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CONTEXT

A compilation of quotations on a variety of issues by national, state and regional writers, well-known personalities, just plain everyday people and from various publications collected by the editors of THE ADVANCE.

Quotes for our Times:

'Freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit political convenience. I don't believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others.'

— Coretta Scott King

Julie Kelly, political commentator, senior contributor to American Greatness, andauthor: Shawshank for January 6 detainees.

Of course, that sort of dramatic rhetoric has nothing to do with keeping people safe and everything to do with punishing lawabiding Americans who have the audacity to doubt the outcome of last year’s election. It’s guilt-by-association — anyone who supports Donald Trump is guilty of challenging the regime and must pay the price.

Which is why so many January 6 detainees now languish in solitary confinement conditions, some reportedly abused by prison guards, denied routine access to family members and defense attorneys. While there’s no doubt most of those behind bars awaiting delayed trials face the most serious charges related to the Capitol breach, the double standard of justice is in clear view. The same Justice Department dropping cases against Portland rioters, including those charged with assaulting federal officers, is treating January 6 defendants as hardened criminals even though most have no criminal records.

Michelle Malkin, columnist for World-Tribune.com: Free the Jan. 6 prisoners, shut down the American Gulag.

But for [Defense attorney Marty] Tankleff, “the biggest issue is the inability of those who are incarcerated to aid in their own defense. There’s hundreds of hours of video, and there’s no way the Department of Corrections is going to allow either lawyers to sit there for hours after hours or those who are incarcerated and denied bail to get laptop computers (which has been done in cases throughout this country) where you can actually provide all the discovery on laptops. To me, none of the individuals should be denied.”

Patrick Delaney, writer for LifeSiteNews:

Pro-Trump Jan. 6 ‘political prisoners’ rotting away in dedicated DC prison, without bail or trial.

Further, these January 6 protestors are only accused of having violated the law in some way, and it is based on evidence “only the government has access to. They're keeping this trove of over 14,000 hours of surveillance footage captured by the Capitol security system that day … under wraps, away from defense attorneys, away from defendants. They're sort of cherry picking these clips — using this as evidence. And that's the evidence presented in court to convince these judges to keep these people behind bars, again, awaiting trials that could be still months and maybe a year away from their original arrest.”

“This is a constitutional and humanitarian crisis that's happening right in our nation's capital and largely, almost completely ignored, not (just) by the media but also our Republican leadership in Washington,” [Julie Kelly, senior contributor for American Greatness] concluded.