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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   28011 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024

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Saying J6 was unique ignores the important reason it was: Incompetence by the security forces. Giving a political speech to a large crowd in the capitol city of the polity is basically the MOST LEGITIMATE thing a politician can do. That the security forces were unprepared was also an intentional choice made primarily by the mayor of DC and the speaker of the House. Both were opponents of the speech-giver, and politically benefited from their own incompetence.

That is actually the most terrifying take away from J6: That Democrats can weaponize their own incompetence to humongous political benefit.

I agree and this is one of the more under-reported issues.

The GAO report on the Capitol Police is pretty damning

The Capitol Police's process for assessing and mitigating physical security risks to the Capitol complex is not comprehensive or documented. Also, how the Capitol Police Board considers and decides which physical security recommendations made by the Capitol Police should be implemented is unclear. Federal guidance is available to help agencies develop comprehensive processes for assessing physical security risks to facilities. Capitol Police officials stated that they have been informally applying this guidance for the past 5 to 7 years. While the Capitol Police's process incorporates parts of the guidance, its process is not as comprehensive or well documented as the guidance outlines. For example, the Capitol Police conducts regular security assessments of the Capitol complex and buildings, but it does so without a documented procedure to ensure completeness and consistency. In addition, while the Capitol Police makes security recommendations, it does not have the authority to implement them.

TLDR: Capitol Police:

  • Didn't have a physical security risk assessment process written down
  • Randomly applied bits and pieces of other Federal guidance for risk assessment
  • Doesn't write down or document what they do to assess physical risk
  • Doesn't have the authority to implement their own security recommendations

The Capitol routinely offers tours to members of the public with very little scrutiny on their identification. We all go through far more at the airport to fly than you would going on a tour at the Capitol. I believe the limiting factor is that tickets for these tours are hard to come by and may require some sort of connection in a Congressional office. The Capitol is, in effect, about as well guarded as a mall (not The mall as in The National Mall, but a shopping mall).

You can fight over the degree to which J6 was a coordinated coup attempt, a mob action, a protest, or whatever. That's beside the point that if Capitol Police had been basically competent it wouldn't have happened. It's interesting the parallels to the thread on U.S. Secret Service -- When people tell the story of Omar Gonzales getting inside the White House the central theme is always "Holy fuck, how can the Secret Service be this bad?" That's the right response! And I think that should be a lot more central to the J6 story instead of "iT wAs aN AsSauLT on DEMocracY!"

This Johns Hopkins report looks at the demographics of the J6'ers who went to court after the fact. They have a high propensity for financial hardship and some level of criminal background. To be blunt about it - we weren't dealing with the top brass. For all of the press's laughable over-reporting on "Ranger Stacks" (not even the right term) and the omnipresent tactical gear, most of these people were LARPers who went to D.C. to because they didn't have much in the way of missing back home. They then overwhelmed a tiny, mostly absentee, and totally incompetent Capitol Police force.

"buT iT wAs aN AsSauLT on DEMocracY!"

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