CAPITOL RIOT

Toto, I’ve a Feeling We’re Not in Kansas Anymore!

Judge sends insurrection leader to home detention after he can’t tell the difference between the U.S. Capitol and the White House

If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, and waddles like a duck, surely it’s…

• The White House?
• The U.S. Capitol?
• An idiot from Iowa who invaded the seat of American power on January 6, with thousands of his closest friends and favorite insurrectionists.

“This is me, touching the f — — — White House,” said 41-year-old Douglas Austin Jensen of Des Moines as he shot selfie videos on the Capitol grounds. “This is why we’re here.”

According to media accounts, Jensen chased a police officer in January while leading a pack of rioters up the steps near the U.S. Senate chamber. He was wearing a tacky QAnon T-shirt and reportedly wanted to be at the head of the mob to highlight his attire, “so ‘Q’ would get the credit.”

Jensen has been held in custody without bail since January 8. At his initial arraignment, the judge hearing the case noted that this particular Corn Belt chucklehead was perhaps a smidge smarter than he let on.

“Mr. Jensen allegedly travelled halfway across the country from Iowa to the District of Columbia,” according to judicial remarks recorded during Jensen’s hearing, “attended a rally in support of former President Trump, joined rioters by climbing through a broken window to enter the Capitol while armed with a knife, led a mob chasing Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman up a flight of stairs in a menacing fashion, threatened to take the officer’s baton, and refused to obey the officer’s lawful orders to stop and leave.”

Whew! That’s a lot of treasoning taking place in a comparatively tiny little building like the White House.

The president’s crib stands about a mile from the Capitol and weighs in at a measly 55,000 square feet. It’s pretty small, in the D.C. scheme of things, especially if one were to confuse the executive mansion with the ginormous edifice at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue — the actual place Jensen led his traitorous charge — which holds our national legislature, and measures 175,000 square feet. Three times bigger that the White House, I reckon.

Not to come off like a snobby East Coast Elitist or anything, but the U.S. Capitol, with its resplendent marble dome, dominates the landscape from its perch on Capitol Hill, 88 feet or so above the swamplands of the Nation’s Capital. And it looks like a seat of government; notwithstanding the group of congressfolks who sleep in their offices (attempting to make some ludicrous case about saving taxpayer dollars), the Capitol really doesn’t resemble any place a person would want to live. Even a goober from the Hawkeye State could surely see that, couldn’t he?

Come on — Jensen is from Des Moines, the capital city of Iowa. Home to the State Capitol building, with the ostentatious gold dome. He should know from his legislative chambers.

Mr. Jensen was rewarded for confusing his Capital City landmarks, however, at a hearing this week.

The judge let him go home because he’s apparently — wait for it — too stupid to remain incarcerated. Yeah, I don’t understand that reasoning, either.

Federal Court Judge Timothy Kelly released Jensen after six months in jail. He will now await his fate under home confinement in Iowa.

Even though prosecutors have tried to tag Jensen as one of the leaders of the U.S. Capitol Insurrection, Judge Kelly said Jensen did not appear to have the gray matter to plan the onslaught because he seemed to have have had “no basic understanding of where he even was that day.”

Great defense. Lucky for the Good Guys, most of the rioters — like Jensen — recorded their treasonous acts.

At least the courts will know where these traitors were and what they were doing as they roamed the ornate marble halls, looking to hang Vice President Mike Pence and perhaps murder Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

Jensen was not available for comment, but CNBC captured a little of the off-kilter humor still in evidence in the enduring aftermath of that dark, dark day.

Despite his own purported ignorance of his actual whereabouts January 6, “video from Jensen’s phone released in Washington federal court shows that many people in the mob knew which country they were in,” CNBC reported, perhaps a tad bit snarkily.

The mob in Jensen’s cell phone recording can clearly be heard chanting “USA, USA!” as they surge forward to breach the barricades.