Whenever far-right Republicans like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) and former President Donald Trump express their still ongoing support for most to all of the participants in the attack on the Capitol in 2021, it’s worth remembering what these people actually did — much of which they’ve admitted.
A Kentucky man named Joseph Howe who pleaded guilty to felony offenses including obstructing an official proceeding and assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers has been sentenced to over four years in prison after evidently confirmed actions at the Capitol that included spraying a fire extinguisher in an officer’s face. Howe essentially fought police all the way into the Capitol, where the spraying incident occurred. Another officer with whom Howe came in contact was left, amid assaults by the mob, with serious injuries including a concussion and was later hospitalized.
“Court documents say that Howe grabbed a riot shield from the hands of a U.S. Capitol police officer. Members of the mob then attacked the officer, leaving him with a concussion and head trauma that required treatment at a hospital,” a Justice Department press release says. This reported incident took place outside the Capitol, as Howe forced his way through various officers in hopes of accessing the Capitol building’s interior. And Howe was among the many participants in the violent assault who attended the day’s outdoor rally in the city featuring speeches from Trump himself and various top allies of his, an event that has been connected over and over again to the serious violence.
Howe then helped with the mob as a whole actually accessing the Capitol, kicking at a door to the Senate wing that was eventually opened from the building’s interior. Howe, like others, was wearing some tactical gear.
As Greene and others keep showering support on these people, it’s also getting… weird over there. She apparently thinks the possibility of what she calls an Islamic state is imminent in the United States, per recent online posts. In other words, her corner is using aggressive demonstrators backing the Palestinian cause in the Middle East to leap to some of the same, worn out, racist conspiracy theories they’ve pushed for years and years.
