Coup in the USA?

[Soen Eber]

What happened to innocent until proven guilty?

In the UK, and our prisons are certainly nothing to be proud of, when defendants are denied bail, they're nevertheless innocent in the eyes of the law, and detained separately from serving prisoners and subject to a very different regime.

Do they not have special remand wings in US prisons?

Not really, as far as I know, but many bail out or are subject to home monitoring. Some people can be in jail for weeks, months or even up to two years in one notirious case of a juvenile on Ryker's Island before their trial, and the pretrial detention makes them plead guilty just so they can get out. People often get thrown into the mixed population in a local jail rather than a prison prior to trial.

It's a serious problem, and one of the reasons there is a movement to eliminate cash bail for many charges.

Here's a Wikipedia link. Footnotes 30-34 may be instructive (I haven't checked them).

 

[Free]

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Not really, as far as I know, but many bail out or are subject to home monitoring. Some people can be in jail for weeks, months or even up to two years in one notirious case of a juvenile on Ryker's Island before their trial, and the pretrial detension makes them plead guilty just so they can get out. People often get thrown into the mixed population in a local jail rather than a prison prior to trial.

It's a serious problem, and one of the reasons there is a movement to eliminate cash bail for many charges.

Here's a Wikipedia link. Footnotes 30-34 may be instructive (I haven't checked them).

Thanks for the link. Blimey!

In the UK, defendants are granted unconditional bail by default, unless various exceptions apply

Bail | The Crown Prosecution Service

www.cps.gov.uk

Even when defendants are remanded in custody in the UK, then as I suggested earlier, the idea that an unconvicted prisoner held on remand should be treated in the same way as someone serving a sentence imposed by a court is completely repugnant.

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[Soen Eber]

Thanks for the link. Blimey!

In the UK, defendants are granted unconditional bail by default, unless various exceptions apply

Bail | The Crown Prosecution Service

www.cps.gov.uk

Even when defendants are remanded in custody in the UK, then as I suggested earlier, the idea that an unconvicted prisoner held on remand should be treated in the same way as someone serving a sentence imposed by a court is completely repugnant.

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It is class warfare against the former slave class and the down-trodden going back to the 17th century. There used to be numerous revolts where both slaves and the poor (remember, the U.S. used to have debt slavery) joined together, but the propertied class figured out how to "elevate" the poor to believe they were in competition with and better than the slaves. This also plays into the repeated waves of immigration, as an effort to suppress the wages of, control, and sow divisions and competition between the working classes by always having new "bottom feeders" desparate for work.

The enactment of the 2nd amendment was more about controlling slaves and making poor whites their "ratcatchers" than anything else to be quite honest, but that has been deeply buried in the mythos.

Jackson may have given the unpropertied the vote, Lincoln may have given blacks the vote, and various state legislators may have eventually given women the vote, but the judicial system has never fully caught up, especially for the first two classes.

May I recommend A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn?

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

What happened to innocent until proven guilty?

In the UK, and our prisons are certainly nothing to be proud of, when defendants are denied bail, they're nevertheless innocent in the eyes of the law, and detained separately from serving prisoners and subject to a very different regime.

Do they not have special remand wings in US prisons?

Generally, though this may vary between state and federal remand, detainees are held in "pre-trial facilities" - ie. local jails, not state or federal prisons. Though from what I've heard, people detained in county jails have it worse than actual prisoners. Unfortunately, "innocent until proven guilty" is a bit of a joke in the US.

 

[Romana]

 

[Veritable Quandry]

Capitol riot defendant will plead guilty, cooperate with government

The move from Schaffer came at an unannounced proceeding before U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta on Friday morning. During a lengthy plea dialogue with Metha, Schaffer acknowledged that the deal requires him to "cooperate fully with the United States," from sitting for interviews to providing any evidence he has of known crimes. As part of the agreement, the Justice Department has offered to sponsor Schaffer for the witness protection program, Mehta noted.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

This is not really correct. That tweeter mistakenly suggests that the VP has functionally the same powers the President has and can give the same kinds of orders to the same people in any situation and those orders would in theory be treated as valid as long as they don't contradict some order the President himself has already issued.

But that's not true. Yeah the President is the "Commander-in-Chief" of the military but that doesn't make the VP the "deputy" commander-in-chief just by virtue of being "the sitting Vice President". Unless the President has formally been declared incapacitated by the Cabinet, the VP isn't in the military chain of command at all, s/he has no military command authority as Vice President.

I think it's POSSIBLE for the president to delegate some specific command authority to the VP, but my (possibly mistaken) impression is that it has to be specific, and it has to be an action the president positively commits in so many words, it's not something that is ever automatic or assumed situationally.

That said, "command authority" aside there's certainly a question that deserves to be asked about whether the VP or a presiding member of Congress should be allowed to call the Pentagon and request military intervention because they're like, literally under attack by a gigantic hostile crowd that has already overwhelmed the civilian police agencies - or more like, whether the military should be allowed to do [thing to be determined] after receiving such a call, without waiting for the actual bureaucracy to (stretch, yawn) cruuuuuuise on down to the Situation Room and have a little chat about it....but, what kind of shape that allowance should take, while being careful not to infringe on things like civil liberties, and all those other fun questions that come from the actual military being used against American civilians; I mean, it's complicated, and it SHOULD be complicated.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

This is not really correct. That tweeter mistakenly suggests that the VP has functionally the same powers the President has and can give the same kinds of orders to the same people in any situation and those orders would in theory be treated as valid as long as they don't contradict some order the President himself has already issued.

But that's not true. Yeah the President is the "Commander-in-Chief" of the military but that doesn't make the VP the "deputy" commander-in-chief just by virtue of being "the sitting Vice President". Unless the President has formally been declared incapacitated by the Cabinet, the VP isn't in the military chain of command at all, s/he has no military command authority as Vice President.

I think it's POSSIBLE for the president to delegate some specific command authority to the VP, but my (possibly mistaken) impression is that it has to be specific, and it has to be an action the president positively commits in so many words, it's not something that is ever automatic or assumed situationally.

That said, "command authority" aside there's certainly a question that deserves to be asked about whether the VP or a presiding member of Congress should be allowed to call the Pentagon and request military intervention because they're like, literally under attack by a gigantic hostile crowd that has already overwhelmed the civilian police agencies - or more like, whether the military should be allowed to do [thing to be determined] after receiving such a call, without waiting for the actual bureaucracy to (stretch, yawn) cruuuuuuise on down to the Situation Room and have a little chat about it....but, what kind of shape that allowance should take, while being careful not to infringe on things like civil liberties, and all those other fun questions that come from the actual military being used against American civilians; I mean, it's complicated, and it SHOULD be complicated.

I'm trying to imagine the circumstances in which a mob like that would be able to descend on the Palace of Westminster and get anywhere near the gates without running into large numbers of police officers, including special crowd and riot-control units, and if they got past them and looked like breaking into the grounds of the Palace, they'd encounter specially trained officers armed, among other things, with Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine guns. If they managed to get past them, they'd find all the doors were locked, and defended by similarly armed officers.

Parliament here has been attacked by terrorists, sometimes successfully, several times during my lifetime, and the authorities are very aware of the extremely real dangers faced every day at work by both MPs and Parliamentary staff, and the need to protect them.

Didn't they worry about terrorists -- Jihadists, White Nationalists, Incels, whoever -- attacking the Capitol before now?

 

[Romana]

I'm trying to imagine the circumstances in which a mob like that would be able to descend on the Palace of Westminster and get anywhere near the gates without running into large numbers of police officers, including special crowd and riot-control units, and if they got past them and looked like breaking into the grounds of the Palace, they'd encounter specially trained officers armed, among other things, with Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine guns. If they managed to get past them, they'd find all the doors were locked, and defended by similarly armed officers.

Parliament here has been attacked by terrorists, sometimes successfully, several times during my lifetime, and the authorities are very aware of the extremely real dangers faced every day at work by both MPs and Parliamentary staff, and the need to protect them.

Didn't they worry about terrorists -- Jihadists, White Nationalists, Incels, whoever -- attacking the Capitol before now?

The insurrectionists might have run into large numbers of police officers if the police hadn't been told to stay home.

A Capitol Police officer who works the night shift said he and others expected to work on the day of the attack but were sent home

The officer, who spoke to Insider anonymously, said he couldn't understand why his bosses left the police force so short-staffed that day.

www.businessinsider.com

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

Didn't they worry about terrorists -- Jihadists, White Nationalists, Incels, whoever -- attacking the Capitol before now?

Apparently not.

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

Didn't they worry about terrorists -- Jihadists, White Nationalists, Incels, whoever -- attacking the Capitol before now?

Well, they did. Our Capitol has always struck a balance between security and being open to the public (government by the people and for the people, and all that). But never have we had a POTUS try to lead an insurrection against the Capitol, either. I would imagine there will be some basic changes to their security posture and procedures coming.

 

[Essence Lumin]

States vary, and the Federal system uses a mix of their own facilities and rented beds in city/county/state/private prisons.

At the time my brother was arrested, the Multnomah County Jail was used for pre-trial detention and short sentences, while state prisons further away from the cities were used for long term detention.

Yes. "Short" sentences is defined as up to a year. Inverness out by the airport is also used for short term sentences and pretrial holding for Multnomah County. Typically, males with longer sentences go to Oregon State Prison in Salem while women go to Coffee Creek in Wilsonville.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

Didn't they worry about terrorists -- Jihadists, White Nationalists, Incels, whoever -- attacking the Capitol before now?

Oh sure - and people have attacked (or, presumably, intended to attack) the Capitol before. But it's always ever been just one guy or gal, and the Capitol Police typically have them handled before they even get close. Even short-staffed as they were on the 6th, they would've been able to do that.

What changed things is the crowd. There's never been a hostile crowd like this descending on the Capitol before, ever.

There's often been crowds at or near the Capitol. On the Mall all the time, certainly. And sometimes those crowds can get hot. But protests have always been like a fundamental part of citizen engagement in democracy, and I think it's always been presumed that crowds which gather at the Capitol to protest or hold rallies, respect that democracy and its process - the whole point after all is to present a message where it cannot help but be seen by Congressional reps, who hopefully would be convinced to then go do what they do on the floor of Congress, but in favor of whatever the crowd is pushing for. But this crowd was different. It did not respect democracy at all; it was there to demand that the normal democratic process be disrupted and suspended so that one man could retain political power. This really was a completely unprecedented event, as difficult as that is to believe.

 

[Beebo Brink]

U.S. Capitol Has a History of Occasional Violence, but Nothing Like This - WSJ

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Oh sure - and people have attacked (or, presumably, intended to attack) the Capitol before. But it's always ever been just one guy or gal, and the Capitol Police typically have them handled before they even get close. Even short-staffed as they were on the 6th, they would've been able to do that.

What changed things is the crowd. There's never been a hostile crowd like this descending on the Capitol before, ever.

There's often been crowds at or near the Capitol. On the Mall all the time, certainly. And sometimes those crowds can get hot. But protests have always been like a fundamental part of citizen engagement in democracy, and I think it's always been presumed that crowds which gather at the Capitol to protest or hold rallies, respect that democracy and its process - the whole point after all is to present a message where it cannot help but be seen by Congressional reps, who hopefully would be convinced to then go do what they do on the floor of Congress, but in favor of whatever the crowd is pushing for. But this crowd was different. It did not respect democracy at all; it was there to demand that the normal democratic process be disrupted and suspended so that one man could retain political power. This really was a completely unprecedented event, as difficult as that is to believe.

When I think about the history of the two buildings, I guess one very significant difference is that Westminster is a royal palace in the first place because it controls an important river crossing, so obviously the monarch is going to secure those locations and bridges for himself and make them readily defensible.

That then gets baked into the architecture and layout of the area, no matter how things develop over the centuries.

It's also very much the case now that keeping particular main traffic routes across the bridges open, and other main routes though central London, is a huge priority for the Metropolitan Police, so any protest around that area will always be heavily policed -- we've seen enough of that over the last few years during the continuing protests for and against Brexit (I mean the day-to-day stuff with yellow-jacket Brexiteers harassing people).

So, for whatever reason, good luck laying siege to the Palace of Westminster, because both the building's position and design are very much against you, as are geography and history.

 

[Soen Eber]

Well, they did. Our Capitol has always struck a balance between security and being open to the public (government by the people and for the people, and all that). But never have we had a POTUS try to lead an insurrection against the Capitol, either. I would imagine there will be some basic changes to their security posture and procedures coming.

Yes, the capital building has always been imagined as "The People's House", something that congress critters have always been pround of upholding. And you know how proud and stubborn politicians can get. For an amusing take on this, you might want to look into the history of Andrew Jackson's "Big wheel of cheese".

 

[Jolene Benoir]

Yes, the capital building has always been imagined as "The People's House", something that congress critters have always been pround of upholding. And you know how proud and stubborn politicians can get. For an amusing take on this, you might want to look into the history of Andrew Jackson's "Big wheel of cheese".

While it is indeed common among Americans to consider it "Our house" that is equally true for white supremacists. While they were roaming through its halls it was very common to hear them call it "our house."

It means different things to different people, unfortunately, those that have no dedication to democracy consider it "theirs", too.; those that desire to use the threat or actual value of violence in order to maintain control.

Their view of it is very superficial in that it only represents to them , some wild west kind of idea, whereby they *fight* for their power without the underlying assumption of a democratic institution. This streak is a mile wide in American culture. It's that same kind of ownership that they justified lynchings to themselves back in the day rather than a presumption of innocence. They felt entitled to rise above the law; as true today as it was then.

 

[Romana]

And Devin Nunez is planning a subpoena party :

 

[Eunoli]

Important to note again that even if they'd never expected an attack like this in the past, they should have expected this one. It was all over social media what was going to happen. I posted a few things here on this forum the day before about my fears of this attack. Eyes were purposefully turned away and people in positions that were supposed to be monitoring these kinds of threats looked the other way.