Appeals Court Overturns Jan. 6 Defendant’s Sentence, Potentially Impacting Dozens of Cases

  The Epoch Times

Dozens of Jan. 6 cases might be impacted after the court’s ruling on Friday.

"An appeals court in Washington unanimously ruled that a Jan. 6 defendant’s sentence was improperly enhanced, a move that could impact numerous other Jan. 6 cases.  

"On Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that Larry Brock, who was convicted for a range of crimes related to Jan. 6, improperly had additional charges of “interference with the administration of justice.” The judge who wrote the court’s opinion wrote that the charge doesn’t apply to a sentencing enhancement, however, and struck it down.

“ 'Brock challenges both the district court’s interpretation of Section 1512(c)(2)’s elements and the sufficiency of the evidence to support that conviction,” wrote the judge, Patricia Millett.

"The judge, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, concluded that any interference with Congress’ certification of the 2020 electoral votes isn’t tantamount to a sentencing enhancement.

“ 'Because Section 2J1.2’s text, commentary, and context establish that the ‘administration of justice’ does not extend to Congress’s counting and certification of electoral college votes, the district court erred in applying Section 2J1.2(b)(2)’s three-level sentencing enhancement to Brock’s Section 1512(c)(2) conviction,” the judge wrote.

" 'The judges, in siding with Mr. Brock, wrote that Congress’ function on Jan. 6 was not judicial but was only a part of the 2020 presidential election process." . . .

Full article here. | The Epoch Times

AOC faces backlash as critics point out she wasn't in Capitol building during riot

. @AOC made clear she didn’t know who was at her door. Breathless attempts by media to fan fictitious news flames are dangerous.

 Fox News "Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is facing criticism over initial claims she made about the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, with many noting that she wasn't even in the Capitol when it occurred.

"The controversy erupted after the New York congresswoman posted a video in which she described a confrontation with Capitol Police at her office, which is located on the larger Capitol complex. But it is not in the Capitol itself — which includes the dome, the House, and the Senate — and was where many rioters stormed in and were seen breaking windows.

"Her office is located in the Cannon building, which is accessible through underground tunnels connected to the Capitol as well as via a short stroll down a walkway and across the street. It was also one of the buildings where staff was told to evacuate after suspicious packages were found in the area. Law enforcement found pipe bombs and Molotov cocktails in the vicinity.

"In response to the incident, the congresswoman said: "I did not know if I was going to make it to the end of that day alive." She also accused Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, of almost having her "murdered," touching on accusations that Cruz and others incited the attack through their rhetoric about the election.

""I can tell you that I had a very close encounter where I thought I was going to die," she said in a video last month.

"In her more recent video, she offered an emotional recollection of how she hid behind a bathroom door and heard the police officer break into her office.

" 'I thought I was going to die," she said, noting that she didn't initially realize the person trying to enter her office was police. "I have never been quieter in my entire life.' " . . .

Rep. Nancy Mace

@RepNancyMace

·

Feb 2

.

@AOC

made clear she didn’t know who was at her door. Breathless attempts by media to fan fictitious news flames are dangerous. My office is 2 doors down. Insurrectionists never stormed our hallway. Egregious doesn’t even begin to cover it. Is there nothing MSM won’t politicize? . . .

Fact Check the Left: Did Ocasio-Cortez Mislead the Public About Her Location During Capitol Hill Riot? . . . "The New York leftist is getting dragged on social media. She has gone on a tirade about why we shouldn’t move on from the Capitol Hill riot on January 6. That’s the day pro-Trump supporters stormed the Capitol Building as members of Congress were certifying the 2020 election results. Five people died. It derailed the GOP’s symbolic move of challenging the Electoral College results. This was going to happen at least three times. The objection would be lobbed, the House and Senate would go to their respective chambers for up to two hours of debate, hold another vote to verify the allocation of the electoral votes, and then continue with the certification process. Protesters stormed the US Capitol as the first objection was being debated.

"Ocasio-Cortez, and I know some of you don’t like me saying this, is smarter than she looks. She’s a masterful communicator. It’s manipulation for sure — but she knows how to reach her audience, how to animate them, and how to use social media. Donald Trump has the same skill when it comes to audience engagement on these platforms.

She took aim at the "move on" calls, saying that this is the rhetoric of abusers. That’s when she dropped the bombshell that she was a survivor of sexual assault. And there is the iron dome protection shield. I’m not here to discuss the veracity of that claim, . . ."

Even the parody site, Babylon Bee couldn't pass this all up: AOC Claims Two Men In MAGA Hats Threw Economics Textbooks At Her

. . . "At one point, two scary men in MAGA hats, like, literally threw copies of Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell, literally right at me," said AOC. "They said: 'Read this! Read this please!' in their very scary man voices. I thought at that moment I was going to die. I'm lucky to still be standing before you today." . . .

CNN’s Don Lemon, Chris Cuomo Defend AOC — The Threat Doesn’t Have to Be Real for You to Believe It  "CNN anchors Don Lemon, and Chris Cuomo defended Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) emotional telling of her experience during the deadly riots at Capitol Hill on January 6." . . .

The daffy left and their Democrat candidates: the perfect storm

What if Democrats don't nominate a crazy person in 2020?  "Reeling from defeat in the midterm elections, Republicans have started to entertain the following hope: The liberal base will force Democrats to nominate somebody totally crazy as their presidential candidate in 2020, ensuring the re-election of President Trump.

"The dream that a victorious party will be consumed by radicals, overreach, and become unelectable, has long been a refuge for parties following a major loss. . . . 

""Looking toward 2020, there is good reason to believe that Trump, despite his low approval rating, will be able to shake off defeat and get re-elected.

. . . "The liberal base of the Democratic Party is angry and out for blood. But, there are currently two dozen potential presidential candidates and no clear frontrunner. Some of the candidates frequently touted have stumbled in early forays into the national spotlight — whether it was New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker’s “Spartacus moment” or Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s DNA test gambit that backfired badly. " . . .

Students say Ocasio-Cortez is face of Democrat party, not Pelosi   . . . "Wanting to know what college students had to say, Campus Reform's Cabot Phillips headed to Georgetown University to ask a simple question: “Between Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who do you view as the face of the Democrat party?”  
"The results were overwhelmingly in Ocasio-Cortez’s favor." . . .

Omar, Bernie, and Ocasio-Cortez decried for their fusty, outdated ideas on Venezuela — from the left  . . . And then he takes square aim at Reps. Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose heads are filled with lefty university mush and true ignorance of anything else, as well as the biggest old dinosaur himself: socialist honeymooner Bernie Sanders."  . . .


Most major 2020 Dem candidates will boycott American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference  . . . "But the boycott by Democratic presidential candidates shows an extremely worrying fact; the radical anti-Semites on the left fringe of the Democratic party are gaining power and influence. There is already talk of pushing a "Boycott, Divest, Sanction" plank in the 2020 party platform and how much do you want to bet that Rep. Omar and her fellow travelers will be featured speakers at the event?" . . .


During a January stop in New Mexico which did not make it into his blog, O'Rourke, 46, ate the local dirt, which the report said is believed to have "regenerative powers."

Townhall

The ‘Burn It Down!’ Democrats   

"The Senate. The Electoral College. The First Amendment. The Second Amendment. The Supreme Court. Is there a part of our constitutional order that the Democrats have not pledged to destroy?
"There are some Democrats out there in the sticks — a lot of them, in fact — who simply don’t understand the constitutional order. They believe that the United States is a democracy, John Adams et al. be damned, and, in fact, they often are confused by the frankly anti-democratic features of the American order, because they have been taught (theirs is a pseudo-education consisting of buzzwords rather than an actual education) that “democratic” means “good” and “undemocratic” means “bad.”

"But the Democrats in Washington are a different story. Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris went to law school. They understand the American constitutional order just fine.

"And they hate it." . . .

We Don't Trust You

Ann Coulter

It's not the underlying issue in any of these examples that's the problem -- it's the flouting of the democratic process. I'm not saying: We trusted you and got a bad result. I am saying: We trusted you, but you abandoned the Constitution and the law to get the result that you could not win honestly.

     "Like all Americans, I've been deeply moved and horrified by the recent spate of mass shootings. Surely, I thought, there must be some commonsense gun regulations that could put an end to the carnage -- red-flag laws, longer waiting periods, age limits, something!
     "Leaving aside the usual suspects, who are rushing to the microphones to demand the immediate confiscation of all guns, liberals are appealing to us to come together in good faith and formulate a plan to keep guns out of the hands of these monsters, using fair process and common sense.
     "The only problem is that no one on their side believes in good faith, fair process or common sense. Here's the reality: We don't trust the other side, nor should we.
Americans used to be able to rely on two bulwarks to protect us from stupidity:

1) Legal process -- The genius of our founders was to strictly limit the power of capricious, and often armed, government officials and to create a government of laws that made major changes difficult, but not impossible." . . .2) Common sense -- We also used to be able to assume that a basic reasonableness undergirded our society, flowing across generational lines, political divides, racial differences and policy disputes. Until the 1970s, for example, federal courts mostly enforced actual legal and constitutional rights on the books. The other branches of government tended to perform their roles in good faith -- or at least not in obvious bad faith.

     "Whether you were a Taft Republican or a JFK Democrat, you believed that we had a border, that people here illegally would be processed according to law, that there were two sexes, that free speech was a hallmark of our nation, and that a kid could dress up as a cowboy or Indian for Halloween without being branded a "racist."
. . . 
. . . "Surely, we can count on the next generation to believe in free speech down to the marrow of their bones. They clearly understand that college campuses, whatever else they are, must always be bastions of open inquiry and far-reaching debate. They obviously recognize the wisdom and majesty of the Constitution's Electoral College.

Nope! None of that is true.

"Actress Debra Messing is collecting names of Trump supporters for a new Hollywood blacklist. Armed and masked left-wing brown-shirts patrol the streets of Portland, Oregon, beating up suspected Trump supporters. I tweet, "It's a nice day," and 2,000 people respond that they hope I will die." . . .

Poll: The Shy Trump Vote Is Bigger This Year...And Who Falls into This Category Should Terrify Democrats

Matt Vespa

"I’ll say it again, folks. The polling is screwed. It’s skewed. It’s a mess. Either we’re right to be highly skeptical and Trump wins an Electoral College landslide, or the pollsters are right and we’re heading for Armageddon come Election Day. Still, the oversampling of Democrats, college-educated voters, and suburban Republicans hostile to Trump should bring a ton of scrutiny. The reluctance from some of these clown firms to switch to likely voter samples is also suspect. We’re not going to have a 2008 or 2012 electorate. For starters, a new Hill-Harris poll noted that young Americans are not excited about this election at all. They’re not planning on voting. Gallup is reporting the youth interest in voting this cycle has hit its lowest levels since 2000. That’s in keeping with the results from Democracy Institute’s Patrick Basham, whose polling data, which has been mentioned in The Washington Times and Forbes, suggests there will be one million fewer young people voting this cycle." . . .

10 Steps to Save America

"Yes, there is a way. But is there the will?"

Being forced to tell the truth would be a powerful deterrent against bureaucratic overreach. 

 Victor Davis Hanson  "Most Americans know something has gone terribly wrong—and very abruptly—with the United States. They are certain that our wounds are almost all self-inflicted. The current pathologies are not a result of a natural disaster, an exhaustion of natural resources, plagues, or an existential war. 

"Crushing national debt and annual deficits, spiraling food and fuel costs amid “normal” seven-percent-plus annual inflation, bread-and-circuses entitlements, a nonexistent border, a resurgence of racial tribalism, pandemic violent criminality, and humiliation abroad—all these pathologies are easily cited as symptoms of a sick patient. Our crises are not as the Left maintains—a nine-person Supreme Court, the Electoral College, or the filibuster—all distractions from existential problems the Left largely created. 

"So, what are the therapies and prognoses for America?

"In the spirit of constructive rather than blanket criticism, here is a partial, 10-point plan of national recovery.

Cut the Debt 

"Americans’ national debt is now $31 trillion. That is about 123 percent of current GDP. The liabilities are unsustainable. We run annual deficits of $1.6 trillion. These financial obligations will eventually ensure that rising interest rates to service the debt crowd out essential spending for national defense and the general welfare. 

"Or in extremis, in the not too distant future, the government will be forced to default on what it owes the “rich” bondholders and foreign debt holders. Or the government will be forced to confiscate private wealth, as for example occasional crazy suggestions to nationalize and absorb 401(k)k retirement plans into the soon-to-be-insolvent Social Security system. Or the state will simply print millions of dollars to pay off obligations, Weimar-style.

"In addict style, the more we come to realize that our binging habit cannot go on, the less we can practice self-restraint. And the more it is the case that those who receive government redistributions outnumber those who pay the majority of federal income taxes, the less hope there remains to avoid insolvency.". . .

Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness and the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He is an American military historian, columnist, a former classics professor, and scholar of ancient warfare. He has been a visiting professor at Hillsdale College since 2004. Hanson was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2007 by President George W. Bush. Hanson is also a farmer (growing raisin grapes on a family farm in Selma, California) and a critic of social trends related to farming and agrarianism. He is the author most recently of The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won, The Case for Trump and the newly released The Dying Citizen.

Wisconsin Recount Ends, Trump Picks Up 162 Votes

Wisconsin Recount Ends, Trump Picks Up 162 Votes  . . . "Suspicion of a hacked Pennsylvania election “borders on the irrational” while granting the Green Party’s recount bid could “ensure that no Pennsylvania vote counts” given Tuesday’s federal deadline to certify the vote for the Electoral College, wrote Diamond, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, a Republican.

“ 'Most importantly, there is no credible evidence that any ‘hack’ occurred, and compelling evidence that Pennsylvania’s voting system was not in any way compromised,” Diamond wrote. He also said the lawsuit suffered from a lack of standing, potentially the lack of federal jurisdiction and an “unexplained, highly prejudicial” wait before filing last week’s lawsuit, four weeks after the Nov. 8 election." . . .

Sunny Hostin of The View brings back term used during Rwandan genocide

There is a great evil that has descended upon this nation. TD

Canva

 Jack Hellner    "What is it about the Democrats that makes them so willing to embrace the political ideology of 20th Century terroristic regimes?

"The media and Democrats are king when playing dirty politics, and instead of attacking policy, they attack the person. They claim they support and respect women and minorities but they never support women and minorities who dare think differently than leftists. They do not believe in diversity of thought. Republicans are racists, sexists, homophobes, xenophobes, transphobes, and bigots. We are described as “deplorables” who “cling” to religion and guns. We are labeled “divisive” and “hateful.” We’ve been told by the president himself, we are a “threat” to the American way of life.

"Perhaps though the most recognized and unrelenting group of Democrat mouthpieces who push these overused talking points is the women of The View, most notably Sunny Hostin.

"Sunny Hostin is so kind and tolerant (like every Democrat) that she recently compared White suburban women to roaches if they voted for Republicans. If you ask me, that seems nastier than anything Trump has ever said. I can’t imagine my White suburban wife of 46 years would take kindly to being called a “roach” — but what do I know since I am just a “divisive deplorable”?". . .

. . ."Yes, the party that wants to preserve the Electoral College, believes states rather than the federal government should run elections, disagrees with stacking the Supreme court, wants to maintain the filibuster, and stands against threats to Supreme Court justices regardless of ruling is the party that would end Democracy. Uh huh, sure, okay.

"Obama said if “democracy” is lost the media will be controlled and corruption will go unpunished. 

"Obama can only be talking about Democrats! They have used the media to spread lies about Russian collusion, to suppress the truth about Biden family corruption, and to silence differing information on COVID among countless other things.

"It certainly wasn’t Trump who politicized federal agencies and used them to destroy political opponents — I seem to remember a time when Obama’s IRS under Lois Lerner went after Tea Party groups". . .

"A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves."  Edward R. Murrow

. . ."Trump was and remains the most dangerous challenge to their agenda.  They will stop at nothing to destroy him.  His intention to run again has them addled and desperate.  They even want to make it illegal for him to run again!  

"They fear Trump because he is everything they are not.  He loves the country and all of its citizens, not just the nest of swampy globalists who make up our wholly corrupt government and who look out only for themselves.  This is why they have no qualms about cheating.  Their sole interest is their own wealth and power. ". . .

The Stench of Mendacity* at the Democratic Convention; There were no positive suggestions, nothing but hatred of President Trump.

Conrad Black

The virtual gathering was an unintended profession of the total moral bankruptcy of the Democratic campaign. There were no positive suggestions, nothing but hatred of President Trump.

"The opening two nights of the Democratic national convention this week produced the greatest deluge of monstrous political falsehoods in any two evenings of American television history.
"The champion mythmaker was the venerable Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). After the usual fictions about “systemic racism,” the most convenient way of ignoring this summer’s widespread urban terrorism, came the familiar pieties about climate change, an issue that, happily, has run largely out of steam during the coronavirus crisis. 
"Sanders then decried “the greatest economic collapse since the Great Depression.” After four years of the Great Depression, unemployment was over 30 percent and there was no direct aid for those out of work. This recent artificial dip was a response to a shutdown supported by a broad political and scientific consensus and has already shrunk through a reduction of unemployment in the last three months larger than the entire number of net new jobs created in the eight Obama-Biden years.
"Sanders declared that Donald Trump is “leading us down the path of authoritarianism . . . greed, oligarchy, and bigotry.” He urgently assured the convention that the election was about “preserving our democracy,” because Trump had “tried to prevent people from voting, undermined the U.S. Postal Service, deployed the military and federal agents against peaceful protesters, threatened to delay the election, and suggested he will not leave office if he loses.”
“ 'Under this administration,” Sanders said, “authoritarianism has taken root in our country . . . I will work to preserve this nation from the threat that so many of our heroes fought and died to defeat.' ” . . . 

*Mendacity  "An attempt to deceive or persuade, usually by means of insincere, exaggerated, or false claims; a line, particularly one used to impress a member of the opposite sex or a business associate; excessive flattery; a cover-up. Snow, especially in large amounts, tends to obscure one’s vision and mask the true nature or appearance of objects on which it falls; thus, the expression’s figurative implications.

 Russia, the Popular Vote, and Hatred of Trump: Hillary Clinton Plays the Hits for the DNC  .  .  . "Clinton urged viewers not to forget to vote, reminding them that she lost by a close margin. Actually, she besmirched the constitutional Electoral College and rode the wave of the popular but ignorant talking point that, in fact, she had won the election by popular vote. Only the constitution got in her way." . . .

In DNC Speech, Obama Spends Most of His Minutes Tearing Down Trump