Don's Tuesday Column

              THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson  Red Bluff Daily News   1/19/2021

         Facts emerge from the “fog of riot”

This last week saw several narratives and presumed facts held up as “the truth”— regarding the violence at the Capitol after President Donald J. Trump’s rally speech—have not born out. Some have even been refuted by actual verified facts.

I reviewed last week’s column, “Stone-throwers in glass houses,” to confirm no misrepresentations or factual errors slipped in, as can happen when an event involves hundreds of thousands of people, multiple sites of violence by mostly unknown persons with often-unproclaimed motives and goals. For instance, the riots from four years ago upon President Donald Trump’s inauguration 1) Were planned, prepared, organized and carried out by leftist “antifa” and other progressive/socialist/communist groups;

2) Their communications were intercepted, tactics prepared for, and law enforcement deployed so that, when the rioting started, the damage could be minimized; 3) The damage, nonetheless, was substantial with injuries to a number of people and police; and 4) Rioters had charges dropped while Democrats on whose behalf they were silent and not held accountable.

That was all on the record, even discovered afterwards. The only inaccuracy was writing that last summer’s racial protest-cum-riots by antifa-BLM-ers resulted in “at least 12 dead.” Civilian and law enforcement deaths were 47.

I provided readers with violence-friendly quotes from Democrats and media figures, and news headlines underscoring the tolerant, even encouraging, attitude; it’s a reminder to all that there is a blatant double standard over protests and ensuing violence. Trump’s 2020 campaign rallies saw hundreds of thousands of supporters, including (based on attendee data) large numbers of Democrats, Independents, Black and Brown supporters, some just curious about Trump’s message.

There was not one incident of violence by Trump’s supporters; there were never any arrests of police-supporting attendees; neither were there ever any weapons confiscated. The logical conclusion has to be that some people attending Wednesday’s rally—which was promoted, but not organized, by President Trump—were’t the same groups or of the same character as attended the campaign rallies.

A quick compare/contrast with the “Women’s March” shows that that was also largely peaceful but raucous cheers erupted when Madonna said she dreamed of “blowing up the White House”; Trump supporters were harassed; women attendees filled the Senate office building halls and doorways in intimidating manner, but without violence.

Republicans leaving President Trump’s Rose Garden address were physically, criminally assaulted—without cordons of D.C. Police, some felt they would have been mobbed, even killed. The only violence at Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign events were the vicious, bloody attacks by leftists. Political, personalized violence has been the worldwide hallmark of radical socialist movements for decades.

“Spare Me. Biden And Democrats Never Cared About Law And Order—What happened Wednesday at the U.S. Capitol was horrifying, but so was Kenosha, Minneapolis, Chaz, and Portland. Joe Biden only denounces violence when it serves him politically” by Evita Duffy (Jan. 7, Thefederalist.com). Sums it up.

When did they ever care about actual examples of “insurrection,” like when the federal courthouse in Portland was attacked, burned and vandalized with evil motives: the death and injury of local and federal law enforcement? Democrat silence followed the trapping of cops in a precinct station who only survived by escaping; their “rules of engagement” didn’t allow them the justified, lethal response any human being is entitled to when facing deadly force—shoot-to-kill.

Before I take seriously one word of condemnation from leftists, local or otherwise, of ginned-up accusations of “insurrection” or “sedition” by President Donald J. Trump or his supporters, I demand to know what position, what criticism they had at the time for the de facto “Insurrection” of “autonomous zones” like Seattle’s CHAZ or their precursors, the “Occupy Wall Street” zones of lawless violence.

Among the “6 Other Times People Broke into the U.S. Capitol” (by Tyler O’Neil, Pjmedia.com): a bomb planted by a German-sympathizing opponent of the Allies in WWI, professor Eric Muenter; Puerto Rican Nationalists who fired 30 rounds into the House chamber of the Capitol, injuring 5 and unfurling a Puerto Rican flag;

In 1983, the radical leftist domestic terror group, the Weather Underground, detonated a bomb outside Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd’s office; a paranoid, schizophrenic Russell Weston shot two Capitol Police officers to death in 1998. President Carter pardoned the Puerto Rican terrorists; President Clinton pardoned the Weather Underground terrorists.

Here points of fact: 1) “Timeline of Events in DC on Jan. 6” by Petr Svab, shows that the “Save America March” rally, which began at 9 AM, was 1.2 miles, or a 25-minute walk, from the Capitol; 2) President Trump spoke from noon until about 1:12 PM but anyone who showed up at the Capitol before 1:40 couldn’t have heard all of Trump’s speech; 3) By 1:40: a pipe bomb had was already left at the RNC (12:45), people jumped/broke through fencing near the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial and the Peace Monument (12:58) and through police lines and fencing at the Capitol steps (1:02); more scuffles broke out between rioters and police (1:14), a pipe bomb was found at the DNC (1:15);

Attendees could still not have heard Trump’s speech and gotten to the Capitol but police had already put up a fencing perimeter in the Inauguration platform area (1:20), people were climbing the scaffolding framework (1:25), and police fired irritants in the crowd (1:35). Trump creating insurrection: a lie.

Among “Trump supporters,” antifa-types were undeniably involved, identified by their manner, clothing, disciplined movements, tactics, tools, weapons, etc. They were recorded by 2 cameras operating where the Air Force vet died, one held by “journalist/provocateur” John Sullivan.

President Trump never said anything beyond “I know some of you will be marching to the Capitol” and to act “peacefully and patriotically.