Capitol Architect J. Brett Blandon told lawmakers Wednesday damage from January’s Capitol riots will likely cost $30 million to cover adequate mental health services, art repairs, and enhanced security.
“The events of Jan. 6 were difficult for the American people, and extremely hard for all of us on campus to witness,” Blanton testified before the House Appropriations Committee, warning the price tag will go even higher if the new fence expanding the Capitol’s perimeter borders gaslighting the public is kept past March.
The steep estimate will likely present sticker shock to Democrats who whistled past repeated outbursts of so-called social justice riots all last year. The riots were kicked off by two weeks of carnage in the immediate aftermath of George Floyd’s death and produced a colossal estimated $2 billion in damages during those 14 days alone.
Two weeks of havoc in the nation’s cities exhaustively endorsed, excused, and celebrated by leftists and their allies in the corporate press left the nation with 66 times the devastation than an afternoon of Capitol chaos in January roundly condemned by conservatives and exploited by Democrats.
The $2 billion figure estimated by Property Claims Services (PCS) in September labeling the Floyd riots the most destructive episodes of political violence in recent American history doesn’t include the subsequent outbursts for the remainder of the year, from the more than 100 days of consecutive chaos in Portland to the explosive unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Leftists, however, either turned a blind eye to the carnage emanating from the Democratic base or sought to excuse the militant conduct under the moral righteousness of social justice.
"This mostly a protest. It is not, generally speaking, unruly.
But fires have been started."
MSNBC reporter says protests in Minneapolis are not "generally speaking, unruly" as buildings burn in the background. pic.twitter.com/IzzEmKgxhM
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) May 29, 2020
New York Times architect of the anti-American “1619 Project” Nikole Hannah-Jones claimed it would be “an honor” for the riots of last year to be named “The 1619 Riots.” CNN featured a reporter standing before a row of burning cars while the chyron caption read, “fiery but mostly peaceful.”
For anyone doubting this is real: pic.twitter.com/3VGuGCDfAi
— Tristan Justice (@JusticeTristan) August 27, 2020
Then-California Sen. Kamala Harris even encouraged supporters to bail out Minneapolis rioters who tried to burn their city to the ground.
Democrat reaction to the riot of this year, however, where a horde of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol building, struck a remarkably different tone than the widespread acceptance of violence from their own side. While conservatives remained consistent in vilifying all political violence, Democrats continue to exploit the event to justify accelerating a leftist purge to silence their political dissent, impeach a president already out of office, and hold group therapy sessions for politicians on the floor of the House.
In early February, Democrat lawmakers shared their stories from the January riots in the lower chamber, discussing their “lived experience.” No such testimonials were afforded to minority business owners whose livelihoods were destroyed by the militant social justice warriors who burned down their establishments over racism, or something.
I don’t recall they did this for the business owners whose lives’ work was destroyed in the name of social justice https://t.co/we7HSdSX3K
— Tristan Justice (@JusticeTristan) February 4, 2021
An estimated 25,000 troops also descended on Washington to secure the Capitol for President Joe Biden’s inauguration, deploying more troops in the nation’s capital than are stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. About 6,000 troops remain in D.C. and now may remain through the fall. The same level of protection invoked by Democrats also remained absent for business owners left vulnerable to the militant ranks of Black Lives Matter.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats condemned the increased presence of law enforcement that descended on Washington for several days last summer. Yet those failed to meet even a fraction of the troop levels seen by the capital this year in place for a prolonged period of time, now thanked by Pelosi.
Nancy Pelosi criticized the use of the military to guard the Lincoln Memorial after DC experienced multiple riots last year. pic.twitter.com/hY5UPNVacE
— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) January 13, 2021
