Guilty
while most Republicans have been twisting themselves into pretzels to not name trump, or comment on the trump dinner, more likely to “condemn” the “guests” at the dinner rather than their “fearless” leader…both Moscow Mitch and Kevin McCarthy writhing in agony to not name trump…Moscow Mitch flanked by other repugnants told reporters “There is no room in the Republican Party for antisemitism or white supremacy. And anyone meeting with people advocating that point of view, in my judgment, are highly unlikely to ever be elected president of the United States.”…never mentioning trump, who was in fact elected president espousing racism through birtherism…and white supremacy in a round about way…and Kevin McCarthy said “The president can have meetings with who he wants. But I don’t think anybody should have a meeting with Nick Fuentes. And his views are nowhere within the Republican Party or within this country itself.”…has he looked at his party lately?…what Stuart Stevens said “This is who the Republican Party wants to be.”…yeah, trump is guilty but we wouldn’t convict him…they could have gotten rid of him at either of trump’s impeachment trials for two…but they gave him a pass…two “get out of jail” passes…which only emboldened him…this from The Washington Post by Eugene Scott: “McConnell: Anyone meeting with antisemites is ‘unlikely to ever be elected president’: The top two Republicans in Congress on Tuesday condemned former president Donald Trump’s recent dinner with a white nationalist, with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) warning that keeping such company could end a presidential candidate’s White House ambitions.
“There is no room in the Republican Party for antisemitism or white supremacy,” McConnell told reporters. “And anyone meeting with people advocating that point of view, in my judgment, are highly unlikely to ever be elected president of the United States.”
The comments came nearly a week after reports that Trump — who announced his presidential candidacy for 2024 this month — met with hip-hop artist Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, and far-right activist Nick Fuentes at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. McConnell did not mention Trump by name but joined a small group of Republicans who recently condemned the controversial meeting.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who hopes to win enough votes to be speaker during the next congressional term, criticized Trump’s decision without attacking the former president directly.
“The president can have meetings with who he wants,” the lawmaker said Tuesday at the White House following a meeting between President Biden and congressional leaders. “But I don’t think anybody should have a meeting with Nick Fuentes. And his views are nowhere within the Republican Party or within this country itself.”
McCarthy falsely claimed that Trump condemned Fuentes’s rhetoric.
After a reporter corrected McCarthy, noting that Trump neither condemned Fuentes nor his ideology, the lawmaker condemned Fuentes’s worldview himself.
“Well, I condemn his ideology,” he said. “It has no place in society at all.”
Ye recently lost billions of dollars of net worth after businesses cut ties with him for repeatedly making antisemitic remarks. Fuentes has espoused racist and antisemitic views, endorsed segregation, attacked immigrants and made light of the Holocaust. He has been labeled a white supremacist leader by the Anti-Defamation League, which he denies.
While some GOP lawmakers told reporters that there is no room in their party for antisemitic and white supremacist views in recent days, many of these Republicans — including rumored White House hopefuls — refrained from addressing Trump directly. Instead, they criticized Fuentes and those who advised Trump to meet with the Holocaust denier.
Trump acknowledged on Tuesday night that he had a private dinner with Fuentes and Ye at his resort in Palm Beach, Fla. According to a post on TruthSocial, the former president said that Ye had called him “to have dinner at Mar-a-Lago” and that the rapper then “unexpectedly showed up with three of his friends, whom I knew nothing about.”
In a Monday speech on the Senate floor, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) called on Democratic and Republican lawmakers to join him in criticizing Trump over the meeting.
It was a message on which Schumer doubled down Tuesday. “[Trump] still hasn’t denounced him. That is just an utter disgrace,” Schumer said. “That is un-American. That is not what any leader of any party, of any philosophy, should do.”
Mike Pence, who served as Trump’s vice president and is expected to launch a 2024 bid of his own, strongly criticized Trump’s dinner in an interview Monday.
“President Trump was wrong to give a white nationalist, an antisemite and a Holocaust denier a seat at the table,” he told NewsNation. “I think he should apologize for it, and he should denounce those individuals and their hateful rhetoric without qualification.”
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), a frequent critic of Trump, called the former president’s decision to dine with Ye and Fuentes “disgusting” before sharing his belief that Trump should not be the GOP’s 2024 presidential nominee.
“There is no bottom to the degree to which he’s willing to degrade himself, and the country for that matter. Having dinner with those people was disgusting,” Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, told NBC News. “I don’t think he should be president of the United States. I don’t think he should be the nominee of our party in 2024.”
“And I certainly don’t want him hanging over our party like a gargoyle,” he added. “It’s a character issue.”…( Amy B Wang contributed to this report. )…I like that image of trump as a gargoyle…the monster he is…the guilty monster he is…
and speaking of guilty…from The Washington Post by Spencer S. Hsu, Tom Jackman and Rachel Weiner: “Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes guilty of Jan. 6 seditious conspiracy: A federal jury on Tuesdayconvicted Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and a top deputy of seditious conspiracy for leading a months-long plot to unleash political violence to prevent the inauguration of President Biden, culminating in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
The panel of seven men and five women deliberated for three days before finding Rhodes and lead Florida Oath Keeper Kelly Meggs guilty of conspiring to oppose by force the lawful transition of presidential power. But three other associates were not convicted of the historically rare and politically freighted sedition count. All five were convicted of obstructing Congress as it met to confirm the results of the 2020 election. Both offenses are punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
Rhodes, 56, in a dark suit and black eye-patch from an old gun accident, looked down briefly upon hearing his verdict on the central charge, then leaned back in his chair as others were read.
James Lee Bright, one of Rhodes’s attorneys, said Rhodes received a fair trial, but would appeal and testify on behalf of other Jan. 6 defendants “if asked.” Bright and Edward L. Tarpley Jr, another Rhodes lawyer, said that while the acquittal of defendants on 11 of the 28 counts was not a clean sweep for the Justice Department, they expected the government to take the verdict as a sign to press forward “full-steam ahead” in future prosecutions.
Rhodes and his co-defendants were the first accused of seditious conspiracy and the first to face trial and be convicted on any conspiracy charge to date in the massive Jan. 6 investigation. He is the highest-profile figure to face trial in connection with rioting by angry Trump supporters who injured scores of officers, ransacked offices and forced lawmakers to evacuate the U.S. Capitol.
Rhodes and followers, dressed in combat-style gear, converged on the Capitol after staging an “arsenal” of weapons at nearby hotels, ready to take up arms at Rhodes’s direction in an attack on the “bedrock of democracy,” the government charged. Rhodes’s defense said he and co-defendants came to Washington as bodyguards and peacekeepers, bringing firearms only in case Trump met their demand to mobilize private militia to stop Biden from becoming president.
Analysts called the outcome a vindication for the Justice Department.
“The jury’s verdict on seditious conspiracy confirms that January 6, 2021, was not just ‘legitimate political discourse’ or a peaceful protest that got out of hand. This was a planned, organized, violent assault on the lawful authority of the U.S. government and the peaceful transfer of power,” said Randall D. Eliason, a former federal prosecutor who teaches law at George Washington University.
“Now the only remaining question is how much higher did those plans go, and who else might be held criminally responsible,” Eliason said.
In a statement, Attorney General Merrick Garland hailed the verdict and praised prosecutors and agents on the case.
“Today the jury returned a verdict convicting all defendants of criminal conduct, including two Oath Keepers leaders for seditious conspiracy against the United States,” Garland said. “The Justice Department is committed to holding accountable those criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy on January 6, 2021.”
The verdict in Rhodes’s case likely will be taken as a bellwether for two remaining Jan. 6 seditious conspiracy trials set for December against five other Oath Keepers and leaders of the Proud Boys, including the longtime chairman Henry ‘Enrique’ Tarrio. Both Rhodes and Tarrio are highly visible leaders of the alt-right or far-right anti-government movements, and were highlighted at hearings probing the attack earlier this year by the House Jan. 6 committee.
The Justice Department arrested Rhodes in January and Tarrio in June after an internal debate over whether the magnitude and organization behind the Capitol attack merited bringing seldom used seditious conspiracy charges. Bringing the politically charged count posed a higher risk at trial because it required that prosecutors prove the defendants harbored an intent to forcibly oppose the federal government, compared to the charge of conspiring to obstruct a proceeding of Congress.
The Justice Department has argued in related cases that a conviction on either charge should carry the same seven to nine-year sentence under advisory federal guidelines, a potential starting point for the judge in Rhodes’s case. But the department calculated it was worth the risk to try to send a public message by charging the defendants with committing one of the most serious political crimes in a wider attack on democracy.
Rhodes, who was at the Capitol but did not enter on Jan. 6, and Tarrio, who allegedly directed his group from Baltimore, drew heightened scrutiny because of the prominence of their followers’ actions at the Capitol and linkages to violence. Both also claimed ties to a long list of Trump advisers associated with the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election results — including Trump political confidant Roger Stone, “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander and former national security aide Michael Flynn — while attorney Sidney Powell’s nonprofit raised legal defense funds for Rhodes’ co-defendants.
Though prosecutors sought to prove only that Rhodes plotted with co-defendants to obstruct the presidential transition, both sides acknowledged that he was in contact with Stone, Alexander and Flynn during the post-election period. Oath Keepers provided them with bodyguards and communicated in a “Friends of Stone” encrypted chat group ahead of Jan. 6.
After networks declared the election for Biden, on Nov. 7, 2020, Rhodes asked the Stone chat group, “What’s the plan?” and shared a proposal for storming Congress. That day and over coming weeks, including in two open letters to Trump, Rhodes spurred followers with growing urgency to be ready for an “armed rebellion,” organizing members who came to Washington with firearms prepared for violence, according to several who testified.
Meggs, 53, an auto dealership manager from Dunnellon, Fla., echoed Rhodes in messages shown in court, writing to other Oath Keepers: “We are Militia! We don’t have to play by their rules! We make the rules.” He also said he had “orchestrated a plan” with the Proud Boys, having met members of the group during an earlier violent pro-Trump protest in D.C.
Rhodes and co-defendants testified that those plans did not include entering the Capitol, describing it as a spur-of-the-moment decision made without consultation. Distancing himself from the actions of co-defendants, Rhodes called it “stupid” and “off-mission” for co-defendants to enter the building.
But prosecutors said their words and actions demonstrated tacit agreement with an illegal plot proposed in public and private before Jan. 6 by Rhodes, who warned repeatedlythat “bloody civil war” was necessary to keep Trump in office if the election results were not overturned.
And prosecutors homed in on a call between Rhodes and Meggs just before Meggs entered the Capitol with two other defendants — Kenneth Harrelson, 42, a former Army sergeant from Titusville, Fla., and Jessica Watkins, 39, another Army veteran and bar owner from Woodstock, Ohio. Thomas Caldwell, 68, a retired Navy intelligence officer stayed outside the building but hosted other defendants at his farm in Berryville, Va. The contents of the call remain unknown; Rhodes maintains they were unable to hear each other.
Only Meggs and Watkins were found guilty of conspiring to stop the congressional proceeding, but all five defendants were found guilty of obstructing Congress. Meggs, Harrelson and Watkins were acquitted of damaging the ceremonial doors through which they entered the building but convicted of impeding lawmakers by going inside. All were convicted of destroying evidence but Watkins, who was found guilty of a separate rioting count.
Attorneys for Rhodes and the other defendants urged jurors to focus on testimony that there was no specific plan to break into the Capitol, and predicted that lawyers would be parsing the jury’s reasoning for weeks. One noted Tuesday that while the seditious conspiracy conviction will end Rhodes’s military veteran benefits, the acquittal of three other veterans on that count means they can keep them after their sentences.
The verdict is the latest hinge-point in the political fortunes of Trump, who has said he would issue full pardons to Jan. 6 defendants. Rhodes’s trial concluded as the former president announced his renewed candidacy for the White House in 2024 after midterm elections in which his party failed to match historical gains in Congress and voters resoundingly rejected his endorsed candidates. Closing arguments began the day Garland named a special counsel to take over the ongoing investigation into efforts to interfere with the lawful transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election.
Two Florida Oath Keepers who pleaded guilty to conspiring to obstruct Congress testified that when they breached the Capitol, it was with the understanding that Rhodes had directed them to stop the election certification by any means necessary, including potentially committing treason and risking death.
“That’s why we brought our firearms,” one said.
Other witnesses recorded Rhodes statements and turned them over to the FBI, saying they quit the Oath Keepers because they wanted no part of his“unchained” plans.
“It sounded like we were going to war against the United States government,” said a former member who recorded a Nov. 9, 2020, online meeting in which Rhodes told 100 Oath Keepers leaders, “We’re not getting out of this without a fight.”
On the stand, Rhodes said his goal was for Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act and stay in power with support of private militia. That call never came, and prosecutors argued it would not have been a legal order.“
Venting is not a meeting of the minds. Expressing hatred and anger is not a meeting of the minds in this country,” Rhodes attorney Bright said in closing arguments, describing what he called a lot of “horribly heated rhetoric and bombast” by defendants.
“We’ve had 50 witnesses in this case. Not one person has testified that there was a plan,” Bright said.
In closing arguments, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathryn L. Rakoczy showed jurors a Dec. 10 text message by Rhodes to Oath Keepers attorney Kellye SoRelle, Rhodes’s girlfriend and his post-election liaison to groups working to flip the results, including Trump’s campaign and the legal team of Rudy Giuliani. Rhodes told SoRelle that if Trump did not act, “we will have to rise up in insurrection (rebellion).”
Four days after Jan. 6, Rhodes sought to pass a violent message to Trump — recorded by an intermediary and given to the FBI instead — that it was not too late to use paramilitary groups to stay in power by force. But he also said he wished he had gone further without waiting for the president.
If Trump was “just gonna let himself be removed illegally, then we should have brought rifles,” Rhodes said. “We could have fixed it right then and there. I’d hang f—-ing Pelosi from the lamppost,” he said, referring to House Speaker Nancy A. Pelosi (D-Calif.), in a recording played for jurors.
U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, who helped defend the Capitol on Jan. 6, said he ran over to the federal courthouse when he heard there was a verdict. He sat sweating in the front row as the verdict was read.
“I was emotional,” Dunn said afterward. “I didn’t expect to cry.”
He thanked the jury and the Justice Department for their work on the case.
“I don’t look at it like a victory,” Dunn said. “A victory is when you win. This was right. This was about doing the right thing.”
The federal government last brought sedition charges against right-wing militants in 2010. A judge acquitted members of the self-described militia Hutaree in Michigan, saying U.S. authorities failed to prove the group had firm plans to launch attacks in an anti-government uprising.
The government has now secured felony convictions against all 19 Jan. 6 defendants who have gone to trial on felony counts, although juries hung on some charges in two cases.
Overall, about 900 people face federal charges in the rioting, half with felonies such as assaulting police or obstructing a congressional proceeding. About 450, roughly half of the total charged, have pleaded guilty.”…yeah! guilty!…I’ll tell you what I’m guilty of!…Schadenfreude!…a German word meaning “pleasure derived by someone from another person’s misfortune”…the Oath Keepers’ guilty verdict is much more than misfortune…it’s what they have wrought upon themselves…and I can’t wait for the higher ups get their due…all the way to the top…trump, Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, Rudy Guiliani, Sydney Powell, Josh Hawley, John Eastman, and all those false electors…it will do my heart good…it’s Amageddon Time…
yeah, Elissa and I went to see Amageddon Time at the Ambler tonight…it was a practically a private showing…three other people in the audience…from Wikipedia: “Amageddon Time is a 2022 American coming-of-age drama film written, directed, and produced by James Gray. The film stars Anne Hathaway, Jeremy Strong, Banks Repeta, Jaylin Webb, and Anthony Hopkins. Inspired by Gray’s childhood experiences, the story follows a young Jewish-American boy ( Paul )who befriends a rebellious African-American classmate ( Johnny ) and begins to struggle with expectations from his family and growing up in a world of privilege, inequality and prejudice.”…the time period is 1980, the time Ronald Reagan is elected to the Presidency…at one point Paul played by Banks Pepeta is put into a prep school, Forrest Manor Prep private school…from Wikipedia, the Plot – Forrest Manor is financially supported by famous businessman Fred Trump, who also supports Ronald Reagan in the impending US presidential election. Many of the students are also Reagan supporters. On Paul’s first day, Fred’s daughter Maryanne, one of the school’s famous alumni, delivers a speech to the students about working to earn their success.”…I liked this movie, but I wanted more…of not sure what it is that I wanted…it just missed for me, and wondered if the Fred and Maryanne Trump part was true…I googled and here’s what came up, answering my questions from Screen Rant by Mae Abdulkaki: “Armageddon Time’s True Story & Trump Connections: How Much Is Real: Armageddon Time includes cameos from the Trumps and other real-life inspirations. We break down how much is true & what happened to Johnny after.: Armageddon Time has an interesting backstory. Written and directed by James Gray, the film stars Anne Hathaway, Jeremy Strong, Anthony Hopkins, and more in a star-studded line-up. The film takes its inspiration from Gray’s own life, but there are elements of the film that are only based in truth.
One of the Armageddon Time’s biggest surprises is the appearance of Fred Trump, Donald Trump’s father, and Maryanne Trump, his sister. John Diehl and Jessica Chastain’s roles, respectively, are minor, but effective. With the story following 12-year-old Paul Graff (Banks Repeta), his friend Johnny (Jaylin Webb), and the layers of systemic oppression, the film’s ending leaves audiences with a lot to think about. But how much of Armageddon Time is real, and what are the Trump connections? Here is a guide to the film’s true story and inspirations.
Is Armageddon Time Based On A True Story?
Yes — to a certain extent. Armageddon Time is inspired by the life of writer-director James Gray. Because the filmmaker’s family is fictionalized onscreen, it makes the film semi-autobiographical in nature. It’s similar to what Steven Spielberg did with The Fabelmans, a film based on aspects that occurred in his life, but is otherwise fictionalized in other respects. Armageddon Time pulls from Gray’s childhood living in Queens, New York. The characters, including his grandfather — who Anthony Hopkins plays in the film — and friend Johnny are all based on real-life people. Paul’s family home was also recreated based on Gray’s old photos of the house, allowing the production design team to build a set that was similar.
What Armageddon Time’s Title Means (& Where It Comes From)
The film’s title gives the story a sense of doom and gloom, as with anything having the word Armageddon attached to it might. Armageddon Time’s title draws its influence from Ronald Reagan, who would often use the term “Armageddon” in his speeches as a scare tactic. What’s more, Reagan believed that “Armageddon is near,” and that the world was destined to see it within their generation. He attributed it to the continued destabilization of the Middle East and the theory that nuclear war with Russia would bring about the end of times. Additionally, Gray revealed that the title was a take on the Clash’s “Armagideon Time,” an 80s song the director listened to often at the time. Some of the lyrics — including “A lot of people won’t get no supper tonight, a lot of people won’t get no justice tonight, the battle is gettin’ hotter, in this iration, Armagideon time” — align with the film’s message.
How Much Of Armageddon Time Really Happened?
While any filmmaker might be hard-pressed to include every little fact about his life in a semi-autobiographical film, Gray takes certain creative liberties in Armageddon Time. But because the film is inspired by certain life events, there are moments that reflect Gray’s own childhood. In the film, Maryanne Trump advises the students of Paul’s school about having ambition. Maryanne Trump, an attorney at the time of the film’s setting, really did give a speech at Gray’s private school when he attended as a kid. In fact, the lecture actress Jessica Chastain delivers was recreated from the director’s own memory of the event. What’s more, Paul and Johnny stole an Apple computer in Armageddon Time, and Gray told The Hollywood Reporter that, although that was their plan, he wound up stealing “Star Trek blueprints from Bloomingdale’s,” and that was what got them caught. Like Paul’s beloved grandfather, Gray’s grandfather also fled Eastern Europe before arriving in the U.S. and settling in Queens.
Why Armageddon Time Is Set During Ronald Reagan’s Election?
Gray wanted to pinpoint a specific time in history that was heavily influential on the present. The period leading up to Ronald Reagan winning the election in 1980 was a turning point in American politics, and it’s an era Armageddon Time’s director believes paved the way for the systemic racism and inequality that still exists today. The film’s 1980 setting also shows how Paul’s family can be against Reagan’s politics while contributing to the very system that is working to keep them down, including their own prejudices against Black people. The time period is an example of the political and cultural tension that is still at the center of current events, with Armageddon Time highlighting the very same tendencies and systemic issues that have plagued the country for a while.
Trump Connection Explained: Why Fred & Maryanne Appear In Armageddon Time
Fred and Maryanne Trump show up in Armageddon Time, the latter to deliver a speech to the students attending. While their roles are brief, their connection is to Kew-Forest School, which Paul attends in the film. In real life, Maryanne and Donald Trump both attended the private school in their youth. Their father Fred Trump served on the Kew-Forest School’s board of directors and also provided financial support. While Fred and Maryanne Trump’s presence in the film is due to their ties to the Kew-Forest School, and that Maryanne specifically gave a lecture there during Gray’s time there, their roles are indicative of the clear separation between the rich and working class. Armageddon Time explores how the system hurts everyone while benefiting the wealthy elite the most. Maryanne Trump’s speech is about ambition, but it’s easier to have it when there is family money and connections to back it up. Through them, the film also explores the status quo, and how the students at the Kew-Forest School look down on those they deem beneath them and, crucially, how they become adults with power through privilege.
What Happened To The Real-Life Johnny After Armageddon Time?
After Paul is released from police custody at the end of Armageddon Time, the implication is that Johnny stays behind to face unjust consequences of their actions. In real life, Gray and his friend were caught shoplifting and held by Bloomingdale’s security. As in the film, Johnny is left behind as Paul’s father takes him home. A few years later, in 1986, Johnny’s real-life counterpart died in a drug deal in Jamaica, Queens. Gray says he didn’t find out that his childhood friend had died until more than a decade later. Whether Johnny was actually arrested after being held at Bloomingdale’s is unclear, but the two friends walked very different paths thereafter, with Gray never again seeing his friend after the incident.”…
I took my CD from the MRI to the doctor this afternoon…I was told that it was mine, to give to the specialist if I needed one, and as soon as the written report was giving to the doctor, she would call me… I did receive a call but it was too late to call back…
I found a dime and a penny today…also a Mexican 2 dollar coin…it’s worth 10 cents…dated 2022…
Art Salazar 