It continues to amaze one that the entirety of the j6 insurrection continues to be passed off by the GOP as nothing like an 800 person assault on the seat of the US government meant to overthrow the government by invalidating the 2020 election using physical force including the potential of VPOTUS assassination.
Because nuking something means warming it up in the microwave, and the dominant RWNJ media frame attempts to characterize the J6 insurrection as merely a version of Occupy Wall Street. They continue to insist that there was no coordination with elected GOP politicians if because there was no explosion despite the placing of pipe bombs and the caching of firearms for their “quick reaction force”. The Special Counsel will undoubtedly show the connections among coup plotters including the Willard Hotel HQ personnel. Over 100 seditionists remain in Congress, and only the actual hope of a pardon from another Trump presidency props up the flimsy excuses for trivializing an attack on the Capitol.
An Oath Keepers member charged with seditious conspiracy to overthrow the government or the execution of its laws told a federal jury that his remark about “storming the castle” on Jan. 6th was merely a reference toThe Princess Bride.
Thomas Caldwell, a 68-year-old Virginia resident now entering his third day of testimony, posted his supposed allusion to theRob Reiner-directed comedy classic on Facebook, along with a photograph of a pro-Donald Trumpmob running riot around the U.S. Capitol.
“Us storming the castle,” the militia man wrote shortly after midnight on Jan. 7, 2021, referring to himself and his wifeSharon Caldwell. “Please share. Sharon was right with me! I am such an instigator! She was ready for it man! Don’t mind the tear gas.”
In the 1987 film, the castle is, in fact, invaded. Caldwell added that his other line about being an “instigator” was an allusion toBugs Bunny, a point he made by botching his impression of the cartoon rabbit by saying: “I am such a stinker.” The bunny’s actual catchphrase was: “Ain’t I a stinker?”
Taking the stand in his own defense, Caldwell has put several homespun spins on what prosecutors describe as his plot to stop the transfer of power by force. On Tuesday, he told a jury that a “militia” is just another word for “neighbors helping neighbors.” Caldwell allegedly organized an armed “quick reaction force” waiting with guns just outside of D.C. city limits on the day of the Jan. 6 attack. Members of the QRF, as it was known, stayed behind at a Comfort Inn in Arlington, Va., while Caldwell and other Oath Keepers went to Washington, D.C.
Caldwell denied those allegations, but when a prosecutor confronted him with an encrypted message talking about delivering “heavy weapons” over the Potomac River by “ferry,” the elderly extremist played off phrasing as a “bit of creative writing.”
