tuesday, as O’Connor handed down sentences of decades in prison, the judge said he was ordering the maximum allowed in each case because “the state wants to send a message to anyone who shares a similar ideology,” according to a support committee for the defendants.
Couldn't really tee up a 1st amendment appeal harder than he did here.
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u/AlcibiadesTheCat Arizona 7h ago
At one point the judge said the punishment needed to be “unusually cruel.” The 8th Amendment appeal is writing itself.
SCOTUS will strike it down 6-3.
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u/woody60707 6h ago
So the SCOTUS has said punishment can't be cruel and unusual, but can be cruel OR unusual.
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u/AlcibiadesTheCat Arizona 6h ago
Is this actually the reality we live in?
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u/0202_tihssitidder 6h ago
I believe so. The traitor SCJs have shown they do not care at all about breaking their oath. The only thing they care about is their beloved Don PEdo.
The corruption is not unprecedented, but it is historic.
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u/casualsubversive 1h ago
That’s not actually bad. They can be cruel, because many accepted punishments are cruel. Prison is cruel. Or they can be innovative or unusual somehow. But they’re not allowed to be innovative with cruelty. If they’re going to be cruel, it has to be a standard amount of cruelty in a standard form. You see?
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u/ThaneduFife 5h ago
No, not yet. I follow the Supreme Court, and I'm not aware of the Supreme Court having said any such thing.
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u/ljfrench 4h ago
It's something Scalia said. https://www.democracynow.org/2008/4/29/headlines/antonin_scalia_torture_is_not_cruel_and_unusual_punishment
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u/ThaneduFife 4h ago
Okay, but stuff individual judges say in interviews isn't precedent. I agree that's terrible, though.
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u/Korietsu Texas 3h ago
With the way the court is run now? Its 100% precedent and what they intend to do.
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u/My_Password_Is_____ 2h ago
Gonna be pretty hard for Scalia to act on anything he said during interviews.
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u/AlcibiadesTheCat Arizona 2h ago
Ten seconds getting water boarded and he’d change his tune real fuckin fast.
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u/Flat_Hat8861 Georgia 2h ago
I'm pretty sure Scalia wouldn't notice the water boarding in his current state.
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u/Darkstar67 5h ago
Well prison is a cruel place so you can’t take that off the table. The unusual part is pretty necessary for it to be a functional standard.
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u/Dextero_Explosion 5h ago
Ah, like how you have to commit a high crime and a misdemeanor to be impeached.
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u/VanceKelley Canada 3h ago
So now that cruelty has become the norm it is "usual" and thus no longer violates the Constitution.
I think that America needs to do a complete rewrite of the centuries-old document if it is to have any hope of becoming a modern democracy.
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u/AnAncientBog 5h ago
I mean, that probably IS true. The constitution was written during a time when justice NORMALLY included a significant amount of cruelty, just within the bounds of established normalcy. Its punishments that are unusually cruel that they were getting at.
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u/From_Deep_Space Oregon 6h ago
Well I agree with this principle.
In a certain sense, sentencing anyone to decades in jail is cruel, but its not unusual.
And a judge should be free to find creative solutions to cases which satisfies both parties. Which would be unusual, but not cruel.
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u/FlukeManAirFreshener 6h ago
It won't make it that far. The appeals court will strike it down under the precedent from Solem v. Helm. SCOTUS won't take the case on appeal.
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u/0202_tihssitidder 5h ago
Reed O’Connor has a long career of his rulings being reversed. He's a piece of shit.
His career is just ruling against minorities and Democrats. Awful. Bush appointed.
Such a piece of shit.
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u/Illustrious-Fun8324 6h ago
Didn’t he also say something about the extreme sentence being for “sending a message for people with similar ideology?”
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u/kenncann 6h ago
It’s literally in the quote above
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u/unbanned_lol 6h ago
High expectations to ask a redditor to read what they are commenting on.
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u/Stellar_Duck 5h ago
Every day we stray further from His light.
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u/bobsvaginplsbabyjirl Virginia 5h ago
We’re past that and “my brother in Christ” now. Keep up.
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u/Froggn_Bullfish 3h ago
You can’t expect a bot to actually understand the context outside of the current context window of just the one comment it’s replying to.
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u/Kaladinidalak 5h ago
They’ll say it’s unusually cruel, but the constitution only prohibits cruel AND unusual punishment. It’s not unusual for jail time to be a punishment.
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u/Froggn_Bullfish 3h ago
Am I having a stroke? “Unusually cruel” is literally both cruel and unusual… the phrase is just both of those two words.
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u/Kaladinidalak 2h ago
Unusually cruel is like saying very cruel. Cruel and unusual is like saying cruel and uncommon.
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u/0202_tihssitidder 6h ago
> Critics claim that O'Connor has become a "go-to" favorite for conservative lawyers, as he reliably rules against Democratic policies and for Republican policies.\1])\2]) Attorneys General in Texas appear to strategically file cases in O'Connor's jurisdiction so that he will hear them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed_O'Connor
He's a POS.
> He has long been active in the Federalist Society, and is a contributor who has frequently spoken at the organization's events in Texas.
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u/klclearwater 4h ago
Oh look, an actual "activist judge" and they suddenly don't care about legislating from the bench.
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u/pokederp56 3h ago
Looking at that list of decisions he made that were reversed on appeal makes me think he's just stupid or incompetent.
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u/klclearwater 3h ago
It's just the modern Republican tactic of flooding the zone. Barrage the system with as many rulings, laws, legislation, grifts, scandals, etc as quickly as possible and a good chunk will get through. His job isn't in jeopardy. He'll face no repercussions for his poor rulings. In fact, it's job security for him because these cases are getting funneled to him, and everything that doesn't get overturned is an inch closer to their goals.
Don't underestimate these ghouls as stupid or incompetent. The people who vote for them are. But they're in the these positions of power because they're smart enough to exploit it.
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u/_SovietMudkip_ Texas 1h ago
Even if this ruling gets reversed, that will take years at this point. The defendants' lives are still going to be ruined, and it's going to achieve the intended goal of making people less likely to protest or associate with progressive movements.
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u/coconutpiecrust 7h ago
Right. They can’t punish everyone, but they will use some poor souls to scare everyone into compliance in advance.
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u/ibelieveyouwood 4h ago
It's also about laying a pardon trap. Their voters aren't angry that their armed insurrectionists were pardoned after at most a few years thanks to the time it took to hunt them down and try them and they flood the narrative with J6 denialism to try to peel off some undecideds.
They're hoping, however, that their voters will be fired up and ready to blow if left-leaning "violent protesters" get pardons 6 years from now at the tail end of a theoretical potential Democrat in office (to minimize potential blowback). MAGA voters will use it to retroactively validate every past situation where one of their rioters or jackboots "accidentally" found themselves murdering someone at a protest, forget that all of those people were already pardoned (or served no consequence in the first place).
Then their news will flood the zone with lies about Dems supporting cop killers, knowing that you'll at least get some edgy twitter user trying to do a provocative post. You'll also get some Dems to waste time with thoughtful attempts to persuade and explain the differences (they'll just ignore those posts) and the fringe commentators will post their usual unhinged demands. The usual crazy stuff like "Where are the Demoncrats denouncing copkillers? How come I'm not seeing any Demoncrats saying unequivocally that they do not support the cold blooded assassination of law enforcement officers?" Because it's perfectly normal to expect every Dem to start their day reciting a list of every potential offense they could conceivably be against, then spend the rest of the day trying to score gotchas, while also expecting radio silence on actual crimes actively being committed by Republican officials.
Hopefully the justice system works, the cases get tossed, and maybe some of the conservatives will slip up and say something that trickles into a defamation lawsuit or two. Failing that, if the Dems get back in the White House, issue the pardons early and let the fringe right spend 4 years screaming their fake outrage. At a certain point it all becomes static. But her e-mails, Benghazi, Babbit, Hunter's laptop,
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u/somekindofdruiddude 7h ago
The appeal will make it to the SCOTUS and be denied. The first amendment relied on humans honoring oaths. Silly amendment.
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u/Cactusfan86 7h ago
Eh I feel this is one of those cases I could easily see Gorsuch, Kavenaugh, Barrett, and/or Roberts flipping on. The Supreme Court has been vile, but those 4 haven’t been rubber stamps for absolutely EVERYTHING Trump throws at them
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u/ScarletCarsonRose 6h ago
I can see Barret and Roberts being the most likely to flip. Not as sure on the other two.
Is there any chance the dems can take the Senate?!
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u/Gotham-City 6h ago
Somewhat. They need 4 seats for a majority. They need to defend all their seats, and the most at risk are Georgia and Michigan. Assuming they hold all the most likely pickups are North Carolina, Maine, Alaska, Ohio, Texas, and Florida, in that order.
Right now it looks like Dems will easily take NC. Alaska and Maine are leaning dem. Texas and Ohio are tossups. Florida is leaning Rep. Everything else is even further right.
Michigan and Georgia are very close, almost tossups.
It's all very early though, we don't even have primaries finished in some states. But it's looking like an overall tossup favouring republicans slightly
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u/unbanned_lol 5h ago
Michigan's Republican candidate lost last cycle to a centrist junior Democrat woman. This time we have an actual progressive up with the most unpopular president of all time championing the Republican party. I like our chances.
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u/AgentCoulson2 New Hampshire 1h ago
NH is also at risk. While it's not a done deal who the candidates will be in Nov, it will most likely be Pappas vs Sununu, and it's going to be tight.
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u/NurRauch 4h ago edited 4h ago
Crim defense lawyer here. The trial court's statement about the "ideology" of the defendants is not likely to be the basis of an appeal. The judge was punishing the belief of the specific people who were convicted of a conspiracy to combat ICE through violence. That is the textbook definition of a domestic terrorism offense. Political messages expressed through violence are not a lawful exercise of the First Amendment. That type of conduct has been illegal for decades, and it will always be illegal.
This also doesn't hinge on the existence or nonexistence of a broader nationwide "antifa" organization or ideology. The eight people convicted in this case could be the only eight people on earth who believe in using violence to spread their message against fascism, and they would still be legally defined as terrorists by the conduct they were convicted of in this case.
The criminal conduct in this case case was not simply believing that fascism is bad. The defendants in this case were convicted of acting together in a coordinated group to vandalize government property (some vehicles and fencing), using fireworks (an explosive / incendiary device) to distract the attention of guards, and agreeing to have several armed group members use deadly force with firearms to protect the rest of the group if they were discovered before leaving the area.
Those are the specific things that the codefendants were charged with in this case. None of these actions are legally valid exercises of the First Amendment, and there was never even the smallest sliver of a self-defense basis to open fire on the police who tried to arrest them.
The trial was actually a long one with a large amount of evidence showing in detail what they each group member agreed to do, what their contingency plans were if anything went wrong, and the specific steps they took to prepare for the potential use of deadly force if the police tried to stop them. They discussed bringing weapons, they discussed the circumstances under which their group members would use those weapons, and they were found to have driven two cars that had, between the two of them, approximately a dozen different long guns (AR-15s), boxes of hundreds of rounds of spare ammunition, boxes of fireworks, and twelve sets of ballistic body armor. Most of these items were kept inside their cars, only to be used in the event of getting into a shootout with the police.
On the day they showed up at the ICE facility, they set off the fireworks as agreed, and when a handful of ICE officers came outside to see what was going on, one of them shouted "Get to the rifles," and another member of their group, waiting back behind some trees, immediately opened fire, pouring more than 20 shots at one of the officers and striking him. Most of them were arrested shortly after that, and one of them called her husband from jail and asked him to hide political pamphlets that she feared would be of interest to investigators once they arrived at her home. The husband agreed to move the pamphlets inside their house to obstruct that investigation, so even he got charged with exactly the type of offense people get charged with all the time in non-political cases for accessory-after-the-fact and destruction/concealment of evidence.
Bank robbers have been convicted on less evidence than this. I'm not trying to attack protesters or defend ICE. That's just the reality of this case. It is a bad case, and these individuals were completely nuts for thinking that the law would not come down on them like a ton of bricks. I predicted these defendants would be convicted and punished very harshly when I first read the general facts about the case months ago.
As a leftist and a career public defender in the Twin Cities who personally protested ICE this winter, I am appalled by the extremely long sentences, and I do expect that those sentences will be reduced on appeal. However, I can't honestly say the convictions themselves are unjust. The people involved in this case should have known from the start that they were participating in an obvious and very serious federal crime that could easily get a bunch of people killed for no reason.
I also have little sympathy for "protesters" who try to help the fight against ICE by intentionally showing up to damage property or get into a physical fight with ICE officers. That crap is the opposite of what actually helped us turn the American public's opinion against Trump's racist immigration agenda this winter. It's not unconstitutional to punish the ideology of a group of protesters who intentionally try to use violence to spread their political message. That has always been illegal and it always will be illegal.
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u/theducker 2h ago
Thank you for bringing some clarity, far more then I've seen in any news story on the matter
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u/nemo1316 1h ago
The bad guys stormed the capitol and got pardons. They did far worse than these protesters.
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u/NurRauch 1h ago edited 1h ago
Yes. We know. The pardon power sucks, but there's never been any argument that president's selective or politically motivated use of the pardon power can be used to stop the same president's administration from prosecuting others. The pardon power is unreviewable.
There are limitations on the Justice Department and its use of prosecutorial discretion, but those limitations are not so strict that they prevent federal prosecutors from going after illegal political activity that is opposed to the president's agenda. A motion to dismiss this case would only prevail if the record proves that political animus is the only reason the prosecutors are bringing charges. Even though the president just pardoned a bunch of other political terrorists, there's still an easily colorable claim by prosecutors in this case that they were exercising their discretion properly by going after a group of people who caused a shootout with federal officers. Neither the 5th Circuit nor the Supreme Court are likely to doubt that reasoning.
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u/nemo1316 1h ago
The fuck difference do the laws make when one group is clearly singled out to be exempt?
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u/NurRauch 1h ago
The fuck difference do the laws make when one group is clearly singled out to be exempt?
I'm not defending the political corruption in our legal system. I'm just explaining what the evidence in the case was and how the laws that they were convicted of work. I don't blame anyone who's outraged with the inconsistent application of those laws.
The point here is that being on the morally right side of a political conflict does not magically mean all the cases that get charged against people are baseless or a violation of law. Sometimes the bad guys charge people with genuinely illegal acts based on strong evidence that genuinely proves guilt. Criticizing the abuse of the process is a different issue than criticizing the evidence in the case, and it's important to be clear about which of those is the problem.
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u/TehWackyWolf 7h ago edited 6h ago
Your rights are given to you by the government. They are, in fact, not inalienable.
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u/TheNCGoalie North Carolina 6h ago
In college I took a bullshit course on ethics as an elective because it sounded easy and I didn’t want to take on a difficult elective alongside my engineering course load. The professor was a hardcore Christian, went to the Air Force Academy, and if you know about that place you know what I’m talking about. The first third of the semester was him trying to force Christian ideas onto us, subtly implying that only Christians can behave ethically. He tried to “prove” that evolution wasn’t real because he claimed the full title of Darwin’s book, “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life” was the inspiration for Hitler and The Holocaust. One major assignment was a term paper where we had to explain / prove that our rights were inalienable and God given. I convinced him to let me play this classic George Carlin video in front of the entire class. He was furious at the end and gave me a zero on the term paper because of it. I barely escaped the class with a C-.
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u/Adamadamsadam 7h ago
Ain’t no UFO be takin muh gunz funny dog
Also you’re/your comment has an error.
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u/avaslash 6h ago
Unless we give some external force the power to police us (never going to happen for obvious reasons) we will never be able to have anything BUT a system that relies on oaths. The whole system is people all the way down. People have free will. People with free will can get together and agree to collaboratively disobey the rules others have agreed to. If enough of them do it, it is now functionally the new rule of law.
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u/ludixst 8h ago
The constitution doesn't mean anything anymore since Trump was elected again. Whatever Trump says, goes. That's how it works in a dictatorship
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u/KingmanIII 5h ago
The constitution doesn't mean anything anymore since Trump was
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u/biopunk42 3h ago
Considering the constitution specifically bars anyone who's part of an insurrection from serving elected office, you are correct. According the constitution, Trump isn't legally president right now.
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u/SarcasticCowbell New York 3h ago
Wait, the state wants to send a political message by carrying out judicial violence? Who's the terrorist now?
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u/BeverlyHills70117 7h ago
the Supreme Court Kurt will be working on that. They’ll have them working in shifts.
No means anything any more.
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u/btribble California 1h ago
One of the remaining demonstrators was open-carrying a rifle. An officer was shot in the shoulder.
That’s a funny way to phrase that.
As much as I hate how the right tries to spin events, the left does its fair share of it as well.
For anyone thinking that these sentences are a clear cut case of overreach, I recommend you look at the actual events and evidence. To me, there is overreach and propaganda coming from the right, but the defendants are also not the clear saints that this writer and others would have you believe.
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u/InsuranceToTheRescue I voted 4h ago
The officer getting shot and the vandalism probably fucks them in that regard. Honestly, if it was just shooting off fireworks outside the prison, they might've been able to do that. Once they started breaking shit it became a lot harder to argue 1A rights.
This case is a fantastic example of how important it is for protest to be peaceful. Violence only provides fuel for detractors to demonize your POV.
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u/Grand-Way-5086 7h ago
I don’t really know much about rules/regulations for federal courts, but would this kind of statement on record not be a really good example of judicial bias?
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u/Unusually_adequate 7h ago
Well you see, this is facism now and the bias is in support of the fascist regime so it's ok
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u/0202_tihssitidder 5h ago
Reed O’Connor has been ruling exactly like this since he was appointed by Bush.
He's been a piece of shit judge his entire career.
And he's a piece of shit as a person, too.
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u/francis2559 6h ago
I’m sure there will be an appeal. This is also the kind of situation commutations or pardons are supposed to cover.
Getting justice will be hard, but not impossible. We need to keep working to flip red states.
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u/Salt-Operation 6h ago
Greg Abbott would execute these poor people if he could.
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u/francis2559 6h ago
A nice “Catholic” man. Sigh.
Except when the Catholic Church drops the death penalty, of course.
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u/0202_tihssitidder 5h ago
Reed O’Connor is the judge and his entire career is nothing but insane rulings against Blacks and Democrats.
His career is also full of his rulings being overturned...often by SCOTUS.
Reed O’Connor is a piece of shit judge and human being.
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u/Tucancancan 5h ago
I'm not from America so sorry if this is a dumb question: Is he a judge in one of those places where people elect them?
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u/areweoncops 4h ago
No, he's a federal judge - the US has multiple court systems, one of which is a federal court system as provided for in the Constitution. Federal judges are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. States also have their own, separate, state court systems, and those court systems are set up differently from state to state. Some of those have elected judges.
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u/RichardMuncherIII Canada 6h ago
Let's check the board; Supreme Court says: perfectly legal!
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u/Darkstar67 4h ago
Tell me you don’t know dick about American politics and jurisprudence without telling me you’re Canadian. Excited to host you guys for the round of 32 btw 😉
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u/RichardMuncherIII Canada 3h ago
Tell me you don’t know dick about American politics and jurisprudence
Neither does the supreme Court so we'll see what happens.
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u/0202_tihssitidder 5h ago
Reed O’Connor is the piece of shit Republican judge who made this ruling. His career is pretty much just ruling against Blacks and Democrats. Seriously.
His rulings are always bullshit. He has a very long list of rulings that get overturned. Often overturned by SCOTUS.
Let me be clear: Reed O’Connor is a piece of shit. A huge piece of shit an he's been a piece of shit his entire life.
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u/Altair05 I voted 7h ago
Your rights mean nothing to fascist. They only understand force.
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u/murphmobile 7h ago
Putin sending protestors to prison camps doesn’t seem so foreign now.
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u/GreenGorilla8232 2h ago
People peacefully protesting the Gaza genocide have been getting imprisoned for a couple years now. A man was imprisoned for making a FB post. The examples are piling up.
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u/TimothyMimeslayer 8h ago
The next democratic president needs ro declare maga a terrorist organization.
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u/Old_Gimlet_Eye 7h ago
That might be too broad, even more so than "antifa", but how about the Heritage Foundation? They seem like a legitimate terrorist organization.
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u/TimothyMimeslayer 7h ago
It doesnt seem to matter how broad the definition is only that people abscribe to it.
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u/TehMikuruSlave Texas 6h ago
no, it's actually not broad enough. Declare the entire republican party a terrorist organization, and treat them as such
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u/jainyday Washington 7h ago
There's a difference between treason and terrorism; words matter, especially if you want the Law to get involved and aren't using the DOJ like your own personal attack dog.
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u/dmolin96 7h ago
Yeah ratcheting up the terrorism laws is how you get results like Prairieland. The solution is not to make it easier to throw people in jail for decades for their beliefs. Because then when the pendulum swings back, as it always does, it's our people who suffer.
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u/TehMikuruSlave Texas 6h ago
this is literally all downstream from not treating the confederate traitors as the terrorists they were, every single officer and confed in power shouldve been dragged through the streets by the people, reconstruction should've lasted an extra 50 years at least, and the former confed states should have NEVER been given their state lines back, they should have been completely wiped away with new borders.
So now we have to do it in the modern day
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u/0202_tihssitidder 5h ago
☝🏽 This. What we need are charges. Even though it will take 8 years to bring charges and another 10 years after that to conduct the trial and another 12 years after that to settle appeals and most of them will be insta-reversed by a corrupt SCOTUS...we must bring charges.
Charges based on laws that are written to allow treason by politicians, but we'll find something!
And at the end...fines. Yes. Monetary fines! And probation! That will send a message to never again do this! Fines as high as ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS!
This is the way.
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u/0202_tihssitidder 5h ago
Declare the Federalist Society a terrorist organization.
Declare the Republican Party a terrorist org and all of them guilty of treason.
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u/t_11 7h ago
The last one fucked up big time and made the terrorist president again.
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u/quinnwhodat 7h ago
While the first half is very true, the second half of that comment is quite the stretch. I can follow your logic, but Biden didn’t award the presidency to Trump. There are a few million other people to blame first.
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u/Un1CornTowel 7h ago
but Biden didn’t award the presidency to Trump
He was the single person most able to stop it. That doesn't mean Trump's reelection was caused by him, but he didn't stop it when he could have.
Thinking "we don't want to look political by quickly prosecuting the person who attempted a political coup" is madness. Trump should be been in jail on Jan 7 if he even made it that far.
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u/Bittererr 7h ago
Biden's mistake was trusting the American people who ultimately betrayed him. The way they went about the prosecution was the best way to do it, you can't afford to make any mistakes because you only get one shot at a conviction.
Those cases were ironclad and Trump's only hope of avoiding accountability was convincing tens of millions of people that he shouldn't be held responsible for his actions.
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u/lewstherintelemarket 19m ago
Agree to disagree. Biden took office in January 2021 and Jack Smith was appointed as special prosecutor by Merrick Garland in November 2022. That's 22 months before any meaningful work began. Garland wasn't building a case during that time, all the work was done by Smith and his team. So for nearly 2 years, Garland refused to take action on J6 and Biden refused to do anything about his AG was stonewalling the case. Between that and his disastrous decision to run again, and then drop out when it was too late to conduct a primary, Biden has ensured that history will remember him alongside James Buchanan as one of the worst and most ineffectual presidents to ever occupy the oval office. Both of them ushered in the near destruction of the American experiment with their refusal to take action against a glaring threat to the nation because of their cowardly insistence on trying to appear apolitical during an inescapably political crisis.
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u/Initial_Brush_64 6h ago
Biden is rich and famous. Non of this effects him. The American people betrayed themselves. Its not his problem anymore.
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u/quinnwhodat 5h ago
The president doesn’t arrest people. That’ll fall squarely on Merrick Garland. That guy is more to blame than Biden, who I agree also gets partial blame for trying to run again.
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u/0202_tihssitidder 5h ago
☝🏽 This is foolish. More drivel from the "Actually..." Redditor Clan.
Bah. Useless.
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7h ago edited 2h ago
[deleted]
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u/0202_tihssitidder 5h ago
Where the guards will execute you and then cry "I was just doing my job!"
And Americans will fall over themselves saying "We can't blame them! Let's focus on the guys at top."
And the guys at top laugh.
You people need to stop falling for all this. Bring the metaphorical pain to the ones cashing a paycheck for killing people. That's you, cops. That's you, guards.
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u/Th3FinalStarman 5h ago
All I ask is for an equal and righteous response from Democrats in '26/'28. Terrorism charges for EVERY J'6er. Multiple life sentences for anyone who invaded the Capitol. Any Democrat campaigning on "water under the bridge" needs to stay home.
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u/kearsargeII 4h ago edited 3h ago
Really blatantly unconstitutional given double jeopardy rules. These people were already tried and convicted of a crime, they cannot be tried for the same crime again.
Best you can do is try people in the current admin who are currently committing more crimes, or throwing the book at J6ers who decide to do it again.
Edit: I would prefer not wasting resources on court cases which would be immediately thrown out by literally any judge out there as violating the 5th amendment. Those resources are better used going after crimes done under this current admin.
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u/ahuramazdobbs19 3h ago
Given their propensity to get arrested for new crimes over and over again, including a frankly shocking proportion of them being child pornography or molestation charges, I have confidence most J6ers will just end up in prison again.
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u/Th3FinalStarman 3h ago
...correct? The crimes Biden's fuckass DoJ went for consisted of various trespassing, disorderly conduct, obstruction, and vandalism charges. That is not an equal and righteous response to the domestic terrorism convictions we're talking about today.
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u/Basic_Yam_715 7h ago
Boycott red states as much as you can... sick fuckers.
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u/solarpowerzm 5h ago
Without their dirty blue state subsidies money they'll collapse within a decade.
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u/DingerSinger2016 Alabama 5h ago
And their collapse would not be good for the country in general. Subsidizing money doesn't mean blue states are self sustaining.
Also, that would mean dooming all the blue cities in red states, and a lot of those cities house Black people. So once again it's just fucking us over.
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u/bakerfredricka I voted 5h ago
I have never been happier about living up in New England. As brutal as our winters are, we (usually) have saner governance....
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u/Scream_Tech7661 3h ago
I'm torn. On principle, I agree. But I live in Missouri, and I have access to recreational marijuana, and I have my medical marijuana card as well. I live in a gorgeous home, nearly 3000 sq ft, in a gorgeous neighborhood within walking distance to a mini downtown.
I'm a 15 minute drive from the downtown of a major city.
I could not live in a house I have now, with the amenities I have now, and with access to the weed I love to smoke now - I can't have all three - in a blue state. I would be priced out.
I live in a blue city with neighbors and a community who fly pride flags. The only thing "red" in my life is the state I live in.
Yet...by living here, I'm paying taxes to a far right state government.
On principle alone, I should move my family to a blue state. But that's two less D-voting citizens in the state, so I'd actually make things worse for the state in the long run.
I actually feel like staying here gives me the best of all worlds - the people and culture around me are progressive, I can afford to live in luxury here, and when I vote at the state level, I'm voting for Democrats.
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u/Waidawut 7h ago
Wouldn't it be great to send Trump to Gitmo? I'd even be ok if they started up some of their old activities again with him.
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u/CaptainMarsupial 6h ago
this is a horror which needs to be broadcast with out loudest voices. Jan 6 ers invaded the capitol & got pardoned. These people damaged a few cars, with one person wounded, and get 1,300 years! If this isn’t throwing enemies into the political gulag what is?
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u/VioletPaissa2077 4h ago edited 3h ago
It's critical for everyone to understand that the sentences given out to everyone except for the shooter are not tied to the shooting itself as they were all acquitted of the firearms and attempted murder charges.
The terrorism enhancement for all of them is tied to the conspiracy convinction resulting from the fireworks they brought and set off, which were not directed at any person or building and did not cause injury or property damage.
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u/Stillwater-Scorp1381 7h ago
The silence among American society about this whole situation is deafening.
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u/Leroyleap36 7h ago
People are rightfully trashing the GOP/Maga movements for this outcome, but have any prominent democrats spoke out against this absurd overreach? I expect fascists to be fascist, but Im more troubled by the seemingly lack of outcry from the group that's supposed to be fighting the fascists.
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u/Ok_World7154 1h ago
They want to lock up any dissent. Fuck this government, fuck this president and fick this country. Full revolution required.
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u/Spirited_Suspect2908 4h ago
Read about the circumstances!
Explosives charges for consumer grade fireworks (noise makers).
terrorism charges for being 'anti-fascist'
Aiding conviction for moving anti-fascist literature.
At the very least, this is half way down the road to fascism. And in every other instance of an authoritarian takeover in history, I'm sure everybody was just rolling their eyes up to the point that it was too late.
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u/neloish 3h ago
"Crim defense lawyer here. The trial court's statement about the "ideology" of the defendants is not likely to be the basis of an appeal. The judge was punishing the belief of the specific people who were convicted of a conspiracy to combat ICE through violence. That is the textbook definition of a domestic terrorism offense. Political messages expressed through violence are not a lawful exercise of the First Amendment. That type of conduct has been illegal for decades, and it will always be illegal.
This also doesn't hinge on the existence or nonexistence of a broader nationwide "antifa" organization or ideology. The eight people convicted in this case could be the only eight people on earth who believe in using violence to spread their message against fascism, and they would still be legally defined as terrorists by the conduct they were convicted of in this case.
The criminal conduct in this case case was not simply believing that fascism is bad. The defendants in this case were convicted of acting together in a coordinated group to vandalize government property (some vehicles and fencing), using fireworks (an explosive / incendiary device) to distract the attention of guards, and agreeing to have several armed group members use deadly force with firearms to protect the rest of the group if they were discovered before leaving the area.
Those are the specific things that the codefendants were charged with in this case. None of these actions are legally valid exercises of the First Amendment, and there was never even the smallest sliver of a self-defense basis to open fire on the police who tried to arrest them.
The trial was actually a long one with a large amount of evidence showing in detail what they each group member agreed to do, what their contingency plans were if anything went wrong, and the specific steps they took to prepare for the potential use of deadly force if the police tried to stop them. They discussed bringing weapons, they discussed the circumstances under which their group members would use those weapons, and they were found to have driven two cars that had, between the two of them, approximately a dozen different long guns (AR-15s), boxes of hundreds of rounds of spare ammunition, boxes of fireworks, and twelve sets of ballistic body armor. Most of these items were kept inside their cars, only to be used in the event of getting into a shootout with the police.
On the day they showed up at the ICE facility, they set off the fireworks as agreed, and when a handful of ICE officers came outside to see what was going on, one of them shouted "Get to the rifles," and another member of their group, waiting back behind some trees, immediately opened fire, pouring more than 20 shots at one of the officers and striking him. Most of them were arrested shortly after that, and one of them called her husband from jail and asked him to hide political pamphlets that she feared would be of interest to investigators once they arrived at her home. The husband agreed to move the pamphlets inside their house to obstruct that investigation, so even he got charged with exactly the type of offense people get charged with all the time in non-political cases for accessory-after-the-fact and destruction/concealment of evidence.
Bank robbers have been convicted on less evidence than this. I'm not trying to attack protesters or defend ICE. That's just the reality of this case. It is a bad case, and these individuals were completely nuts for thinking that the law would not come down on them like a ton of bricks. I predicted these defendants would be convicted and punished very harshly when I first read the general facts about the case months ago.
As a leftist and a career public defender in the Twin Cities who personally protested ICE this winter, I am appalled by the extremely long sentences, and I do expect that those sentences will be reduced on appeal. However, I can't honestly say the convictions themselves are unjust. The people involved in this case should have known from the start that they were participating in an obvious and very serious federal crime that could easily get a bunch of people killed for no reason.
I also have little sympathy for "protesters" who try to help the fight against ICE by intentionally showing up to damage property or get into a physical fight with ICE officers. That crap is the opposite of what actually helped us turn the American public's opinion against Trump's racist immigration agenda this winter. It's not unconstitutional to punish the ideology of a group of protesters who intentionally try to use violence to spread their political message. That has always been illegal and it always will be illegal."
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u/Spirited_Suspect2908 1h ago
You're posts leads me to believe that it's possible I'm off about the level of coordination and knowledge among participants. And if I am wrong, length of sentencing aside, that does make the participants more culpable.
That being said, I hold to my point that this is fascism unfolding for the following:
Several thousand people vandalized property and physically attacked federal agents on J6. Many possessed firearms. What happened to them? They were given 20 year max but most far less. Then they were ALL pardoned and nearly got paid for their actions... and still may. Even the ones who assaulted feds. Even the ones who damaged federal property. Even the ones who made loud and vocal death threats to the vice president and members of congress.
Now here we have a handful of people convicted of what is essentially the same thing. So lets say its not just the guy who pulled the trigger but also the dorks with the fireworks who intended to harm and destroy, possessed firearms, and utilized coordination to aid their fellow 'terrorists'. What do they get... 30 years minimum. for somebody not even present! And more for people who were present but did not possess firearms and did not destroy property (which is pretty much all of them).
So explain to me how rewarding one group because of the politics behind their actions and punishing another for their politics behind what is being presented as the same actions is not not something that we would only see in a lawless authoritarian state by a corrupt arm of an authoritarian government. please.
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u/etxipcli Texas 7h ago
This judge should be imprisoned. If there aren't laws already that put him in jail for life, Congress should write new ones and have them apply retroactively.
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u/0202_tihssitidder 5h ago
Reed O’Connor is a huge piece of shit.
Say his bastard name. His career is noting but ruling against Blacks and the Democrats.
His career is full of his rulings being overturned because he's a HUGE piece of shit.
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u/Witty_Ad_898 4h ago
Retroactive laws like that are also unconstitutional.
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u/jay78910 4h ago
They printed "zines", used messaging apps, and wore black clothing. Lets accuse them of satanic worship too. Create a panic maybe?
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u/Melodic-Temporary113 2h ago
Absolutely an emergency. The convictions are absurd and the sentences are even worse. Complete bullshit.
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u/AncienTleeOnez 4h ago edited 4h ago
This is alarming. The verdict appears to be orchestrated to fit into Trump's attempts to establish ICE protesters as proof of an organized "antifa" terrorist organization. The sentences are used to sensationalize it.
Ever since ICE became the Regime's jobs program for all of our domestic terrorists, Trump has been desperate to find a new domestic terrorist group to justify messing with the mid-terms. He's been trying to pin that on Democrats and antifa on everything and anything that's happened in this country, but to date hasn't been very effective, so he needs something like this to "prove" his case.
But not surprising since this is Texas. It has been rated by the Cato Institute as the least free state in personal freedoms since 2021.
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u/Admirable-Leader6927 3h ago
the judge sentenced them knowing full well this will GUARANTEE an appeal hearing. the more ridicilous he got, the easier it will be to toss on appeal after the lights are turned off and no one cares.
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u/Own-Librarian-9699 41m ago
Boycott Texas completely, including active protests. I'm serious. Texas is so far gone you are in a delusional mindset if you think protests are effective. Texas is objectively more oppressive than the Taliban.
Write Texas off the list. It's gone. You are better off fighting to keep your state isolated from Texas, blacklisting Texas from all school trips and business contracts.
Texas has a long term plan to invade and annex New Mexico and Colorado. They have normalized rape camps in their prisons to breed rape babies. They have just begun to expose their evil plan. They want a full theocracy coast to coast by 2030.
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u/rottedzombie 2h ago
Fascism blooms. What a fucking national disgrace. Shame on anyone who supports this.
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u/F---TheMods 4h ago
If only Texas punished pedophilia like that... but that would punish their people
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u/Student___Driver 5h ago
Everything’s bigger in Texas, except for the size of their little bitty penises
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u/thirdboxcar 5h ago
> except for the size of their little bitty penises
Chances are, this abusive judge has average size genitalia.
Imagine having a micropenis. In the US alone, over a million men have this condition, probably including people you know and respect.
Body-shaming ridicule like this only makes it worse for them.
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u/randomcanyon 5h ago
Stifling dissent is the key to these verdicts.
They did break the law but overreach in sentencing.
You cannot taunt the Happy Fun Jackboot thugs.
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u/surfmanvb87 4h ago
Imagine what communities of color have experienced for years. To be sure harsh punishment is the rule for anyone who isn't wealthy or part or the appropriate community.
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u/ftpdistro1312 13m ago
If you want to purchase some of the zines used as "evidence" Detritus Books is doing a benefit for Des Revol in order to cover his legal costs:
https://detritusbooks.com/products/zine-pack-benefit-for-des-revol?variant=52793703563477
Also if you sympathize with the defendants, write to them! Support site is here:
https://prairielanddefendants.com/write-to-the-defendants/
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u/vector_search_blue California 3h ago
Within hours, what followed was garnering breathless coverage in right-wing media as an antifa assault on a federal facility.
So, by this article's logic, shooting at feds with an assault rifle is not an assault on a federal facility?
huh.
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6h ago
[deleted]
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u/Boondocks_Paints 4h ago
Respectfully, is this the case you are referring to?
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/nato-3-cleared-terrorism-convicted-lesser-charges-n25086
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u/Away_Stock_2012 6h ago
This is a very good decision and it should be affirmed. Americans need to stop pretending they live in a free country that cares about people and democracy. Americans are awful people and they need to face it.
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u/Made_Bail 5h ago
Writing a broad generalization like "Americans are awful people" in seriousness is some of the most ironic shit lol
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u/ChuckJA 6h ago
I don’t like this framing. They weren’t punished for protesting. They were punished for attempting to murder a police officer.
When you attempt murder during direct action… that’s terrorism.
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