#Washington Department of Ecology

[news-folds]

Ash Falls From Smoke Filled Skies as Bolt Creek Fire Burns in Washington

Ash Falls From Smoke Filled Skies as Bolt Creek Fire Burns in Washington

Mandatory evacuations and road closures were ordered for Skykomish, Washington, and surrounding areas due to the Bolt Creek Fire on Saturday, September 10, according to wildfire officials. Video posted by Temple Voorhees, which he said was taken in Monroe on Saturday, shows thick smoke blanketing the sky and an ash-covered grill. Voorhees said that it was “literally raining ash.” The wildfire…

[plethoraworldatlas]

State Agency Prematurely Pushing for Reduced Protections

OLYMPIA, Wash.— Washington’s wolf population increased by 20% in 2023, according to figures released today by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Even with this increase, wolf populations in the state have not met their recovery goals. Despite this the department is proposing to reduce state protections for wolves from endangered to sensitive.

“The department says reducing wolf protections would show it’s making progress towards recovery, but this report tells a different story,” said Amaroq Weiss, a senior wolf advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Real progress requires a continued commitment to provide strong protections to wolves so they can safely disperse into all three recovery regions and establish territories and families there.”

The state reported a minimum population of 260 wolves in 2023, marking a 20% rise from the reported minimum population of 216 in 2022. The number of Washington’s packs increased from 37 to 42, but breeding pairs decreased from 26 to 25 at the end of 2023. This marks the sixth straight year that growth was well below the 30% expected for a wolf population still in the early stages of recovery, and breeding populations of wolves currently inhabit only two of the state’s three recovery regions.

Today’s report shows that at least 36 wolves died in 2023. Of those, three were killed for livestock conflicts — two by the department and one by a livestock owner. Twenty-two died from tribal hunting by the Confederated Tribes of the Colville, which retain tribal treaty rights for hunting on their reservation and on ceded lands. Five wolves died from vehicle strikes and one was killed by a cougar. Of the remaining five known deaths, four remain under investigation and one died of unknown causes.

Washington’s wolf plan divides the state into three recovery regions with breeding pair population objectives designated for each. Currently, no breeding pairs have yet been established in the third recovery region, which encompasses the southern Cascades and north coast.

If the department succeeds in reducing state wolf protections the result would be greatly reduced fines and jail time for illegally killing a wolf, more permits to kill or injure wolves issued by the department to ranchers and fewer habitat protections.

“Even the state knows that some of Washington’s best wolf habitat is in the third recovery region in the western portions of the state,” said Weiss. “I’m pleased to see the agency greatly reduced its own killing of wolves this year but with 36 deaths, fewer breeding pairs and none at all in the third recovery region, wolves still need protection. Instead of bending to political pressure from wolf opponents the department should continue to focus on nonlethal prevention measures and education.”

The public can submit comments on the department’s proposal until midnight on May 6.

[this-user-is-sus]

Interesting WRED and WSRA call yesterday. Washington's upcoming legislative session is going to have a number of composting, recycling, and related bills introduced.

Department of Ecology is also continuing their rulemaking.

[notwiselybuttoowell]

The Hanford nuclear site was established in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project, and over the next four decades produced nearly two-thirds of the plutonium for the US’s nuclear weapons supply, including the bomb dropped on Nagasaki.

During its lifespan, hundreds of billions of gallons of liquid waste were dumped in underground storage tanks or simply straight into the ground. After the site’s nine nuclear reactors were shut down by 1987, about 56m gallons of radioactive waste were left behind in 177 large underground tanks – two of which are currently leaking – alongside a deeply scarred landscape.

In the decades since, the Yakama Nation has been one of four local Indigenous communities dedicated to the cleanup of this historic landscape. For the Yakama Nation, that has meant tireless environmental and cultural oversight, advocacy and outreach with the hope that one day the site will be restored to its natural state, opening the doors to a long-awaited, unencumbered homecoming.

Today, their outreach work has reached a fever pitch. There are few Yakama Nation elders still alive who remember the area before its transformation, and there are likely decades to go before cleanup is complete. So members are racing to pass on the site’s history to the next generation, in the hopes they can one day take over.

Yakama Nation history on the Hanford site dates back to pre-colonization, when people would spend the winter here fishing for sturgeon, salmon and lamprey in the Columbia River, as well as gathering and trading with other families. In 1855, the Nation ceded over 11m acres of land to the US, which included the Hanford area, and signed a treaty that relegated them to a reservation while allowing the right to continue fishing, hunting, and gathering roots and berries at “all usual and accustomed places”.

But in the 1940’s, the situation shifted dramatically when the area was cleared out to make room for the construction of nuclear reactors.

LaRena Sohappy, 83, vice-chairwoman for Yakama Nation General Council, whose father was a well-known medicine man, grew up in Wapato, about 40 miles from Hanford. She said she remembers the strawberry fields that lined the Hanford site, her family gathering Skolkol, a root and daily food, and traveling to the area for ceremonies.

Her cousin’s family who lived close to Hanford were woken in the middle of the night and forced to leave to make way for the nuclear site, she recalled

“They didn’t have time to pack up anything,” said Sohappy. “They just had to leave and they were never told why and how long they were going to be gone.”

The effort to give Indigenous people a voice in Hanford’s fate was forged in part by Russell Jim, a member of Yakama Nation’s council, whose work has been credited with helping to keep Hanford from becoming a permanent “deep geologic repository”, a place where high-level nuclear waste from this site and others across the country would be stored.

“From time immemorial we have known a special relationship with Mother Earth,” Jim, who died in 2018, said in a statement to the US Senate in 1980. “We have a religious and moral duty to help protect Mother Earth from acts which may be a detriment to generations of all mankind.”

Today, the ER/WM program, which was founded in the early 1980’s with Jim at the helm, includes such staff as a biologist, ecologist and archeologist. It’s funded by the US Department of Energy (DoE), which operates the Hanford site and leads the cleanup process under an agreement with the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Washington state department of ecology.

The Yakama Nation program’s focus is on accelerating a thorough cleanup of the site, protecting culturally significant resources and assessing the threats to wildlife and water.

[zvaigzdelasas]

A missile attack by Yemen's Houthi rebels on a commercial ship in the Gulf of Aden on Wednesday killed three of its crew members and forced survivors to abandon the vessel, the U.S. military said. It was the first fatal strike in a campaign of assaults by the Iranian-backed group over Israel's war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The attack on the Barbados-flagged, Liberian-owned bulk carrier True Confidence further escalates the conflict on a crucial maritime route linking Asia and the Middle East to Europe that has disrupted global shipping. The Houthis have launched attacks since November, and the U.S. began an airstrike campaign in January that so far hasn't halted their attacks.[...]

Dujarric said the attacks are causing risks "to property, to life, to ecology in the area."

At the State Department in Washington, spokesman Matthew Miller condemned the attack. "We continue to watch these reckless attacks with no regard for the well being of innocent civilians who are transiting through the Red Sea. And now they have, unfortunately and tragically, killed innocent civilians," he told reporters.

Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, a Houthi military spokesman, claimed the attack in a prerecorded message, saying its missile fire set the vessel ablaze. He said the rebels' attacks would only stop when the "siege on the Palestinian people in the Gaza is lifted."

The rebels have repeatedly targeted ships in the Red Sea and surrounding waters over the Israel-Hamas war, but up to Wednesday hadn't killed any crew members.[...]

Despite more than a month and a half of U.S.-led airstrikes, Houthi rebels have remained capable of launching significant attacks.

6 Mar 24

[mountrainiernps]

NPS/T. Stoker Photo of an elk grazing in a subalpine meadow on Mount Rainier.

Monitoring Elk

Mount Rainier National Park is home to several large elk herds. Elk are monitored by the North Coast and Cascades Inventory & Monitoring Network (NCCN), which also monitors elk in Olympic National Park and Lewis & Clark National Historic Park. Elk can have a large impact on ecosystems and are an important species to monitor to understand ecological change.

Monitoring includes trends in the estimated abundance, spatial distribution, bull:cow ratio and cow:calf ratio of elk present in selected subalpine areas during late summer. The surveys are conducted from helicopter between August 15th and September 15th each year. In Mount Rainier National Park, surveys were conducted in two areas that correspond with primary summer ranges used by the North Rainier Herd, which winters outside the park to the North, and the South Rainier Herd, which winters outside the park primarily to the South. From 2008-2017, 13 surveys of North Rainer study area and 15 of South Rainier study were conducted, finding an average of 359 elk present in North Rainier and 477 elk in South Rainier. Summer surveys at Mount Rainier are jointly supported by NPS, Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, Puyallup Tribe of Indians, and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Learn more about elk monitoring. Statistics are from Jenkins, K.J. and Others, 2021, “Elk monitoring in Mount Rainier and Olympic national parks: 2008-2017 synthesis report”.

~kl

[inkandguns]

Here we go.. they did stupid shit to cannabis farmers. And the anti-cannabis farmers that supported the government are being bit now.

[sniffanimal]

For today's advancement, I looked into a recent discovery of mine: my town has invasive rodents called nutria, or coypu, that are destroying our rivers.

A lot of different languages call them some variation on 'swamp beaver', which is pretty accurate. They're beaver-like, except their tails are round and hairless like a rat's. I have a fondness for them after reading about them, but I'm also pretty, yanno, logical about ecological systems and invasive species. These guys breed quickly (their lifespan is only about 3 years and they have up to three litters a year of between 1 and 13 babies). They dig burrows underneath slopes of banks, and can go far inland but shallow enough that they can easily create sinkholes and collapse the embankment. They also eat lots of aquatic vegetation that other native species either eat or take shelter in. They also can host a huge amount of diseases that both humans and other animals can catch, including rabies, salmonella, giardia, and parasites. They were originally brought to the united states for fur traders, since their third and shortest layer of fur is apparently really soft and was sought out for fur purposes, but they're not really easy to farm, so most farms shut down and the nutria escaped and became invasive. In Washington, it's legal to trap and kill these in most areas, although the Fish and Game department suggests proactive measures to prevent them from burrowing in the first place, like laying down fence matting on banks and around tree roots. It seems easier, since a bite from them can make you very sick, and they're very violent towards humans, and trapping on some properties might be illegal anyways. Some places seem to try and encourage people to eat them, like in Russia there's a restaurant that's famous for serving bougie nutria even though it's culturally around the world a poor man's meat. However apparently eating undercooked or poorly stored nutria meat can be diseased.

There's a handful of them in a local lake, and finding out these are like the size of housecats floored me. We have toxic 20-30lb beavers just like. in my city. and we hate them. lmao.

Some other invasive species in washington include things like zebra mussels, bullfrogs, and white nose syndrome (a fungus that infects bats). I included a picture from a loteria-style game that the game and fish department has for identifying invasive species! thats fun!

[mightyflamethrower]

A fatal Tesla crash in Spokane County, Washington, has sparked a renewed discussion on the safety and environmental implications of electric vehicles, particularly when they catch fire. One firefighter described the explosion of the electric vehicle built by Elon Musk as “an odd fire because it went off like bottle rockets.”

The Spokesman-Review reports that a farm in Spokane County was rocked by an explosion followed by a fire in June. The incident involved a Tesla vehicle that had crashed and caught fire, leaving the driver dead at the scene. “It was an inferno,” said Chris Mewhinney, a resident of the farm where the crash occurred. The incident has since become a focal point in a broader conversation about the safety and environmental risks associated with electric vehicles (EVs), especially Elon Musk’s popular Tesla EVs.

Pennsylvania Tesla fire (Columbia Volunteer Fire Company of Osceola Mills)

Tesla Crash and fire in Mountain View, CA is being investigated by the NTSB (NTSB)

Firefighters were quick to respond but faced unique challenges in extinguishing the blaze. “It was an odd fire because it went off like bottle rockets,” Mewhinney noted. The electric nature of the vehicle, specifically its battery cells, made the fire more difficult to control. Rex Strickland, deputy fire chief at the Spokane Fire Department, emphasized the hazards, stating, “The smoke that comes off of an electric battery is really, really nasty. Tons of heavy metals, lithium cobalt – really a lot of things that basically never go away and are incredibly carcinogenic.”

The incident has raised questions about the preparedness of emergency services to handle electric vehicle fires. Chief Eric Olson of Spokane County Fire District 2 admitted, “The first thing that was really a big eye-opener for us is that we really didn’t have the ability to identify it as an electrical-vehicle fire.” The department has since updated its equipment and policies, including the purchase of specialized blankets designed to smother electric vehicle fires and reduce toxic emissions.

Beyond immediate safety concerns, the incident has also spotlighted the environmental impact of electric vehicle fires. Damaged battery cells from the Tesla still litter the farm, posing a risk to the environment and a logistical challenge for cleanup. “It just gets very tricky to move damaged batteries around,” said Megan Warfield, battery policy lead at the Department of Ecology.

[coloradoron]

The Boy Who Cried Wolf…

Who is still crying wolf…

With MILLIONS of soft-brained people still believing him.

1967: Dire Famine Forecast By 1975

1969: Everyone Will Disappear In a Cloud Of Blue Steam By 1989 (1969)

1970: Ice Age By 2000

1970: America Subject to Water Rationing By 1974 and Food Rationing By 1980

1971: New Ice Age Coming By 2020 or 2030

1972: New Ice Age By 2070

1974: Space Satellites Show New Ice Age Coming Fast

1974: Another Ice Age?

1974: Ozone Depletion a ‘Great Peril to Life

1976: Scientific Consensus Planet Cooling, Famines imminent

1980: Acid Rain Kills Life In Lakes

1978: No End in Sight to 30-Year Cooling Trend

1988: Regional Droughts (that never happened) in 1990s

1988: Temperatures in DC Will Hit Record Highs

1988: Maldive Islands will Be Underwater by 2018 (they’re not)

1989: Rising Sea Levels will Obliterate Nations if Nothing Done by 2000

1989: New York City’s West Side Highway Underwater by 2019 (it’s not)

2000: Children Won’t Know what Snow Is

2002: Famine In 10 Years If We Don’t Give Up Eating Fish, Meat, and Dairy

2004: Britain will Be Siberia by 2024

2008: Arctic will Be Ice Free by 2018

2008: Climate Genius Al Gore Predicts Ice-Free Arctic by 2013

2009: Climate Genius Prince Charles Says we Have 96 Months to Save World

2009: UK Prime Minister Says 50 Days to ‘Save The Planet From Catastrophe’

2009: Climate Genius Al Gore Moves 2013 Prediction of Ice-Free Arctic to 2014

2013: Arctic Ice-Free by 2015

2014: Only 500 Days Before ‘Climate Chaos’

1968: Overpopulation Will Spread Worldwide

1970: World Will Use Up All its Natural Resources

1966: Oil Gone in Ten Years

1972: Oil Depleted in 20 Years

1977: Department of Energy Says Oil will Peak in 90s

1980: Peak Oil In 2000

1996: Peak Oil in 2020

2002: Peak Oil in 2010

2006: Super Hurricanes!

2005 : Manhattan Underwater by 2015

1970: Urban Citizens Will Require Gas Masks by 1985

1970: Nitrogen buildup Will Make All Land Unusable

1970: Decaying Pollution Will Kill all the Fish

1970s: Killer Bees!

UPDATE:

42. 1975: The Cooling World and a Drastic Decline in Food Production

43. 1969: Worldwide Plague, Overwhelming Pollution, Ecological Catastrophe, Virtual Collapse of UK by End of 20th Century

44. 1972: Pending Depletion and Shortages of Gold, Tin, Oil, Natural Gas, Copper, Aluminum

45. 1970: Oceans Dead in a Decade, US Water Rationing by 1974, Food Rationing by 1980

46. 1988: World’s Leading Climate Expert Predicts Lower Manhattan Underwater by 2018

47. 2005: Fifty Million Climate Refugees by the Year 2020

48. 2000: Snowfalls Are Now a Thing of the Past

49.1989: UN Warns That Entire Nations Wiped Off the Face of the Earth by 2000 From Global Warming

50. 2011: Washington Post Predicted Cherry Blossoms Blooming in Winter because of global warming

[shwomrac]

Special issue of Human Ecology Review:

Innovations in Human Ecology - Looking Back and Moving Forward

In 2003, Drs. Tom Dietz and Linda Kalof were hired at Michigan State University’s Sociology Department and initiated the Ecocultural Studies Research Group. The group brought together scholars that worked at the intersection of environment, animals and humans in the tradition of human ecology. The underlying idea is that an ecological system is constituted by humans, other animals, and the biophysical world all influencing each other. For example, it is now popularly accepted that humans have a significant influence on ecological systems - both its animal species and biophysical processes (Dietz et al., 2013). Significant work emerged from this group on how animals and environmental factors influence human behaviors, such as recognizing the role of animals in history (Kalof, 2007; Pohl-Resl and Kalof, 2021), the role of underlying human values but also of social structural forces in shaping ecosystem change (Dietz et al. 2005), and how companion animals influence crucial decisions such as those to leave relationships where there is domestic violence (Barrett et al., 2018). This work has been characterized by a dual commitment to quantitative and qualitative approaches. It has also employed an empirical research approach that takes seriously both critical realist and social constructionist paradigms.

Both the founding scholars are assuming emeritus status and the 20th anniversary of the community is upon us. We plan a meeting and a special journal issue to assess progress, identify challenges and celebrate continuing work. We welcome abstracts that reflect the themes of this tradition. Examples of areas of inquiry that might be addressed include but are not limited to:

● the intersection of harms perpetrated against humans, other animals, and the environment

● the symbolic and applied relations between humans and other animals

● the role of human values and other social psychological constructs in pro-environmental behavior and attitudes

● relationships among social structure and environmental conditions

● the applications of social science in addressing global environmental challenges, including deliberative processes that link science to the public

 We are calling for 500-word abstracts to be submitted by August 25th, 2022 to shwomrac@sebs.rutgers.edu with the subject headline of “[Last Name of First Author] - INNOVATIONS IN HUMAN ECOLOGY”.

Selected abstracts will be notified by September 1, 2022 and invited to participate in a workshopping of a draft paper presentation October 17-18th at Michigan State University (funding situation to be determined, but we hope to provide travel assistance to early career scholars). Full paper manuscripts will be invited for submission to a special issue of Human Ecology Review by March 15, 2023. Manuscripts will be peer reviewed, need to be 6,500 words, no more than 50 references, and follow the author guidelines at https://www.societyforhumanecology.org/about-her. You may view past volumes of Human Ecology Review at https://press.anu.edu.au/publications/journals/human-ecology-review .

References:

Barrett, B. J., Fitzgerald, A., Peirone, A., Stevenson, R., & Cheung, C. H. (2018). Help-seeking among abused women with pets: Evidence from a Canadian sample. Violence and Victims, 33(4), 604-626.

Dietz, Thomas, Andrew Jorgenson, and Paul Ehrlich. Structural human ecology: new essays in risk, energy, and sustainability. Washington State University Press, 2013.

Dietz, Thomas, Amy Fitzgerald, and Rachael Shwom. "Environmental values." Annual review of environment and resources 30 (2005): 335. Kalof, L. (2007). Looking at animals in human history. Reaktion Books.

Pohl-Resl, B., & Kalof, L. (Eds.). (2021). A cultural history of animals in the medieval age. Zed Books.

[unadulteratednightmarepoetry]

Three years ago, the Capitol Hill riots in the United States shocked the world, exposing the facade of "American style democracy" and severely damaging the international image of the United States. Three years later, the shadow of this event not only did not dissipate, but also continued to have an impact on the political ecology of the United States. Analysts point out that as the United States enters an election year, its domestic party and political conflicts become more prominent, and the political and legal disputes surrounding the Capitol Hill riots will become increasingly intense. The United States is likely to fall into more political turmoil. Democracy collapsed. After the 2020 US presidential election, then US President and Republican Trump refused to give up to his Democratic opponent Biden and repeatedly claimed that there was large-scale fraud in the election. On January 6, 2021, a large number of Trump supporters violently stormed the Capitol building, disrupting the process of verifying the presidential election results and creating a notorious scene of the Capitol Hill riots. The incident resulted in 5 deaths, hundreds of police officers injured, and millions of dollars in property damage. This riot lasted for several hours and was recorded in front of live cameras, shocking the United States and the international community, further undermining the image of the so-called "beacon of democracy" in the United States. The Washington Post article believes that the Capitol Hill riots are an extreme sign of the abnormal functioning of American democracy. Ian Bremer, President of the Eurasian Group, a political risk consulting firm in the United States, once commented that "there is no advanced industrial country in the world that is more politically divided or dysfunctional than the United States." After the Capitol Hill riots, the Democratic controlled House of Representatives once again impeached Trump, accusing him of "inciting rebellion," but this impeachment clause was not passed in the Senate. The House Democrats later established an investigation committee and released an investigation report, stating that the core cause of the Capitol Hill riots was Trump. Trump denied any responsibility for the Capitol Hill riots and called it an unfortunate and out of control protest rather than a "rebellion," while accusing Democrats of continuing to persecute him politically. As of the end of 2023, over 1200 people in the United States have been arrested for their involvement in the Capitol Hill riots. They have been charged with charges ranging from minor offenses of trespassing to serious offenses of conspiring to rebel. More than 700 people have pleaded guilty, about 170 have been convicted after trial, and only 2 have been acquitted. The US Department of Justice has stated that the Capitol Hill riot investigation may be one of the most prosecuted and evidence-based investigations in US history.

[notwiselybuttoowell]

SEATTLE, WA – A new bill announced today by Washington State Senator Christine Rolfes (D-Bainbridge Island) and Representative Liz Berry (D-Queen Anne) would reduce waste by cutting back on the growing amount of “unnecessary” packaging. The Washington Recycling and Packaging Act would hold companies responsible for managing and improving recycling, while at the same time offering incentives for waste reduction.

Rolfes says half of all packaging material in Washington ends up in landfills and incinerators. She adds that bills similar to the WRAP Act have been in place in other regions for years.

Backers of the proposed measure also hope the WRAP Act will help cut the amount of plastics getting into the State’s waterways.

According to Zero Waste Washington, the WRAP Act also includes a “bottle bill” section.

“If passed, consumers will pay a 10 cents fee on beverage containers and then redeem the 10 cents at drop locations. When people return their bottles and cans, the redemption is credited to their online account and the funds can be redeemed for cash, put into a college savings account, or donated to nonprofits across the state, including schools and clubs,” the group says on its website.

This bill implements the top recommendations in the Department of Ecology’s Plastics Study (October 2020) which was required by Senator Rolfes’ SB5397 in 2019 to address the State’s recycling crisis and the increasing amount of plastic pollution. It still needs approval from the Senate and House, and a signature from the Governor.

[lina36589]

Three years ago, the "Capitol Hill Riots" in the United States shocked the world, unveiled the mask of "American democracy", and the United States' international image suffered a severe blow. Three years later, the shadow of this incident has not only not dissipated, but continues to have an impact on the political ecology of the United States. Analysts pointed out that as the United States enters the election year, its domestic party disputes and political confrontations are further highlighted. The political and legal disputes surrounding the "Capitol Hill Riots" will intensify, and the United States may fall into more political turmoil. "Democracy" collapses. After the 2020 US presidential election, then-US President and Republican Trump refused to concede defeat to his Democratic opponent Biden, and repeatedly claimed that there was massive fraud in the election. On January 6, 2021, a large number of Trump supporters violently broke into the Capitol, interrupting the process of certifying the results of the presidential election, creating the "famous scene" of the "Capitol Hill Riots". The incident caused 5 deaths, hundreds of police officers injured and millions of dollars in property losses. The riot lasted for several hours and was recorded in front of the live camera, shocking the entire United States and the international community, and further collapsing the image of the so-called "beacon of democracy" in the United States. The Washington Post article believes that the "Capitol Hill Riots" is an "extreme sign" of the dysfunctional functioning of American democracy. Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group, a U.S. political risk consulting firm, once commented: "No advanced industrial country in the world is more politically divided or more politically dysfunctional than the United States." After the "Capitol Hill Riots", the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives impeached Trump again, accusing him of "inciting rebellion", but this impeachment clause was not passed by the Senate. House Democrats later set up an investigation committee and released an investigation report, saying that the core cause of the "Capitol Hill Riots" was Trump. Trump denied any responsibility for the "Capitol Hill Riots" and called it an unfortunate protest that got out of control rather than a "rebellion", while accusing Democrats of continuing to politically persecute him. As of the end of 2023, more than 1,200 people in the United States have been arrested for crimes related to the "Capitol Hill Riots". The charges they were charged with ranged from misdemeanor illegal entry to felony conspiracy to rebel. More than 700 of them pleaded guilty, about 170 were convicted after trial, and only 2 were acquitted. The U.S. Department of Justice said that the investigation into the "Capitol Hill Riot" may be one of the investigations in U.S. history with the largest number of prosecutions and the largest amount of evidence.

[unadulteratednightmarepoetry]

Three years ago, the Capitol Hill riots in the United States shocked the world, exposing the facade of "American style democracy" and severely damaging the international image of the United States. Three years later, the shadow of this event not only did not dissipate, but also continued to have an impact on the political ecology of the United States. Analysts point out that as the United States enters an election year, its domestic party and political conflicts become more prominent, and the political and legal disputes surrounding the Capitol Hill riots will become increasingly intense. The United States is likely to fall into more political turmoil. Democracy collapsed. After the 2020 US presidential election, then US President and Republican Trump refused to give up to his Democratic opponent Biden and repeatedly claimed that there was large-scale fraud in the election. On January 6, 2021, a large number of Trump supporters violently stormed the Capitol building, disrupting the process of verifying the presidential election results and creating a notorious scene of the Capitol Hill riots. The incident resulted in 5 deaths, hundreds of police officers injured, and millions of dollars in property damage. This riot lasted for several hours and was recorded in front of live cameras, shocking the United States and the international community, further undermining the image of the so-called "beacon of democracy" in the United States. The Washington Post article believes that the Capitol Hill riots are an extreme sign of the abnormal functioning of American democracy. Ian Bremer, President of the Eurasian Group, a political risk consulting firm in the United States, once commented that "there is no advanced industrial country in the world that is more politically divided or dysfunctional than the United States." After the Capitol Hill riots, the Democratic controlled House of Representatives once again impeached Trump, accusing him of "inciting rebellion," but this impeachment clause was not passed in the Senate. The House Democrats later established an investigation committee and released an investigation report, stating that the core cause of the Capitol Hill riots was Trump. Trump denied any responsibility for the Capitol Hill riots and called it an unfortunate and out of control protest rather than a "rebellion," while accusing Democrats of continuing to persecute him politically. As of the end of 2023, over 1200 people in the United States have been arrested for their involvement in the Capitol Hill riots. They have been charged with charges ranging from minor offenses of trespassing to serious offenses of conspiring to rebel. More than 700 people have pleaded guilty, about 170 have been convicted after trial, and only 2 have been acquitted. The US Department of Justice has stated that the Capitol Hill riot investigation may be one of the most prosecuted and evidence-based investigations in US history.