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The State Department has issued an alert urging U.S. citizens in Haiti to leave the small nation as soon as possible, warning that the U.S. embassy there “is unlikely to be able to assist U.S. citizens in Haiti with departure if commercial options become unavailable.” The State Department had already issued its highest alert instructing Americans to not travel to Haiti, citing “kidnapping, crime, and COVID-19.”

The U.S. has been more than clear that it’s simply too dangerous for Americans to travel to Haiti and that any Americans there must leave now. Yet deportation flights of Haitians under the anti-asylum Title 42 policy have continued, including a flight on Tuesday from Louisiana to Port Au-Prince, advocates said.

The previous administration implemented the unsound Title 42 policy at the onset of the pandemic under the guise of public health. In reality, that administration used the pandemic as an excuse to quickly deport asylum-seekers in violation of their rights. PBS NewsHour correspondent Yamiche Alcindor addressed the continued deportation of Haitians under the policy, including children, during an appearance on José Díaz-Balart Reports.

“How are you deporting people to a country that you’re now saying is insecure, that Americans shouldn’t go to, and that Americans should leave?” Alcindor asked. “The Biden administration’s answer has been, well Haitians that are being deported back, they’re being deported back with different security issues, they say. They face different … fears.”

“Based on my reporting, though, when someone is deported back to Haiti, they’re facing the same insecurity that Americans living there are facing,” she continued. “They’re facing a 200% spike in kidnappings. They’re facing a country that has a gas shortage, that has food shortage, where people don’t feel comfortable going outside to get a piece of bread or a gallon of milk.”

“The big criticism of the Biden administration is ‘You should stop deporting people to Haiti.’ But of course, the Biden administration’s response is, ‘We have to continue to deal with Title 42, we have to continue to deport people that we find need to be deported.’”

But let’s be clear: the Biden administration had a choice when it came to continuing Title 42 when it came into power, and its choice was to keep it in place by appealing a court ruling that said asylum-seeking families shouldn’t be deported under the policy. Congressional testimony recently made public has also confirmed that Title 42 was never about public health. As advocates have long said, it was about keeping out vulnerable people. 

Among the damning documents released by a House committee is a transcript of testimony by Anne Schuchat, who until earlier this year served as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) principal deputy director. Her testimony confirmed reporting last year that the policy was implemented despite scientists saying there was no evidence it was necessary. “Do you believe that that order was necessary to prevent the spread of coronavirus in the U.S. at that time, at this specific time, March 20, 2020?” she was asked.

“No,” Schuchat replied.

Her testimony also confirmed the previous administration’s pressure on another CDC official, Dr. Martin Cetron. The Associated Press had reported that when Cetron refused to sign Title 42, the White House skipped over him and pressured the agency’s now-former director. 

“Dr. Cetron takes the regulatory authority for quarantine very seriously and weighs—you know, the typical issue is, the least restrictive means possible to protect public health is when you exert a quarantine order versus other measures. And the bulk of the evidence at that time did not support this policy proposal,” Schuchat said.

She added that “his view was that the facts on the ground didn’t call for this from a public health reason.”

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When I first saw the story reported by the Detroit Metro Times that an ammunition store was selling bullets emblazoned with the latest cutesy “Let’s Go Brandon!” phrase, a shorthand for “F**k Joe Biden,” I must admit I was disturbed. 

But then I thought it was kind of pathetic that Fenix Ammunition CEO Justin Nazaroff was capitalizing on such a ridiculous phrase. I mean, why not just say the actual words? 

The website of the online store doesn’t hide its political affiliations. 

When I clicked on the homepage for more information about the engraved “cartridge cases,” I was confronted with a yes or no question about whether I thought Kyle Rittenhouse was innocent or not. I clicked “no” and was directed to a pro-Donald Trump page. I clicked out, and then clicked “yes” and was taken to the actual Fenix homepage. So it’s obvious Fenix Ammo takes a particular position. 

I asked Nazaroff via email if he was worried about whether the “bullets” might provoke someone to create something similar, but with an actual bullet. He responded, “I’m about as worried as you were when Kathy Griffin posed with a mockup of Donald Trump’s severed head.” Huh? 

He then added that if I was going to run stories about firearms or ammunition-related topics, I should do myself a favor and understand the basic terminology. “A cartridge case is an inert brass object that poses no danger to anyone. I might as well have printed it on a soda can,” he wrote. 

When I asked him if he felt like selling this product was irresponsible, to say the least, or dangerous at the most, he told me that the product is “only dangerous in the minds of woke, coddled Karens who have no sense of humor. The type of people who work for a secondhand rag like the Daily Kos.” Adding: “The real danger in our society is that we’ve allowed woefully ignorant journalists to appoint themselves as the arbiters of truth and comedy in American culture.”

Let’s unpack Nazaroff’s dismissive answers. 

Aside from the insults about Daily Kos, and the complete and utter ignorance about what a “Karen” is (although I agree they are dangerous, not in anyone’s mind, but in reality) and what “woke” means, the dangers of selling a product that looks like a real bullet could obviously inspire someone to take the idea a step further and use an actual bullet to kill an actual person—like the darling of white supremacists and right-wing little fake-ass crying vigilante Kyle Rittenhouse did when he murdered two men and injured another during a Black Lives Matter protest. 

It was not the minds of the woke that attempted an insurrection on the U.S. Capital on Jan. 6; or a mass shooting at the offices of The Capital, a newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland, where five journalists were murdered; or where Heather Heyer was killed when James Alex Fields Jr. drove his car into a crowd of people peacefully protesting the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. 

I’m not impressed by Nazaroff’s attempt at humor, his selling Alex Jones “Hope” stickers, or his simpering pretend bullets for customers too ashamed to say what they really want to say: “F**k Joe Biden! 

You want to prop up Alex Jones with a sticker, and then call journalists ignorant. Last time I checked, conspiracy theorist Jones believes that the shooting of 20 first-graders and six teachers was a government plot to “confiscate Americans’ firearms and that the victims’ families were ‘actors’ in the scheme,” according to The New York Times, causing people to accost the families who’d lost their children. Monday, a judge ruled that because Jones had refused to turn over documents ordered by the court, he was liable by default. Combining this decision with previous rulings in Texas, Jones has successfully lost all 10 defamation lawsuits filed against him by the families of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

Last year, Nazaroff was called out in an article by The Trace, a nonprofit that covers guns in America. The article points out that Fenix had an increase in daily sales from $4,000 to $40,000 because of a social media campaign led by Nazaroff. 

Nazaroff began posting memes referencing “boogaloo,” an anti-government extremist movement formed in 2019, named for a 1980s breakdancing movie characterized by members who carry weapons and wear Hawaiian shirts and tactical gear, all in the hopes of starting a second civil war. 

Although there are varying facets to the loosely organized group, it’s been tied to neo-Nazis and white supremacists. 

According to Southern Poverty Law Center, online posts by Boogaloo groups contain threats aimed at politicians, especially those who have passed gun reform. One Twitter user posted a list of the names and addresses of members of the Virginia General Assembly, which recently passed legislation restricting access to firearms. “If you live in VA, then you should know what this is. I’m not going to give an explanation..you boog bois already know what to do. #Boogaloo2020,” he wrote.

Yeah, we “woke” folks really need to have a better sense of humor. 

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Sen. Joe Manchin, Democrat of West Virginia, is still being willfully obtuse on the economy, on inflation, and on President Joe Biden’s economic stimulus, jobs, and climate change bill, known as Build Back Better (BBB). Manchin would also have you believe he does his own grocery shopping and that he’s the guy who takes his Maserati to the gas station for fill-ups. He’s one with the people of West Virginia, he suggests.

“A gallon of milk is now $4 in many places. It’s taking a toll. And I hear it when I go to the grocery store or if I go to the gas station. They say, ‘Are you as mad as I am?’ and I say, ‘Absolutely,’ ” Manchin told reporters, talking about how he hangs out with the people back home. When asked specifically about the statements from all those Nobel laureate economists about how Build Back Better can actually lower inflation, he said: “I really haven’t heard any specifics on that one. They say it’s going to lower [inflation]? I’ll have to check on that one.” He’s too busy hanging out at the Shop ’n Save to listen to egghead economists, I guess.

Maybe he’ll hear it from the economists and analysts at those radical Moodys and Fitch rating agencies, both of which tell Reuters that the $1.75 trillion package “should not have any real material impact on inflation.” That’s William Foster, vice president and senior credit officer at Moody’s Investors Service.

“The bills do not add to inflation pressures, as the policies help to lift long-term economic growth via stronger productivity and labor force growth, and thus take the edge off of inflation,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “The bills are largely paid for through higher taxes on multinational corporations and well-to-do households, and more than paid for if the benefit of the added growth and the resulting impact on the government’s fiscal situation are considered”, he told Reuters. Charles Seville, senior director at Fitch Ratings, told Reuters that combined, the Infastructure Investments and Jobs Act (IIJA) and BBB “will neither boost nor quell inflation much in the short-run.”

Maybe that’ll catch Manchin’s attention. Maybe the fact that Republicans are seizing on his constant refrain of inflation to fight the bill will also help. House Republicans are seeking to change the subject from the censure vote against their violent, white nationalist colleague Rep. Paul Gosar for making public his homicidal fantasies against Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and President Biden. They seized on, you guessed it, inflation, and how Biden’s agenda will make it worse.

And just look at how gleeful Sen. Rick Scott, the Florida Republican leading the GOP’s 2022 Senate campaign, is about the pain Americans feel from inflation. “You can see what’s going to happen next. We’re going to continue to have inflation, and then interest rates will go up,” he told The Wall Street Journal. “This is a gold mine for us,” Scott said.

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called that out on the Senate floor, and in a tweet. “If you want to know why Americans can get frustrated with Washington, look no further than the comments like the one from the gentleman from Florida,” Schumer said. “The Republicans—who voted for a giant tax break for millionaires and billionaires—don’t have any solutions for working families. But they see political gold in exploiting their struggles.”

“Stronger growth, less inflation. I’ll say it again: if you want to fight inflation—if you want to lower costs and grow the economy—support Build Back Better,” Schumer said. “If you want to fight inflation, support Build Back Better.”

Republicans working so hard to politicize the inflation issue might be doing Biden and Schumer a favor here. They are so obviously exploiting Manchin, and so obviously celebrating Americans’ pain that even he should be able to see what’s happening here. He might happily be used by Republicans, but he also might realize that they’re making him look like a tool.

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Um, whoops? It turns out that the Department of Labor underestimated job creation by record amounts over the summer. In total, from June through September, the Bureau of Labor Statistics missed 626,000 jobs.

It is standard for job growth numbers to be revised a month or two after they’re originally released, but these numbers are startling. Before the pandemic, the average month’s jobs number was adjusted by around 30,000. This summer, it was an average of more than 156,000 per month, and all in the same direction.

There were an estimated 850,000 new jobs in June—a massive number. But it was later revised upward by 112,000. July was even bigger, at 943,000. But it was later bumped up by even more: 148,000.

August came as a huge disappointment, with just 235,000 new jobs. But it has since been revised upward by 248,000. September was an even bigger disappointment, at 194,000. Since then, another 118,000 have been added. August and September were weaker months than the boom of June and July. But August, at least, wasn’t the enormous slump it initially seemed to be. And with October’s job growth coming in at 531,000, September would have looked like a blip if August hadn’t also looked so bad.

During the period of time for which jobs numbers were underestimating growth, polls found approval of President Joe Biden’s handling of the economy dropping from 51% to 39%.

The coronavirus pandemic has presented unprecedented challenges to the economy, and with them, unprecedented challenges to the people who track how the economy is doing. In March and April 2020, the BLS had to dramatically revise jobs numbers down, and the agency also found a misclassification error early in the pandemic that was causing it to understate the unemployment rate.

The integrity of the Bureau of Labor Statistics has always been seen as unimpeachable, and there is no doubt that it’s been faced with unpredictable waves of economic crash and resurgence even as the bureau’s statisticians cope with the same pandemic-induced alterations to their lives that everyone else in the country has had to handle. But boy. That’s a big and politically consequential mistake to have made four months in a row.

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Sen. Alex Padilla during a Senate hearing Tuesday addressed some of the most pressing issues raised by immigrant and human rights advocates in recent weeks, including the possible court-ordered return of the previous administration’s inhumane Remain in Mexico policy, and unchecked abuses within federal immigration agencies. The hearing, titled Oversight of the Department of Homeland Security, featured Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

“I wanted to start with a couple of acknowledgments beginning with—I was glad to see that you issued a new memo to terminate the Migration Protection Protocols, also known as MPP, in late October about a month ago,” Padilla said. The new memo, authored by Mayorkas, noted the policy “had endemic flaws” and “imposed unjustifiable human costs.” Padilla said that while he understood “MPP cannot be terminated until the Texas court injunction is vacated, I’ve heard from many stakeholders along the border that there’s no way to humanize MPP.”

Dozens of legal service providers have previously informed the Biden administration that they won’t take any part in a Remain in Mexico reimplementation, writing in a letter late last month that they “refuse to be complicit in a program that facilitates the rape, torture, death, and family separations of people seeking protection by committing to provide legal services.” A number of border-based asylum organizations and advocates also left a virtual meeting with the administration just days before in protest.

The U.S. cannot restart the policy without Mexico’s consent. Border Report said earlier this week that the Biden administration has indicated in court documents that while Remain in Mexico may return in just weeks, “Mexico apparently has one major sticking point, although the brief does not detail what it is.”

“This policy, as we know, has caused a great deal of hardship to individuals who must wait in Mexico for their asylum cases, asylum cases to be processed,” Padilla said. “In your memo, you mentioned that a more comprehensive approach is needed to address the root causes of migration. And that MPP is not an effective deterrence policy. I think the data, statistics, that you began to share with this committee is evidence of that.” Padilla said he implored the administration to “once again to rescind MPP as soon as possible.”

Padilla then addressed disturbing news around a Border Patrol “shadow police unit” that a network of organizations along the southern borderlands said in a letter to legislators last month has worked for years to cover up abuses at the hands of agents.

“According to the letter, these teams have been operating for decades and investigating their own agents without authority and maybe obstructing justice by shielding agents from accountability,” Padilla said. “One case in particular, that is especially concerning to me, involves Anastacio Hernando Rojas—who was a longtime resident of San Diego and a father of five. In 2010 Anastacio was hogtied, brutally beaten, and repeatedly tased by border agents until he stopped breathing.”

”The police record reveals that after the incident, border patrol agents destroyed, altered, and withheld evidence from the San Diego Police Department. This incident did not happen in a vacuum. Border Patrol abuses were displayed all over national media more recently with the concerning treatment of Haitian migrants in Del Rio, Texas,” he continued. “Secretary Mayorkas, what measures has the Department of Homeland Security taken towards addressing serious abuses of power surrounding these critical incident teams?” 

Mayorkas’ response was unsatisfactory, noting “the misconduct of one, does not define the heroism and integrity of the great majority of the men and women.” It’s unclear where that number came from. When it comes to Hernando Rojas’ killing alone, the Los Angeles Times reported earlier this year that as many as 17 agents had been involved in his death. “Mayorkas avoided any specific answer about the critical incident teams and instead just said on Friday the agency will have a briefing on discipline and transparency,” American Immigration Council Policy Counsel Aaron Reichlin-Melnick noted on Twitter.

And while Mayorkas promised a swift investigation into the Del Rio abuses, the department’s inspector general this week declined to investigate, instead referring the matter back to Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Professional Responsibility. Considering how the Border Patrol union and the agency itself have worked to protect abusive agents, there’s a real worry of no accountability.

“Sen. Mike Lee is now attacking Mayorkas for not defending the border patrol agents who were photographed corralling and abusing Haitian migrants at Del Rio, calling it ‘morale crushing,’” tweeted National Immigrant Justice Center Policy Director Heidi Altman. “I don’t know how to comment on this. The photographs showed evidently horrifying conduct.” Meanwhile, Josh Hawley spent questioning “implying that Afghan refugees are a major security threat to the United States,” Reichlin-Melnick said. He wrote that Sen. Ted Cruz asked Mayorkas “why he shouldn’t be thrown into jail for defying a court order on the Remain in Mexico program.”

Wait until he hears how the previous administration defied the Supreme Court on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program for over 100 days.

The issue of the previous administration’s family separation practice was also raised during the hearing, not by Padilla, but by Republicans. They were not angry about the separations themselves, of course, but rather by reports that the Justice Department has been in settlement negotiations with affected families that filed legal action against the federal government.

President Joe Biden has said that affected families “deserve” relief. Republicans say they deserve nothing for their suffering. Reichlin-Melnick said Marsha Blackburn joined Chuck Grassley “in declaring outrage over the possibility of settlements with separated families for stealing their children, asking Mayorkas how much $1 billion could be used for border wall payments and for hiring Border Patrol agents.” Altman said Richard Blumenthal noted experts called family separation “government-sanctioned child abuse,” and thanked him “for providing moral clarity and a clear memory of the horrors witnessed on the border during zero tolerance.” 

“It stands in stark contrast with the collective and shameful rhetoric we’ve been hearing today,” Altman continued. 

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As American families confront higher prices for everyday needs, Republicans celebrate their economic calamity and root for more to come.

With eyes aglow, Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, Senate Republicans’ campaign chief, allowed himself to imagine just how bad things could get for the American public.  

“You can see what’s going to happen next. We’re going to continue to have inflation, and then interest rates will go up,” Scott told the Wall Street Journal, clamoring for the Federal Reserve to raise rates, thereby making borrowing more expensive for consumers and slowing economic growth, among other things.

“This is a gold mine for us,” Scott added, clearly unable to contain his glee.

Republicans have been pounding home inflationary concerns for months in hopes that they will spiral out of control and backfire on Democrats in the midterms next year. But Republicans aren’t just cheerleading for economic calamity; they are doing their level best to make it a reality.

Much of today’s inflation, which is a global problem at the moment, is being propelled by supply chain issues due to the pandemic.  

Among the best ways to ease inflation is to further contain the pandemic, which would lessen inflationary pressure in multiple ways, including the fact that U.S. consumers would start putting more money into the service economy again (eating out, taking trips, etc.) rather than primarily focusing their buying power on goods.

That’s precisely why the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a longtime GOP booster, is now urging businesses with 100-plus employees across the country to follow President Joe Biden’s mandate on either vaccinating their workforce or implementing weekly coronavirus testing—because containing the pandemic is good economic policy.

The vaccination/testing mandate from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has been indefinitely put on hold by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals due to a GOP-driven court challenge. The emergency standard would cover some 84 million employees, about two-thirds of the private-sector workforce.

But Chamber vice president Marc Freedman recommended that employers implement the Biden mandate anyway in a statement to CNBC.

“Ultimately, the courts are going to decide, but employers still need to take this as a live ETS until it is definitively shut down,” Marc Freedman said of the temporary emergency standard. “They should not bank on the preliminary actions of the 5th Circuit.”

In the meantime, Republican politicians are doing everything in their power both legally and politically to jettison Biden’s mitigation efforts despite what is being counseled by a dependable GOP ally and one of the top business lobbies in the country.

Along with multiple GOP governors banning local officials and school districts from requiring vaccinations or masking, Republican officials at the state level have joined forces to mount a legal challenge to the OSHA order. That legal push follows on another GOP-led effort to turn back Biden’s vaccine mandate for federal contractors.

So Republicans are doing more than just rooting for the U.S. economy to tank, taking American families’ finances and economic security with it. They are also actively combatting the Biden administration’s efforts to save lives and get the economy up and running again at full force.

Some might call that supremely unpatriotic, but at the very least it is a huge f-you to everyday Americans trying to make ends meet.

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At the beginning of August, reports came out that Colorado’s Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters was being investigated for a “serious breach” of security regarding election equipment and software. Soon thereafter Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold announced that Mesa County must “replace 41 pieces of election equipment and get them certified by Aug. 30, or hand count ballots in the next election, because the security of the voting systems cannot be verified.” Shortly after this announcement, Griswold named Peters, Mesa County Deputy Clerk Belinda Knisley, and an outside “consultant,” Gerald Wood, as the people involved in the breach of election security. Surprising nobody, Peters is a MAGA sympathizer who has openly promoted the Trumpian big lie surrounding the elections.

On Tuesday, Ernest Luning at Colorado Politics reports that “Federal, state and local authorities searched the homes of Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters and three of her associates.” Peters told MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell that she was “terrified” after the morning raid. An interesting new wrinkle is that according to Lindell—someone whose statements can only be taken with a grain of salt the size of Uranus—one of the homes raided was that of Sherronna Bishop. Bishop is the former campaign manager for Rep. Lauren Boebert. Oh my.

Peters has made quite the spectacle of herself, getting private flights to speak at the Lindell cyber symposium imaginorium. As with everything presented by Lindell and his fellow cyber Kraken acolytes during the emporium cyber amazeballs-orium, Peters presented no evidence while claiming election fraud, and announcing that Colorado’s secretary of state was persecuting her and MAGA folks for trying to undercover the truth.

In October, Colorado District Court Judge Valerie J. Robison ruled that neither Peters nor Mesa County Deputy Clerk Belinda Knisley be allowed to participate in the upcoming November elections while they are under investigation for elections fraud, writing:

Based on the circumstances of this case, including the findings of the Court pursuant to C.R.S. 1-1-113, the Court determines that the Petitioners have met the burden of showing that Peters and Knisley have committed a breach and neglect of duty and other wrongful acts.  As such, Peters and Knisley are unable or unwilling to appropriately perform the duties of the Mesa County Designated Election Official.  The Court further determines substantial compliance with the provisions of the Code require an injunction prohibiting Peters and Knisley from performing the duties of the Designated Election Official.

According to reports, Peters and Knisley allowed Wood, a person with zero security clearances, access to Dominion voting machines before a “trusted build.” The trusted build is when upgrades to the software of the machine are deployed; for very obvious reasons it’s a time when security is of the utmost importance. Wood then illegally copied information off the machines before and after the trusted build was completed.

Peters made sure that security cameras that monitored the equipment had been turned off a couple days before the software upgrade took place. This was not protocol and while technically not against any law, is a very strange thing to do if you’re not doing super shady stuff.

Peters also first designated Wood as an “administrative assistant,” who still had zero security clearance, and then after she was busted by Griswold and investigators, changed Wood’s designation to “consultant.” Strange, eh? But if you’re going to end up possibly going to jail for real crimes against our democracy, reverse-engineering a defense is likely your only option.

There is also circumstantial evidence of a much larger conspiracy that touches farther out into the MAGA-universe through Colorado-based election fraud conspiracist Joe Oltmann. During the discovery part of lawsuits against Trump’s Kraken squad of dunderheads (Sidney Powell and Rudolph Giuliani), an email sent by Oltmann to Powell boasted “what we are doing in Colorado in gaining access to the Dominion systems under the radar. We have several county clerks cooperating.” 

Peters continues to promote herself as the victim of deep state bullies, telling Lindell that the FBI “accused me of committing a crime” during a raid of her home. “And they raided the homes of my friends, mostly older women,” she said, adding that federal agents “used a battering ram” to gain entry into one of her friend’s homes.

“Essentially, they were soldiers in combat gear. They were not men in suits with badges. They looked very much like they were in a combat zone—soldiers with automatic weapons and combat gear.” Sounds like an overmilitarized law enforcement apparatus. You know who has policy solutions for that? Progressives. Oh well.

She ended her interview on Lindell’s show by hoisting herself up onto a fake cross and then spewing out more evidence-free statements about the things “I’ve seen.” The only evidence represented to the public has been receipt after receipt after receipt of shady activities by Peters.

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When the first sentences were handed down in the earliest Jan. 6 insurrection cases—many of them involving less violent defendants accused of minor crimes—in late summer, many observers expressed concern that their relative lightness signaled similar treatment for the more serious cases. But the most recent sentences—particularly the 41-month sentence announced today for Jacob “QAnon Shaman” Chansley—should ameliorate those concerns considerably.

Chansley, whose horned garb, spear-tipped American flagpole, and painted face made him one of the symbolic figures of the Capitol siege, was handed the sentence by U.S. District Senior Judge Royce Lamberth. Federal prosecutors had sought a 51-month sentence, but Lamberth imposed the lower end of the federal guidelines. He also allowed Chansley’s sentence to include the 10 months’ prison time he already has served.

“What you did was terrible,” Lamberth told Chansley. “You made yourself the epitome of the riot.”

Chansley, 34, devoted a 30-minutes speech prior to sentencing expressing his regret for his actions that day. “I was wrong for entering the Capitol,” Chansley told Lamberth. “I have no excuse, no excuse whatsoever,” and described his behavior as “indefensible.”

He later added: “I am not an insurrectionist. I am certainly not a domestic terrorist. I am a good man who broke the law.”

Chansley’s 41-month sentence was identical to that handed down by Lamberth last week to 44-year-old Scott Fairlamb of New Jersey. Unlike Chansley, who was not accused of engaging violence that day, Fairlamb was convicted, among other things, of assaulting a police officer. Both men had pleaded guilty.

Lamberth told Fairlamb that his actions struck at “the heart of our democracy.” He added: “Had you gone to trial, I don’t think there’s any jury that could have acquitted you or would have acquitted you,” the judge said.

Fairlamb, a former mixed martial arts fighter, could be seen on video shoving one of several Metropolitan Police officers who he approached while carrying a baton, screaming as he followed them, and punching the officer’s face shield. (The officer was uninjured.) He had joined rioters on the Capitol’s West Terrace who pushed through a line of police officers and metal barricades.

Fairlamb also recorded a video of himself shouting, “What (do) patriots do? We fucking disarm them and then we storm the fucking Capitol!”

In another video that Fairlamb recorded two days later, he boasted that “they pulled the pin on the grenade, and the blackout is coming. What a time to be a patriot.”

Like Chansley, Fairlamb was remorseful and apologetic in court, describing his actions as irresponsible and reckless.

“I take full responsibility for what I did that day,” Fairlamb said. “That’s not who I am. That’s not who I was raised to be.”

Including Fairlamb, Chansley is the fourth felon to be sentenced. Two others received terms of eight and 14 months.  

In October, District Judge Beryl Howell had complained to prosecutors about the light sentences being sought in the Jan. 6 cases, calling out the government over its “schizophrenic” briefs in comparison to its estimate of $1.5 million in damage to the Capitol. Howell pointed to prosecutors’ choice of low-level parading charges usually reserved for protestors who briefly disrupt congressional hearings.

“The government is resolving the crime of the century with Class ‘B’ misdemeanors,” Howell said. “Members of a mob who breach barriers and push back officers to disrupt the joint session of Congress are not trespassers, they are criminals.”

Chansley became notorious not only for his garb, but for his leading role among the insurrectionists who entered the Senate chambers on Jan. 6. Video shows him announcing as he entered: “Time’s up, motherfuckers!” Proceeding to the Senate floor, he greeted his fellow insurrectionists: “Heyyyy, glad to see you man. Look at you guys, you guys are fuckin’ Patriots!”

Mounting the dais with others, Chansley led a group prayer with fellow rioters—which a prosecutor later read aloud prior to his sentencing:

Thank you Heavenly Father for gracing us with this opportunity…to allow us to send a message to all the tyrants, the communists, and the globalists, that this is our nation, not theirs. That we will not allow America, the American way of the United States of America to go down… Thank you for filling this chamber with Patriots that love you… Thank you for allowing the United States of America to be reborn. Thank you for allowing us to get rid of the communists, the globalists, and the traitors within our government.

Chansley also left an ominous note on the dais in the Senate, apparently directed at Vice President Mike Pence: “It’s only a matter of time. Justice is coming!”

Afterwards, Chansley was not just unrepentant in press interviews but exultant. He told NBC News: “The fact that we had a bunch of our traitors in office hunker down, put on their gas masks and retreat into their underground bunker, I consider that a win.”

Chansley’s attorney, Albert Watkins, had attempted to blame Donald Trump and Fox News for his client’s predicament. Watkins told Talking Points Memo (TPM) in an interview that his client has Asperger’s syndrome, his defense would involve Chansley’s mental state and how Trump’s Big Lie about the election affected it.

“A lot of these defendants—and I’m going to use this colloquial term, perhaps disrespectfully—but they’re all fucking short-bus people,” Watkins told TPM. “These are people with brain damage, they’re fucking retarded, they’re on the goddamn spectrum.”

“But they’re our brothers, our sisters, our neighbors, our coworkers—they’re part of our country. These aren’t bad people, they don’t have prior criminal history. Fuck, they were subjected to four-plus years of goddamn propaganda the likes of which the world has not seen since fucking Hitler.”

In addition to the prison sentence, Lamberth also ordered Chansley to pay $2,000 in restitution and to serve three years of supervised release at the end of his term.

“You didn’t slug anybody,” Lamberth told Chansley, “but what you did here was actually obstruct the functioning of the whole government.”