Trump Thread

[Hooahguy]

An interesting perspective (https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/06/01/trumps-tweets-made-presidency-now-revealing-failures-column/5299069002/)about why Trump's Twitter should be kept up:


I want President Donald Trump to stay on Twitter.

That sentence will cause a red mist to cloud many of the eyes reading it, so I will quickly add: President Trump does not have a right to be on Twitter, any more than you or I do. Nor do I think it is healthy for the country or for anyone reading his tweets for the president to remain on Twitter. And I fully understand that Trump views Twitter as an invaluable tool. He clearly loves social media, as well he should: It helped to make him president.


But social media is now also helping to unmake his presidency, and this is all to the good. Whenever he tweets, he burdens his supporters with yet more indefensible remarks, like his macho posturing about sending the National Guard into Minneapolis to shoot rioters. It might be red meat to his base, but it is also a constant jolt of energy to the people who have decided he must be voted out of office.

I actually agree with this. However, I think it would be absolutely hilarious if the day Trump leaves office he got kicked off Twitter.

[Greyblades]

But social media is now also helping to unmake his presidency, and this is all to the good. Whenever he tweets, he burdens his supporters with yet more indefensible remarks, like his macho posturing about sending the National Guard into Minneapolis to shoot rioters. It might be red meat to his base, but it is also a constant jolt of energy to the people who have decided he must be voted out of office.

Overly optimistic as ever.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Overly optimistic as ever.

That's not what various polls show....


......check your favorite one, whichever that is.

[Greyblades]

Woah, Deja vu all over again. And again. And again. And again.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Woah, Deja vu all over again. And again. And again. And again.

Whatever.....we shall see come November~:wave:

[Crandar]

Dunno about that, Reluctant Samurai. Remember how the polls showed Macron defeating Le Pen and the Dems winning the mid-terms? And then, we all saw what happened... I'm telling ya, the progressive establishment that dominates statistics has been skewing polls to the detriment of conservatives since the October Revolution.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Polls are to be taken with a grain of salt, of course. But polls being dominated by the 'progressive establishment'? Dunno about that....

[Crandar]

I was being sarcastic. Macron annihilated Le Pen, while the polls had actually underestimated his popularity.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/le-pen-is-in-a-much-deeper-hole-than-trump-ever-was/

[Greyblades]

Whatever.....we shall see come November~:wave:

Rather my point; 5 whole months to maintain the current state? I dont think we've seen much of anything stay static for 5 whole months in the last 4 years.

It will turn, then it will turn again and again and again until november. It's futile to make a prediction based off a present state this far out. That people keep acting like it will every time they spot a dip does nothing but provide even more levity to this meme:

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/053/599/bc9.jpg

[Hooahguy]

2020 isn't 2016.

[ReluctantSamurai]

I was being sarcastic.

Missed that:quiet:


It will turn, then it will turn again and again and again until november

That it will. And Fearless Leader will find more and more ways to look like a complete idiot, and piss off even more people. The death toll from COVID-19 in the US will be in excess of 150,000 by November; barring another stim package from Congress, all the perks for the unemployed will be gone; this country will be 4-6 weeks into a second wave of SARS-2 combined with the onset of the annual flu; the economy will still be in the shit-hole (and for many months to come) as the permanent closures of businesses that were shuttered during the first wave of the pandemic takes hold; there already are long lines at free food distribution sites, will be even worse 6 months from now as rent/mortgage amnesty expires and more people get evicted from their homes.....etc, etc, etc.

Guess who gets put in the cross-hairs for that? Yep....the incumbent whose watch this all happened under:creep:

[Montmorency]

2020 isn't 2016.

Reactionaries are ideologically-suspicious of the judicious study of objective reality. Evidence, confidence, uncertainty, are all unwholesome leavenings of virile levity.

You or I might ask questions like "How am I to understand the political and electoral environment of America now and in the coming election?' Other minds are agitated by 'lul MAGA Trump own SJWs kek'.

[Montmorency]

Tangentially, I've come across a good label that captures both the paleoconservative and broad alt-right mindsets: the Niezschean concept of misarchy (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ssqu.12495). Though the term is a little misleadingly-reductive by composition, a misarchist is essentially a socially-conservative statist libertarian. The concept goes a long way to helping explain the pipeline of so-called libertarians to overt fascism, as well as the fact that a plurality, if not outright majority, of American self-identified conservatives combine hatred and mistrust of "the government" with demands for state repression and regulation of 'undesirables.'


The central claim of this article is that a crucial ideological factor explaining support for the Tea Party is what Friedrich Nietzsche called “misarchism” in reference to the political philosophy of Herbert Spencer. As we explain in detail below, distinct from both libertarianism and social conservatism, misarchism refers to an aversion to government combined with support for the state and traditional morality. Consistent with the expectation of a misarchist dimension in American attitudes, factor analysis on nine variables from the 2012 American National Election Time‐Series Study (ANES) reveals that attitudes toward state power are positively intercorrelated with attitudes toward traditional morality. Though neither are strongly intercorrelated with attitudes toward government, the factor underlying support for the state and traditional morality (which we call “moral statism”) is strongly and negatively correlated with the factor underlying support for government. These results are consistent with the Nietzschean diagnosis of misarchism as an ideological structure that combines support for the state and moral traditionalism on a dimension that is distinct from, and opposed to, attitudes toward government. Consistent with the argument that misarchism is a crucial ideological driver of support for the Tea Party, regression analyses reveal that the interaction of moral statism with governmentalism (our operationalization of misarchism) has, of all the independent variables considered, one of the strongest and most robust partial correlations with support for the Tea Party. Our findings have important implications for our understanding of right‐wing ideology in the United States and they help to resolve the puzzle of the Tea Party's still poorly understood and contradictory ideological components.

See also Harvard Law radTrad Vermeule and his recent op-ed (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/common-good-constitutionalism/609037/) in the Atlantic passionately endorsing the principle of Ein Reich, Ein Volk, Ein Fuhrer.


Various Never-Trump pundits, such as Jennifer Rubin and Max Boot, concede that every Republican standing in November needs to be voted out for the sake of the country. That's probably the reliable differentiator of a genuine center-right personality from the mouth-honor Just-the-Tip Trumpers.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Various Never-Trump pundits, such as Jennifer Rubin and Max Boot, concede that every Republican standing in November needs to be voted out for the sake of the country. That's probably the reliable differentiator of a genuine center-right personality from the mouth-honor Just-the-Tip Trumpers.

Sadly correct. My former party must be crushed electorally so that the current Asshat-in-chief can be voted out and those who supported this quasi-demagogue wishes-to-be-an-autocrat loon can be removed from office for their demonstrated tendency towards poor leadership. Political leadership can and does sometimes require you to oppose your own on principle even if you are ousted for so doing. If you cannot stand up and pay the price when it matters, then you are not leading. Adios.

[Strike For The South]

Various Never-Trump pundits, such as Jennifer Rubin and Max Boot, concede that every Republican standing in November needs to be voted out for the sake of the country. That's probably the reliable differentiator of a genuine center-right personality from the mouth-honor Just-the-Tip Trumpers.

There are times, when I sit alone, and my mind wanders. Is this opposition to Trump or merely opposition to his sheer incompetence?

[Montmorency]

There are times, when I sit alone, and my mind wanders. Is this opposition to Trump or merely opposition to his sheer incompetence?

Most Republicans are satisfied with his level of competence. In Norquist's words,


Pick a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen to become president of the United States. This is a change for Republicans: the House and Senate doing the work with the president signing bills. His job is to be captain of the team, to sign the legislation that has already been prepared."

Frankly they just like how he behaves, how his crudity and bluster reflect their deep aesthetic preferences, how he "triggers the libs"... The one thing a typical Republican can't abide is a politician smarter than they. By the obverse of the token, proper Never-Trump Republicans do realize this has gone to far and veered into civilizational threat. They on the other hand are disgusted by Trump and perceive to some extent the depth of the water we're in.

[Hooahguy]

There are times, when I sit alone, and my mind wanders. Is this opposition to Trump or merely opposition to his sheer incompetence?
I've wondered this a lot too. I think some are the former and some are the latter, though I think the ones who are in the latter category are the shadier folk, such as George Conway. I am fairly certain that he and his wife are doing a grift: no matter who wins in November they will be fine.

As for the others, I think it comes down to the individual. Some have sworn off the GOP in its current state, others claim they are done with it forever. So who knows honestly. Either way, if Trump loses, the second he leaves office all the never Trumpers are no longer reliable allies.

[Strike For The South]

Plumbing the depths for a Grover quote? I like that. It is remarkable, he is a threat to them only on his inaction on certain issues.

[Greyblades]

2020 isn't 2016.

Says increasingly nervous man.


That it will. And Fearless Leader will find more and more ways to look like a complete idiot, and piss off even more people. The death toll from COVID-19 in the US will be in excess of 150,000 by November; barring another stim package from Congress, all the perks for the unemployed will be gone; this country will be 4-6 weeks into a second wave of SARS-2 combined with the onset of the annual flu; the economy will still be in the shit-hole (and for many months to come) as the permanent closures of businesses that were shuttered during the first wave of the pandemic takes hold; there already are long lines at free food distribution sites, will be even worse 6 months from now as rent/mortgage amnesty expires and more people get evicted from their homes.....etc, etc, etc.

Guess who gets put in the cross-hairs for that? Yep....the incumbent whose watch this all happened under:creep:
Trump will be harmed the degree that the executive gets hit for everything that happens under him, regardless of actual culpability.

However I think the damage is largely countered by the way the democrats have inadvertantly taken ownership of the hole by publically going 180 on the quarentine upon the start of the protests. The party that a month ago was accusing those who wanted to reopen the economy of murdering grandma now considers grandma an acceptable sacrifice in the face of a good rage session.

Those millions of poor sods jobless because of the quarantine are going to be left wondering why the democrats considered their livelyhoods less important. Thats not even getting into the backlash the democrats are courting with their pussyfooting around the riots. Lot of true blue areas abandoned and left to burn by their elected officials, gonna be interesting to see how they attempt to blame that on the republicans. Cant even shift the blame of the cause; minneapolis hasnt been red since the 70's, not gonna stop them trying but I dont think people are that stupid.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Trump will be harmed the degree that the executive gets hit for everything that happens under him, regardless of actual culpability.

Kinda my point, no? That culpability for being the incumbent is on top of the things he IS responsible for.....which is considerable.


democrats have inadvertantly taken ownership of the hole by publically going 180 on the quarentine upon the start of the protests.

Everyone has gone quiet on the pandemic. Our Fearless Leader has essentially disbanded the Coronavirus Taskforce, and is now back on the campaign trail hoping the pandemic will be in the rearview mirror. The media, as always, shifts its' attention to the next big thing that has grabby headlines. All the states are in various stages of reopening their economies...you can't keep lock-downs in place indefinitely. Some states are doing it better than others irregardless of political leaning, so it's utter nonsense to fault the Dems over easing lock-downs.


The party that a month ago was accusing those who wanted to reopen the economy of murdering grandma now considers grandma an acceptable sacrifice in the face of a good rage session.

This statement is utter BS because:

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/12/states-cities-pause-reopening-coronavirus-infections-rise-315720


The Trump administration, eager for an economic reboot, has downplayed the recent spike in coronavirus cases and attributed it to an expansion of testing and virus tracing. However, public health experts say increasing hospitalizations and positivity rates for coronavirus tests are worrying signals the virus is spreading in some of the first areas to open up over a month ago.

Let's look at those states to open first...Texas---Republican; Florida---Republican; Utah---Republican; Oregon---Democratic; Tennessee---Republican; Alabama---Republican; Arizona---Republican; Arkansas---Republican; Iowa---Republican; Georgia---Republican. See a pattern? The GOP states following their Fearless Leaders demands to get the economy open again were the majority opening before they had met any kind of guidelines for doing so. So who is, by-and-large, telling grandma to f-off?


Those millions of poor sods jobless because of the quarantine are going to be left wondering why the democrats considered their livelyhoods less important. Thats not even getting into the backlash the democrats are courting with their pussyfooting around the riots. Lot of true blue areas abandoned and left to burn by their elected officials, gonna be interesting to see how they attempt to blame that on the republicans. Cant even shift the blame of the cause; minneapolis hasnt been red since the 70's, not gonna stop them trying but I dont think people are that stupid.

I'm only going to offer a reply to the highlighted portion of THAT nonsense:

You just don't get it, do you? You have absolutely no clue as to why the protests are happening. And your very terminology of 'riots' tells me which side of the barricades you are.....:thwack:

[CrossLOPER]

You just don't get it, do you? You have absolutely no clue as to why the protests are happening. And your very terminology of 'riots' tells me which side of the barricades you are.....:thwack:

He saw a photo of someone stealing a TV, and that tells him all that he needs to know.

[Montmorency]

However I think the damage is largely countered by the way the democrats have inadvertantly taken ownership of the hole by publically going 180 on the quarentine upon the start of the protests.

Can you identify what positions have changed?


The party that a month ago was accusing those who wanted to reopen the economy of murdering grandma now considers grandma an acceptable sacrifice in the face of a good rage session.

The states have already largely abandoned restrictions, and were well along the process - akin to shutting off the water valve in a house with a leaking pipe, then turning it back a few months later without having fixed the leak - before the protests started 3 weeks ago. We can make a substantive submission that a generational moment to uproot corrosive institutions and change the national culture is more important than the opportunity to have a pedicure. Thankfully, we still have the consensus of wearing masks, not touching the face, maintaining social distance, and regularly washing hands in our corner.


Those millions of poor sods jobless because of the quarantine are going to be left wondering why the democrats considered their livelyhoods less important.

Granted that many voters do not realize that Democratic policies of relief checks and expanded unemployment insurance increased Americans' personal income by $2 trillion in April. But if Americans are not blaming Democrats for their economic troubles now, why would they do so in a few months amid Republicans continuing to vocally reject renewing any stimulus programs?


Thats not even getting into the backlash the democrats are courting with their pussyfooting around the riots.

What is the evidence for backlash - against Democrats that is?


Lot of true blue areas abandoned and left to burn by their elected officials, gonna be interesting to see how they attempt to blame that on the republicans.

The framing of course is deceptive. It's not surprising that a Trump supporter would consider a couple smashed storefronts "areas abandoned and left to burn," let alone blame elected officials rather than police, but those people were never going to stop being Trump supporters.


If you can take the time to troll, I hope, at least, the extreme aversion to facts is just a cover over a more sober private experience.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Can you identify what positions have changed?

He is probably doing the same kind of "selective listening" that Limbaugh is peddling on his program. To whit, 'The MSM is lauding the protester's courage and implicitly saying go protest despite the fact that it runs counter to social distancing guidelines, but the MSM are harshly critical of Trump's holding a legal political rally.' So the MSM is, according to this selective listening effort, being hypocritical with the sole real purpose being to attack Trump.

I myself note it as selective listening because I cannot recall a 30 minute stretch from CNN or the local news that did not note -- Sanjay Gupta almost pleadingly -- that this kind of gathering was NOT a good idea under COVID conditions however laudable otherwise. The Media Right Wing is hearing what they want to hear.

CNN has been saying 'Protests understandable given pent up rage on a decades old issue, but not a healthy idea with COVID, but at least most of them are wearing masks.' They are also saying that '60k people indoors, in two neighboring venues, many of whom will eschew masks as a mark of toughness/bravado/political intent is an even WORSE idea under COVID conditions.'

Sadly, we all tend to remember listening to that with which we agree/expect to hear and not necessarily the complete message.

[Montmorency]

He is probably doing the same kind of "selective listening" that Limbaugh is peddling on his program. To whit, 'The MSM is lauding the protester's courage and implicitly saying go protest despite the fact that it runs counter to social distancing guidelines, but the MSM are harshly critical of Trump's holding a legal political rally.' So the MSM is, according to this selective listening effort, being hypocritical with the sole real purpose being to attack Trump.

I myself note it as selective listening because I cannot recall a 30 minute stretch from CNN or the local news that did not note -- Sanjay Gupta almost pleadingly -- that this kind of gathering was NOT a good idea under COVID conditions however laudable otherwise. The Media Right Wing is hearing what they want to hear.

CNN has been saying 'Protests understandable given pent up rage on a decades old issue, but not a healthy idea with COVID, but at least most of them are wearing masks.' They are also saying that '60k people indoors, in two neighboring venues, many of whom will eschew masks as a mark of toughness/bravado/political intent is an even WORSE idea under COVID conditions.'

Sadly, we all tend to remember listening to that with which we agree/expect to hear and not necessarily the complete message.

Correct, and many sympathetic people decline to participate in the streets precisely because they fear the risk to themselves and others.

As the protests erupted they certainly created some level of risk, but liberatory mass demonstrations are not normal in American society. An exceptional circumstance can overcome risk thresholds, just as I would object to someone spontaneously attempting to perform CPR on me but would recognize the validity of the decision to intervene were I splayed out on pavement without circulation. A return to routine with respect to disease control remains undesirable, but so does a return to routine with respect to criminal justice and law enforcement.

I am gladdened by the absence, so far, of a second wave of CV19 caused by the protests, nearly three weeks since their onset being sufficient allowance for incubation of a generation or two (this could change depending on both macro behavior and patterns of movement by discrete spreaders!). New York (https://covid19tracker.health.ny.gov/views/NYS-COVID19-Tracker/NYSDOHCOVID-19Tracker-DailyTracker?%3Aembed=yes&%3Atoolbar=no&%3Atabs=n), for example, has continued to see declines in its testing positivity rate down to 1% yesterday. To be fair, neither have I seen much evidence for an uptick in cases following from the anti-lockdown protests in late April and May, but I can still slam them for being substantively awful and for contributing to deleterious policy responses.


Bars? Some may disagree, but not important.
https://nypost.com/2020/06/16/florida-healthcare-worker-15-friends-catch-covid-19-at-bar/

A Mayo Clinic worker who stayed indoors for months in Florida to avoid getting the coronavirus says she finally broke quarantine to go to a bar with pals earlier this month — leaving her and 15 of her friends with the contagion.

“The first night we go out — Murphy’s Law, I guess,” Erika Crisp, a 40-year-old health care worker from Jacksonville, told local WJXT TV. “The only thing we have in common is that one night at that one bar,” Crisp said of herself and her sick pals. “I think we were careless, and we went out into a public place when we should not have,” she said of the group’s excursion to the popular Lynch’s Irish Pub in Jacksonville Beach on June 6 — a day after most of Florida entered Phase Two of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ start-up plan, which included the reopening of bars.

After several months of properly social distancing and “doing everything the right way,” Crisp said, the freedom of the moment may have gotten the better of her and her pals. “We were not wearing masks,” she said. “I think we had a whole ‘out of sight, out of mind’ mentality. “The state opens back up and said everybody was fine, so we took advantage of that.”

Crisp wrote on her Facebook page June 12, “My COVID Life: Day 5 since onset of symptoms. Since I first had a slight cough on Monday 6/8/20 that is considered my start of symptoms date. Tuesday evening is when I was hit full force with aches, chills, fever, vertigo on top of fatigue & awful cough that had progressed throughout the day. I also had/have no sense of smell & my sinuses are swollen.” Crisp, who says in her Facebook profile that she works at the Mayo Clinic, told the TV station she has learned her lesson. “We should be wearing masks. We should be social distancing,” she said. “It was too soon to open everything back up.”

The bar temporarily shut down for a deep cleaning after learning of sick patrons, the outlet said. Seven of its workers have tested positive for the contagion, the report said. Over the weekend, Florida reported more than 2,000 new COVID-19 cases a day, as the state continues to reopen its beaches. Florida hit a record-high number of new daily cases Saturday, with 2,581.

Church? More may disagree, but not important. (At least hold services outdoors.)
https://www.oregonlive.com/coronavirus/2020/06/278-new-cases-of-coronavirus-in-oregon-on-tuesday-an-all-time-high.html

The number of new daily cases of the novel coronavirus once again soared to a record level on Tuesday, with 278 new cases announced statewide. The previous record for new cases was set Monday, with 184 cases. Arizona, Texas and Florida also announced their highest totals so far of new COVID-19 cases in a single day -- joining a total of 20 states, including Oregon, that have seen climbing numbers in the past two weeks, according to The New York Times.
[...]
Officials from the Oregon Health Authority said 119 of the 278 new cases Tuesday are linked to an outbreak at the Lighthouse United Pentecostal Church in Union County. On top of that, 22 cases Sunday and 99 cases Monday were associated with the church in rural northeastern Oregon. Video that was published on the church’s Facebook page on May 24 but was later deleted showed hundreds of church attendees standing close together as they sang and swayed to the music.



Person-to-person spread is ultimately the primary COVID vector, so masking, avoiding physical contact (with others, with one's own face), and outdoor activities appear to be the keys to mitigating spread. But if the outdoors are much less risky than once feared, then the indoors continue to be a litany of woe.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Person-to-person spread is ultimately the primary COVID vector, so masking, avoiding physical contact (with others, with one's own face), and outdoor activities appear to be the keys to mitigating spread. But if the outdoors are much less risky than once feared, then the indoors continue to be a litany of woe.

Yep. From my earlier post about church gatherings, in particular:

https://www.vox.com/2020/5/24/21268602/germany-church-coronavirus-lockdown

https://www.businessinsider.com/houses-of-worship-trump-says-essential-coronavirus-hotspots-2020-5

https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-super-spreader-events-reveal-gatherings-to-avoid-2020-5

https://www.boston.com/news/coronavirus/2020/05/13/choir-outbreak-washington-state

https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1263925629482708993

I repeat: Let's see....poorly ventilated---yep, most churches fit that category; sustained contact---yep, most churches fit this category; singing---yep, most definitely this category. Pray from home for now people.....

......and stay the eff out of bars.....

[Tuuvi]

I'm only going to offer a reply to the highlighted portion of THAT nonsense:

You just don't get it, do you? You have absolutely no clue as to why the protests are happening. And your very terminology of 'riots' tells me which side of the barricades you are.....:thwack:

I don't agree with Greyblades' viewpoint, but he is right that the Democrats share some blame for the riots, because if the Democrats would've listened to BLM and done something to reign in the police sooner George Floyd's murder could have been prevented and the riots wouldn't have happened. The Democrats in Democrat controlled cities have failed to address racist policing and police brutality.

[ReluctantSamurai]

The Democrats in Democrat controlled cities have failed to address racist policing and police brutality.

It goes well beyond politics. Republicans and Democrats alike have failed.....for decades and longer. It's a systemic failing of the American people. We use the cry of freedom as our calling card, yet we continually brutalize anyone who stands in the way of our perceived progress. Just ask the American Indian about our governmental policies. We've never honored a single treaty with Native Americans, and US colleges even today continue to receive huge endowment bonuses from land that we stole from them (see my earlier post on that topic).

Americans, as a group, are spoiled by the riches we've raped from our lands, and we've continually exploited those perceived as 'not American'----blacks, Native Americans, Latinos, etc. Even our own women do not escape exploitation.

It's not something that our political system, as it exists today, is capable of solving, IMHO. Certainly not solvable during one term of a presidency. It will only begin to be solved when the American people decide to alter their way of thinking, and the way that they live. Unfortunately, I don't have much faith in that happening:shame:

[Montmorency]

Good essay by Ezra Klein.
https://www.vox.com/2020/6/17/21279950/nonviolence-king-gandhi-protesters-rioters-george-floyd

Officers of the state conduct a public lynching. Cities erupt in protest, then in riots. And then the state demands of its critics what it refuses to ask of itself — nonviolence. This serves a dual purpose: It sets a bar for legitimate protest that few human beings can clear. And it discredits the revolutionary teachings of nonviolence by coating them in hypocrisy and cynicism.

In Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates recalls that the school year “could not pass without a series of films dedicated to the glories of being beaten on camera.” But the stories rang hollow, because the teachings were hollow. “How could the schools valorize men and women whose values society actively scorned?” he asks.

Lodged within that question is the seed of a better world. What if our society did not scorn those values? What if nonviolence wasn’t an inhuman standard demanded of the powerless, but an ethic upon which we reimagined the state?

Nonviolence is a strange word: It describes itself as the absence of its opposite. It thus presents as a void where violence should be, a narcotized forgiveness that is fine for saints to practice but irresponsible for policymakers to attempt. It is too easy to imagine disorder, crime, and anarchy stepping into that void. That is what we are taught to imagine.

“Nonviolence is very often associated with passivity and failing to respond in an effective way to aggression or violence,” says Judith Butler, the Berkeley social theorist and author of The Force of Nonviolence. “It’s understood in the popular imagination to be a place of internal equanimity or harmony.”

But that is not what nonviolence is, nor what its theorists and practitioners teach. Gandhi was startlingly clear on this, in passages that defy our flattened excerpts of his teachings. He loathed passivity and thought violence preferable. “If an individual or group of people are unable or unwilling to follow” nonviolence, he wrote, “retaliation or resistance unto death is the second best, though a long way off from the first. Cowardice is impotence worse than violence.”

In the face of injustice, the absence of violence is not preferable to violence. It is only nonviolence that is preferable to violence. And it is only preferable because it is likelier to work. But like anything worth doing, it is hard — arguably much harder than violence.

“For King, the fundamental question of politics is how you go on in community with each other,” says Harvard’s Terry. “Destroying your enemy makes it impossible to go on in community together. But so does fear. You need forms of politics that allow you to avoid the emotions that make it impossible to go on together.”

The state puts tremendous resources and effort into developing the technologies of violence and training its agents in their use. It puts tremendous resources — both legal and political — into reducing the risk of violence to its own agents, even as it increases the risk of violence to those they meet. The tragic shooting of Rayshard Brooks is testament to the costs of this strategy: If the agents of the state who’d been called to respond to a man sleeping in a Wendy’s drive-through hadn’t been carrying tasers and guns, Brooks would be alive today.

The question nonviolence asks is what if the state put, at the least, equal energy and effort into developing tools of nonviolence and training agents in their use? What if it was more willing to absorb harm to itself than to inflict harm on others, precisely because that strategy would lead to more security, safety, and harmony for all? And what if it replaced its emphasis on punishment and reprisal with a courageous pursuit of forgiveness and change?

This question does not need to start with the hardest cases — say, when the police are called to intervene in a live shootout. The vast majority of police calls are to nonviolent incidents. What if the agents who responded to those calls were, themselves, trained in the tools of nonviolence: mediators, crisis counselors, accident report writers, or even police without guns, batons, or tear gas? We have successful pilots, like the Cahoots program in Eugene, Oregon, and other cities are beginning to follow suit. San Francisco Mayor London Breed, for instance, has announced a police reform road map in which police will no longer respond to non-criminal complaints.

And even in the cases where violence is ongoing, there may be space for nonviolent approaches. What if cities convened respected elders in the community who were prepared to answers calls for intervention — is it possible that deploying a beloved local priest, or teacher, might calm a violent situation that badges, guns, and shouted demands for compliance would escalate?

King understood this as both a form of violence unto itself and a spur to violence for those who are crushed beneath it. And he was right. We know, for instance, that Medicaid expansion leads to significant reductions in crime. We know that SNAP benefits reduce crime. We know that education reduces crime. There is evidence that restricting welfare benefits increased crime. A more compassionate state will create a less violent society. There is a reason King saw the struggle for racial equity as intimately intertwined with the struggle for economic equity. A state that sought to help its citizens flourish, to forgive and uplift them when they faltered, would build structures of economic support that were kindest to those who needed the most help, rather than treating them with suspicion, anger, and contempt, and looking for reasons to abandon them to hopelessness.

I will not pretend, in this piece, to be able to fully imagine the workings of a state that truly seeks to follow the ethos of nonviolence wherever it can. A state that practices forgiveness, that seeks change, that pursues the harmony of community rather than the false peace of incarceration. It is easy, of course, to imagine the difficulties and dangers of that path. But let us not sugarcoat the harms of the path we have chosen instead: We are a violent society surrounded by a violent state, a country that locks up more of its own than any country on earth, in which agents of the government slowly choke citizens to death while bystanders beg them to stop, leading to riots that the state then uses as an excuse to deploy yet more violence in the name of order. It is time to ask a different question, find different answers, pursue better goals.




I don't agree with Greyblades' viewpoint, but he is right that the Democrats share some blame for the riots, because if the Democrats would've listened to BLM and done something to reign in the police sooner George Floyd's murder could have been prevented and the riots wouldn't have happened. The Democrats in Democrat controlled cities have failed to address racist policing and police brutality.

Samurai is right, when you say "Democrats" have failed to reign in police you are somewhat misattributing agency. The more precise framing is that urban voters have refused to elect politicians who would confront police, in a context where doing so would tend to be punished by those same voters. If white people and people of color, or the urban electorates more broadly, have overlapping anxieties about law and order that mitigate against electing radicals, you can't really blame elected officials for not being radicals - or at least you shouldn't prioritize that blame.

(You can definitely blame Bill de Blasio though, who was elected almost especially on a police reform plank and has proceeded to act as a doormat for the rest of his mayoralty after the first time the NYPD put up a show of force. )

Meanwhile, Democrats are the only ones in power who will do anything at all to reform police as opposed to let them run wild (https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/05/trumps-george-floyd-obama-protest-police-violence-kneeling.html). the Obama administration enforced over a dozen consent decrees (https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/04/23/policing-the-police) against municipal PDs, a function Trump has effectively abolished.

Our beef is with the American people in the end. One of the most damaging precepts among much of the left is the notion that the electorate is secretly much further left of the politicians it habitually elects. Exceedingly few actually want to участки и тюрьмы сравнять с землёй (level precincts and prisons to the ground), but at the moment there may be scope to persuade swathes of the public across cities and states to support the pacification of the police power in the broad sense. There is some evidence that most communities, including black ones, want more government agents (https://www.vox.com/2020/6/17/21292046/black-people-abolish-defund-dismantle-police-george-floyd-breonna-taylor-black-lives-matter-protest) in their neighborhoods, probably because they implicitly value the legitimacy and problem-solving capacity of the state (if not necessarily as presently configured in their particular experience). The case for changing what we offer them in the first place is perhaps the space for generating consensus.

[edyzmedieval]

I've watched the whole show of force from all sides in the past month with a mixture of hope, cynicism and a good dose of reality that things will budge just a bit and won't move forwards that much.

Some of the results are definitely positive - removing statues of Leopold IInd (why is this still around????) - some results which were very questionable (defacing Churchill...uhh?), some results which were ideas with a certain intent but with a horrendously bad implementation (defunding the police).

Fact of the matter is, protesting is part of a healthy democracy and having them so lit up in the past month shows that people desperately want things to change. For good reason, mind you, but any single deviation from that mark (looting) is going to significantly hurt the desire for change for the general population. Because it often occurs that while Joe who owns a small business and heartily supports BLM is forced to shutdown because his store was defaced and looted, this is only going to bite you back.

Which is a shame because the concern of the protests is very, very valid.

[CrossLOPER]

some results which were very questionable (defacing Churchill...uhh?), some results which were ideas with a certain intent but with a horrendously bad implementation (defunding the police).
Churchill had a fetishistic love of maintaining colonies, which is inherently racist. "Defunding" the police is more of a rallying cry to solve the issue of why a massive chunk of a city's budget goes into creating a poorly trained, heavily armed police force.

[Gilrandir]

Churchill had a fetishistic love of maintaining colonies, which is inherently racist. "Defunding" the police is more of a rallying cry to solve the issue of why a massive chunk of a city's budget goes into creating a poorly trained, heavily armed police force.

AFAIK, all Founding Fathers were slave owners. Let's burn all the money that have their portraits.

[rory_20_uk]

Is there anything that has been created by any culture that would be acceptable to the current culture? I can't think of anything - even things that were viewed as OK a decade or so ago now are viewed as an issue.

I can't think of anything. Is there anything?

~:smoking:

[Gilrandir]

Is there anything that has been created by any culture that would be acceptable to the current culture? I can't think of anything - even things that were viewed as OK a decade or so ago now are viewed as an issue.

I can't think of anything. Is there anything?

~:smoking:

Tolerance and acceptance of homosexuality by Greeks and extensive tattooing of the body by Maoris.

[edyzmedieval]

Tolerance and acceptance of homosexuality by Greeks and extensive tattooing of the body by Maoris.

Roman circuses, Greek theatres, English love of a sport played with a pig's bladder... so, we also got football?


"Defunding" the police is more of a rallying cry to solve the issue of why a massive chunk of a city's budget goes into creating a poorly trained, heavily armed police force.

And herein lies the problem - heavily militarised police have nothing in common with democracy, why do I need my local riot police to wear automatic rifles?

But defunding the police completely, how do you solve it? Who do you replace them with?

[Montmorency]

Recent Wall Street Journal Trump interview. (https://www.wsj.com/articles/transcript-of-president-trumps-interview-with-the-wall-street-journal-11592501000)


Mr. Bender: There may be people who are critical of you no matter what. But why didn’t you pray? Why didn’t you read something from scripture? Why didn’t you bring someone from the black community? Or a parishioner?

Mr. Trump: Well, I was standing outside on a sidewalk. It was very, very noisy, as you can imagine. The protesters, who, the day before tried to burn down the church…You know, everyone was saying, Oh, they were so wonderful. They weren’t wonderful. They tried to burn down the church. And it was, they told me, the same group. A similar group. So you have people screaming all over the place. And I didn’t think it was exactly the right time to pray. I’m on the sidewalk. And the church itself, I didn’t want to go in because they had a lot of insurance reasons. You know, the church was boarded up. The entire church was boarded up, and I knew that. So I went there, stood there, held up the Bible, talked to a few people and then we left. I came back and I got bad publicity.

But I also, if you think about it, I went to West Point over the weekend, made a very good speech, according to everybody. They said the speech was one of the best. The kids thought it was one of the best they’d ever heard. Stood up there for a long time saluting. Were you there?

Mr. Bender: No, but I watched. It looked like a really nice day.

Mr. Trump: Yeah. After the helicopters came over, the hats went up, the general said, Sir, Are you ready? I said, I’m ready. And he led me to a ramp that was long and steep and slippery. And I said, I got a problem because I wear, you know, the leather bottom shoes. I can show them to you if you like. Same pair. And you know what I mea, they’re slippery. I like them better than the rubber because they don’t catch. So they’re better for this. But they’re not good for ramps. I said, General, I got a problem here. That ramp is slippery.…

So I’m going to go real easy. So I did. And then the last 10 feet I ran down. They always stop it just before I ran, they always stop it. So, I spent three hours between speeches and saluting people and they end up, all they talked about is ramp. … If you would have seen this ramp, it was like an ice skating rink. So I’m the only one that can happen. But the church is an interesting thing. I mean, here I spent three hours on stage, the sun pouring in and I saluted 1,106 cadets, and that’s not easy. Even the general said, That’s amazing. Other presidents would never have been able to do it. Because usually they do the first 10. They do 10 honor rolls, and then they go home. I stayed there for hours. And what do I do? I get publicity about walking down a ramp. And does he have Parkinson’s? I don’t think so.

What it is to experience a man as a spiritual phenomenon.



AFAIK, all Founding Fathers were slave owners. Let's burn all the money that have their portraits.

Maybe someday. Though we were set to exchange Andrew Jackson Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill until Trump delayed the implementation indefinitely.


Is there anything that has been created by any culture that would be acceptable to the current culture? I can't think of anything - even things that were viewed as OK a decade or so ago now are viewed as an issue.

I can't think of anything. Is there anything?

~:smoking:

Leaving aside that there are champions of liberty in every era, do you really think that anyone with a demerit is the same as everyone else? These things can and must be decided on a case-by-case basis. The odious come before the merely problematic in the weighing of honor and disgrace.

Now, if you really wanted to get into it, you could instantiate the debate on memorialization, e.g. should we memorialize political figures at all vs. should we memorialize significant figures who have a mixed record.


And herein lies the problem - heavily militarised police have nothing in common with democracy, why do I need my local riot police to wear automatic rifles?

But defunding the police completely, how do you solve it? Who do you replace them with?

There are naturally a few steps down from dissolving all offices of the policing, investigative, and security functions. I'm glad for the abolitionist voices, they help the rest move the ball forward.


More relevant to Trump news, the White House just fired Geoffrey Berman, the US Attorney for the court of the Southern District of New York, also known as the "Sovereign District." SDNY has been the been the federal jurisdiction most heavily involved in investigating Trump and many of his associates, as well as Turkish and Russian chicanery (that Trump promised to end*), securing multiple convictions. This follows the many other firings this year of civil servants who have investigated or testified against Trump.

*Man, Trump sure loves canoodling with dictators, such as in the other recent revelation that in a meeting with Xi Jinping he approved of his War-on-Terror-modeled Uighur black sites, in addition to asking for electoral favors in the form of Chinese state subsidies to American farmers.

[Hooahguy]

More relevant to Trump news, the White House just fired Geoffrey Berman, the US Attorney for the court of the Southern District of New York, also known as the "Sovereign District." SDNY has been the been the federal jurisdiction most heavily involved in investigating Trump and many of his associates, as well as Turkish and Russian chicanery (that Trump promised to end*), securing multiple convictions. This follows the many other firings this year of civil servants who have investigated or testified against Trump.


Definitely an impeachable offense by Barr. It was quite the debacle that Barr put out a notice that Berman was stepping down, which Berman denied stating that only Trump could fire him. Then the WH said that Berman was fired for making a scene, saying that it came from Trump, who promptly said that he wasnt involved. Just another day in the Trump administration. Wondering what the House will do about it. A hearing is being held on Wednesday but I really dont like Nadler at the head of House Judiciary. We need a stronger person leading this, like how Schiff leads House Intel.



Also Nadler is just an unpleasant person to deal with while Schiff is pretty great.

[rory_20_uk]

Tolerance and acceptance of homosexuality by Greeks and extensive tattooing of the body by Maoris.

I don't think there is any link between the Greek / Roman / elsewhere tolerance of homosexuality and that of the modern era.

Tatoos from maoris? Sounds like cultural appropriation...




Leaving aside that there are champions of liberty in every era, do you really think that anyone with a demerit is the same as everyone else? These things can and must be decided on a case-by-case basis. The odious come before the merely problematic in the weighing of honor and disgrace.

Now, if you really wanted to get into it, you could instantiate the debate on memorialization, e.g. should we memorialize political figures at all vs. should we memorialize significant figures who have a mixed record.

I think Jim Jeffries did something on this issue
https://youtu.be/mHXO8KoGiv4

What is a "demerit" changes over time. I imagine most in the West would view Turing as a hero, and not care that he was gay (more likely to be outraged that it was a problem) and only slightly care he was left-leaning. At the time these two were far more important than what he achieved in maths and to the winning of the war. 100 years ago those who were gay were criminals, and probably mentally ill. Now it is accepted by most people. Paedophiles are reviled as evil, criminals and probably mentally ill - even looking at pictures where no abuse is taking place is sufficient to be branded a deviant criminal, although I doubt most wish to have the desires they have.

On memorisation, I think that museums (or of course online) are most appropriate to enable their whole selves to be reflected - to humanise them rather than turn into something close to idolatry and to infantilise the complexity of humans.

~:smoking:

[Gilrandir]

I don't think there is any link between the Greek / Roman / elsewhere tolerance of homosexuality and that of the modern era.

Tatoos from maoris? Sounds like cultural appropriation...


You didn't ask for any links. Your question was



Is there anything that has been created by any culture that would be acceptable to the current culture?


Evidently, a lot of ~:smoking: is bad for memory.

[Hooahguy]

Nadler says (https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/21/politics/wiliam-barr-attorney-general-impeached-nadler-cnntv/index.html) that Barr deserves to be impeached, but that pursuing it would be a "waste of time" because of the Republican-controlled Senate.

He's not wrong in the sense that its not going to go anywhere, but I feel that he and many Dems in the House are focused on the politics than upholding the constitution. And they arent wrong per say, since if you look at the bigger picture we have 120,000+ Covid deaths with no end in sight, an economy in recession if not depression, long lines for unemployment as benefits start to run out, and people in the streets protesting racial justice. Going through another impeachment that will inevitably end in obstruction and failure is just not a priority at all for most people and I think it would become an election liability. Part of me agrees with this point of view but I cant help but feel like they are shirking their constitutional responsibility.

[rory_20_uk]

You didn't ask for any links. Your question was



Evidently, a lot of ~:smoking: is bad for memory.

English is your second language, so it is probably not classy mocking those for misunderstanding.

The "link" is not for URLs, but more to the fact that when homosexuality was legalised, people were not saying "look at the Ancient Greeks - we'd best legalise this too!"

~:smoking:

[Montmorency]

I don't think there is any link between the Greek / Roman / elsewhere tolerance of homosexuality and that of the modern era.

Just to be pedantic, the Greco-Romans denigrated adult homoeroticism.


What is a "demerit" changes over time.

Tough though it may be to hear - it's admittedly fantastic to not have to think about these things, no skin off my back - but measure is unceasing; there is no embalming a zeitgeist. Part of being a mature polity is constantly reassessing historical personages, especially the metaphorically monumental. You can't immanentize an eschaton without an eschaton. If in the course of time we should discover that Harriet Tubman was a serial killer who tortured and cannibalized fugitive slaves along the Underground Railroad, she'll lose some of her stature.


I imagine most in the West would view Turing as a hero, and not care that he was gay (more likely to be outraged that it was a problem) and only slightly care he was left-leaning. At the time these two were far more important than what he achieved in maths and to the winning of the war.

I don't understand your point vis-a-vis Alan Turing. It sounds like you think other people (who are "these two?") are more deserving of statues? For all I know, maybe - but I'm not sure anyone has the position of honoring Alan Turing to the exclusion of others who may warrant public recognition.


Paedophiles are reviled as evil, criminals and probably mentally ill - even looking at pictures where no abuse is taking place is sufficient to be branded a deviant criminal, although I doubt most wish to have the desires they have.

We tend to emphasize the fact of the act over the mens in evaluating people, I believe. We don't excuse someone for killing just because they really really want to, and might even condemn them more for it (certain popular media notwithstanding). Moreover, most people are especially sensitive toward (sex) crimes against children. While an erotic attraction in itself might arguably be morally neutral, and crimes against persons are conceptually and practically distinct from crimes of consumption/possession (of pornographic content), it is AFAIK the case that viewers and collectors of this content are very disproportionately likely to also be abusers and producers, and that the consumption and collection of the content is often implicated in mutual, material support to primary producers and distributors of original content. Furthermore there are implications of the transference of values from consumption generating future or subtle harms by the viewer such that it may in be society's interest to regulate even without components of support to primary producers or concurrent interpersonal crimes. There are edge cases in terms of the application of law, such as the theoretical isolated viewing of a nudie, or the existence of the vast body of auto-erotica by teenagers, but these cases don't make up a large part of the facts behind prosecutorial decisions I believe. The cases that do tend to receive attention therefore are the ones that more clearly have a corrupted moral standing and nexus to harm.

[Montmorency]

Oh. My. God.

!!!!!!!!

(I actually thought this was satire voiced by an impersonator at first, maybe JL Cauvin)

Add this clip [pretty good Biden campaign ad] to the pile of things that should instantly end a normal career.

https://twitter.com/Jerri_Lynn25/status/1274584176910405635



Nadler says (https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/21/politics/wiliam-barr-attorney-general-impeached-nadler-cnntv/index.html) that Barr deserves to be impeached, but that pursuing it would be a "waste of time" because of the Republican-controlled Senate.

He's not wrong in the sense that its not going to go anywhere, but I feel that he and many Dems in the House are focused on the politics than upholding the constitution. And they arent wrong per say, since if you look at the bigger picture we have 120,000+ Covid deaths with no end in sight, an economy in recession if not depression, long lines for unemployment as benefits start to run out, and people in the streets protesting racial justice. Going through another impeachment that will inevitably end in obstruction and failure is just not a priority at all for most people and I think it would become an election liability. Part of me agrees with this point of view but I cant help but feel like they are shirking their constitutional responsibility.

Come to think of it, it's pretty easy to circle back impeachment into basically all our ongoing news events. What, is the House very busy these days, waiting for the Republicans to maybe regain interest in legislating over contemporary national challenges? They should be making war and making clear that it's war, not holding meta-procedural debates at a murmur. Impeach.

[Hooahguy]

Russia Secretly Offered Afghan Militants Bounties to Kill U.S. Troops, Intelligence Says (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/us/politics/russia-afghanistan-bounties.html)



American intelligence officials have concluded that a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces in Afghanistan — including targeting American troops — amid the peace talks to end the long-running war there, according to officials briefed on the matter.

The United States concluded months ago that the Russian unit, which has been linked to assassination attempts and other covert operations in Europe intended to destabilize the West or take revenge on turncoats, had covertly offered rewards for successful attacks last year.
...

The intelligence finding was briefed to President Trump, and the White House’s National Security Council discussed the problem at an interagency meeting in late March, the officials said. Officials developed a menu of potential options — starting with making a diplomatic complaint to Moscow and a demand that it stop, along with an escalating series of sanctions and other possible responses, but the White House has yet to authorize any step, the officials said.

The ads that come out of this are going to be incredible. I guess the Dems are the party that supports the military now? :shrug:

[a completely inoffensive name]

I think people read too much into Roberts as some master navigator with his finger always on the pulse of just how far he can go in making conservative decisions.
The dude has been working in the legal system his whole life and from what I can tell he is just a conservative dude who believes heavily in the legal process and the prestige of the SCOTUS.

If any of these conservative judges were full on shills, they wouldn't have a track record of shifting left: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/supreme-court-justices-get-more-liberal-as-they-get-older/

Roberts is not a political actor, and attempts to divine the output on any of these cases is always buried once the verdict is given and the ex post facto arguments come out. Of course he wouldn't push the abortion law at this moment...
No matter how well the Democrats do, they won't have the political strength in the Senate to remove him or anyone else from the court. At most Biden will replace Ginsburg and maybe Breyer, the conservatives will stay on until they die or another GOP president is elected, so if Roberts really wanted to kill Roe v Wade there was nothing stopping him from doing so right here and right now.

Like the rest of the conservative movement, Roberts is getting his reputation tarnished with the guilt by association that follows from him simply following his values during a Trump presidency. He is aware of the road he has to navigate in order to maintain the reputation of the institution he has spent is whole life in, but like all people he is flawed with his own biases and is not some stoic sage that can totally separate himself from his outputs.

@strike would have better understanding of whether his written arguments are in good faith or not.

[a completely inoffensive name]

There is a certain etiquette, if that's the right word, that Roberts values above ones like Thomas or Alito.

Maybe we could put it as Roberts being a partisan, an ideological, and a strategic actor, with the lifetime sinecure of the Supreme Court affording him the opportunity to make independent decisions on the basis of his vision alone of what is right, what is best for country or party, and what befits his office.

I guess my contention is that we should strike out 'ideological' from the list. He certainly has his partisan bend but the Obamacare case and his constant "do better" rulings to the Trump admin demonstrate he is respectful of the process above whatever slant he possesses. My point is that that's a much more respectable account to bestow than what the left is currently trying to portray.

The main contention for his decisions being activists and ideological is the disregard for 'stare decisis' to achieve GOP/business favored outcomes. But I have to say Monty, the left really needs to move beyond venerating the practice of 'stare decisis' as applied to SCOTUS in the same way we have been moving beyond the Fillibuster in the Senate. Both are practices and not rules codified into our system. As far as I am concerned, there are many just as bad decisions within the US legal code that stare decisis protects than otherwise. The mid 20th courts disregarded precedent in rulings we now consider landmark cases for the better.

The authority of SCOTUS decisions applied to lower court rulings should remain in place, but as its place at the top of the chain, SCOTUS shouldn't really be held to its own problematic history of rulings. If we accept that limitation on ourselves we give the reactionaries another avenue to abuse when they are in power and then shackle the left when they are not. SCOTUS is now politicized to a degree we have to toss it out and either accept a new political norm of more rapidly changing instructions from the top or as I have suggested in the past we have to further remove political actors from deciding who gets to sit among the nine.

[Montmorency]

Perhaps it is because these others break the law more often?

On the topic of racist government violence, you should be leerier about suggesting 'The police are brutal toward everyone, but maybe they should be more so toward blacks because they're uniquely dangerous.'


And in my opinion, the police reaction is a natural thing to happen in a country where firearms could be borne by almost everyone.

And yet, most of the civilian firearms are held by white conservatives, who tend to receive the most deferential or light touch. Which is not just a problem of fairness but one of institutional integrity as police departments are notoriously overrun by Neo-Nazis and the like.


I could offer half a dozen factors off the top of my head (and after putting on my thinking hat as many more) that could be seen by conspiracy-minded people and blown out of proprotion by the media (mind you, I don't know much either of the victim or of perpetrators, but all kinds of factors may be found and given a proper slant):

1) The victim was a Russian-speaker and the cops were Ukrainian-speakers.
The media: "Ukrainian nazis of whom current law enforcement bodies consist rape a Russian-speaking woman. Let's disband the police."
2) The victim was a Ukrainian-speaker and the cops were Russian-speakers.
The media: "Russian-speaking cops who are FSB agents under cover rape a Ukrainian patriot. Let's disband the police."


If the victim was of a different ethnicity from the offender, the possibility of a hate crime should be evaluated. Especially in the context of ongoing violent national conflict.


You didn't read carefully what I wrote. I repeat: the perpetrators should be punished. BUT: I see no reason in making a saint or martyr out of an average рецидивист.

Your assumption is not the case.

As for homework, look up "structural racism" and "overpolicing."


I'm put in mind of this old ditty (http://www.chukfamily.ru/kornei/tales/barmalej).


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsXbMsrwjEQ


Маленькие дети!
Ни за что на свете
Не ходите в Африку,
В Африку гулять!
В Африке акулы,
В Африке гориллы,
В Африке большие
Злые крокодилы
Будут вас кусать,
Бить и обижать,-
Не ходите, дети,
В Африку гулять.

В Африке разбойник,
В Африке злодей,
В Африке ужасный
Бар-ма-лей!

Он бегает по Африке
И кушает детей —
Гадкий, нехороший, жадный Бармалей!

И папочка, и мамочка
Под деревом сидят,
И папочка, и мамочка
Детям говорят:

«Африка ужасна,
Да-да-да!
Африка опасна,
Да-да-да!
Не ходите в Африку,
Дети, никогда!»



I guess my contention is that we should strike out 'ideological' from the list. He certainly has his partisan bend but the Obamacare case and his constant "do better" rulings to the Trump admin demonstrate he is respectful of the process above whatever slant he possesses. My point is that that's a much more respectable account to bestow than what the left is currently trying to portray.

I don't understand. These episodes indicate the opposite. And why do you strike out "ideological"? That current should be evident whether or not you approve of it.


The main contention for his decisions being activists and ideological is the disregard for 'stare decisis' to achieve GOP/business favored outcomes. But I have to say Monty, the left really needs to move beyond venerating the practice of 'stare decisis' as applied to SCOTUS in the same way we have been moving beyond the Fillibuster in the Senate. Both are practices and not rules codified into our system. As far as I am concerned, there are many just as bad decisions within the US legal code that stare decisis protects than otherwise. The mid 20th courts disregarded precedent in rulings we now consider landmark cases for the better.

That's like a mirror image of the anti-Democrat reasoning that if Democrats complain about Trump undermining American foreign policy, they're a bunch of reckless imperialists. What's going on here, over and over, is that Roberts makes pretensions to calling "balls and strikes", respecting tradition, precedent, and constitutional and statutory text, but will happily employ flimsy pretexts and ignore his stated principles to rule against laws or doctrines that protect labor/civil rights or hinder Republican power.

Whether or not liberal judges should act this way - and I don't really care right now to examine the balance of judging and revising precedent on the merits of legality or justice versus promoting stability in governance - is a separate question from how to evaluate Roberts and his court.

[Hooahguy]

So the latest Gallup poll (https://news.gallup.com/poll/313454/trump-job-approval-rating-steady-lower-level.aspx) has Trump's approval rating at just 38%. He is at at 91% with Republicans, 33% with independents (which is down 10 points from earlier this year), and just 2% with Democrats. Yikes. According to the poll its the widest partisan gap ever so thats something. But man, that 91% approval rating with Republicans. They are really all-in aren't they?

[Montmorency]

He had no restrictions or repercussions from ruling in a more overtly conservative opinion but he chose not to rule that way. An ideological man places his ideas above the process at hand

Yes, that's the point! The thread through his rulings that have disappointed Republicans is 'give me a better pretext next time.' The exact point I made is that there are some limits to Roberts' process - it's up to us to reason through them.


His ruling indicate a partisanship toward a side, but I just don't think you can simultaneously be 'ideological' and 'strategic' at the same time. To be pragmatic in making slight changes over time is by definition a reformist, incrementalist attitude not a radical ideological one.

I don't understand the dichotomy you're proposing, let alone what "reformer vs. radical" has to do with it.


Putting it this way, an overtly ideological conservative wouldn't compromise on such an issue as abortion, to an ideological conservative abortion is murder and there is no justification for keeping the practice legal in any way shape or form, precedence be damned. I think you are trying to have it all, he is somehow a mastermind of both pragmatism and activism, of process and ideology.

No? That he tries to juggle multiple priorities according to his own worldview. That he's not as rigidly absolutist on some things as Alito or Thomas does not make him non-ideological.


Just because he is a hypocrite doesn't mean we should default to admonishing him for rejecting stare decisis, or smear with the label 'activist'. We should be focusing on the importance of having more liberal justices on the court to overturn bad conservative rulings, so to argue in this manner only hurts the left's case in the long run. That's the extent of my point. Label Roberts as a liar for saying one thing and doing another, but lets not act as if stare decisis in itself is somehow good and not to be messed with.

OK, but that's kind of orthogonal to the issues I was raising, in defining Roberts as a political operator (c.f. Barr).


No. How you view the role of the court and what its limitations ought to be, would definitely color your evaluation. I can't admonish Roberts for doing what I would like to see done to policies I disagree with. If I was in Robert's shoes, I would write any argument to remove Qualified Immunity in its current form. I can criticism him on the decisions themselves, but not the method in which the ruling was given.

This is new to me, since I thought you said you valued sound jurisprudence for its own sake. Many on the far left would disagree with me - I showed you some such - and argue that judges need to be totally results-oriented and that we just need to, to the extent we have a system with judges, pick judges compatible with radical ideals, but personally I certainly would criticize the Roberts court on independent grounds for producing decisions that are dismissive or contortive of the letter of the law. Rectitude matters to me; interpretation needs to fall within some outer bounds of legal text.




So your next hometask: re-read my post on it and try to explain why having disproportionate number of blacks in the police (as the statistics have it) results in the boost in the excessive use of force (as you claim).

Aside from blacks not being disproportionately represented in police, how can you justify your assumption that POC police won't participate in police maltreatment of POC communities?


Aren't preventive measures a kind of self-defense in advance?

As it happens, no, basically never under any system of laws or rules that I am aware of. Ukrainians might recognize it as the logic of a Stalin or a Putin however.


Perhaps it is because there are more whites in the USA? And I'm more than sure that most guns owned by non-whites (who are poorer) are non-registered and illegal.

Conservative white men own more guns than there are conservative white men. Plenty of "urban" black people are legal gun owners, for better or worse. There are very few states in the country with any requirement to register guns for normal possession; there are more states that ban registries than maintain them in any form.


So a disproportionate percentage of blacks in the police work back to back with Neo-Nazis and never mind it, moreover they learn from them to mistreart their race?

Exactly so. There are many benefits to having non-white (or women) patrol cops, but they still act within the same corrupted and corruptible institutions.


My post was to show that sometimes a crime is just a crime so there is no need to try to see some ideology behind it. Or, alternately, if you wish to see ideology behind every crime it won't be hard to find it.

When actions are consistently racially-biased in practice, it can be exceedingly difficult to distinguish whether any single incident arises from this bias or from another cause. It becomes a pure distraction to try to split these hairs.


Painting the victim as an angel (by the way, he was arrested on suspicion of forgery - was it just an unjustified suspicion or did he have fake money on him?) and burying him in a golden casket is quite enough to engender my assumption. If you see it differently, it is your assumption. I believe mine isn't worse than yours.

He was arrested on suspicion of intentionally submitting a counterfeit $20 bill for payment, which accusation was without any evidence known to the police at the time and in abstract sounds beneath the notice of authorities, let alone the intervention of multiple police units. The business owner went on record that he knew and liked Floyd well and that the call to police was made by a young and inexperienced employee, a call the employer would have countermanded had he been present.

Who says he was an angel? The George Floyd incident was incorporated into the Movement for Black Lives - not the Movement for the Sanctified George Floyd - because it was another representation of the societal adverse treatment for which so many demand redress.

I remember you defending the character of Stepan Bandera as Ukrainian national hero and sometime-anti Nazi - but he was indisputably a much worse person than George Floyd could ever have been. If one can very charitably extend you the opportunity to sublimate a flawed person into the ideal of national liberation or identity, then you should be able to do the same with a mere reference point in a valid list of grievances.


So you think this children's poem is racist? And Africa wasn't used for the sake of rhythm? So if the poetic meter required "America" or "Asia" Chukovsky would still use "Africa" because he was a racist?

Give me a break, this is a poem written a hundred years ago about how children should not go to Africa because it is awful, dangerous, and full of scary animals and cannibals. The idea that someone could have written this poem, which contains so many familiar contemporary tropes about Africa and its inhabitants, about America or any place other than the "Dark Continent" is :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4:

This cultural artifact, perpetuated across generations, is exactly the kind of obscurantist prejudice absorbed by the general population of Europe at the time and even to this day. It has no other context or genealogy and your resistance to acknowledging racism puzzles me.


But his violent and unjustified death doesn't atone for his crimes committed against other people who did nothing to deserve it either. But his violent and unjustified death doesn't atone for his crimes committed against other people who did nothing to deserve it either. Consequently, no eulogies for him, no stories of how good and merciful and nice he had been, no golden caskets and knee-bending. No matter what race he was.

Whether he atoned for his crimes (by most accounts he was an upstanding citizen since he got out of prison) is both irrelevant and not something you seem placed to determine. The reality of it is that which cases get the most attention is a matter of timing and media coverage, not according to some private hierarchy of virtue and innocence. Your fixation on Floyd's character misses the point.

[Hooahguy]

Should someone tell Junior that there's a typo (https://i.imgur.com/7AgQmiu.jpg) in the title of his new book? Guess they call him the dumbest son for a reason. :laugh4:

But on a more serious note, Trump's ICE is starting a pilot program (https://www.npr.org/local/309/2020/07/10/889726473/i-c-e-citizens-trainings-may-be-a-vigilante-academy-chicago-alderman-warns) to train civilians to arrest undocumented immigrants. Perhaps their uniforms should be brown?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Should someone tell Junior that there's a typo (https://i.imgur.com/7AgQmiu.jpg) in the title of his new book? Guess they call him the dumbest son for a reason. :laugh4:

But on a more serious note, Trump's ICE is starting a pilot program (https://www.npr.org/local/309/2020/07/10/889726473/i-c-e-citizens-trainings-may-be-a-vigilante-academy-chicago-alderman-warns) to train civilians to arrest undocumented immigrants. Perhaps their uniforms should be brown?

I thought the tradition was to use whatever uniforms were left over, in bulk, from the last colonial deployment that was cancelled...

[Montmorency]

November 2020.

https://i.imgur.com/mS1Ub37.jpg

[Strike For The South]

I've said this to Monty thousands of times, John Roberts cares! The Trump presidency has made him dig in on the independence of the court. Now Monty may say this is to preserve its power and prestige. I, more hopeful, say its a man robustly defending the common law.

[Montmorency]

I've said this to Monty thousands of times, John Roberts cares! The Trump presidency has made him dig in on the independence of the court. Now Monty may say this is to preserve its power and prestige. I, more hopeful, say its a man robustly defending the common law.

If he's defending something so broad as "the common law" wouldn't he do less that preserves the prerogatives of the SCOTUS specifically and more to resist Republican efforts to undermine rule of law (that he himself has enabled)? Roberts cares about the movement. The thing is there's explanatory overlap in both our accounts, but I think the one I subscribe to explains his career more broadly.

[Hooahguy]

The hurricane currently hitting Texas has apparently blown over a section of Trump's wall. (https://twitter.com/Joyce_Karam/status/1287512478797238272)

[ReluctantSamurai]

My favorite reply:


Anyone know how many Americans escaped because of this?

Wonder if mainstream media picks up on the irony of this?

[Hooahguy]

Trump to ban TikTok soon (https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/31/trump-says-he-will-ban-tiktok-through-executive-action-as-soon-as-saturday.html)

Im pretty sure that this is retribution for what the TikTok teens did to his Tulsa rally. Its extra silly because I guarantee that a new app shows up soon to fill the space and everyone is going to just migrate there.

[CrossLOPER]

Trump to ban TikTok soon (https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/31/trump-says-he-will-ban-tiktok-through-executive-action-as-soon-as-saturday.html)

Im pretty sure that this is retribution for what the TikTok teens did to his Tulsa rally. Its extra silly because I guarantee that a new app shows up soon to fill the space and everyone is going to just migrate there.
boomer not know how technolegery werk

[Idaho]

This is relevant to the covid thread, the economy thread and the BLM thread... So I'll just put it here:

https://twitter.com/thejuicemedia/status/1288989754210557960

[Montmorency]

It might be more digestible in the form of the many viral Twitter clippings, but here's the whole load.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaaTZkqsaxY

[ReluctantSamurai]

I do not understand why the media keeps asking the same questions over and over of this man. You know you're going to get continued denial of reality, half truths, and outright lies. It's disgusting.

Shame:shame:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWtS7jyhl-0

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I do not understand why the media keeps asking the same questions over and over of this man. You know you're going to get continued denial of reality, half truths, and outright lies. It's disgusting.

Shame:shame:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWtS7jyhl-0

And pointless. This public already "knows" him. His numbers over the last couple of days are UP slightly -- the public does not expect better of him.

[Hooahguy]

The revelations in Bob Woodward's new book (https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/09/politics/bob-woodward-rage-book-trump-coronavirus/index.html) would sink any other president, but for Trump its just another day:


President Donald Trump admitted he knew weeks before the first confirmed US coronavirus death that the virus was dangerous, airborne, highly contagious and "more deadly than even your strenuous flus," and that he repeatedly played it down publicly, according to legendary journalist Bob Woodward in his new book "Rage."

"This is deadly stuff," Trump told Woodward on February 7.

Some (https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/lawyers-watergate-reporter-gets-trump-on-tape-admitting-clearly-impeachable-offense/) are even saying its an impeachable offense:


Los Angeles Times legal affairs columnist and UCLA law professor Harry Litman, a former U.S. attorney and deputy assistant attorney general, said Trump’s conduct was “clearly an impeachable offense.”

“Remember the high crimes and misdemeanors debate?” Litman wrote. “This is clearly an impeachable offense, albeit not a crime. The POTUS lied to the American people for political purposes & easily tens of thousands deaths ensued. How more stark and harmful a dereliction of public duty can you get?”

Litman later added that the president’s conduct amounted to a “clearly impeachable offense/violation of public trust with horrendous deadly consequences.”


Though honestly, how dumb does one have to be to say any of this stuff to Bob Woodward of all people?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Though honestly, how dumb does one have to be to say any of this stuff to Bob Woodward of all people?
"Dumb" did not prompt his comment. Pride prompted it.

[Hooahguy]

Well, it looks like the name for uniformed members of the Space Force will be guardians (https://twitter.com/MarcusReports/status/1340053936569540610?s=20).

Someone has been watching too many superhero movies, this just sounds dumb.

[Hooahguy]

So now we know why Barr likely chose today to resign: Trump signs a slew of pardons (https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/23/politics/trump-pardons-stone-manafort-kushner/index.html) for his cronies. He also signed a bunch yesterday.

Among those who got pardons:
Roger Stone
Paul Manafort
Charles Kushner (Jared's dad)
George Papadopoulos
Former Congressman Chris Collins
Former Congressman Duncan Hunter
And four Blackwater mercs who massacred 17 Iraqis in 2007.

Shameful, just shameful.

[rory_20_uk]

Oh. Trump did something immoral? Fancy that...

One thing I read that was interesting is that to take a pardon is in essence to admit to wrongdoing and you also can't take the 5th since you can't self incriminate any more. But could you just say "I can't remember" instead.

~:smoking:

[Montmorency]

Cool story (https://www.axios.com/trump-oval-office-meeting-sidney-powell-a8e1e466-2e42-42d0-9cf1-26eb267f8723.html). Read all of it, very cinematic.


It was now four against four.

Flynn went berserk. The former three-star general, whom Trump had fired as his first national security adviser after he was caught lying to the FBI (and later pardoned), stood up and turned from the Resolute Desk to face Herschmann.

"You're quitting! You're a quitter! You're not fighting!” he exploded at the senior adviser. Flynn then turned to the president, and implored: "Sir, we need fighters."

Herschmann ignored Flynn at first and continued to probe Powell's pitch with questions about the underlying evidence. "All you do is promise, but never deliver," he said to her sharply.

Flynn was ranting, seemingly infuriated about anyone challenging Powell, who had represented him in his recent legal battles.

Finally Herschmann had enough. "Why the fuck do you keep standing up and screaming at me?" he shot back at Flynn. "If you want to come over here, come over here. If not, sit your ass down." Flynn sat back down.

The meeting had come entirely off the rails.

Byrne, backing up Flynn, told Trump the White House lawyers didn't care about him and were being obstructive. "Sir, we're both entrepreneurs, and we both built businesses," the former Overstock CEO told Trump. "We know that there are times you have to be creative and take different steps."

This was a remarkable level of personal familiarity, given it was the first time Byrne had met the president. All the stanchions and buffers between the White House and the outside world had crumbled.

Byrne kept attacking the senior White House staff in front of Trump. "They've already abandoned you," he told the president aggressively. Periodically during the meeting Flynn or Byrne challenged Trump's top staff — portraying them as disloyal: So do you think the president won or not?

At one point, with Flynn shouting, Byrne raised his hand to talk. He stood up and turned around to face Herschmann. "You're a quitter," he said. "You've been interfering with everything. You've been cutting us off."

"Do you even know who the fuck I am, you idiot?" Herschmann snapped back.

"Yeah, you're Patrick Cipollone," Byrne said.

"Wrong! Wrong, you idiot!"


Four conspiracy theorists marched into the Oval Office. It was early evening on Friday, Dec. 18 — more than a month after the election had been declared for Joe Biden, and four days after the Electoral College met in every state to make it official.

"How the hell did Sidney get in the building?" White House senior adviser Eric Herschmann grumbled from the outer Oval Office as Sidney Powell and her entourage strutted by to visit the president.

President Trump's private schedule hadn't included appointments for Powell or the others: former national security adviser Michael Flynn, former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne, and a little-known former Trump administration official, Emily Newman. But they'd come to convince Trump that he had the power to take extreme measures to keep fighting.

As Powell and the others entered the Oval Office that evening, Herschmann — a wealthy business executive and former partner at Kasowitz Benson & Torres who'd been pulled out of quasi-retirement to advise Trump — quietly slipped in behind them.

The hours to come would pit the insurgent conspiracists against a handful of White House lawyers and advisers determined to keep the president from giving in to temptation to invoke emergency national security powers, seize voting machines and disable the primary levers of American democracy.

Herschmann took a seat in a yellow chair close to the doorway. Powell, Flynn, Newman and Byrne sat in a row before the Resolute Desk, facing the president.

For weeks now, ever since Rudy Giuliani had commandeered Trump’s floundering campaign to overturn the election, outsiders had been coming out of the woodwork to feed the president wild allegations of voter fraud based on highly dubious sources.

Trump was no longer focused on any semblance of a governing agenda, instead spending his days taking phone calls and meetings from anyone armed with conspiracy theories about the election. For the White House staff, it was an unending sea of garbage churned up by the bottom feeders.

Powell began this meeting with the same baseless claim that now has her facing a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit: She told the president that Dominion Voting Systems had rigged their machines to flip votes from Trump to Biden and that it was part of an international communist plot to steal the election for the Democrats.

[Note: In response to a request for comment, Powell said in an emailed statement to Axios: “I will not publicly discuss my private meetings with the President of the United States. I believe those meetings are privileged and confidential under executive privilege and under rules of the legal profession. I would caution the readers to view mainstream media reports of any such conversations with a high degree of discernment and a healthy dose of skepticism.”]

Powell waved an affidavit from the pile of papers in her lap, claiming it contained testimony from someone involved in the development of rigged voting machines in Venezuela.

She proposed declaring a national security emergency, granting her and her cabal top-secret security clearances and using the U.S. government to seize Dominion’s voting machines.

"Hold on a minute, Sidney," Herschmann interrupted from the back of the Oval. "You're part of the Rudy team, right? Is your theory that the Democrats got together and changed the rules, or is it that there was foreign interference in our election?"

Giuliani's legal efforts, while replete with debunked claims about voter fraud, had largely focused on allegations of misconduct by corrupt Democrats and election officials.

"It's foreign interference," Powell insisted, then added: "Rudy hasn't understood what this case is about until just now."

In disbelief, Herschmann yelled out to an aide in the outer Oval Office. "Get Pat down here immediately!" Several minutes later, White House counsel Pat Cipollone walked into the Oval. He looked at Byrne and said, "Who are you?"

The meeting was already getting heated.

White House staff had spent weeks poring over the evidence underlying hundreds of affidavits and other claims of fraud promoted by Trump allies like Powell. The team had done the due diligence and knew the specific details of what was being alleged better than anybody. Time and time again, they found, Powell's allegations fell apart under basic scrutiny.

But Powell, fixing on Trump, continued to elaborate on a fantastical election narrative involving Venezuela, Iran, China and others. She named a county in Georgia where she claimed she could prove that Dominion had illegally flipped the vote.

Herschmann interrupted to point out that Trump had actually won the Georgia county in question: "So your theory is that Dominion intentionally flipped the votes so we could win that county?"

As for Powell's larger claims, he demanded she provide evidence for what — if true — would amount to the greatest national security breach in American history. They needed to dial in one of the campaign's lawyers, Herschmann said, and Trump campaign lawyer Matt Morgan was patched in via speakerphone.

By now, people were yelling and cursing.

The room was starting to fill up. Trump's personal assistant summoned White House staff secretary Derek Lyons to join the meeting and asked him to bring a copy of a 2018 executive order that the Powell group kept citing as the key to victory. Lyons agreed with Cipollone and the other officials that Powell's theories were nonsensical.

It was now four against four.

Flynn went berserk. The former three-star general, whom Trump had fired as his first national security adviser after he was caught lying to the FBI (and later pardoned), stood up and turned from the Resolute Desk to face Herschmann.

"You're quitting! You're a quitter! You're not fighting!” he exploded at the senior adviser. Flynn then turned to the president, and implored: "Sir, we need fighters."

Herschmann ignored Flynn at first and continued to probe Powell's pitch with questions about the underlying evidence. "All you do is promise, but never deliver," he said to her sharply.

Flynn was ranting, seemingly infuriated about anyone challenging Powell, who had represented him in his recent legal battles.

Finally Herschmann had enough. "Why the fuck do you keep standing up and screaming at me?" he shot back at Flynn. "If you want to come over here, come over here. If not, sit your ass down." Flynn sat back down.

The meeting had come entirely off the rails.

Byrne, backing up Flynn, told Trump the White House lawyers didn't care about him and were being obstructive. "Sir, we're both entrepreneurs, and we both built businesses," the former Overstock CEO told Trump. "We know that there are times you have to be creative and take different steps."

This was a remarkable level of personal familiarity, given it was the first time Byrne had met the president. All the stanchions and buffers between the White House and the outside world had crumbled.

Byrne kept attacking the senior White House staff in front of Trump. "They've already abandoned you," he told the president aggressively. Periodically during the meeting Flynn or Byrne challenged Trump's top staff — portraying them as disloyal: So do you think the president won or not?

At one point, with Flynn shouting, Byrne raised his hand to talk. He stood up and turned around to face Herschmann. "You're a quitter," he said. "You've been interfering with everything. You've been cutting us off."

"Do you even know who the fuck I am, you idiot?" Herschmann snapped back.

"Yeah, you're Patrick Cipollone," Byrne said.

"Wrong! Wrong, you idiot!"

The staff were now on their feet, standing behind one of the couches and facing the Powell crew at the Resolute Desk. Cipollone stood to Herschmann's left. Lyons, on his last day on the job, stood to Herschmann's right.

Trump was behind the desk, watching the show. He briefly left the meeting to wander into his private dining room.

The usually mild-mannered Lyons blasted the Powell set: "You've brought 60 cases. And you've lost every case you’ve had!"

Trump came back into the Oval Office from the dining room to rejoin the meeting. Lyons pointed out to Powell that their incompetence went beyond their lawsuits being thrown out for standing. "You somehow managed to misspell the word 'District' three different ways in your suits," he said pointedly.

In a Georgia case, the Powell team had misidentified the court on the first page of their filing as "THE UNITED STATES DISTRICCT COURT, NORTHERN DISTRCOICT OF GEORGIA." And they had identified the Michigan court as the "EASTERN DISTRCT OF MICHIGAN."

These were sloppy spelling errors. But given that these lawsuits aimed to overturn a presidential election, the court nomenclature should have been pristine.

Powell, Flynn and Byrne began attacking Lyons as they renewed their argument to Trump: There they go again, they want to focus on the insignificant details instead of fighting for you.

Trump replied, "No, no, he's right. That was very embarrassing. That shouldn't have happened."

The Powell team needed to regroup. They shifted to a new grievance to turn the conversation away from their embarrassing errors. Powell insisted that they hadn't "lost" the 60-odd court cases, since the cases were mostly dismissed for lack of standing and they had never had the chance to present their evidence.

Every judge is corrupt, she claimed. We can't rely on them. The White House lawyers couldn't believe what they were hearing. "That's your argument?" a stunned Herschmann said. "Even the judges we appointed? Are you out of your fucking mind?"

Powell had more to say. She and Flynn began trashing the FBI as well, and the Justice Department under Attorney General Bill Barr, telling Trump that neither could be trusted. Both institutions, they said, were corrupt, and Trump needed to fire the leadership and get in new people he could trust.

Cipollone, standing his ground amidst this mishmash of conspiracies, said they were totally wrong. He aggressively defended the DOJ and the FBI, saying they had looked into every major claim of fraud that had been reported.

Flynn and Powell had long nursed their antipathy to the FBI and Justice. Flynn had pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to the FBI during the Russia investigation but withdrew the plea after hiring Powell as his lawyer in June 2019.

The two alleged the FBI had entrapped Flynn and failed to disclose exculpatory evidence, known as Brady material, as required by law. They had found an ally in Barr, a fierce critic of the Russia investigation who finally directed the DOJ to drop Flynn's case.

Herschmann, known inside the White House as a defender of Barr and the DOJ, went off on Flynn again: "Listen, the same people that you're trashing, if they didn't produce the Brady material to Sidney, your ass would still be in jail!"

It was no longer technically true that Flynn would be in jail, as he had received a post-election pardon from Trump. But Flynn was furious. "Don't mention my case," he roared. Herschmann responded, "Where do you think Sidney got this information? Where do you think it came from? From the exact same people in the Department of Justice that you're now saying are corrupt."

Byrne, wearing jeans, a hoodie and a neck gaiter, piped up with his own conspiracy: "I know how this works. I bribed Hillary Clinton $18 million on behalf of the FBI for a sting operation."

Herschmann stared at the eccentric millionaire. "What the hell are you talking about? Why would you say something like that?" Byrne brought up the bizarre Clinton bribery claim several more times during the meeting to the astonishment of White House lawyers.

Trump, for his part, also seemed perplexed by Byrne. But he was not entirely convinced the ideas Powell was presenting were insane.

He asked: You guys are offering me nothing. These guys are at least offering me a chance. They’re saying they have the evidence. Why not try this? The president seemed truly to believe the election was stolen, and his overriding sentiment was, let's give this a shot.

The words "martial law" were never spoken during the meeting, despite Flynn having raised the idea in an appearance the previous day on Newsmax, a right-wing hive for election conspiracies.

But this was a distinction without much of a difference. What Flynn and Powell were proposing amounted to suspending normal laws and mobilizing the U.S. government to seize Dominion voting machines around the country.

Powell was arguing that they couldn't get a judge to enforce any subpoena to hand over the voting machines because all the judges were corrupt. She and her group repeatedly referred to the National Emergencies Act and a Trump executive order from 2018 that was designed to clear the way for the government to sanction foreign actors interfering in U.S. elections.

These laws were, in the view of Powell, Flynn and the others, the key to unlocking extraordinary powers for Trump to stay in office beyond Jan. 20.

Their theory was that because foreign enemies had stolen the election, all bets were off and Trump could use the full force of the United States government to go after Dominion.

It was remarkable that the presidency had deteriorated to such an extent that this fight in the Oval Office between senior White House officials and radical conspiracists was even taking place.

"How exactly are you going to do this?" an exasperated Herschmann asked again, later in the conversation. Newman again cited the 2018 executive order, which prompted Herschmann to question out loud whether she was even a lawyer.

Then Byrne chimed in: "There are guys with big guns and badges who can get these things." Herschmann couldn't believe it. "What are you, three years old?" he asked.

Lyons, the staff secretary, told the president that the executive order Powell and Flynn were citing did not give him the authority they claimed it did to seize voting machines. Morgan, the campaign lawyer, also expressed skepticism about their idea of invoking national security emergency powers.

To help adjudicate, Trump then patched in the national security adviser, Robert O'Brien, on speakerphone. Trump's personal assistant brought O'Brien into the call with no explanation of what madness would await him.

O'Brien said very little in the short time he was on the call but intervened at one point to say he saw no evidence to support Powell's notion of declaring a national security emergency to seize voting machines. There was so much fiery crosstalk it was hard for anyone on the telephone to follow the conversation.

Trump expressed skepticism at various points about Powell's theories, but he said, "At least she’s out there fighting."

The discussion shifted from Dominion voting machines to a conversation about appointing Powell as a special counsel inside the government to investigate voter fraud. She wanted a top secret security clearance and access to confidential voter information.

Lyons told Trump he couldn't appoint Powell as a special counsel at the Justice Department because this was an attorney general appointment. Lyons, Cipollone and Herschmann — in fact the entire senior White House staff who were aware of this idea — were all vehemently opposed to Powell becoming a special counsel anywhere in the government.

By this point Trump had also patched into the call his personal lawyer Giuliani and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. Meadows indicated that he was trying to wrap his mind around what exactly Powell's role would entail. He told Powell she would have to fill out the SF-86 questionnaire before starting as special counsel.

This was seen as a delaying tactic. The sense in the room was that Trump might actually greenlight this extraordinary proposal.

At its essence, the Powell crew's argument to the president was this: We have the real information. These people — your White House staff — don't believe in the truth. They're liars and quitters. They're not willing to fight for you because they don't want to get their hands dirty. Put us in charge. Let us take control of everything. We'll prove to you that what we're saying is right. We won't quit, we'll fight. We're willing to fight for the presidency.

On some level, this argument was music to Trump's ears. He was desperate. Powell and her team were the only people willing to tell him what he wanted to hear — that a path to stay in power in the White House remained.

The Oval Office portion of the meeting had dragged on for nearly three hours, creeping beyond 9 p.m. The arguments became so heated that even Giuliani — still on the phone — at one point told everyone to calm down. One participant later recalled: "When Rudy's the voice of reason, you know the meeting's not going well."

Giuliani told Trump he was going to come over to the White House. The president, having forgotten about the others on the line, hung up and cut multiple people off the call.

Herschmann, Cipollone and Lyons left the Oval Office, but soon discovered that the Powell entourage had made their way to the president’s residence. They followed them upstairs, to the Yellow Oval Room, Trump's living room, where they were joined by Giuliani and Meadows.

Trump sat beside Powell in armchairs facing the door, separated by a round, wooden antique table. Giuliani sat in an armchair to the right of them, while Byrne and Meadows sat on a couch. Byrne wolfed down pigs in a blanket and little meatballs on toothpicks that staff had set on the coffee table.

Herschmann was primed to brawl and ready to dump on Powell. It had been a long day.

"Rudy," he said, turning to Giuliani, "Sidney was just in the Oval telling the president you don't know what the fuck you're doing. Right, Sidney?" He turned to Powell: "Why don't you tell Rudy to his face?"

"Eric, really it's not appropriate," Trump replied curtly.

"What's not appropriate?" Herschmann shot back. Turning to Powell, he said, "Why don't you repeat to Rudy what you just told the president in the Oval Office — that he has no idea about the case and that he only just began to understand it a few hours ago."

Three days later, Giuliani would publicly distance himself from Powell, telling Newsmax that Powell did not represent the president, and that "whatever she's talking about, it's her own opinions."

It didn't take long for the yelling to start up again. They were now in hour four of a meeting unprecedented even by the deranged standards of the final days of the Trump presidency.

Now it was Meadows' turn, blasting Flynn for trashing him and accusing him of being a quitter. "Don't you dare challenge me about whether I'm being supportive of the president and working hard," Meadows shouted, reminding Flynn that he'd defended him during his legal troubles.

Trump and Cipollone, who frequently butted heads, went at it too, over whether the administration had the authority to do what Powell was proposing.

Powell kept asserting throughout the night that she had — or would soon produce — the evidence needed to prove foreign interference. She kept insisting that Trump had the legal authority he needed to seize voting machines. But she did not have the goods.

Powell at one point turned to Lyons and demanded, "Why are you speaking? Are you still employed here?" The staff secretary, who had already resigned, laughed and joked, "Well I guess I'm here until midnight."

It was after midnight by the time the White House officials had finally said their piece. They left that night fully prepared for the mad possibility Trump might still name Sidney Powell special counsel. You have our advice, they told the president before walking out. You decide who to listen to.

More here (https://www.axios.com/off-the-rails-episodes-cf6da824-83ac-45a6-a33c-ed8b00094e39.html).

[ReluctantSamurai]

This would be hilarious if it weren't so tragically sad:

https://gizmodo.com/trumps-border-wall-torn-apart-by-arizona-monsoon-rains-1847535174?utm_campaign=Gizmodo&utm_content=&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR3lI9wJyitfV-IBacp0nMS-7hTGRy_BsE3QNrtDybVS_bLxWEYF1I0gGC8


It turns out ignoring bedrock environmental laws (https://gizmodo.com/appeals-court-rules-trumps-border-wall-prototypes-can-s-1832561602) may not have been the best choice for a multibillion-dollar construction project. Photos show former President Donald Trump’s border wall in deep disrepair after summer monsoon rains literally blew floodgates off their hinges.

The hilarious part:


“I will build a great wall—and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me—and I’ll build them very inexpensively,” Trump said (https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/wild-donald-trump-quotes/) when he announced his run for president in 2015. “I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words.”

The sad part:


Much of the work was outsourced to private companies that raked in billions, including Southwest Valley Constructors, which did most of the work in Arizona. The company pulled in $2.7 billion in federal contracts (https://www.kwtx.com/2020/10/27/records-show-trumps-border-wall-is-costing-taxpayers-billions-more-than-initial-contracts/) and has faced lawsuits from private landowners who claim explosions tied to construction sent “car-sized boulders” onto their land. (There are also multiple OSHA complaints (https://www.osha.gov/pls/imis/establishment.inspection_detail?id=1470228.015) against the company, which is a whole other issue.) The location near San Bernardino Wildlife Refuge is one of a growing number of chinks in the rushed wall. Another section in Texas where levees were destroyed has left hundreds of thousands exposed to catastrophic flooding (https://gizmodo.com/trump-s-unfinished-border-wall-could-worsen-texas-flood-1846731979).

[rory_20_uk]

Why should this be any different from healthcare-pharma complex, the military-industrial complex and so on and so forth? The State of the USA is there to give money to interested parties with pretty weak to non existent oversight.

And I look forward to the completion of HS2 and Crossrail - both projects that are running years behind schedule often due to weak oversight with companies getting all they can charge.

~:smoking:

[Crandar]

Alabama vs Trump (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/aug/22/donald-trump-rally-alabama-covid-vaccine).

[Montmorency]

Alabama vs Trump (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/aug/22/donald-trump-rally-alabama-covid-vaccine).

A clip of the event (https://twitter.com/NBCDFW/status/1429834051171586053) suggests a more nuanced impression than all the straight news headlines allow.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Polls of GOP voters still show Trump as their choice for 2024 with DeSantis a very distant (and currently waning) second place.

Exceedingly early in the game, of course, but a fair indication of the GOP still being his 'creature' despite little hiccups and momentary miscues.

[Hooahguy]

I wonder what his endgame would be for running again. It would have to be an ego thing, nothing more.

[rory_20_uk]

I wonder what his endgame would be for running again. It would have to be an ego thing, nothing more.

Immunity would be a bloody nice thing to have for starters.

~:smoking:

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I wonder what his endgame would be for running again. It would have to be an ego thing, nothing more.

All of those who seek the presidency are motivated in part by ego. You have to wake up one morning and think, sincerely -- not just a flight of fancy, "I am the best person to lead the biggest economy and military on the planet." That's a lot of ego period. Though as our cynical medic Rory notes, the idea of functional immunity cannot help but add to the mix.

Take Trump's attempts in 2k and 2016 and 2020, along with his leadership style during office, and I am minded to think that an "ego thing, nothing more" is more than sufficient to prompt him. I believe Trump would, given his druthers, echo Zaphod Beeblebrox from Douglas Adam's classic in asserting "If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.”

[Crandar]

Communists have infiltrated the judicial system: Jenna (https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/jenna-ryan-convinced-she-wont-go-to-jail-apologizes-for-having-white-skin-blond-hair-12000445) received a prison sentence, despite her blonde hair (looked brown to me, but anyway), white skin and private jet.

[Montmorency]

Untold story (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/11/trump-johnny-mcentee-january-6-betrayal/620646/) of one of Trump's top aides:


What was so urgent as to pull the chief of staff out of a Supreme Court confirmation hearing just two weeks before a presidential election?

On the line was Andrew Hughes, the top staffer at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Meadows had asked him to call because it had been brought to Meadows’s attention that a young assistant at HUD had been caught consorting with the enemy.

She had liked an Instagram post from the pop star Taylor Swift.

The first photo in the post was of Swift with the word vote superimposed on it in large blue letters. But a swipe revealed a second photo, of Swift carrying a tray of cookies emblazoned with the Biden-Harris campaign logo. “We really can’t have our people liking posts promoting Joe Biden,” Meadows told Hughes.

Never mind that nearly 3 million other people had liked the post or that the young woman was a Taylor Swift fan who liked just about everything Swift had ever posted. To the enforcers of Trumpian loyalty, this was a sign of treachery in the ranks.

Those enforcers—including the eagle-eyed official who had first spotted the offending “like”—worked for the Presidential Personnel Office, a normally under-the-radar group responsible for the hiring and firing of the roughly 4,000 political appointees in the executive branch. During the final year of the Trump administration, that office was transformed into an internal police force, obsessively monitoring administration officials for any sign of dissent, purging those who were deemed insufficiently devoted to Trump and frightening others into silence. (Many sources for this story asked to remain anonymous so they could talk about sensitive personnel issues.) Some Trump aides privately compared the PPO to the East German Stasi or even the Gestapo—always on the lookout for traitors within.

The office was run by Johnny McEntee. Just 29 when he got the job, he’d come up as Trump’s body guy—the kid who carried the candidate’s bags. One of Trump’s most high-profile Cabinet secretaries described him to me as “a fucking idiot.” But in 2020, his power was undeniable. Trump knew he was the one person willing to do anything Trump wanted. As another senior official told me, “He became the deputy president.”

McEntee and his enforcers made the disastrous last weeks of the Trump presidency possible. They backed the president’s manic drive to overturn the election, and helped set the stage for the January 6 assault on the Capitol. Thanks to them, in the end, the elusive “adults in the room”—those who might have been willing to confront the president or try to control his most destructive tendencies—were silenced or gone. But McEntee was there—bossing around Cabinet secretaries, decapitating the civilian leadership at the Pentagon, and forcing officials high and low to state their allegiance to Trump.

When Trump wasn’t happy with the answers he was getting from White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, McEntee set up a rogue legal team. This back-channel operation played a previously unknown role in the effort to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the vote. Just days before January 6, McEntee sent Pence’s office an absurd memo making the case that Pence would be following Thomas Jefferson’s example if he used his power to declare Trump the winner of the 2020 election.

More than anyone else in the White House, McEntee was Trump’s man through and through—a man who rose to power at precisely the moment when American democracy was falling apart.

I first met johnny McEntee when I visited Trump Tower in 2015, not long after Trump announced he was running for president. McEntee was polite, earnest, and eager to please. He identified himself as Trump’s “trip director” and gave me a tour of the campaign headquarters. (He declined to comment for this story.)

McEntee was one of the first full-time staffers on the campaign, and he went everywhere Trump went. When Trump became president, McEntee had a workspace outside the Oval Office—right against the curved wall. The boss liked having McEntee around. A former quarterback for the University of Connecticut, he was good-looking and tall—but not too tall, about an inch shorter than Trump. During the first 14 months of the Trump presidency, McEntee did what he had done during the campaign: He carried Trump’s bags.

In March 2018, it looked for a moment like his Washington career was over. He was fired by then–Chief of Staff John Kelly after a long-delayed FBI background check revealed that he had deposited suspiciously large sums of money into his bank account. It turned out that the money was from gambling winnings. After Kelly himself was fired, McEntee returned to his old spot outside the Oval. It was January 2020, and he wouldn’t be just a body guy for long.

In mid-February, Trump called his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to a meeting. Ominous signs of the coming pandemic were beginning to emerge. Hundreds of Americans who had been evacuated from Wuhan, China, were in quarantine on military bases. The World Health Organization had just reported a frightening new development—a small number of COVID-19 cases in people who had never traveled to China. But the subject of the meeting wasn’t the virus. It was staffing. Trump, newly acquitted in his first Senate impeachment trial, was looking to make some changes.

“I want to put Johnny in charge of personnel,” the president told Mulvaney.

The director of presidential personnel is responsible for vetting and hiring everybody, including ambassadors, Cabinet secretaries, and top intelligence officials. McEntee had never hired anybody for anything. Now he was going to be in charge of perhaps the most important human-resources department in the world?

Mulvaney called his top deputy, Emma Doyle, who oversaw the current director of personnel, into the meeting. “Mr. President,” she said, “I have never said no to anything you’ve asked me to do, but I am asking you to please reconsider this. I don’t think it is a good idea.”

Doyle had spent a lot of time around the president, but she had never seen him as angry as he was about to become.

“You people never fucking listen to me!” Trump screamed. “You’re going to fucking do what I tell you to do.”

I can tell you from real-life experience that this is indeed how many think a good, strong man acts. Those people tend to find a lot to like about Trump's personality.

But you don't think I brought you here for the boilerplate Trumpism, do you?


McEntee began scouring federal agencies for people who didn’t support all things Trump. Beginning in June 2020—in the middle of both the pandemic and the presidential campaign—the personnel office informed virtually every senior official across the federal government, regardless of how long they had worked in the administration, that they would need to sit down for a job interview.

A president has a right to expect that his political appointees support his policies and will work to carry them out. These are, after all, political appointees. But most of the people McEntee’s team questioned were already devoted to Trump; they were still putting their reputations on the line to work for him three and a half years into his administration. But that wasn’t enough for the loyalty enforcers.

McEntee’s underlings were, for the most part, comically inexperienced. He had staffed his office with very young Trump activists. He had hired his friends, and he had hired young women—as one senior official in the West Wing put it to me, “the most beautiful 21-year-old girls you could find, and guys who would be absolutely no threat to Johnny in going after those girls.”

“It was the Rockettes and the Dungeons & Dragons group,” the official said.

In fact, one McEntee hire was literally a Rockette; she had performed with Radio City Music Hall’s finest in the 2019 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. The only work experience listed on her résumé besides a White House internship was a stint as a dance instructor. McEntee also hired Instagram influencers. Camryn Kinsey, for example, was 20 and still in college when McEntee gave her the title of external-relations director. In an interview with the online publication The Conservateur, she said, “Only in Trump’s America could I go from working in a gym to working in the White House, because that’s the American dream.” (Kinsey went on to work at the pro-Trump One American News Network.)

Ahhh. The rest of it is just the loyalty test stuff - which, to be clear, is quite bad, just not noteworthy anymore, not even the crazy-person story that played a role in the clearing away of disloyal defense officials in the run-up to Trump's coup attempt.

[Pannonian]

It might as well go here as anywhere. I'm guessing Seamus won't be voting Republican again for a while.

A Florida Republican who was defeated by 59 percentage points in a congressional special election won't concede


With all precincts reporting, Cherfilus-McCormick defeated Mariner by a 78.7% to 19.6% margin in Florida's 20th District — representing a 59.1 percentage-point victory. The congresswoman received 43,663 votes to her opponent's 10,883 votes in a clear victory.

However, in a move reminiscent of former President Donald Trump, who continues to dispute his election loss to President Joe Biden, Mariner has pointed to irregularities in the South Florida district.

"Now they called the race — I did not win, so they say, but that does not mean that they lost either, it does not mean that we lost," the Republican told CBS after the race was called for Cherfilus-McCormick.

Before the polls closed for the special election, Mariner filed a lawsuit pointing to ballot issues in Broward and Palm Beach counties, the two populous Democratic-leaning jurisdictions that anchor the district.

"We'll also have some stuff coming out that we've recently discovered," Mariner told the television station, without disclosing any developments that could affect the outcome.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

It might as well go here as anywhere. I'm guessing Seamus won't be voting Republican again for a while.

A Florida Republican who was defeated by 59 percentage points in a congressional special election won't concede

Very likely not in my lifetime at this rate. Too many in the GOP are divorced from reality, far too many others willing to ignore the threat this represents to secure power. They need to face a series of crushing defeats (not in the offing yet) or a third party that sucks the life from theirs like the GOP once did to the Whigs.

Right now, the GOP is continuing the purification process, distilling itself into a fascist-lite party (some of who revel in fascism, others of whom are just racist asshats, and others still who will sacrifice almost anything to avoid the communist nanny-state and its Stalinist operators (and yes, some of the really do view the progressive dems as just that).

My vote will have to be used to hurt the GOP as much as possible.

[Pannonian]

Read the never-issued Trump order that would have seized voting machines (https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/21/read-the-never-issued-trump-order-that-would-have-seized-voting-machines-527572)


The order empowers the defense secretary to “seize, collect, retain and analyze all machines, equipment, electronically stored information, and material records required for retention under” a U.S. law that relates to preservation of election records. It also cites a lawsuit filed in 2017 against Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

What would have happened had it been issued? Would troops have followed the order? If they had found troops who would follow the order, what would have happened if Trump had managed to delay the election result (and would it have been long enough for him to retain power), and what would have happened when Biden was finally installed as President?

[Montmorency]

Read the never-issued Trump order that would have seized voting machines (https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/21/read-the-never-issued-trump-order-that-would-have-seized-voting-machines-527572)

What would have happened had it been issued? Would troops have followed the order? If they had found troops who would follow the order, what would have happened if Trump had managed to delay the election result (and would it have been long enough for him to retain power), and what would have happened when Biden was finally installed as President?

It has been pointed out (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/5-rudy-short-of-a-coup-trump-the-bulwark_n_61d39a4be4b0c7d8b8a6e09d) that a literal handful of people were the only ones standing in the way of Trump's plan(s), such as they were, from reaching fruition. Ultimately, as I have posted about throughout 2021 the big idea for a legalistic shroud to the coup was to either fabricate a new electoral vote in the Senate, or throw the election to the House, where 26 of 50 state delegations led by Republicans would presumably have voted to reinstate Trump - unless Liz Cheney, sole (at-large) Rep of Wyoming, dissented, in which case there would have been a tie in the House, and I believe there isn't even any contingency in the Constitution for that.

In any of the above cases two things would have had to happen to preserve the Republic:

(1) Biden, Pelosi, and Schumer very shrilly and indefatigably tell all Republicans to :daisy: off

AND
(2) The military (JCS) tell Trump to :daisy: off (which they did (https://www.newamerica.org/international-security/blog/military-speaks-out/) have to do in the event (https://www.vox.com/22227681/joint-chiefs-letter-capitol-trump), but an order of magnitude higher in amplitude in this scenario)

Millions would expectedly have taken to the streets in vociferous protest against the coup; that's actually part of what 1/6 organizers and directors hoped would occur at DC that day, precipitating violent confrontations ostensibly warranting martial law or other authoritative action by Trump. Inflated to a national level, the scenes would have been the next level of ugly.

The United States came very close to the brink a year ago. I was wrong to project as much confidence as I did here in December 2020 that seditionist efforts could not succeed.

In other news, Newt Gingrich, one of the most influential Republicans of our lifetime - he was a Clinton-era Speaker of the House and pioneer of anti-liberal partisanship - this week reiterated the Republican consensus that the Democratic legislators and investigators pursuing oversight of Trump's coup attempt should be imprisoned for unspecified crimes.

[Montmorency]

Brought to my attention recently, from 2020 (https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-asked-reince-priebus-about-wisconsin-badgers-2020-2):


When Reince Priebus was the White House chief of staff [2017], President Donald Trump often subjected him to questioning about badgers, the state animal of Priebus' home state of Wisconsin, a new book says.


When Reince Priebus was the White House chief of staff, President Donald Trump repeatedly asked him whether badgers, the state animal of Priebus' home state of Wisconsin, are "mean to people," how they "work," and how aggressive they can get.

That's according to "Sinking in the Swamp: How Trump's Minions and Misfits Poisoned Washington," a new book by the Daily Beast reporters Lachlan Markay and Asawin Suebsaeng.

Priebus was Trump's chief of staff for roughly six months, from when Trump took office to the end of July 2017.

During that time, Trump would often "waste Priebus's time" during briefings about foreign and domestic policy by pelting him with questions about badgers, the book says.

Here's what the book says about the president's fascination with badgers:

"After Trump was reminded that the short-legged omnivore was practically synonymous with the Badger State, he'd make a point of bringing it up at seemingly random occasions to his beleaguered chief of staff.

"'Are they mean to people?' Trump at least twice asked Priebus in the opening months of his presidency. 'Or are they friendly creatures?' The president would also ask if Priebus had any photos of badgers he could show him, and if Priebus could carefully explain to him how badgers 'work' exactly.

"He wanted Reince — resident White House badger historian, apparently — to explain to him Wisconsin's obsession with the animal, how the little critters function and behave, what kind of food they like, and how aggressive or deadly they could be when presented with perceived existential threats.

"Trump also wanted to know if the badger had a 'personality' or if it was boring. What kind of damage could a badger to do a person with its flashy, sharp claws?

"An obviously enthralled president would stare at Priebus as the aide struggled for sufficiently placating answers, all the while trying to gently veer the conversation back to whether we were going to do a troop surge in Afghanistan or strip millions of Americans of healthcare coverage."

The president also has a habit of grilling his advisers on other topics of interest to him, according to the book.

At one point, the book says, he asked his space-policy advisers about garbage, posing questions like:

"Where does it go?"
"Where does it crash to earth?"
"What exactly is up there, circling the globe?"
"Who, or what, is creating all this space garbage?"
"Is this a national security threat?"

Legitimately a surprising level of curiosity, if erratic and unproductive. And oddly reaffirming of my determination not to produce or raise children.

[Pannonian]

Lauren Witzke, the Delaware GOP's candidate for Senate in 2020, has nothing but praise for Putin and "his Christian nationalist nation": "I identify more with Putin's Christian values than I do with Joe Biden." (https://twitter.com/RightWingWatch/status/1496937857839153168)

Will this kind of thing be damaging to Republican candidates, or do the alt-right have enough votes for it not to matter?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Lauren Witzke, the Delaware GOP's candidate for Senate in 2020, has nothing but praise for Putin and "his Christian nationalist nation": "I identify more with Putin's Christian values than I do with Joe Biden." (https://twitter.com/RightWingWatch/status/1496937857839153168)

Will this kind of thing be damaging to Republican candidates, or do the alt-right have enough votes for it not to matter?

It's something akin to a Tory standing for the seat in Liverpool Walton -- you can be extreme/polemical (generating donations from the 'faithful') -- and everyone knows that you are not a serious contender for office. Delaware has put relatively few GOP types into their Senate and House seats over the last 40 years and most of those have been what the Trump purists loathe as RINOs.

The other GOP candidates can deny/decry her without hurting their party's power base (or applaud her if it generates more money for them in their districts).

[Pannonian]

Trump advocates putting Chinese flags on bombers and bombing Russians.

Didn't the Americans shoot Germans for doing less illegal stuff than that during the Bulge?

[Montmorency]

High-density fascism even for Trump. Can't wait.
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1502811357535776772 [VIDEO]
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1502812678582059010 [VIDEO]
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1502813111782359042 [VIDEO]

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Trump advocates putting Chinese flags on bombers and bombing Russians.

Didn't the Americans shoot Germans for doing less illegal stuff than that during the Bulge?

Using 'false flags' has been a tool of war since Sargon if not before. As it annoys those who have been fooled, it sometimes gets the perpetrators very dead when they are caught out. War is a foul business and those tasked with fighting it on our behalves ultimately police it themselves. One of the reasons we should resort to war as sparingly as possible.

[Montmorency]

Using 'false flags' has been a tool of war since Sargon if not before. As it annoys those who have been fooled, it sometimes gets the perpetrators very dead when they are caught out. War is a foul business and those tasked with fighting it on our behalves ultimately police it themselves. One of the reasons we should resort to war as sparingly as possible.

One of the more concrete issues would have been that this proposal is an 8-year-old's idea of a false flag, and ultimately there are adults in Russia and China.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

One of the more concrete issues would have been that this proposal is an 8-year-old's idea of a false flag, and ultimately there are adults in Russia and China.

Oh be nice. For Trump this was pretty advanced. Right up there with the "invisible" F-35... :rolleyes:

[Montmorency]

That night, (https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/inside-the-new-right-where-peter-thiel-is-placing-his-biggest-bets) I went up to my hotel room and listened to a podcast interview Vance had conducted with Jack Murphy, the big, bearded head of the Liminal Order men’s group. Murphy asked how it was that Vance proposed to rip out America’s leadership class.

Vance described two possibilities that many on the New Right imagine—that our system will either fall apart naturally, or that a great leader will assume semi-dictatorial powers.

“So there’s this guy Curtis Yarvin, who has written about some of these things,” Vance said. Murphy chortled knowingly. “So one [option] is to basically accept that this entire thing is going to fall in on itself,” Vance went on. “And so the task of conservatives right now is to preserve as much as can be preserved,” waiting for the “inevitable collapse” of the current order.

He said he thought this was pessimistic. “I tend to think that we should seize the institutions of the left,” he said. “And turn them against the left. We need like a de-Baathification program, a de-woke-ification program.”

“I think Trump is going to run again in 2024,” he said. “I think that what Trump should do, if I was giving him one piece of advice: Fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people.”

“And when the courts stop you,” he went on, “stand before the country, and say—” he quoted Andrew Jackson, giving a challenge to the entire constitutional order—“the chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.”

This is a description, essentially, of a coup.

“We are in a late republican period,” Vance said later, evoking the common New Right view of America as Rome awaiting its Caesar. “If we’re going to push back against it, we’re going to have to get pretty wild, and pretty far out there, and go in directions that a lot of conservatives right now are uncomfortable with.”

“Indeed,” Murphy said. “Among some of my circle, the phrase ‘extra-constitutional’ has come up quite a bit.”

I’d asked Vance to tell me, on the record, what he’d like liberal Americans who thought that what he was proposing was a fascist takeover of America to understand.

He spoke earnestly. “I think the cultural world you operate in is incredibly biased,” he said—against his movement and “the leaders of it, like me in particular.” He encouraged me to resist this tendency, which he thought was the product of a media machine leading us toward a soulless dystopia that none of us want to live in. “That impulse,” he said, “is fundamentally in service of something that is far worse than anything, in your wildest nightmares, than what you see here.”

He gave me an imploring look, as though to suggest that he was more on the side of the kind of people who read Vanity Fair than most of you realize.

If what he was doing worked, he said, “it will mean that my son grows up in a world where his masculinity—his support of his family and his community, his love of his community—is more important than whether it works for fucking McKinsey.”

Vance believes that a well-educated and culturally liberal American elite has greatly benefited from globalization, the financialization of our economy, and the growing power of big tech. This has led an Ivy League intellectual and management class—a quasi-aristocracy he calls “the regime”—to adopt a set of economic and cultural interests that directly oppose those of people in places like Middletown, Ohio, where he grew up. In the Vancian view, this class has no stake in what people on the New Right often call the “real economy”—the farm and factory jobs that once sustained middle-class life in Middle America. This is a fundamental difference between New Right figures like Vance and the Reaganite right-wingers of their parents’ generation. To Vance—and he’s said this—culture war is class warfare.

Vance recently told an interviewer, “I gotta be honest with you, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine,” a flick at the fact that he thinks the American-led global order is as much about enriching defense contractors and think-tank types as it is about defending America’s interests. “I do care about the fact that in my community right now the leading cause of death among 18- to 45-year-olds is Mexican fentanyl.” His criticisms of big tech as “enemies of Western civilization” often get lost in the run of Republican outrage over Trump being kicked off Twitter and Facebook, though they go much deeper than this. Vance believes that the regime has sold an illusive story that consumer gadgets and social media are constantly making our lives better, even as wages stagnate and technology feeds an epidemic of depression.

JD Vance is a former "moderate conservative" and candidate for senatorial race nominee in an upcoming Republican primary, where he has been endorsed by Donald Trump even as he has trailed in the polls, behind more extreme candidates. Vance has increasingly escalated his rhetorical posturing over the past year to keep up with the crowd. Culture war is class war, just using more ponderous terms for the ancient verity that eradicating an adversary's community goes hand-in-hand with seizing what they have for yourself.

Can't believe we're talkin about freakin' Curtis Yarvin again. By 2024 (not 1924!) the "alt-right" will have finally completed its long transition to "Right" (i.e. national socialism). Watching history unfold along predictable lines over decades would be much less tedious and aggravating if I weren't human.

[Hooahguy]

Well, since nobody else mentioned it, the FBI raided (https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/08/politics/mar-a-lago-search-warrant-fbi-donald-trump/index.html) Trumps Florida home on Monday to seize classified documents that Trump illegally kept in his home. Ironically, it was Trump himself who made this a felony in 2018 lol. Granted he will try to defend it by saying that he declassified them before leaving office, which is really hard to prove one way or the other. And of course the media is full of bad takes (https://twitter.com/jayrosen_nyu/status/1557380040224116739).

[Montmorency]

Internet person with an insight: Given that Trump and his minions have tried to argue* that Trump has the authority to mentally, instantly, classify and declassify information, it may be inevitable that Trump eventually tries to rest on the claim that he mentally blanket-pardoned himself, his family, and all his associates the minute before he left office (thereby rejecting the validity of any federal legal action to his disfavor).


*This is an irrelevant contention even if it had virtue, since the possession of the documents, not their secrecy classification, is itself a crime and a substantive major breach of national security in Trump's hands. What makes it noteworthy is the corrupt principle of unlimited power (offer not valid for Democrats) that the these people feel comfortable uttering. If Trump was (characteristically) so foolish and so brazen to mafia-style threaten the Attorney General to cut him a deal in return for "reducing the heat" among his base just now, why not arrogate pardons?

[Hooahguy]

If some of the documents really did contain nuclear secrets, I dont think any amount of mental declassification can save him, since those types of documents cannot be declassified (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/08/trump-fbi-raid-classified-nuclear-documents/671119/).

[Montmorency]

They say the Storm (https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/09/donald-trump-and-the-birth-of-qmaga-the-storm-is-coming/)(y) is coming.

Trust the plan. (https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Trust%20The%20Plan)

[spmetla]

Well at least they're not attacking public officials under the supposition that this is all a deep-state ploy to draw the Trump loyalists out and arrest them.

Just want Trump to go away finally, so tired of this stupid chapter of American History that keeps being written.

[Montmorency]

This isn't the sort of joke one cares to explain, but just to be sure...

Since 2018, the MAGA/QAnon faction has adopted the reassuring phraseology of "trust the plan", which regarded a coming "storm". The storm was said to be a large-scale event that would - depending on the time period the claim was generated - either award Trump dictatorial power, or return him to the presidency, while sweeping away the entire system of his enemies (i.e. the enemies of America).

The joke is that the "storm" seemed to culminate, after years, in the form of Stormy Daniels, whose allegations have really been a central source of legal trouble for the Trump junta more or less since QAnon was first conceived.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxU2eqZtYmc

More to the substance of the news, lawyers and legal scholars tend to lean that Trump will not face actual criminal trial anytime this year, if ever, at least on the current charges (this was just an indictment). So we'll have even more of a Netanyahu situation developing over time.

Trump is going to be around in the public sphere until his natural death I'm afraid.

[spmetla]

I knew the "trust the plan" bit before, it just made me shake my head more that these people think Trump's got some 4-D chess long term plan beyond trying to save himself.

Yup, he'll be a factor till he dies I'm afraid.

The only real shame with the arraignment is that it wasn't done two years ago.

[Montmorency]

Sometime during the Trump term, I commented that Trump was unconvictable by a jury. I was wrong. Now we'll see if it matters.

[Shaka_Khan]

Live stream news:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-C2RyORyX0U


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szm4fJLaQUU


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYeUO1K5H9A

[Askthepizzaguy]

This shouldn't be happening in America. This shouldn't be happening to Trump, it's unacceptable.

For example, Gabby Giffords
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabby_Giffords
Shouldn't have been the target of assassination.

Paul Pelosi, husband of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, shouldn't have been attacked in politically motivated violence.

There shouldn't have been a plot to kidnap and/or assassinate Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan.

https://i.imgur.com/56rXvCS.png

And members of congress and the vice president shouldn't have been the target of a murderous mob chanting 'HANG MIKE PENCE' over and over when he didn't overturn democracy like the mob wanted.

https://i.imgur.com/6qPqRmg.gif

All of that violence is unacceptable.


https://i.imgur.com/BQFWKeO.png

Would this be a bad time to point out Donald Trump Junior has made light of such political violence before, when Democratic lawmakers or their spouses were attacked?

Here he is doing that.

Would this be a bad time to point out Donald Trump has been calling for putting his opponents in jail, saying nothing about a trial, or criminal charges, or due process?

Would this be a bad time to point out Donald Trump has led chants calling for locking up his political opponents?

Would this be a bad time to point out Donald Trump has literally said in his own words if he gets elected again, he will be a dictator on day one?

Would this be a bad time to point out Donald Trump has called for rewriting the Constitution? Or that the Supreme Court has decided last week or so that nothing Trump or any President does in office as even relating to official acts can be criminally prosecuted, creating for the first time a person in government completely above the law?

Would this be a bad time to point out Donald Trump desires to use the military and the police to shoot protesters, which only the law bound him from doing last time he was in office?

https://www.npr.org/2022/05/09/1097517470/trump-esper-book-defense-secretary


Esper said he stayed in the administration because he worried that if he left, the president would more easily implement some of his "dangerous ideas." The former Defense chief also said he hopes Trump does not seek the presidency in 2024.
"We need leaders of integrity and character, and we need leaders who will bring people together and reach across the aisle and do what's best for the country. And Donald Trump doesn't meet the mark for me on any of those issues."
Esper said he and other top officials were caught off guard by Trump's reaction to the unrest in the summer of 2020.

"The president was enraged," Esper recalled. "He thought that the protests made the country look weak, made us look weak and 'us' meant him. And he wanted to do something about it.
"We reached that point in the conversation where he looked frankly at [Joint Chiefs of Staff] Gen. [Mark] Milley and said, 'Can't you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs or something?' ... It was a suggestion and a formal question. And we were just all taken aback at that moment as this issue just hung very heavily in the air."


Something which, if in office again, Trump will be legally allowed to order and zero criminal prosecutions can ever touch him, according to the Supreme Court ruling granting the president such a power, among others.

https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/trump-v-united-states-3/

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/liberal-justices-say-trump-immunity-decision-will-disastrous-consequen-rcna159755


WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court's liberal bloc issued blistering dissents Monday in the Trump immunity ruling (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-rules-trump-may-immunity-federal-election-inter-rcna149135), arguing that it "reshapes the institution of the presidency" and "makes a mockery" of the constitutional principle that no man is above the law.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, reading her dissent from the bench, said that "relying on little more than its own misguided wisdom ... the Court gives former President Trump all the immunity he asked for and more."

She added that "because our Constitution does not shield a former President from answering for criminal and treasonous acts, I dissent."
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 (https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf) on ideological lines that former President Donald Trump has immunity for some of his conduct as president but not unofficial acts in the federal election interference case. The court did not determine what constitutes an "official" act in this case, leaving that to the lower court.

The decision adds another hurdle and further delay to special counsel Jack Smith's prosecution of the former president. Trump was indicted last year (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-indicted-jan-6-grand-jury-2020-election-rcna95199) on charges he conspired to "overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election."

Sotomayor said that the majority opinion, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, invents "an atextual, ahistorical, and unjustifiable immunity that puts the President above the law."

Their ruling, she went on, makes three moves that she said "completely insulate Presidents from criminal liability." Sotomayor said the court creates absolute immunity for the president's exercise of "core constitutional powers," creates "expansive immunity for all 'official acts,'" and "declares that evidence concerning acts for which the President is immune can play no role in any criminal prosecution against him."

Sotomayor warned that the ruling "will have disastrous consequences for the Presidency and for our democracy" and that it sends the message: “Let the President violate the law, let him exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, let him use his official power for evil ends.”
She added, “Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the President and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.”

In her own written dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said that the majority's ruling "breaks new and dangerous ground."



Political acts of violence are indeed abhorrent and shouldn't be happening.

So when a family who has threatened to behave like a dictatorship while in power, has threatened their political opponents with violence, keeps an enemies list (https://newrepublic.com/post/183652/trump-ally-exposed-horrific-hit-list-political-enemies), threatens to jail their political opponents, and posts memes laughing when their political opponents get attacked, gets attacked by a psychopath with a gun, I can say this is abhorrent.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/06/trump-lists-all-the-villains-he-plans-to-destroy-in-a-second-term
(more and different enemies found here. Since the bureaucracy of the USA is not filled with members of a communist or marxist party, nor fascist, we can only infer his enemies are just bog standard ordinary independents, republicans, and democrats.)

https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-investigations/trump-has-threatened-dozens-of-times-to-use-the-government-to-target-political-enemies/
(yet more supplemental material to the previous point)

Here is a very long quote from that article going over even more material supplementing this point, and more examples of his enemies and more examples of him promising illegal and violent retribution against his enemies.

Donald Trump has repeatedly promised to weaponize the federal government during a second administration by pursuing revenge, retaliation and retribution against his political enemies. Because Trump is posting primarily on Truth Social, his newly-public social media company with only a niche following, the extent of his threats have mostly flown under the radar. Trump’s attitude can be summed up in one Truth Social post from August, 2023: “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU (https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/110833185720203438)!”

CREW analyzed over 13,000 of Trump’s Truth Social posts from January 1, 2023 to April 1, 2024, and found that while Trump has recently backed off some of his more violent rhetoric, threatening political opponents has been a consistent fixation for Trump. Since the start of last year, Trump has issued direct or implied threats on Truth Social to use the powers of the federal government to target Joe Biden during a second Trump administration 25 times. Specifically, Trump has threatened him with FBI raids, investigations, indictments and even jail time.

But Biden is not Trump’s only target. He’s also threatened or suggested that the FBI and the Department of Justice should take action against senators, judges, members of Biden’s family and even non-governmental organizations.
Trump’s posts should not be taken as empty threats, but rather as a call to action for Congress to put in place meaningful guardrails against the weaponization of the military and federal government’s law enforcement agencies—before it’s too late.


Trump’s threats to Biden range from ominous warnings to specific plans for retribution. Many of these threats revolve around replicating his own legal woes, which he refers to as the “weaponization” of the DOJ, against Biden. In one post about Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation, he warned there will be “repercussions far greater (https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/111609675180786484) than anything that Biden or his Thugs could understand” and that if the investigations continue, it would open a “Pandora’s Box” of retribution. In another post, Trump wrote that his federal indictments are “setting a BAD precedent (https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/111322135133905277) for yourself, Joe. The same can happen to you.” In July Trump reposted rally coverage quoting him that “Now the gloves are off (https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/110640812012024915).”

Trump has explicitly threatened Biden with a special counsel investigation and indictment. In one post he called on Attorney General Merrick Garland to “immediately end Special Counsel investigation into anything related to me because I did everything right, and appoint a Special Counsel (https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/109677461139498199) to investigate Joe Biden who hates Biden as much as Jack Smith hates me.” In another he asked “When will Joe Biden be Indicted for his many crimes (https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/110514921982710631) against our Nation?” Trump has posted about this over and over again, promising to appoint a special prosecutor (https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/110555065295789588) to investigate Biden (https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/110188720514907315), and indict him if Trump returns to the White House for a second term.
Trump’s request for immunity from prosecution for crimes committed while president stands at odds with his threats against Biden if he loses the immunity case. Indeed, Trump has not so subtly hinted at weaponizing this outcome against Biden during a second term, saying that an outgoing president would face almost “certain indictment (https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/111785128948205392)” immediately from the “opposing party (https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/111733745403326486)” for the “mistakes and decisions that are destroying our nation (https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/111524810221822558),” like “his Open Border Policy (https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/111524810221822558),” and that he would “certainly be Prosecuted (https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/111682184702292072).”
Trump has “reTruthed” others’ posts about Biden that are even more threatening, and sometimes violent. In June he reposted a clip from Representative Marjorie Taylor Green where she asserted, “Joe Biden shouldn’t just be impeached, he should be handcuffed and hauled (https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/110519657413902989) out of the White House for his crimes.” Trump posted a screenshot of a different post saying the FBI should “raid all of [Biden’s] residences (https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/109662670873664446) and seize anything they want, including his passports.”
These plans for a vengeful second term in office are not limited to Biden: last June he posted that during a second Trump presidency, “Democrats are going to start getting indicted (https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/110519686047275126).” In September, he posted “Senate Democrats should all resign based on Senator Bob Menendez! They all knew what was going on, and the way he lived. Why doesn’t the FBI raid (https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/111122128507943004) Senate Democrat’s homes like they illegally raided Mar-a-Lago.”
Some posts announced plans for harsh retribution against the specific lawyers, judges, and other officials whom he has blamed for his legal and other troubles. In one instance he reposted a call for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to be “put in jail (https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/110063631164377999),” and another for New York Attorney General Letitia James and Judge Arthur Engoron to be “PLACED UNDER CITIZENS ARREST (https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/111406895173363371).” He has reposted calls for Special Counsel Jack Smith and others to be locked up and “throw away the key (https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/110695146914715485).” One reTruth promised to charge Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, Bragg, Smith, Garland and Biden with conspiracy and racketeering (https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/110906865023795361).
The threats extend beyond punishing officials for perceived corruption. On three occasions Trump has vowed to prosecute President Obama for official acts he took while in office, like prosecuting him for “capital murder (https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/112083423128720259)” for two American civilian (https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/111551579435230649) casualties (https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/111817244238921161) during a drone strike.
Trump has called for additional prosecutions on the false basis he won the 2020 election. In February 2023 he wrote on Truth Social, commenting on an article about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg violating Georgia election law, “He cheated (https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/109933841848226131) on the Election(s). The whole system is RIGGED. Why isn’t he being prosecuted? The Democrats only know how to cheat. America isn’t going to take it much longer!” Last October, Trump ReTruthed a meme showing two election workers that was captioned, “start arresting the poll workers (https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/111285859945538575) and watch how fast they tell you who told them to cheat.”
In addition to these threats against other high-profile public figures, Trump has also threatened nonprofits for their work. In November he wrote (https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/111354814927039862) on Truth Social, “For any radical left charity, non-profit, or so called aid organizations supporting these caravans and illegal aliens, we will prosecute them for their participation in human trafficking, child smuggling, and every other crime we can find.”
Trump is forecasting clearly that a possible second Trump presidency will be sharply focused on revenge, including weaponization of the federal government against political opponents, judges, former presidents and others. That’s a concerning threat to our democracy, but Congress could take several actions now to prevent the worst-case scenario.






This is unacceptable.

This is exactly why the rule of law matters and why one man should never be above the law.

This is why you do not call for violence against political opposition or chant to jail them as a campaign promise if elected. It's why we shouldn't overturn the Constitution and drastically change the federal government in the way Project 2025 calls for (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025). It's why no man should promise to be a Dictator on day one when elected. It's why our government officials should be held to a higher, not a lower standard, than the average person. Bare minimum, they should be held to the same standard we are held to, as private citizens not in the political class.

Listen to me, regardless of your political party or policy beliefs- violence is not acceptable.

So please, stop tolerating lawlessness, and violence, and encouraging violence, and threats of violence, from your own lawmakers and candidates for President.

If they're in your political party, only you can meaningfully oppose them because the other political parties and all the other voters already do. You are the only one left who can make a difference by saying, hey, my own party shouldn't be calling for this to happen to everyone else.

Because everyone else already knows that.

[Askthepizzaguy]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025


Project 2025 envisions widespread changes to the government, particularly economic and social policies and the role of the federal government and its agencies. The plan proposes taking partisan control of the Department of Justice (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Justice) (DOJ), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation) (FBI), the Department of Commerce (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Commerce), the Federal Communications Commission (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Communications_Commission) (FCC) and the Federal Trade Commission (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Trade_Commission) (FTC), dismantling the Department of Homeland Security (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department_of_Homeland_Security) (DHS), and sharply reducing environmental and climate change (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change) regulations to favor fossil fuel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel) production.[13] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025#cite_note-Stone_2023-13)[16] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025#cite_note-16) The blueprint seeks to institute tax cuts,[17] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025#cite_note-Cranston-2024-17) though its writers disagree on the wisdom of protectionism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protectionism).[18] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025#cite_note-The_Economist-2023-18) Project 2025 recommends abolishing the Department of Education (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Education), whose programs would be either transferred to other agencies or terminated.[19] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025#cite_note-Stone-2024-19)[20] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025#cite_note-Schofield-2025-20) Funding for climate research (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_research) would be cut and the National Institutes of Health (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Institutes_of_Health) (NIH) would be reformed according to conservative principles.[21] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025#cite_note-Skibell-2024-21)[22] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025#cite_note-Schumacher-2024-22) The project seeks to cut funding for Medicare (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_(United_States)) and Medicaid (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicaid)[23] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025#cite_note-Barron-Lopez-2024-23)[24] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025#cite_note-Park-2024-24) and urges the government to explicitly reject abortion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_the_United_States) as health care.[25] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025#cite_note-Miranda-2024-25)[26] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025#cite_note-Ollstein-26) The project seeks to eliminate coverage of emergency contraception (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_contraception) under the Affordable Care Act (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordable_Care_Act)[23] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025#cite_note-Barron-Lopez-2024-23) and enforce the Comstock Act (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_Act_of_1873) to prosecute those who send and receive contraceptives (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_control) and abortion pills (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_abortion) nationwide.[26] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025#cite_note-Ollstein-26)[27] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025#cite_note-Yang-Zahn-March242024-27) It proposes criminalizing pornography (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornography_in_the_United_States),[28] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025#cite_note-28)[29] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025#cite_note-Pengelly_2023-29) removing legal protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_orientation) and gender identity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_identity),[29] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025#cite_note-Pengelly_2023-29)[30] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025#cite_note-Shrai_Popat-2024-30) and terminating diversity, equity, and inclusion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversity,_equity,_and_inclusion) (DEI) programs[4] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025#cite_note-Mascaro-2023-4)[30] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025#cite_note-Shrai_Popat-2024-30) and affirmative action (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action)[31] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025#cite_note-Tensley-2024-31) by having the DOJ prosecute "anti-white racism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_racism)."[32] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025#cite_note-Thompson-May142024-32) The Project recommends the arrest, detention (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_detention), and deportation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation) of undocumented immigrants (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration) living in the U.S.[33] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025#cite_note-33)[34] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025#cite_note-Brownstein2-34)[35] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025#cite_note-Savage-Haberman-Swan-Nov1120232-35) It proposes deploying the military for domestic law enforcement.[36] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025#cite_note-36) It promotes capital punishment (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_United_States) and the speedy "finality" of those sentences.[37] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025#cite_note-Sarat-2024-37)[38] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025#cite_note-CNN4.27.24-38)

Let's pretend we don't care about the rest of that horrific crap.

Let's only focus on the part in bold.

The military under the command of Donald Trump would in no way be acting as ''law'' enforcement.

This is a declaration of war against the United States by an openly fascist political party.

That violence has occurred quite predictable. Sadly, easily predictable. It's not violence I endorse, I in fact would like it to stop.

Immediately, from everyone, from all 'sides'. I would also like for the USA to not become a military dictatorship with a person immune to prosecution in command of the military on US soil.

If that happens, there is no such thing as the rule of law, and most of the violence will be coming from Trump's dictatorship, but not all. Not everyone will go quietly. We saw what happened to Nazi Germany to those who weren't favored by der Fuhrer.

If it's going to happen to us, I'd rather go out with those guns the right keeps insisting we have to protect against the very dictatorship they wish to install, that I want nothing to do with, and have never owned, but they do march around with, threatening me with.

While waving actual Nazi flags at his rallies and not getting condemned nor thrown out.

[Montmorency]

Yeah, Pizza, I know. You've luckily been living abroad for 5 years, and I've continued to follow politics relatively-closely. SCOTUS for example has been issuing waves of relatively-unknown horrific decisions (statistically, it does more of that than at any time in its history; at least the Taney Court had overwhelming popular consensus and colorable original-constitutional arguments behind it). Robert's two decades on the court have merely been topped off with that decision you reference, the one declaring that all Americans are born slaves and always have been. Sure, it does make the prospect of a fascist dictatorship under Trump a little more urgent (frankly, Trump is a conservative authoritarian with extreme narcissism, but MAGA has always been an intensely-fascist movement, so the distinction isn't important for the purposes of most discussion).

I think we agree political violence is not never acceptable, because that would be, after all, ahistorical. This country was founded on political violence, and unlike other countries, it never really stopped. As an example, it was a big missed opportunity not to decimate the Southern planter class and redistribute their land to freedmen and smallholding Whites...

But speaking of this country being founded on political and other forms of violence, the reason for ever-escalating individual violence by men, especially young White men, especially gun violence, over the past generation, is exactly that White American culture outside the 'civilized' parts has become thoroughly diseased. It's not that other cultures have no flaws - the trap of the Black ghetto still exists, for example, and misogyny is still too present among all men - but the lunatic rage of the White men against everyone else is metaphorically, maybe literally, putting this country through a glorious murder-suicide dynamic of the sort that has become the common grassroots philosophy of the generic Mass Shooter.

There's something to this in many countries around the world, but it's always had its most profound and ecstatic and effective form within America, for whatever reason, again possibly because of the cultural trends of our Founding and early history.

Liberalism, in the sense of the core belief that the individual has some rights they can reserve to themselves against the authority and interference of the family, the community, the state, or any collective, is struggling to sustain itself and solve problems around the world in a variety of manifestations. American liberals are threatened by arguably the most genuinely-insane and irrational deep counterrevolution of any meaningful potency, but they're comparatively still little-aware of the stakes or of the level of unity demanded of them. But who out there can afford to see liberalism beset in what used to call itself its birthplace as a form of government?

[Xantan]

Adding to the point made above by Askthepizzaguy, what's rather eye-opening (delicately said) is the use of the US Army on US soil. As far as my limited knowledge of US Army on US soil goes, that has almost never happened.

[Shaka_Khan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbsFf96VnNc


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wB1S0zvlSc

[spmetla]

A week and change out and I'm just hoping that the polling and coverage is just the MSM trying to make the race seem tight so everyone keeps clicking on their links and eating up their coverage.

Fingers crossed that Kamala wins in a landslide that's so obvious that the insurrectionists can even get disheartened or at least dissuaded from resorting to violence.

[Montmorency]

I don't want to info dump on polling matters, but there's a lot of reason to believe that the polling is going to be quite accurate this election, unless there's somewhat more third party vote that's somehow being underrepresented (not sure if that's ever happened). If that's not the case, the only ray of hope is that Trump's polling is so high (with a high two-party share) there's basically no Undecided pool for him to be tapping into (Trump overwhelmingly took Undecideds in 2020, accounting for the so-called "polling miss"). Note that polling was very accurate on Democratic vote shares in 2016 and 2020 for national, state, and senatorial races; it just underestimated Trump somewhat.

I hate that the best presidency since the 1960s is being rewarded this way, but Harris is basically going to need a 2012-class polling error in her favor if this is how it stands for the next week. In 2021 I predicted 2024 would end up being an almost-exact replica of 2020.

Now watch me be wrong and some crazy shit happen like 4 states being within 0.5% (recount range), and the Supreme Court openly trying to coronate Trump with Harris leading in a tipping-point state (crazy how so much history hinges on Ginsburg not retiring during Obama's second term, or not putting off dying by 100 days or so).

[Montmorency]

Fun fact:

The House polling and the special elections swing averages (an alternative metric for projecting performance in House elections) have been in near-total agreement this time. Such close alignment between polling and alternative measures corroborates that the incredibly-tight spread of polling findings throughout this cycle for presidential and senatorial races among almost all pollsters and trackers reflects accuracy more than herding or other biases.

Not-fun fact:

As of a few days ago, all of them agreed on the Dem national vote share falling within 0.4-1.0% ahead of Repubs', which would make it very difficult to get a Democratic majority. Currently, RCP has Repubs moving into the lead.

[spmetla]

Well the polls were fairly accurate and now I'm getting to see the horror that a second Trump presidency will bring. His nominations for key positions is certainly depressing to see.

[Montmorency]

I was writing here in 2015-17 about the stresses faced by the modern state against non-state organizations such as crime syndicates and multinational corporations. While I don't think I was wrong, exactly, my emphasis was misguided; the state can protect itself when the time comes. And my musings from 2014 on about the gradual return of fascism in the world (I thought Israel would later emerge as the first openly fascist country of the 21st century) was also misguided in emphasis. Fascism was an integrative modern project that sought to resolve the contradictions of industrial modernity. And now, sure, there are a number of movements that sometimes resemble fascism, from Hungary and Russia to North Korea and Iran, and share similar goals, but they have a different unifying (meta-)ideology, which I would call party-statism or civilizational statism; these are all context-unique projects to resolve the contradictions and disintegrative forces of postmodernity. Each is a form of soft totalitarianism that is conscious of the failures of legacy 20th century totalitarianisms that brought all prior totalitarian systems to violent collapse or the brink of it. (Beyond that, I won't get into details, as they're beside the point for now. The terms are somewhat self-explanatory.)

But what I've grown more conscious of since the first Trump term is that very gap in my emphasis, which overlooked more grassroots psychopolitical trends. The issue wasn't fascism or state decay as such, but the rise of a postmodern, incoherently-reactionary conservatism in the degraded minds of individuals worldwide. Affected people aren't looking for a means to overcome the contradictions of modernity or of liberalism; they have no particular concept of politics in a country at all except the immediate lashing out against instinctual hate objects. They don't want some systematic long-term reorganization of their countries, they just want short-term tribal power by which to subject those who fall outside the tribe to their whims. They are capable of accepting any direction and stomaching any policy, as long as it arises from within the tribe. They know what they dislike, but suffer from a form of stupidity - not necessarily congenital - that makes them incapable of rationally assessing cause and effect. For whatever reason, such people almost uniformly instantiate as postmodern conservatives, overwhelmingly more so than anything on the left spectrum.

The pandemic made it very plain: hundreds of millions of people, even in the heart of the so-called developed world, are literally psychologically incapable of constituting and sustaining a modern civilization, with all its complex maintenance. The film Idiocracy was partially-right as well, but it rendered its subjects in far too convivial a style.

In the country that is most far gone to this phenomenon, the United States, we see an accelerated feedback loop whereby the inability of government to address fundamental needs in the population, including education, leaves an ever-greater share of the population fallen out of the frameworks of modern rationality, which in turn blocks the formation of viable political coalitions with the will and ability to attack those problems... The overall outcome is a worsening cycle of social disintegration in the developed world, and beyond, that makes holding together a unified, technologically-advanced, socially-complex modern (let alone democratic) state untenable. Not, as I suspected, because the state is too weak, but because too many individuals lack the attributes to participate in modernity. Irrationalists of the sort who were temporarily suppressed throughout Europe, Asia, and the Americas after WW2 by the more restrictive cultural and informatic environments available at the time.

Much of the world seems likely to enter a state of fragmented, gibbering technobarbarism in the 21st century, and the elitist elements of stories like Brave New World and 1984 will prove the most prescient (except those elites will also be high on their own supply). It will function badly enough that it will find itself replaced by some alternative, new system - after great cost. But it's such an obviously unproductive way of arranging society that I wonder if it's even possible it could come to that without something like nuclear apocalypse ending global civilization outright - if, rather, alternative frameworks won't intervene.

[Olaf The Great]

Fun fact:

The House polling and the special elections swing averages (an alternative metric for projecting performance in House elections) have been in near-total agreement this time. Such close alignment between polling and alternative measures corroborates that the incredibly-tight spread of polling findings throughout this cycle for presidential and senatorial races among almost all pollsters and trackers reflects accuracy more than herding or other biases.

Not-fun fact:

As of a few days ago, all of them agreed on the Dem national vote share falling within 0.4-1.0% ahead of Repubs', which would make it very difficult to get a Democratic majority. Currently, RCP has Repubs moving into the lead.

Yeaaah, this will be some rough 4 years. Let's just hope WW3 doesn't start

[Devastatin Dave]

TRUMP! YES! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

[Shaka_Khan]

Maybe the return of Trump will make this forum active again?

[Devastatin Dave]

Maybe the return of Trump will make this forum active again?

MFAA!!!! Make this Forum Active Again! That's the spirit Shaka Khan! ALL HAIL the POWER of TRUMP!!!

[Shaka_Khan]

MFAA!!!! Make this Forum Active Again! That's the spirit Shaka Khan! ALL HAIL the POWER of TRUMP!!!
While I don't think Trump will betray our allies, and he might be able to bring back peace, he does make comments about our allies that are too harsh. For example, he tends to accuse South Korea of unfair trade practices. But when he was in South Korea, he only made kind remarks about that country. I've been to that country and I know a lot of people from there.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0xEoKRHRi4

And as you can see in the following videos, South Korea imports a lot.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU07_wlM5rY


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GywfK2bZ7zY


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNeuQi8RmJQ


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vYIYqoSEb4

[Shaka_Khan]

The first Asian BMW Driving Center was built in South Korea. Among the Asian countries, South Korea bought the most BMWs at that time. South Korea might still rank the top in that list among the Asian countries now.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1R3woYD2XJs

There are Teslas in South Korea too.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwbFy0x5joE

Here are some of the American businesses in South Korea.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v3_SEudiLQ


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyMfn9Ndmaw

There are multiple towers owned by Trump there. If I remember correctly, these towers were built during the early 2000s.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjdhtlT0T4k

Meanwhile, I don't see a lot of Hyundais here in the States. Maybe there's more in Georgia where one of Hyundai's factory is located. Trump never imposed any tariffs on any South Korean imports.

And did you know that Trump never banned the South Koreans from entering during the pandemic? The only reason that they couldn't enter at that time was because of the lockdowns here. (South Korea never had any lockdowns).

[edyzmedieval]

So... uhhh, with all that happened in the past 3 weeks, how are we feeling?

[spmetla]

Sick to the stomach.

Trump and Musk are actively destroying the constitutional system with separation of powers into separate but equal branches. The attack on the legislative branch's spending under the guise of eliminating fraud, waste, and abuse is destroying Congress's power of the purse which is really their greatest power. The current attack on judges that are ordering pauses on firings and funding issues is undermining the power of the judiciary to interrupt the laws that Congress passes.

Perhaps some Republican congressmen will wake up and realize that this is not okay but that seems very very unlikely. If this continues then the American experiment of representative democracy is pretty much dead.

We are well on the way to having a 'unitary executive' in which the power of the President is virtually unlimited. It's a nice dressed up word for Führerprinzip.
Wiki:
It placed the Führer's word above all written law, and meant that government policies, decisions, and officials all served to realize his will. In practice, the Führerprinzip gave Adolf Hitler supreme power over the ideology and policies of his political party; this form of personal dictatorship was a basic characteristic of Nazism. The state itself received "political authority" from Hitler, and the Führerprinzip stipulated that only what the Führer "commands, allows, or does not allow is our conscience," with party leaders pledging "eternal allegiance to Adolf Hitler."

[Montmorency]

There was the resignation of party loyalist Sassoon in refusing to implement the cooptation by Trump of NYC mayor Adams, but that incident is more like a concentration camp official resigning at having to designate capos to govern the inmates indirectly. She didn't sign up to FedSoc and clerk for Scalia just to give a Democrat a break!

It's funny to think that Trump's crimes have escalated to the point that almost every day brings developments (complete with Saturday Night Massacres!) that would have been worse in themselves than anything Nixon or any other malfeasant president ever did.

I'm just as worried about Musk at this point though. Last fall he revealed that he is totally committed to the eradication of American and global liberalism, and that his wealth gives him the right to dispose of the US government, its offices, its assets, and its obligations in any way he personally pleases. And he's been acting on those values with gusto. Also, he's probably more psychologically and politically fascist than Trump now.

The national value of some of his ventures, such as SpaceX, can hardly be overstated, but he personally ought to suffer expropriation and permanent exile from this country (not that I'd wish to inflict him upon South Africa).

Many essays like this (https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/path-american-authoritarianism-trump) have been written over the past years, and perhaps many more still will be.

[spmetla]

Yeah, there's a few Republicans that have done a tiny bit of effort to stem the tide. Mitch McConnel's votes against Trump's cabinet picks is good but seeing as his refusal to impeach him for January 6th is why we are in this mess it's too little and way too late.

The Trump gang's overseas disasters these last few weeks are just mind boggling. That the Republicans are not only just not opposing but actively changing their posture to support these decisions is telling in that the US as the guarantor for more or less global stability has ended. The era of regional Hegemon's is coming and Europe best rearm and do it fast if it doesn't want to be under Russia's sphere of influence.

Wanting to 'own Gaza' eliminates the US a credible voice in the Arab world into purely just one that's pro-Israel. Demanding land from Denmark/Greenland and Canada is a threat to NATO allies that only the unopposable strength of the US within NATO keeps those allies from invoking Article 4.

Hearing the Sec Def claim that the US Navy can't beat the Russians shows he's completely out of touch with reality, completely unsuited for his job and gets his information from pro-Russia sources and whatever Trump tells him without any push back. His wanting to cut the DoD in half would make the US have a military smaller than at any point since WW2 and essentially give up it capability to decisively commit force anywhere around the globe. My take is that the Trump admin wants us to just dominate North and South America and let the PRC and Russian Federation do what they like.

Hearing the VP scold Europe for immigration policies and trying to oppose Russian disinformation at a conference that should be focusing on European security and have the danger of Russia as its focus is just mind boggling.

The confirmation of Tulsi Gabbard probably means that our Allies sharing intel with us is going to be extremely limited and that Five eyes is probably unofficially 'four eyes' from now on.

The not surprising betrayal of Ukraine is terrible as well. To have the starting position for negotiations be that the conflict is frozen on current borders, Ukraine gets zero security guarantees, and that it should sign over half its mineral rights to the US in exchange for nothing is just crazy and far beyond the bad that I'd been prepared for from this administration.
The guard rails are off and any professionals in the US Govt. that try to keep the US on track to follow its own laws much less commitments to allies and partners besides Israel are likely to just be sacked the same day.

I see no silver linings on anything and am getting more depressed each day. Wonder how long before I'm asked to have my US Army Officer Oath of Office changed to protect and defend the President over the Constitution which I will never swear to do and end my twenty-three years of service in the National Guard.

[Montmorency]

I think McConnell, like McCain, just acts out of spite sometimes. He's a polio survivor who has been critical of Kennedy for a while, for example...


I will not condone the re-litigation of proven cures, and neither will millions of Americans who credit their survival and quality of life to scientific miracles.

Speaking of polio, it's been a commonplace observation that the passing of the world-war generations is probably a decisive contributor to the degeneration of global publics into an escalating embrace of war, disease, political cultism, irrationalism, etc. The end of modernity and its wholesale replacement with postmodernism. Notably, what the much-maligned postmodernist philosophers of 50 years back were more describing/predicting than advocating. An interesting bit of trivia I recall on this subject is a reference to a study on Congressional votes during the Vietnam War era: legislators who had served in combat in WW2/Korea, regardless of party, usually opposed expansion of the Vietnam War, whereas those who never did were usually in favor. Can't find the cite though.

Hegseth would have been totally unfit for his position if he were an upright man and not a sot and a pervert and a professional liar. But he is those things. Do you have any insight on the sentiment amid the military currently, regarding recent and potential changes in policy and culture? I'm not suggesting or recommending anything from you, mind. A politically-active and scheming military is almost always very bad for a country. Although given the American experiment is kind of ending in its Second Republic format, that might not envision the worst-case scenarios.

Re: Vance:
If America can survive 10 years of Greta Thunberg's scolding, you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk.

Since Supreme Chancellor of Europe Thunberg has not in fact waged a regulatory war against the US (or the EU bureaucracy) for the past decade, it's a great moment to reflect on how so much of reactionary thinking is merely reducible to slavish embrace of hierarchy. 'There's a club, and you're not in it.' The best way to join the club? Nowadays, embrace Fuhrerprinzip. The only surefire way to get kicked out of the club? Defy the Fuhrer. As a young Euroweenie bitch, Thunberg's nagging was literally a collective and personal insult to those members exposed to it. All of their ideology and grievance is just pretextual to 'putting people in their rightful place.' That's why Thunberg triggers them so much, even now.

[spmetla]

An interesting bit of trivia I recall on this subject is a reference to a study on Congressional votes during the Vietnam War era: legislators who had served in combat in WW2/Korea, regardless of party, usually opposed expansion of the Vietnam War, whereas those who never did were usually in favor.

I've never heard that but I can believe it. There was a lot of complaint at the time over the method of the war being fought and especially its defensive nature in that invading and toppling North Vietnam was never on the table as PRC involvement as in Korea would be disastrous and might expand the war to the rest of East Asia.


Do you have any insight on the sentiment amid the military currently, regarding recent and potential changes in policy and culture?
Just speaking for my peers which are the 'GWOT generation' of the military most are very much pro-Trump, disdainful of Europe, and the Federal Govt. They don't understand the separation of powers all that well and don't really care about Trump eliminating spending he doesn't like or judges he doesn't like.
As for culture overall, they, like most conservatives I know don't like how Trump and his crew talk and act but think it's worth any amount of damage to destroy the 'DEI mind virus.' As I've commented in the past, the progressive social policies of the Democrats, especially in regard to gender politics, white guilt, affirmative action/white male replacement, and drug/crime rehabilitation have cause the Dems to essentially lose the culture war. MAGA supporters don't really care about anything else so long as they 'win' the culture war.
This coupled with Russian/PRC disinformation to undermine their support for the UN, NATO, and the US led rule-based world order in general has led to where we are now.


That's why Thunberg triggers them so much, even now.
100% correct on why this triggers them. That's why there are 'coal roller' truck clubs in which diesel owners essentially make their trucks inefficient in order to spue black exhaust smoke just to spite Greta and 'the Libs.'
This is also why I've never actually been a fan of Greta as I don't think she's contributed anything of value, she's not working toward any realistic solutions, just demanding radical unrealistic change. It's like those 'just stop oil' protestors that deface artwork. Yes, we need to stop using oil like we do but it also doesn't happen quickly.

Sadly, all of the above is due to the rise of social media. Instead of getting news from 'the news' it essentially comes from the gossip guy/gal in the village pub and as that person is a 'good bloke' they correct because 'why would they lie?'

Perhaps the Dems are able to use the 'govt shutdown' to get some leverage from across the aisle. I'm more worried that it'll backfire on them and the rest of us as it could be used as justification for more extreme action by Trump. On the extreme and unlikely side Trump could name certain Dems he doesn't like as domestic terrorists for not funding the government and arrest/ kill them and appoint a replacement as elections in those States 'are rigged by the Dems and can't be trusted.' On the more likely side, it'll just give Musk more ammo to cut more of government spending. On the middle point of crazy possibilities, I could see the Republicans just voting on their own continuing resolution, pretend that the Democrat votes don't matter and move forward with it while directing the Treasury department to accept it as law thereby creating a one-party state despite that it's all illegal as the courts could never move fast enough to stop all of it.

[Montmorency]

Just speaking for my peers which are the 'GWOT generation' of the military most are very much pro-Trump, disdainful of Europe, and the Federal Govt. They don't understand the separation of powers all that well and don't really care about Trump eliminating spending he doesn't like or judges he doesn't like.

Is there any ember of a resistance to a declaration of war of annexation against Canada (I know there's no hope for Panama, Greenland, or Gaza if things come to that)?

I don't have in mind something like a cabal of colonels suddenly unveiling that they will be the new arbiters of the Constitution. I mean action in the context of something that goes beyond the scope of protests and resignations. At that point the only ethical option seems to be violent resistance by those Americans best equipped and legitimized to supply it. And if that sounds like a civil war, I would submit that the occasion of an American government cartoonishly conquering Canada for the sake of raw power would be the signal that we are already in a hot civil conflict. I can believe Americans would slouch through almost anything out of inertia, but in this scenario we're approaching what could be the limits, as far-fetched as it all still is to contemplate.


As for culture overall, they, like most conservatives I know don't like how Trump and his crew talk and act but think it's worth any amount of damage to destroy the 'DEI mind virus.' As I've commented in the past, the progressive social policies of the Democrats, especially in regard to gender politics, white guilt, affirmative action/white male replacement, and drug/crime rehabilitation have cause the Dems to essentially lose the culture war. MAGA supporters don't really care about anything else so long as they 'win' the culture war.

I don't believe Democrats have lost the culture war - their positions remain by and large more popular in isolation! What's happened is the information war waged over generations by the right has indeed contributed to a persistent demeaning of the Democratic party brand. So even when Democrats say or do things people like, too many in the middle or of mixed/incoherent politics will revert to dismissing Democrats as a party of 'incompetent manhaters and racebaiters', as they were taught. And the right only needs to make a couple percentage points out of this cohort to be competitive. The US has been fairly split politically for many generations, but before polarization it used to be possible to achieve very large swings in either direction. But the most important change here is that conservative elites have been self-radicalized by their media projects (they drank the Kool-Aid, and now all their leaders are "Fox News grandpas"), and are happy to lead their radicalized base in overthrowing the entire basis of American government. At least when the same pattern unfolded in 1920s Germany, there was an immediate tradition of monarchy to hearken back to.

To be fair, the Dems have too often wound up frozen by special interests and centrism even when they do control government, often producing the kind of lackluster governance people around the world hate as they watch it fail to address the escalating problems they observe brewing, which has the effect of undercutting for the less engaged the Democratic selling point of being = better at governance than Republicans. But this has also been changing as various cities and states get more aggressive in policymaking.

But people like e.g. Ken Long (https://komonews.com/newsletter-daily/veteran-calls-for-change-denied-heart-transplant-vaccine-refusal-covid-covid19-christ-hospital-cincinnati-eaton-preble-county-congestive-failure-medical-procedure-doctor-military-side-effects-critical-condition-gofundme-recovery), a veteran who has proposed that he will choose death over getting a heart transplant, because he rejects being vaccinated as a prerequisite to the transplant (and we heard countless similar stories during the pandemic), aren't turned off by progressives "going too far" or whatever, they just veritably hate the entire edifice of modern, advanced civilization, if not its conveniences, to their cores, because it undermines the hierarchy they intuit. They want to enjoy the masochism of victimhood, the mirage of Christian victimhood like Long is lusting after, while still holding the unlimited power to do whatever they want to those who aren't in their club. And that is a fascistic mindset, the belief in being under unlimited threat no matter what, and therefore deserving the power to achieve sadism no matter what. There was never a way to satisfy the atavists, only to contain them, so long as conservative elites still bought into the American experiment.

For a more succinct description, as always "the cruelty is the point. (https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1891923570768384107?mx=2)" [VIDEO]



This is also why I've never actually been a fan of Greta as I don't think she's contributed anything of value, she's not working toward any realistic solutions, just demanding radical unrealistic change.

But what was Thunberg supposed to propose? It is useful for someone with a modicum of influence to point out the cumulative failures of the system. That is, someone who isn't on the right and isn't using their own contribution to those failures to make things worse. Thunberg is wrong in that the steady application of moderate energy transition policies from the 1990s on would arguably have solved the climate change problem by now, at least in terms of a crisis. But the fact that we were never able to approach such sensible policymaking due to greed, shortsightedness, and the massive resistance of the right and center is what makes her right! So any "realistic" solution she could offer would itself be unrealistic for lacking relevance amid a broken political environment. Maybe you could call it "damned if you do, damned if you don't", but she's got to be the last person to blame for that. This is by the way how Martin Luther King Jr. came around to socialism being necessary in the fight against racism - he perceived that all the pernicious systems making up the whole society, its politics, and economics, were bound together in a mutually-reinforcing way, such that you couldn't cut one branch without getting at the others. Similarly, it's not surprising to me that the civil rights movement reached its peak at a simultaneous peak in the energy of American liberalism and the welfare state, and at the same time at which the American economy showed less inequality than at any other time in its history. But we don't usually put that context side by side, right?


Sadly, all of the above is due to the rise of social media. Instead of getting news from 'the news' it essentially comes from the gossip guy/gal in the village pub and as that person is a 'good bloke' they correct because 'why would they lie?'

Nowadays, it feels like every possible political philosophy has substantially failed to meet the moment, but I lack the intelligence and creativity to imagine a satisfying novel alternative that might emerge in the future. I believe politics must henceforth become reducible to psychology and neurology rather than ideology or economics or culture or class, as the radical and increasingly-divergent diversity of psychological orientations among human beings may make liberal democracy untenable where it isn't contained by other factors. This is something authoritarianism always seeks to achieve in some fashion, but it brings its own inevitable failings in trying to pull things back together coercively. Countries like Russia, Iran, China, Israel, India, Turkey, etc. are led by people who seem to have converged on versions of a certain philosophy I would call "soft totalitarianism" or "moderate fascism", which uses nationalism and semi-overt thought control to try to convert the fractious impulses of the population toward a single national project less aggressively than Marxist-Leninism, Nazism, etc. used to. The goal is to keep the country united and stable, while projecting strength on the international arena, without resorting to methods that are too self-destructive. They are continuing the dream of achieving a perfect enlightened despotism: "Everything for the people, nothing by the people." It remains to be seen whether these versions of totalitarianism will prove any more resilient than the 20th century ones did.

The bottom line is as follows: A world where humans all shared a Joe Biden kind of mentality and sensibility would produce more of a Star Trek utopia than any left-wing ideology ever could. On the other hand, a world where humans shared a Donald Trump kind of mentality and sensibility would be a troglodytic one, and it's questionable how far in advance of chimpanzees we would have been able to rise.

[spmetla]

Is there any ember of a resistance to a declaration of war of annexation against Canada (I know there's no hope for Panama, Greenland, or Gaza if things come to that)?

I don't have in mind something like a cabal of colonels suddenly unveiling that they will be the new arbiters of the Constitution. I mean action in the context of something that goes beyond the scope of protests and resignations. At that point the only ethical option seems to be violent resistance by those Americans best equipped and legitimized to supply it. And if that sounds like a civil war, I would submit that the occasion of an American government cartoonishly conquering Canada for the sake of raw power would be the signal that we are already in a hot civil conflict. I can believe Americans would slouch through almost anything out of inertia, but in this scenario we're approaching what could be the limits, as far-fetched as it all still is to contemplate.

I think my worldview seems an isolated one in the military, though that's really just the Hawaii National Guard outside deployments and training. I certainly hope that there'd be resistance to US aggression within but in a way it wouldn't matter as Hegseth is about to 'clean house' in the DoD. I imagine in the next few months we'll see every 'globalist' flag officer fired and replaced with 'loyal' flag officers.
I figure that part of the 40% reduction in the DoD over the next five years that seems to be proposed by Trump/Hegseth is in part to cave to Russia and China their spheres of influence and in part to make the military small enough to also be 100% politically loyal to MAGA.

Sadly, because the military is such a small segment of the population and partly because it is all volunteer it is very insulated from the rest of America. Certainly, a benefit of the draft was that it drew from a pool of males that represented the US a lot more evenly than now.


I don't believe Democrats have lost the culture war - their positions remain by and large more popular in isolation! What's happened is the information war waged over generations by the right has indeed contributed to a persistent demeaning of the Democratic party brand.
The Democratic brand has absolutely been trashed by the right and that's why so many voters will vote for Republicans while completely ignorant that they are voting against their interests. Heck even the Republican centrists have been trashed into just being RINOs.


Nowadays, it feels like every possible political philosophy has substantially failed to meet the moment, but I lack the intelligence and creativity to imagine a satisfying novel alternative that might emerge in the future.
That's why I don't subscribe to any one political philosophy, I feel like a pendulum there's times for centralizing and decentralizing as change is a constant and the forms of government will always need to change in small parts to meet that.
When the internet was new it needed little regulation, now of course it needs lots as it's such a part of daily life. Same with roads from pre to post automobiles.


To be fair, the Dems have too often wound up frozen by special interests and centrism even when they do control government, often producing the kind of lackluster governance people around the world hate as they watch it fail to address the escalating problems they observe brewing, which has the effect of undercutting for the less engaged the Democratic selling point of being = better at governance than Republicans. But this has also been changing as various cities and states get more aggressive in policymaking.


I still think that the thing that would be prevent this despite its flaws would be ranked choice voting. Let the far left and far right have their dedicated parties to vote for as it is vital that everyone has candidates that represent them. This two-party system in which a third party is a spoiler and each party needs to have a 'big tent' approach has led to the extremists being able to dominate the narrative and use the 'no true Scotsman' argument for all that disagree about their political purity.

The Democrats that sat out this last election be it over Biden/Kamala's stance on Gaza, vaccines, or another special interst/single issue are kind of an example of this. They should have been able to vote for a candidate that represents them be it RFK or someone else but then have the run-down ballot go to the least 'evil' choice which is usually going to be a centrist of some sort.

Same for the Republicans, Trump would have been far less able to hijack the party if the white Christian nationalists had been able to create own 'Tea Party' party instead of taking over the GOP and sidelining the centrists that are willing to reach across the aisle and compromise with centrist Democrats.

Looking at Europe though, I just hope that Germany does not pull off a Trump 'surprise' this Sunday. The CDU looks far ahead overall, and I hope that the other parties get enough of a vote that they are able to form a coalition without the AfD again.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Well, the sea-change at the JCS level has come about as you mooted spmetla. And the admin tapped a retired 3-star whose biggest commands were working with the CIA and military procurement.

I really think this is very much an outflow of the neo-isolationist stance now being adopted by a key segment of the GOP voter base. I understand the pull of isolationism -- it's simplicity and its seemingly low cost in blood and treasure -- but I just don't think it works over the long haul and think it even less likely to achieve its objectives in an electronically integrated planet where planes traverse the globe in hours, not days or weeks like the ships of yore.

[Montmorency]

I know we've differed somewhat on this topic since the first Trump era, Seamus, but observing Trump and MAGA over the past weeks and few years has done little to change my assessment that it's not isolationism at play, but another expression of postmodern conservatism's irrational licentiousness. They want an active say in global affairs, to the extent of the thrill of outright dominating other countries (in this vein it rhymes with Thomas Friedman's infamously-Jeffersonian "Every now and again the United States has to pick up a crappy little country and throw it against a wall just to prove we are serious"). But all that amid a delirious refusal to contemplate actually having to undertake the costs and risks attendant to it, or the sober-minded collaboration, compromise, and calculation it demands. They think the United States, so long as it is led by MAGA, is so mighty that it can - and should - always take without giving.

The American alliance (and trade/investment) network has made the West very rich, but Trump and MAGA gaze upon it the way a late-stage Athens as imagined in Spartan propaganda might have gazed upon its League. If you know what I mean. It's not because they look inward, but because they have a common street thug's mentality toward life and not much else going for them mentally. There's no honor among thieves, so respect your enemies and put the screws in your "friends" - your fellow thieves are the ones you have to worry about cheating you.

What seems to be the counterpoint to the term isolationism in this discussion is always the same thing, and should be recognized as such: the old 20th century liberal consensus (which included Republicans to a significant extent) that the United States, both for idealistic and self-interested reasons, ought to invest in the world's health, knowledge, and security. You know, pussy liberal shit, American tax money going to damn dirty foreigners. The mooted neoisolationism never seems to preclude the proactive application of coercion or extortion for a perceived American benefit. There's a reason for that, and my description captures it as well as any I've encountered.

Looking at the phenomenon through that lens, does it change how you would address it though?

[Montmorency]

To paraphrase Pannonian, the MAGA ideal is for America to have unlimited license, and for other countries to have unlimited responsibilities, to America.

But they won't hear that this is both unfeasible and counterproductive (leave ethics aside).

[spmetla]

Well, the sea-change at the JCS level has come about as you mooted spmetla. And the admin tapped a retired 3-star whose biggest commands were working with the CIA and military procurement.

I fear that's just the tip of the iceberg.


I really think this is very much an outflow of the neo-isolationist stance now being adopted by a key segment of the GOP voter base. I understand the pull of isolationism -- it's simplicity and its seemingly low cost in blood and treasure -- but I just don't think it works over the long haul and think it even less likely to achieve its objectives in an electronically integrated planet where planes traverse the globe in hours, not days or weeks like the ships of yore.

I think it's also to do with our typical 'American exceptionalism' in which so many in the US think we don't need the rest of the world and would rather just not have anything to do with it. So many Americans have no clue how alliances and trade partnerships help us.


The American alliance (and trade/investment) network has made the West very rich, but Trump and MAGA gaze upon it the way a late-stage Athens as imagined in Spartan propaganda might have gazed upon its League. If you know what I mean. It's not because they look inward, but because they have a common street thug's mentality toward life and not much else going for them mentally. There's no honor among thieves, so respect your enemies and put the screws in your "friends" - your fellow thieves are the ones you have to worry about cheating you.

I was using just this example to a friend of mine recently. One of the moral high grounds of NATO was that countries could just leave, or underfund their own defense but we'd still defend them all the same instead of like Athens in which failure to provide the request ships or money gets you invaded which was more like the USSR that what NATO should be.
Like that meme I know you've seen of 'how countries joining nato versus how countries joined the warsaw pact.'

As for the thug mentality, I think that's right now just a reflection of their parroting what Trump says. They don't want to be suckers and losers and Trump says that's how the world is treating us so they want to 'hit back' and get the respect they think we deserve. They have no understanding that were mostly well respected and trusted and Trump's hit back at our friends and allies is not making us the leader of our 'gang' but an adversary.


To paraphrase Pannonian, the MAGA ideal is for America to have unlimited license, and for other countries to have unlimited responsibilities, to America.

But they won't hear that this is both unfeasible and counterproductive (leave ethics aside).

This is where I'd disagree. MAGA has no ideals except complete and total subservience to Trump. They are anti foreign adventures unless Trump says we can take the Canal, Canada, Greenland, and the Gaza Strip for some reason. We need freedom of the press but only for what we like to hear, we like states rights unless it's a liberal state defying Trump.

This is a phenomenon that's far more like 1984 than anything else, they pledge complete loyalty to Big Brother. If country B is now our enemy it was always our enemy, 2+2=5 if Trump says so.
The crazy thing is this is all self-radicalization like with muslim extremism. They get their 'two minutes hate' from social media or whichever Cable News host they like.
I've had to watch my mother go from a Sanders supporting Democrat to full on MAGA because of her anti-vaccine stance and adoration of RFK Jr. Now she sends me daily whatsapp messages of Tucker Carlson clips and other nonsense because she's convinced herself that her bubble is the truth and I've got Stockholm syndrome for arguing for our institutions and norms.

[Montmorency]

Maybe a better word is "instinct" rather than "ideal." I do believe Trump's foreign policy methods also reflect a fundamental orientation toward life among a large part of the electorate, independent of what Trump directs them to entertain at a given time. Before Trump entered politics, a lot of that mentality is what got us in trouble in Vietnam and Iraq in the first place, and what made "losing Panama" a scandal, for some, for Trump to even be in a position to revive.


If we could say roughly a third of the population is core MAGA, it's not that they were a tabula rasa that Trump somehow expertly molded as he pleased. They saw what he was and they liked what they saw. Trump is not a mind-control wizard. In some ways he's the ultimate American. Every better angel has its counterpart.

One thing to keep in mind is that Trump, in his rhetoric or campaigning, often mimes fake moderation. How he'll protect Medicare and Social Security, how he wants abortion rights to be decided "by the states", etc. He does that because he knows even he can't say something like "Social Security is your enemy, let's end it immediately" and get away with it scot-free. Even MAGA has its limits, Trump just senses what they are better than most. It's part of how polls in 2016 could find that people perceived Trump as more moderate than Clinton!

Now, the contradiction of how someone could be both moderate and an "outsider who will shake things up" is the kind of doublethink one could attribute to the cult aspect, but Americans on the whole are also very ignorant of civics and political philosophy.

Sorry about your mother, I hear about the antivaxx-to-fash pipeline a lot. Before 2020 it would have been so hard to believe that the "naturalist" crunchy granola hippy thinking behind most anti-vaccine agitation could convert to a far-right movement against the entire public health and pharmaceutical discipline.

[Montmorency]

Something from Foucault that may be relevant, if Seamus wishes to interpret for the thread:


If this subject who speaks of right (or rather, rights) is speaking the truth, that truth is no longer the universal truth of the philosopher. … It is interested in the totality only to the extent that it can see it in one-sided terms, distort it and see it from its own point of view. The truth is, in other words, a truth that can be deployed only from its combat position, from the perspective of the sought-for victory and ultimately, so to speak, of the survival of the speaking subject himself.

[spmetla]

Trump is not a mind-control wizard. In some ways he's the ultimate American.

That's exactly why I credit this as almost something Orwellian. It's not in the MAGA world force propaganda like 1984's Big Brother but due to his appeal as a 'says it like it is' honest broker following despite being a lying grifter. Its self radicalization like with muslim extremists that isolates people on their own so they trust no one by 'their' people to such an extreme degree that only direct and very personal betrayal by Trump might change that.


One thing to keep in mind is that Trump, in his rhetoric or campaigning, often mimes fake moderation. How he'll protect Medicare and Social Security, how he wants abortion rights to be decided "by the states", etc. He does that because he knows even he can't say something like "Social Security is your enemy, let's end it immediately" and get away with it scot-free. Even MAGA has its limits, Trump just senses what they are better than most. It's part of how polls in 2016 could find that people perceived Trump as more moderate than Clinton!

Well, that's part of his weird power as a lying grifter. He's completely inconsistent in his promises on a day by day basis and can say whatever to please whatever demographic. Those that like it will say 'listen to what he says, wow he's our guy' and those that don't like what he says are met with 'he's just trying to trigger the libs, it's a joke, that's not what he meant.'


Sorry about your mother, I hear about the antivaxx-to-fash pipeline a lot. Before 2020 it would have been so hard to believe that the "naturalist" crunchy granola hippy thinking behind most anti-vaccine agitation could convert to a far-right movement against the entire public health and pharmaceutical discipline.
It is certainly hard to see and live with. Seeing someone you love spout absolute nonsense and be completely convinced by it while having no mental disorders or problems really sucks. It doesn't help that because it's the 'Age of Aquarius' which means all this radical change must be for the better because stars are aligned and such.
She's not the only one I know like that though, a surprising amount of 'hippies' in Hawaii that are more MAGA libertarians now than they were hippies in the past. Certainly, a weird phenomenon that I guess just comes from a lifetime of doubting any and all professionals about facts.

I like your Faucault quote, very interesting.

As for this week, another crazy week of chaos via Trump. It's crazy how much MAGA just doesn't understand how important Trust is to business/international trade as well as diplomacy. The US turning into the village's local scheming, money shifting sheister is somehow seen as winning. Just wish I could be a fly on the wall for these crazy schemes inside decision making and at least make some money on the chaos between stocks, bitcoin, and forex. I'm sure the MAGA inside traders are making piles off this self created chaos, would be nice to at least have a silver lining of solving my money problems too.

[Montmorency]

That's exactly why I credit this as almost something Orwellian. It's not in the MAGA world force propaganda like 1984's Big Brother but due to his appeal as a 'says it like it is' honest broker following despite being a lying grifter. Its self radicalization like with muslim extremists that isolates people on their own so they trust no one by 'their' people to such an extreme degree that only direct and very personal betrayal by Trump might change that.


Nineteen Eighty-Four's protagonist Winston Smith, who works in the Ministry of Truth, is routinely assigned the task of revising old newspaper articles in order to serve the propaganda interests of the government. In one instance, the weekly chocolate ration was decreased from 30 grams to 20. The next day the newspaper announced that the chocolate ration had not been reduced to 20 grams per week, but increased to 20 grams. Any previous mention of the ration having been 30 grams per week needed to be destroyed.

You may recall that I documented over the first Trump term something like 4 instances in which Trump tweeted celebrating the Dow Jones index reaching 25000. Because it kept dropping below it and then rebounding, over months.

So yes, the picture of MAGA praising Trump for each time he either issues tariffs or retracts them is a fundamentally Orwellian one; yes, there are millions of Americans who would probably execute their firstborn if the Trump, thy God commanded it, but the MAGA cult as a group is 'only' like 1/3 of the population. The rest of the Trump supporters suffer from a mixture of negative qualities, including sheer ignorance of American politics and what politicians say and do, selfish contempt of anything "liberal", etc. Those people aren't true believers, they're more passive, and under potential circumstances could turn on Trump just like most of them turned on GWB (who lest we forget had a little bit of a cultish worship movement about him in his first term, after 9/11).

Though I shudder to think what sort of catastrophies it would take to bring Trump down to 35% approval... I think he could order the nuclear bombardment of "blue cities" and never drop below 30%, still counting the casualties.


Well, that's part of his weird power as a lying grifter. He's completely inconsistent in his promises on a day by day basis and can say whatever to please whatever demographic. Those that like it will say 'listen to what he says, wow he's our guy' and those that don't like what he says are met with 'he's just trying to trigger the libs, it's a joke, that's not what he meant.'

Many condemn Trump as a lifelong business failure, but he has always in fact been really successful in all forms of white-collar crime, which besides his reality TV show and related branding were his primary source of net worth before politics. Trump is a grifter to make P.T. Barnum blush, a very effective one. Many, if not most, are immune to his ways, such that we may recall the famous quote attributed to Abe Lincoln about not fooling all of the people all of the time, but those who are susceptible just keep falling for it no matter how many times Trump bamboozles them - in politics and in business. For Trump to have been blacklisted from almost every major bank still involved him successfully defrauding almost every major bank!! If we had the kind of system to put guys like this in prison when they're just starting out, we'd be much healthier as a society. But I've noticed something interesting about Left and Right:

This is a bit of a preliminary read that deserves much more development, but I recently had the realization that conservatives tend to profoundly prioritize negative attention toward violent crime, larceny, and direct offenses between individuals than white-collar crime in general, even though you can often hear conservatives giving lip service against corruption and fraud. On the other hand, people more inclined toward progressive or egalitarian sentiments usually react much more negatively toward white-collar, financialized crime, including crimes that affect lots of people in indirect ways, than they do toward violent crime or larceny. In other words, the archetypical right-winger thinks about someone breaking into their house and raping their family and reaches for their gun, while the archetypical left-winger thinks about their boss's boss skimming their wages and screwing up their neighborhood and reaches for their placard. Of coirse, I would be remiss not to note that left-wing fears are a lot more common to come to life...

My hypothesis is that this gets at something fundamental in political psychology, though I struggle to think how to best research the question. If correct, it would go some way to helping explain how corruption remains so persistent even in developed societies, and why elite impunity is so persistent everywhere.




I'm sure the MAGA inside traders are making piles off this self created chaos

Donald Trump’s crypto project netted $350mn from presidential memecoin (https://www.ft.com/content/cb1def8f-53a6-478e-9b3e-33c383b29629)

Trump's meme coin made nearly $100 million in trading fees, as small traders lost money (https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/trumps-meme-coin-made-nearly-100-million-trading-fees-small-traders-lost-money-2025-02-03/)


God forbid Musk and Trump manage to funnel billions of taxpayer dollars into pumping and dumping their own and their friends' crypto holdings, as they've suggested they'd like to do.



would be nice to at least have a silver lining of solving my money problems too.

Notably, this is how a lot of "competitive" authoritarian regimes like Orban's or even Putin's get up and running. It's not just about sticks - threatening, exiling, jailing, or killing the opposition into submission - but the carrots as well. From ordinary people up to civil societal actors and bit politicians and bureaucrats, the message is 'cooperate, and we'll elevate you into the club.' Regime members and associates get loads of job opportunities, graft opportunities, kickbacks, and other favors and privileges. In better times the West acts as a key partner in this respect, in among other ways by acting as an outlet for the opposition to emigrate to (but still send remittances from). Kind of how all those socialists and anarchists came to America from France, Italy, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia back in the day. So in other words, contemporary authoritarians win without mass killing by dividing and conquering the vast majority of the population into: self-exiles; passives; collaborators; core supporters.

I think the way the public is beginning to react in the US may demonstrate that our society is indeed too complex and diverse to overwhelm like that, to say nothing of the fact that Musk and Trump are chaotic and narcissistic rather than rational, focused planners like the other Bad Hombres. We'll see if trying so hard to make as many enemies as they can at once pays off for them down the line. (Such as, to stay on topic, the Cubanos getting triggered by Musk declaring Radio Martí a form of waste, fraud, and abuse, and trying to shut it down.) For instance, the leaks from/about the Trump cabinet officials such as Rubio have got underway, alleging friction between the political appointees and Elon Musk trying to do his own thing.

But now we're in a global psychosocial war of some nature, so no relationship is stable with respect to anything else.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Nice discussion. And I do like Foucault's take on things -- always makes me thoughtful.

Trump is every bit of the communicator FDR was; seeks changes in politics and government that are just as sweeping as FDR; sees himself as the only real leader who can face this moment in history and embodies "apres moi le deluge" every bit as much.

Trump's rhetoric is every bit as effective as FDR and his fireside chats. He appeals to commonality and Americana mythos & nomos appeals with his core support group like few ever have. The believe he shares their most important experience of America is going to Hell and we need to take it back -- never stop swinging back at your opponents (never give up, never surrender) until they are destroyed (and that there are no real rules in a knife fight except to win). His connection with his core 20% of the electorate is profound. That it contravenes all of Aristotle's precepts about proper rhetoric doesn't mean it isn't working. Logos is ignored, Ethos redefined to tribalism, and pathos reigns triumphant. That is, by the way, the exact demagogic approach to successful rhetoric decried by Socrates, Aristotle, Hobbes, and Kant as being without ethics. But what did they know. :rolleyes:

Trump's program of change is every bit as sweeping in scope as the New Deal (though much of Trump's version is literally an antithesis thereto). Executive orders to effect immediate change, hacking a government size, reshaping America's foreign and trade policies to a transactional model more akin to the pre-ww1 great powers system. Trump's core support group has imbibed the close HHS, close Education, put energy back in the DoD, Cut taxes, cut government and put things back to the States, One language, Strict Borders, One dominant culture for 3 decades on the radio. Trump is trying to bring it all to fruition yesterday, and his core loves him even more for "finally doing the right thing."

Trump, as near as I can tell, truly believes that he and only he has the ability to change things for the better. While he has brought the GOP into power in all branches at this moment in history, he is gutting the development of other leaders in the party every bit as thoroughly as FDR did. Truman barely hung on in 1948 after nuking Japan (popular with many as fewer Americans died) and finishing up the win for ww2. The Dems weren't able to field a successful bid for the presidency until 1960 and even then it was a narrow win against the ever-so-charming and trustworthy RMN. Following Truman, you do not see an 8 year Democratic presidency until Clinton...a generation later. Trump's GOP is similarly gutting future leadership so that the hero can shine. To be fair, this bothers me less now that I am no longer a GOP'er. It used to be the party home for fiscal/defense conservatives. Now only the single issue social conservatives really remain.

I am a political conservative. I like the idea of smaller governance and power reverted to the states on many issues. I am not a fan of entitlement plans or government run healthcare. I am not a neo-isolationist. I am an American exceptionalist...and I still cannot support this administration's agenda or the people in charge. Silly me, I think that ethics still matter.

[Montmorency]

Trump's rhetoric is every bit as effective as FDR and his fireside chats. He appeals to commonality and Americana mythos & nomos appeals with his core support group like few ever have. The believe he shares their most important experience of America is going to Hell and we need to take it back -- never stop swinging back at your opponents (never give up, never surrender) until they are destroyed (and that there are no real rules in a knife fight except to win). His connection with his core 20% of the electorate is profound. That it contravenes all of Aristotle's precepts about proper rhetoric doesn't mean it isn't working. Logos is ignored, Ethos redefined to tribalism, and pathos reigns triumphant. That is, by the way, the exact demagogic approach to successful rhetoric decried by Socrates, Aristotle, Hobbes, and Kant as being without ethics. But what did they know.


I don't think I was the first to compare Trump to Peisistratos (thrice reigned, twice deposed) during the Biden years.

But FDR didn't have nearly the power over his party and base that Trump does, although there may have been a similar scale of adoration. He consistently restrained himself to Congress, who implemented or allowed the implementation of most of the New Deal of their own authority. In contrast, all Trump demands from his Congress is quiescence and a unified front before the media (which Republicans have always been pretty good at) as he and Musk establish a despotic biumvirate. What we can compare the two in is in their limits in trying to usurp or retire dissatisfactory politicians: both have always failed at that, because it's really hard for a single politician to command a local electorate vote one way or another against a live person in that jurisdiction. Especially incumbent. That is technically some sort of balance of powers I suppose.

Anyway, the national Democrats are continuing in their historical trend of accommodationism, actually more intensely than I would recall of the Reagan years or other such eras. One can't identify what Democrats in Congress stand for right now, other than competing for the Ludwig Kaas and Franz von Papen Prize for Merit in Liberal Politics.

[spmetla]

Trump, as near as I can tell, truly believes that he and only he has the ability to change things for the better. While he has brought the GOP into power in all branches at this moment in history, he is gutting the development of other leaders in the party every bit as thoroughly as FDR did. Truman barely hung on in 1948 after nuking Japan (popular with many as fewer Americans died) and finishing up the win for ww2. The Dems weren't able to field a successful bid for the presidency until 1960 and even then it was a narrow win against the ever-so-charming and trustworthy RMN. Following Truman, you do not see an 8 year Democratic presidency until Clinton...a generation later. Trump's GOP is similarly gutting future leadership so that the hero can shine. To be fair, this bothers me less now that I am no longer a GOP'er. It used to be the party home for fiscal/defense conservatives. Now only the single issue social conservatives really remain.


The GOP's lack of direction or leadership probably won't hurt it as much as the democrats back in the day. With the tribalism of today's politics there are too many that would never ever vote anything other than Republican and would at the most just not show up to vote instead of vote for the opposition.
It's certainly clear that he has zero intention of ever leaving office too though so what happens beyond him is beyond his caring.


Anyway, the national Democrats are continuing in their historical trend of accommodationist, actually more intensely than I would recall of the Reagan years or other such eras. One can't identify what Democrats in Congress stand for right now, other than competing for the Ludwig Kaas and Franz von Papen Prize for Merit in Liberal Politics.

I think right now the Democrats are involved in similar internal debates like we've had on here. Should they double down on progressive-liberal politics or appear more centrist to try and win over splitters from the Rs in the wake of Trump's chaotic governance?
Think that's why Schumer is not looking for a shutdown, he wants to not be seen as simply an obstructionist, and I think more importantly they don't want the economic damage of a government shutdown to allow the Republicans to blame the Democrats for any fallout to divert from the created chaos from tariffs and poor diplomacy.
Seeing as no political reckoning can really happen until the midterms next year I imagine that the Democratic 'game' is let Trump do his thing (while still challenging in courts) and let that dissuade voters as their own rhetoric didn't reach the voters as needed.
Sadly though, this will likely just allow Trump to cement his power better.

[Montmorency]

I think right now the Democrats are involved in similar internal debates like we've had on here. Should they double down on progressive-liberal politics or appear more centrist to try and win over splitters from the Rs in the wake of Trump's chaotic governance?

I mean, disavowing everything negative you've ever said about Trump and formally licensing his unlimited lawbreaking and looting doesn't sound centrist, it sounds like the Democrats (in the eyes of their critics) admitting to being corrupt hypocrites anyway. Has everything the US government has been based on in living memory just been a criminal and illegitimate con, like Musk and Trump say? If not, Dem hypocrisy in not standing up is a disgrace. If Trump and Musk are right, then they should get all the credit for 'saving' the country from Dems, not the Dems suddenly deciding to bend the knee to the ones doing God's work.

Practically, a few things are happening:

1. Most Democrats (base and electeds) seem to be angry about Schumer's decision, which was in support of a conservative flank of just a few senators. Even Pelosi came out against him, and they worked in lockstep for decades as party leaders. We'll see if he faces a strong primary challenge.
2. Trump's approval has been sinking slowly since January, but consistently. This was a missed opportunity to reinforce that.
3. As a historical matter, Republicans always get blamed for government shutdowns. To be fair, they've always been the ones who caused government shutdowns, but as one liberal blogger puts it, average voters think of Republicans as anti-government (certainly the American bureaucratic state has had no greater enemies in 200 years than Musk/Trump), and of Democrats as the party of government. Given what's been going on, amid unified Republican government, who but the most committed MAGA is going to buy that it's actually Democrats who are anti-government right now in the event of a shutdown.
4. Government shutdowns have a habit of reminding people of the value of stable and effective government, at least for a few minutes.


Seeing as no political reckoning can really happen until the midterms next year I imagine that the Democratic 'game' is let Trump do his thing (while still challenging in courts) and let that dissuade voters as their own rhetoric didn't reach the voters as needed.

Democrats need to eventually unify around a replacement ideology and program to legacy 20th century liberalism, because that project and movement is not only exhausted (as we can observe with our own eyes), but with the way the political "resistance" is going there's just not going to be much left of it to salvage or rebuild in the coming years and decades. Democrats winning back a Senate seat and two-four districts or whatever in 2026 is utterly meaningless if Trump continues to rule autocratically and Democrats continue to have no hope of either regaining a unified government to counteract Trumpism, nor even of wielding it fully should they be delivered such an electoral miracle in 2028.

To phrase it differently, if Republicans even allow Democrats to retake the presidency anytime in the foreseeable future, what are the Democrats prepared to do with that power? Nothing?

[spmetla]

I mean, disavowing everything negative you've ever said about Trump and formally licensing his unlimited lawbreaking and looting doesn't sound centrist, it sounds like the Democrats (in the eyes of their critics) admitting to being corrupt hypocrites anyway. Has everything the US government has been based on in living memory just been a criminal and illegitimate con, like Musk and Trump say? If not, Dem hypocrisy in not standing up is a disgrace. If Trump and Musk are right, then they should get all the credit for 'saving' the country from Dems, not the Dems suddenly deciding to bend the knee to the ones doing God's work.

Believe me, I'm not sold on a thing Trump is doing and am more surprised and trying to see if there's any strategy in the way the Democratic leaders went ahead of this CR.
As for the Dem leaders being corrupt hypocrites, I view the majority of our long-term politicians as such. The current MAGA republicans are more than just hypocrites though, they are dangerous hypocrites threatening our constitutional system. Schumer has been a disgrace in the way he handled this and he's clearly out of touch.


To phrase it differently, if Republicans even allow Democrats to retake the presidency anytime in the foreseeable future, what are the Democrats prepared to do with that power? Nothing?

I agree, there is no true platform for the Democrats to rally around. Like with the Republicans they've allowed too many years of political dynasties to rule their leadership. Obama was the outlier and applauded for being such and Biden only came in because thankfully the US was at the time sick of Trump (and COVID) but even then, was just a 'centrist' tried and true Washington DC politician still trying to milk his blue collar reputation from nearly a half century before.
Obama was "change we can believe in" and "yes we can" but there's no such rallying cry anymore.

Too much of the US wants change, a more efficient and effective yet smaller government, less war, and still maintain national pride and international respect, but can't figure out how to get there which is how we'll get folks that voted for Obama, then wanted Sanders, and now support Trump.

[Montmorency]

26811

[Shaka_Khan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4M4f6xTmK4E

[Montmorency]

Nice Godwin blog post (https://snyder.substack.com/p/what-to-expect-when-youre-expecting?utm_source=substack&publication_id=310897&post_id=158714964) on discursive and political pscyhology trends in Nazi Germany and their implicit analogy in present times (themselves an enhanced version of much from the first Trump era):


Here, then, are things to watch for, all warnings from the well-known story of the Third Reich.

Daily life will take on a surreal quality and, if we do not take some action or join an organized resistance, our discussions will consist of merely repeating the latest horror.

Sebastian Haffner, writing in 1939, noted that “life went on as before, though it had now become ghostly and unreal, and was daily mocked by the events that served as its background…. We were not equal to the situation, even as victims.” Then as now, “many adapt to living with clenched teeth. Unfortunately they form a majority of a visible 'opposition' in Germany. So it is no wonder that this opposition has never developed any goals, plans, or expectations. Most of its members spend their time bemoaning the atrocities. The dreadful things that are happening have become essential to their spiritual well-being. Their only remaining dark pleasure is to luxuriate in the description of gruesome deeds, and it is impossible to have a discussion with them on any other topic.”

People around you will forget that they once were anti-Trump.
Christopher Isherwood wrote of his Berlin landlady in 1933: “Already she is adapting herself, as she will adapt herself to every new regime. This morning I even heard her talking reverently about Der Furher to the porter’s wife. If anyone was to remind her that at the elections last November she voted Communist she would probably deny it hotly and in perfect good faith. She is merely acclimatizing herself in accordance with a natural law, like an animal which changes its coat for the winter.”

[...]

MAGA will continue to believe what the leader says up until the very brink of disaster.

In the summer of 1939, three months after Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia, Robert Jamieson, a British English teacher living in Essen, wrote to Lord Londonderry, who had recently acted as a go-between British and Nazi leaders: “[The Germans] really believe that the Czech government had voluntarily sought Hitler’s protection and that they would all starve if they do not get this lebensraum and colonies.

[spmetla]

This "signal chat" controversy is certainly an interesting one. If this were normal times it would probably result in a cabinet official or two being forced to resign.

1. They should not have been using signal chat for this conversation at all, this is something belongs in a SCIF.

2. It seems likely that some if not all were using personal phones, so this would be more spillage.

3. The entire conversation being set to auto-delete is completely against all norms for retaining government records.

4. It seems that Witcoff was in Russia during this conversation, possibly even in the Kremlin. Makes it very likely that his device and the conversation may have been intercepted by the Russians.

5. That this was the 'small group' and the list of attendees wasn't scrutinized is sheer incompetence. We can just be happy the Journalist did the responsible thing and not immediately publish or leak the whole thing as that could get ships sunk and pilots shot down.

This is already been spun as a 'nothing burger' by Fox and the rest of the MAGA information universe when in fact it is a serious and egregious violation of OPSEC, records keeping, etc...

As a guy in the National Guard, I know that the Army in general loves WhatsApp and Signal chats for quickly coordinating day to day things. Makes it super easy for following up on admin tasks, putting out information to a group, and coordinating little things.

It does not surprise me at all that this admin has so many that were using Signal Chat for secret/ top secret things against all norms. I think this is a telling sign that they do not trust the rank and file, especially within the security/intelligence community that would normally facilitate this type of conversation over secure means. They want deniability, they want as few 'professionals' in the room as possible, and they do not trust the 'deep state' even for routine inter agency coordination for something as sensitive as military strikes.

I can only hope that this is the end of Sec Def and DNI and they are forced to resign but it looks as Mike Waltz will be the fall guy and the rest will just deny, minimize and skate away as there's so much damn news this administration creates that this story will go away in a few weeks as the ones that need to check these violations are the same ones that committed them.
The Dems will hold more hearings, the Atlantic will probably publish red-acted images of the rest of the conversation to show that there was indeed secret information, Trump will tell one guy to resign to make this problem go away and then we as a nation will just go on to the next scandal/travesty that's currently happening.

[Montmorency]

1. Every MAGA appointee deeply believes the rules don't apply to them, at all. (Rules are for abusing your lessers.)
1.a. This is a fundamental principle of the MAGA appeal in general.

https://x.com/urtropicalgal/status/1884737281757528135 [VIDEO]

Accountability means the right people are in charge. It's not a question of what objectively, or even tendentiously, constitutes more or less accountability in behavior or policy.

2. Everyone in that conversation seemed to defer to Miller, even (especially) Hegseth.
3. Miller used phrasing like "as I heard" and other uncertain language to communicate Trump's orders, or at least Trump's intent. On policy of the highest international import. It may be the case more than before that Trump is being treated as a mad king by more energetic underlings. I don't think he even does rallies anymore, a regular feature during Trump I and one of his lifetime favorite activities.
4. Vance doesn't understand the inner circle operation of Trumpism and never will. NEVER suggest that the big man may not understand something or may have got something mixed up.
5. Vance and the others still don't understand the basics of world trade.
6.

My high-level takeaway is “what you see is what you get. These guys might look like idiots, and talk like idiots, but don’t let that fool you: they really are idiots.


As for Signal, there are reasonable circumstances in which to use it, securely, such as when dealing with quick, simple procedural updates. And who knows, by the way, how many people other than these in the Trump admins and beyond have been setting their communications to autodelete.

Even during the first Trump era it was so poetic that Trump was essentially delivered to office by the manufactured moral panic (with Russian assist) over Hillary Clinton's secure and otherwise-regulated handling of a private email server for non-classified materials. Remember something as petty as how they tried to censor Trump's White House schedule and visitor lists years ago (he was occupied with TV, Twitter, golf, and general leisure), after Obama took the unusual steps of making as much info public as possible?

[spmetla]

Vance doesn't understand the inner circle operation of Trumpism and never will. NEVER suggest that the big man may not understand something or may have got something mixed up.
Vance and the others still don't understand the basics of world trade.

They seem to absolutely loath our Allies for needing US help. The British used to have an Empire, used to control Yemen, but gave up even those up in the 60s Withdrawal East of the Suez after the US betrayal during the Suez Crisis in the late 50s. The Brits had Aden and the French, Djibouti, for exactly these reasons of securing a key choke point for trade.
Like did they not see the fallout of the Suez being blocked by a single container ship for a few weeks. It took months for the flow of containers to unclog and get the backlog in the European and American ports sorted.

All this also points to how disconnected Trump really is. He's not of this 'digital' generation, he doesn't even like to use email, I'm sure ppt briefings and working on computers bore him so he likely just gets executive summaries without any personal deep dives from people he likes. The VP is usually not in the Chain of Command of the military and is just a spare leader, that Trump isn't involved in any of this and just his handlers are involved is truly embarrassing.


As for Signal, there are reasonable circumstances in which to use it, securely, such as when dealing with quick, simple procedural updates. And who knows, by the way, how many people other than these in the Trump admins and beyond have been setting their communications to autodelete.


Yup, for routine admin, coordinating regular training, state side etc... Not for classified conversations at all.


Even during the first Trump era it was so poetic that Trump was essentially delivered to office by the manufactured moral panic (with Russian assist) over Hillary Clinton's secure and otherwise-regulated handling of a private email server for non-classified materials. Remember something as petty as how they tried to censor Trump's White House schedule and visitor lists years ago (he was occupied with TV, Twitter, golf, and general leisure), after Obama took the unusual steps of making as much info public as possible?

Part of it is a generational convenience problem. The Cold War military had people joining up and finding satcomm, radios and so on as extremely advanced and impressive. The current generation of leaders have grown up in a digital world and find the means for secure information as too slow and restrictive as it usually means secure locations, hard lines or well encrypted direct communications.

There really needs to be some sort of digital OPSEC starter course that people need to take when they go into government. For Gabbard and Hegseth, there's no excuse. They as service members (even if on IRR or MDay status) have to still do their annual cyber security awareness quizes and so on. They absolutely should know that what they posted on Signal is at least Secret if not TS.

I really wish that the Dems in their hearings would subpoena for the transcripts for this signal chat from each member involved in the chat. They need to push the issue that these meetings have no records and that is an egregious crime that is happening and will continue to happen.
Hillary should have gotten in more trouble but as the R's found out, the W. Bush admin have private email servers as well. This habit just needs to stop completely. They are issued government phones and computers and need to be held to only using those items.
The conveniences we are so used to in civilian life is destroying our national security when people cannot give it up when working in government. It's a systematic issue that makes us such easy targets for our enemies and appointed/elected officials that keep doing this need to finally be held to accountability.
Not gonna happen from this administration though

[Montmorency]

Heh, there aren't many ways Clinton could have been through more trouble!

As I saw it, while there are good reasons for the protocols in place, all the evidence that came out proved Clinton personally handled her office's communications about as diligently as one could. And if the Russians were able to hack Republicans and Democrats left and right, then not her. Of course, many found it a little perverse to scapegoat her for a basically universal form of corner-cutting (not even corruption).

But even if one personally determined that this was all disqualifying for her as a political candidate, it was always plain to see that Trump was much worse - on discretion, on information security, on law/rule-abidingness, and on other relevant axes. It's why the media always worked so hard, successfully, to invent bizarre conspiracies about the Clintons to try to catastrophize their flaws and negate their positive qualities, whether for "balance" or as part of the "scream machine" itself.

I recall commenting late in the election season that the Hillary Clinton pneumonia story was the most noteworthy development about her all campaign. I hope the irony was plain.

In a way, this even happened with Biden in the form of his relentless age 'controversy'. The man was demonstrably not as energetic and engaged as he was in his 70s, but he was also demonstrably managing to engage with his job daily in ways that Trump literally never could in his prime (never mind that in his own old age Trump reserved all his energy for bellowing at rallies and being angry on social media, i.e. the pro wrestling projection of virility). But the mainstream media narratives only hammered the point for the one and not the other, making the point in a vacuum that one would prefer POTUS not to have those limitations, or even that gerontocracy was problematic in principle. Coverage of the age issue, somehow, totally disappeared at approximately the end of last July, though someone was still the oldest presidential nominee in history... That's working out predictably now.

Hell, look at Mitch McConnell. The guy has been barely holding it together in public for a few years now, but I doubt Trump has even 20% of the mental capacity McConnell has left.

[Montmorency]

Senior tax officials are bracing for a sharp drop in revenue collected this spring, as an increasing number of individuals and businesses spurn filing their taxes or attempt to skip paying balances owed to the Internal Revenue Service, according to three people with knowledge of tax projections.

Treasury Department and IRS officials are predicting a decrease of more than 10 percent in tax receipts by the April 15 deadline compared with 2024, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share nonpublic data. That would amount to more than $500 billion in lost federal revenue; the IRS collected $5.1 trillion last year.

Musk is reportedly also seeking the end of tax enforcement at the Justice Department, on top of his other corrupt activities and self-dealing. The United States is in progress of the greatest class-level theft in its history as a country, basically on the scale of the Nazis looting France or Poland, but without a fight. 'And everything that's nailed down...' We may have opportunity to test the full extent of the sovereign privileges of the US dollar before long. I wonder which goes first, your military benefits or your Social Security.

Maybe after you present for the Maximum Leader's promenade (https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/07/white-house-denies-military-parade-trump-birthday-00277566) this year, you and the other lucky candidates from the ReserveArmy can be transitioned to realizing the 5-Year Concepts-of-a-Plan (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8p6zZZ3DPGE) for reshoring American sweatshops (https://www.newsweek.com/bessent-fired-federal-workers-manufacturing-jobs-tariffs-2056700).

Trump already deserved a street execution more than 99.9999% of humanity, conservatively, before this year, but it's coming to be the only option left. And we haven't seen anything yet.

Never forget that the Republicans bore all this through as a generational project, and could still stop it at any time.

Tangentially, this comment echoes my impressions for the past month on the tariff 'strategy.'


The outcome of yesterday's meeting between Trump and Netanyahu is probably the worst economic news so far.

1. Prior to the effective date of The Tariffs*, Israel offered the US across-the-board zero tariff rates. (Now, Israel's average effective tariff rate on US exports is in the 1-2% range, but that's neither here nor there.) Trump refused and imposed tariffs on Israel on schedule.

2. Immediately after the imposition of The Tariffs, Netanyahu requested an immediate personal meeting with Donald Trump. His request was granted. Now, this is the stuff Trump loves. A world leader "begging" for a meeting! A chance to have a "negotiation!" Face-to-face! Two men in a room! The White House scheduled a press conference following the meeting, presumably expecting to have something Very Beautiful to announce.

3. The meeting happened.

4. The White House cancelled the press conference, opting instead for a brief joint appearance from the Oval.

5. The only "agreement" announced was Netanyahu "agreeing" to do something about Israel's trade surplus with the United States. The tariffs remain in place. (Also, Iran bad.)

My -- speculative -- interpretation of this sequence of events is that (a) Netanyahu did everything right -- i.e., did everything he possibly could to flatter and mollify Trump, and (b) it wasn't enough, because Trump is serious about this trade deficit crap.

The fact that Benjamin Netanyahu couldn't find a way to get Trump to budge on this seems, to me, to be incontrovertible evidence that Trump is all-in on his insane trade war. It's not a con; it's a genuine obsession. Which is disastrous news.

* I suspect that we're going to wind up capitalizing The Tariffs, a bit like The Troubles.

I literally even predicted 100% tariffs on China, though I believe Trump has personally made that threat in some speeches, so it's not a tremendous bet (still displaying far more skill and comprehension than most professional macroeconomic analysts here...).

Trump, above any other epithet, is a madman in the traditional sense, which is to say that he harbors the irrational conviction that he can and must defy the most basic facts of nature. Now that he has unlimited power within grasp, we are seeing the ramifications of that ever-present and often-communicated madness. There is really no psychological difference between this and Chairman Mao demanding that the Chinese peasantry industrialize China by their own backyard efforts, or that "man must conquer nature" and therefore every citizen must participate in the designated extermination of certain species of wildlife, albeit Trump is profoundly less rational across the board than even Mao... But I don't expect that quite as many people will die from this one tyrant's madness, not directly.

[spmetla]

I wonder which goes first, your military benefits or your Social Security.

I'm sure social security will go first. For the military benefits, that'll be useful for them to threaten non-loyalists. If you voice disagreement then in future they could dishonorably or other than honorably discharge service members and they'd be denied any benefits no matter how many years of service they had. Similar to what he did to FBI Director McCabe.

At least it looks like Musk may go soon for annoying too many inner circle Trumpers but the damage he's done to this country will take decades to fix if we're even given that opportunity.


Never forget that the Republicans bore all this through as a generational project and could still stop it at any time.

Tangentially, this comment echoes my impressions for the past month on the tariff 'strategy.'
Ass seen with Murkowski's comments today, the traditional republicans are scared of losing their seats or scared of actual violence against them and will stay inline.


I literally even predicted 100% tariffs on China, though I believe Trump has personally made that threat in some speeches, so it's not a tremendous bet (still displaying far more skill and comprehension than most professional macroeconomic analysts here...).

Trump, above any other epithet, is a madman in the traditional sense, which is to say that he harbors the irrational conviction that he can and must defy the most basic facts of nature. Now that he has unlimited power within grasp, we are seeing the ramifications of that ever-present and often-communicated madness. There is really no psychological difference between this and Chairman Mao demanding that the Chinese peasantry industrialize China by their own backyard efforts, or that "man must conquer nature" and therefore every citizen must participate in the designated extermination of certain species of wildlife, albeit Trump is profoundly less rational across the board than even Mao... But I don't expect that quite as many people will die from this one tyrant's madness, not directly.

He is absolutely as bad as so many of us has predicated. It's certainly frustrating when hearing 'surprised' Trump voters that liked the first administration and don't like this second run of hist. As so many of us have said, the 'deep state' and 'RINOS' around Trump the first time are what kept the slightest semblance of normality going. That what they liked weren't Trump's policies but traditional Republican policies.

Trump's hold on the base of Republican voters despite working against their interest are keeping him safe from the old guard Republicans that hate Trump.

It's shocking though to see that 2/3s of Republicans are totally okay with denying non-citizens due process. They honestly can't see how being denied their time in court before deporting is so absolutely vital to protect regular citizens too.

Wonder if this is what Romans must have felt like as Augustus dismembered what remained of the Republic following his Civil War with Marc Antony. No return to 'norms' it seems

[Montmorency]

Wonder if this is what Romans must have felt like as Augustus dismembered what remained of the Republic following his Civil War with Marc Antony. No return to 'norms' it seems


Augustus?? Well, this is only a fitting capstone for this website:
https://www.attalus.org/cicero/verres25_3.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaius_Verres


The man of whom I speak, Gavius of Consa, was one of those Roman citizens whom Verres threw into prison. Somehow or other he escaped from the Stone Quarries, and made his way to Messana... To this Verres replied that he had discovered that Gavius had been sent to Sicily as a spy by the leaders of the fugitive army, a charge which was brought by no informer, for which there was no evidence, and which nobody saw any reason to believe. He then ordered the man to be flogged severely all over his body. There in the open marketplace of Messana a Roman citizen, gentlemen, was beaten with rods ; and all the while, amid the crack of the falling blows, no groan was heard from the unhappy man, no words came from his lips in his agony except “I am a Roman citizen.” By thus proclaiming his citizenship he had been hoping to avert all those blows and shield his body from torture ; yet not only did he fail to secure escape from those cruel rods, but when he persisted in his entreaties and his appeals to his citizen rights, a cross was made ready – yes, a cross, for that hapless and broken sufferer, who had never seen such an accursed thing till then.

Does freedom, that precious thing, mean nothing? nor the proud privileges of a citizen of Rome? nor the Porcian law, the Sempronian laws? nor the tribunes’ power, whose loss our people felt so deeply till now at last it has been restored to them ? Have all these things come in the end to mean so little that in a Roman province, in a town whose people have special privileges, a Roman citizen could be bound and flogged in the market-place by a man who owed his rods and axes to the favour of the Roman people ?

I mean, Trump's career-long combination of eliminating the rights of non-citizens while arrogating the authority to negate the citizenship of citizens is not exactly subtle.

The fact that the manner of thing quoted in Cicero has always been going on in the depths of American jails and prisons for all time should help explain, and facilitate our predicament...

[spmetla]

I only referenced Augustus as he ended any hopes of the restoration of the Republic. Trump is more a Nero for sure.

I hadn't read about Gaius Verres. It is extremely similar. However, in our present the criminal Trump as succeeded in the delays and waiting for friendly courts.

I'll have to read Cicero's piece there at a later time, bookmarked for reading, thank you for sharing!

[Montmorency]

Elon Musk's team have openly spent 3 months illegally seizing access to computer and data systems throughout the government, granting themselves unlimited administrative access to the deepest layers of network and software while attempting to conceal their specific activities. This alone constitutes the worst hostile data breach of the US government ever.

The situation is even worse (https://bsky.app/profile/mattjay.com/post/3ln2dgoksce2e) than was previously known, as is the typical cycle.

[Montmorency]

Other Countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States. Hollywood, and many other areas within the U.S.A., are being devastated. This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat," the president wrote. "It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda!

Jesus :daisy: Christ, they may not keep him from moving on services. Raving madman. At least there's always the 'maritime exchange'.

Some interesting quotes from a certain Romanian presidential candidate, you know, the one who's been getting banhammered in the middle of elections.


This gentle-seeming New Age mystic has praised Ion Antonescu, the Romanian wartime dictator who conspired with Hitler and was sentenced to death for war crimes, including his role in the Romanian Holocaust. He has called both Antonescu and the prewar leader of the Iron Guard, a violent anti-Semitic movement, national heroes. He twice met with Alexander Dugin, the Russian fascist ideologue, who posted on X a (subsequently deleted) statement that “Romania will be part of Russia.” And at the same time, Georgescu praises the spiritual qualities of water. “We don’t know what water is,” he has said; “H2O means nothing.” Also, “Water has a memory, and we destroy its soul through pollution,” and “Water is alive and sends us messages, but we don’t know how to listen to them.” He believes that carbonated drinks contain nanochips that “enter into you like a laptop.” His wife, Cristela, produces YouTube videos on healing, using terms such as lymphatic acidosis and calcium metabolism to make her points. Both of them also promote “peace,” a vague goal that seems to mean that Romania, which borders Ukraine and Moldova, should stop helping Ukraine defend itself against Russian invaders. “War cannot be won by war,” Cristela Georgescu wrote on Instagram a few weeks before voting began. “War destroys not only physically, it destroys HEARTS.”

(It's little consolation that the next president of Romania is somewhat likely to be George Simion...)

Leaving aside RFK Jr. and a host of others, remember when Hegseth revealed that he doesn't wash his hands because microbes don't exist, and doesn't wear a helmet when riding a bike (because external objects do not exist, perhaps (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism))? And how most of what Elon Musk's DOGE has actually succeeded in dismantling is America's world-class government-funded scientific agencies and investments? It's a further illustration of the centrality of "woo" across 20th-century political lines in rejecting modern science, philosophy, and civilization in general. Ten years ago, I imagined a resurgence in fascistic politics later in the 21st century. Even then, let alone 20 years ago, I could never have imagined that woo would be winning, or that it would unify around ultra-reactionary politics.

Literally this as a worldview while still demanding all the fruits and luxuries of modern civilization - not even having the honesty of anarchoprimitivism.

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51Mo0nMle+L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg



In related news (https://www.ncregister.com/news/edward-pentin-uk-quiet-catholic-revival), it is estimated that England, the original birthplace of mass atheism, is on course to become plurality Catholic for the first time in 500 years somewhere around the point where Brazil is set to become minority Catholic (https://www.faithwire.com/2025/02/19/amazing-salvation-numbers-seismic-spiritual-shift-in-worlds-largest-catholic-country/) for the first time in 500 years. Shit, and I'm supposed to be worried about immigrants changing cultures lol. rory_20_uk

Is this what being caught in the teeth of the Great Filter looks like?