Jorge Riley aka the “Drunken Jedi” was sentenced by Judge Amit Mehta to 18 months in prison for his role in the “Insurrection” on January 6th. I use air quotes on insurrection because I do not think the Democrats, liberal Republicans or media types actually know the true definition of insurrection.
As far as Riley’s sentence, color me shocked. I was thinking 5-6 years in prison to be honest. Mostly because Jorge filmed a lot of his antics, bragged about it online, and put things all over social media. As far as I know, he is the only person arrested for his behavior on Jan 6th that claimed to be armed. Riley got one hell of a lifeline from this judge. Judge Mehta is also hostile towards Donald Trump and his supporters, again I’m shocked Riley is getting only 18 months.
This may seem overtly mean and come off as sour grapes but sentences like this will never change a person. I see a lot of my sister in Jorge. They are one in the same; they never learn a lesson, so they don’t change their behavior. Jorge quite literally had a backpack filled with vodka he sipped from a siphon at GOP meetings and conventions. I cannot tell you how many times I was treated to the saying “Jesus loves you” at early morning hours at conventions with the stench of booze on his breath. Many friends of mine who were officers at the functions allowed his behavior to continue. He is paying for it now.
The reality of the situation is Jorge never was a guy who made get out the vote calls, knocked on doors or did much to help the party at all. I will never understand how he always got a pass from leadership. Even more, they gave him a lifetime achievement award after he was released from jail. The irony of that group.
Riley got a gift from the judge, compare the sentences of the leader of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. They got decades in prison. If I were Jorge, I would change my life. I do not know how old Riley is but the book isn’t closed on his life, it’s just a series of bad chapters so far. I know drugs/alcohol are prevalent in our prison system, I think it would be wise for Jorge to give up those vices. I was always told he drank/drugged due to his PTSD from serving in the military, but during one of his hearings he admitted to having never left the USA. So, what is causing this PTSD? He obviously didn’t serve over seas.
In closing I will say this, I do not support the actions on January 6th, not one bit. But it all could have been avoided. Folks if you live in the Midwest or East Coast, you didn’t see what the blog staff here did. In every single contested state, Biden would get out to a large lead, and eventually the result would be a Trump win by a couple. Well around 11:00pm they announced that Detroit, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and other large cities would quit counting until morning. Oh, the rural areas would keep counting, just not big cities. When morning came suddenly Trump would be trailing by about 45,000 votes in each of those states, so basically the opposite effect happened. Maybe Trump did lose fair and square, but let’s be honest; the optics don’t look great there. It appears some sort of fraud likely occurred. Again, if the counting continued, I would say he lost legitimately.
However, it does not excuse the behavior of January 6th.
The Chief