POTUS/General Election Thread 2020 + Aftermath

[Montmorency]

rory_20_uk
I've talked some about this referendum (https://ballotpedia.org/Alaska_Ballot_Measure_2,_Top-Four_Ranked-Choice_Voting_and_Campaign_Finance_Laws_Initiative_(2020)) that passed in Alaska, but I'm not sure if I mentioned it on the Org. It's a fantastic electoral reform and one you might like. Hopefully the Republicans can't get it ruled unconstitutional (we could take the hit on severing and eliminating the campaign finance disclosure rule if need be).


A "yes" vote supported making changes to Alaska's election policies, including:

* requiring persons and entities that contribute more than $2,000 that were themselves derived from donations, contributions, dues, or gifts to disclose the true sources (as defined in law) of the political contributions;

* replacing partisan primaries with open top-four primaries for state executive, state legislative, and congressional offices; and

* establishing ranked-choice voting for general elections, including the presidential election, in which voters would rank the candidates.


The majority of House Republicans (https://twitter.com/johnkruzel/status/1337135543373733889) have filed an amicus in support of the suit to overturn the election. Hell of a kayfabe.

At this point there's more of a fig leaf to being an open supporter of Alternativ fuer Deutschland than of the Republican party.


106 House Republicans are spending critical time when people are starving and small businesses are shuttering trying to overturn the results of our election, but please tell us more about how “both sides are just as bad”


As this op-ed (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/12/09/america-has-an-authoritarian-voter-problem/) by esteemed professor Brian Klaas ruminates, we have the problem of millions of voters who are committed to authoritarian psychology and politics.


As we move into the next phase of repair and rebuilding, though, there’s an uncomfortable truth all Americans must now face. The problem wasn’t just President Trump. The problem was also us.

Every so often, history produces dangerous demagogues. When that happens, citizens are tested: Do you unite to reject a politics of fear, division and authoritarianism? Or does the country splinter, with half fighting back and the other half cheerleading as a would-be despot seeks to undermine democracy to consolidate power?

Now we know the answer: America splintered. When presented with a man who saw democracy as a pesky inconvenience, a huge chunk of the American electorate didn’t just accept him. They cheered, applauded and sported his memorabilia. They embraced him not in spite of his authoritarian impulses, but because of them.

To understand why this happened, we have to acknowledge a depressing reality: A substantial proportion of Americans are “authoritarian voters.” In other words, they crave the leadership of a strongman without significant checks. Moreover, their political preferences are only about outcomes, not process. If they want to ban Muslims from entering the country or to stop abortions, authoritarian voters aren’t particularly bothered if the norms of democracy are shredded, so long as they get their way.

A Vox-Morning Consult survey found that just under half of White American respondents scored high on measures of authoritarian personality, a proxy for authoritarian voting. Nearly 1 in 5 scored very high. Of these authoritarians lurking among us, nearly 7 in 10 were self-identified Republican voters. And for them, Trump was a godsend.

These are not just common clay of the new West, they are Good Americans (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_German), many bound to become the Very Best.


Republicans had positioned themselves as the defenders of cultural order and traditional values, which had the unanticipated consequence of attracting a lot of authoritarian voters to their ranks.

One cannot understand contemporary American history without realizing that this was in no way unanticipated.


In that way, when it comes to our diseased democracy, Trump is both symptom and cause. He activated latent authoritarians who would have voted for a Trumpian figure if one had been on the ballot. But he also made the language, behavior and policy of despotism mainstream. In short, he activated authoritarian voters that already existed, but also spent the past four years transforming plenty of constitutional conservatives into cheerleaders for American autocracy.

But this is also true. After Trump there is no going back for many people. As bad as Republican voters were, they are now - collectively and individually - much worse. They have changed to become more hateful, more fearful, and more dangerous. Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities, after all, and the Republican noosphere is fully insane at this point.


It’s clear that elected Republicans — who largely refuse to answer basic factual questions about the winner of the presidential election — know that their voters are authoritarians. And they are catering to them.

Well, duh. One piece of common wisdom that has long been overripe to discard is the idea that Republican politicians are categorically "savvier" about what is real than the Republican base are. But they both consume all the same media and share many of the same psychological tendencies and grievances; Republican politicians one and all are drawn from the pool of Republican voters. The cultural distinction has vanished. As the oldest generations in office pass out of power, so further will whatever rarefied institutional memory there was.

I sure hope the Old Guard Democrats (https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/dianne-feinsteins-missteps-raise-a-painful-age-question-among-senate-democrats) go first.


Unfortunately, it’s not only these authoritarian voters whom we have to worry about. There is also evidence that Americans’ ideological commitment to democracy could be waning with each passing generation. A 2017 article in the Journal of Democracy found that around 3 in 4 Americans who were born in the 1930s said that it was “essential” to live in a democracy. That figure falls with each successive decade of birth, to around 3 in 10 Americans born in the 1980s. (Similar dynamics are showing up across other Western democracies, raising the possibility that generations that didn’t live through fascism or the Cold War have a less rigid personal commitment to democratic values.)

Democracy is not self-repairing. Over time, without citizens who are committed to protecting it, it will eventually die, smashed under the iron fist of a would-be strongman who attracted a big enough chunk of the electorate to go along with him. Trump failed, but it was close.

Hmm, I've seen this sort of finding around political classifications or nationalities, but not around the variable of age cohort (https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/12/charts-that-show-young-people-losing-faith-in-democracy/).

Hard to overstate the importance of achieving the ability to start getting stuff done.


The other half is much harder, because it’s not about one individual. Instead, it’s about the tens of millions of Americans who, long after Trump is gone, will welcome another aspiring despot with open arms. And that, unfortunately, is the next front in the battle to protect American democracy.

Well, duh.




The Simpsons, Season 23, Episode 496 "Politically Inept, with Homer Simpson"

Homer: Yeah, maybe I'll vote Democrat. The great thing is, when they get in, they act like Republicans.

Besides taking him out of context as Samurai touches on, Homer Simpson isn't the role model you want to emulate.


That's actually a pretty old one. Link (http://www.cios.org/encyclopedia/persuasion/Helaboration_2routes.htm#:~:text=The%20central%20route%20to%20persuasion,%2C%20content)%20of%20the%2 0message.&text=The%20peripheral%20route%20to%20persuasion,or%20ideas%20in%20the%20message.)

Appeals to logic and reasoning are harder to make and harder to get folks to listen but have the better long term impact.

Appeals to affect work quickly, don't require any linear support, etc. but are subject to being more transient and replaced by the next "moving" message.

Its one of the reasons Trump (and other demagogues) have to keep things stirred up and keep the rallies going -- if the emotions cool and thinking begins, then some of the audience is lost.

That's a good primer, but I was thinking more specifically of the communication of affective states themselves, and their reciprocal conditioning of behavior.

[a completely inoffensive name]

I sure hope the Old Guard Democrats (https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/dianne-feinsteins-missteps-raise-a-painful-age-question-among-senate-democrats) go first.


Man, I really expected her to be in the job until death but now that these articles are coming out I have my doubts she will run again in 2024. Newsom's response to COVID is so mixed I doubt he could win the Senate seat unless he wins the second gubernatorial term and manages to turn things around.

Can we please elect someone from SoCal this time, it has been over 30 years and that guy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Wilson) sucked.

[Gilrandir]

Besides taking him out of context as Samurai touches on, Homer Simpson isn't the role model you want to emulate.


A guy that has a house, two cars, a family, and sleeps all the time at work doing nothing - everybody wants to live like Homer.

[ReluctantSamurai]

A guy that has a house, two cars, a family, and sleeps all the time at work doing nothing

I'd say that pretty accurately describes most of our Congress people, at the moment. For a growing number of Americans, many of whom have already lost their job and health insurance to recession, their house or apartment to foreclosure, and family members to COVID....not so much.

[Montmorency]

A guy that has a house, two cars, a family, and sleeps all the time at work doing nothing - everybody wants to live like Homer.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g48vfYJvAvs

[ReluctantSamurai]

Being 1-51 pretty much ensures you get fired in the sports world. Hopefully, this is that last nail:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/dec/11/supreme-court-rejects-trump-backed-texas-lawsuit-aiming-to-overturn-election-results


Trump had long expressed hope that a disputed election would go before the supreme court, to which he appointed three justices during his term, ensuring a 6-3 conservative majority. Earlier on Friday he tweeted: “If the Supreme Court shows great Wisdom and Courage, the American People will win perhaps the most important case in history, and our Electoral Process will be respected again!”

It didn't take courage, but SCOTUS showed wisdom and kept the electoral process respected for at least the next 4 years.

Donald J. Trump---YOU'RE FIRED...:gorgeous:

[Montmorency]

Being 1-51 pretty much ensures you get fired in the sports world. Hopefully, this is that last nail:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/dec/11/supreme-court-rejects-trump-backed-texas-lawsuit-aiming-to-overturn-election-results



It didn't take courage, but SCOTUS showed wisdom and kept the electoral process respected for at least the next 4 years.

Donald J. Trump---YOU'RE FIRED...:gorgeous:

Some Republican reactions (you can't even use the word "kayfabe," because this is all simultaneously a put-on and a manifestation of deeply-held belief):

https://i.imgur.com/HNiqkXq.png
https://i.imgur.com/DTaRsLK.png


Do your part (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_7FaWnlhS4), service guarantees citizenship etc. etc.


I took the time to finally read Michael Anton's notorious "Flight 93 Election" essay from 2016, in which he argued, well, that Trump vs. Clinton was analogous to the choice between letting a plane crash into the Capitol and violently seizing control of the craft (of state!) and driving it into a ditch. (Anton was rewarded with some positions in the Trump government.)

This excerpt struck me:


Whatever the reason for the contradiction, there can be no doubt that there is a contradiction. To simultaneously hold conservative cultural, economic, and political beliefs—to insist that our liberal-left present reality and future direction is incompatible with human nature and must undermine society—and yet also believe that things can go on more or less the way they are going, ideally but not necessarily with some conservative tinkering here and there, is logically impossible.

Let’s be very blunt here: if you genuinely think things can go on with no fundamental change needed, then you have implicitly admitted that conservatism is wrong. Wrong philosophically, wrong on human nature, wrong on the nature of politics, and wrong in its policy prescriptions. ...If your answer—Continetti’s, Douthat’s, Salam’s, and so many others’—is for conservatism to keep doing what it’s been doing—another policy journal, another article about welfare reform, another half-day seminar on limited government, another tax credit proposal—even though we’ve been losing ground for at least a century, then you’ve implicitly accepted that your supposed political philosophy doesn’t matter and that civilization will carry on just fine under leftist tenets. Indeed, that leftism is truer than conservatism and superior to it.

Um, yeah? Facts don't care about your feelings? And your values are dogshit...

This old but evergreening piece further reinforces my ineluctable sense that, conservative ideologies being discredited by the events of the 20th century and beyond at least as comprehensively as one could ever hope Marxism to be, conservatives have had no choice but:

1. Retrench their conservatism
2. Dissociate from reality
3. Embrace revanchist fascism

What makes this era in American history different from post-WW1 (globally) is that most people with conservative instincts* have dismissed the first option but looked at the latter two and said '?Porque no los dos (https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/7obmoa/why_are_people_posting_the_the_spanish_porque_no/)?' - before liquidating the spiritually-treasonous essence within them that made itself known by its Spanish-language irruption. :P

The (one might call) auto-Orwellianism is equally important to and somehow integral to the fascism, in a way that it may not have been before.


*Social conservatism, for whatever reason, has a strong tendency to overrule non-conservatism in other spheres for a given individual

[Pannonian]

The (one might call) auto-Orwellianism is equally important to and somehow integral to the fascism, in a way that it may not have been before.


*Social conservatism, for whatever reason, has a strong tendency to overrule non-conservatism in other spheres for a given individual

What's auto-Orwellianism? Pardon my lack of understanding, but my experience of Orwell is principally coloured by his essays on leftism in England, so I may have a different impression of what Orwellianism means that other people do.

[Crandar]

With the Texas lawsuit, most focused on sleazy Paxton, but the statistics cooking was even more comical (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/10/technology/texas-election-lawsuit-legality.html). One in a quadrillion and the Bolsheviks still won.:shifty:

Well, our convicted Nazi gangster (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54657540) also succeeded in running away, despite the police announcing that his chances were fewer than one in a trillion. Granted, a trillion is a significantly smaller number than a quadrillion, but it shows that you can never be certain with Socialists and National-Socialists.

[Gilrandir]

I'd say that pretty accurately describes most of our Congress people, at the moment.

You mean Republican Congress people. It is they who cheat on their wives and kick puppies. Democrats are more of Ned Flanders kind of guys.

[ReluctantSamurai]

You mean Republican Congress people.

Incorrect. I meant ALL of Congress. If I had wanted to target just Republicans, I would have referenced the GOP only...:404:


It is they who cheat on their wives and kick puppies.

Poor attempt at sarcasm. There are plenty of examples of corporatism, corruption, and criminal activity amongst Democrats, which is again why I referenced the ENTIRE Congress.


Democrats are more of Ned Flanders kind of guys.

Been watching a lot of The Simpson's lately, I see. It's no wonder you have such a fantasy world-view of America...:lost:

[ReluctantSamurai]

At some point in the next few weeks, there should be consideration given to a thread covering the new Biden/Harris administration, yes? Cabinet nominations, for instance, are currently ongoing and certainly generating a lot of controversy.

Just a thought...

[Idaho]

I don't know anything about the author, but I tip my hat to a quality bit of 18th century political satire:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/12/11/presidents-new-suit/?outputType=amp#csi=1&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From%20%251%24s


The president of the United States very often saw beautiful things that did not exist. He was able to admire legislation he had passed that he had not passed; he was able to see corners being turned that were not being turned; he loved to see how beloved he was in polls that turned out not to be polls. One day, he saw something new and beautiful. He saw he had plainly won the election...

[Hooahguy]

At some point in the next few weeks, there should be consideration given to a thread covering the new Biden/Harris administration, yes? Cabinet nominations, for instance, are currently ongoing and certainly generating a lot of controversy.

Just a thought...
You're more than welcome to make that thread yourself :2thumbsup:

[ReluctantSamurai]

The motives behind this are obvious, the intelligence of the congress members, is not:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/dec/11/house-republicans-texas-election-lawsuit-supreme-court


More than 120 Republican members of the US House of Representatives formally asked (http://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22O155/163550/20201211132250339_Texas%20v.%20Pennsylvania%20Amicus%20Brief%20of%20126%20Representatives%20--%20corrected.pdf) the US supreme court this week to prevent four swing states from casting electoral votes for Joe Biden to seal his victory (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2020/nov/24/us-election-results-2020-joe-biden-defeats-donald-trump-to-win-presidency) in the November election, a brazen move that signals how the Republican party has embraced Donald Trump’s baseless attacks on the American electoral system.

The request from 126 GOP members – nearly two-thirds of the Republican caucus – came in support of a lawsuit Texas filed (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/dec/08/texas-lawsuit-donald-trump-election-georgia-michigan-pennsylvania-wisconsin) earlier this week that sought to block the electoral votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Georgia, all states Biden won in November. The lawsuit also won support from top House Republicans.

The lawsuit has already been thrown out by SCOTUS, but the brief signed onto by these 126 in support of that suit is....:crazy:


Among the 126 lawmakers who signed on to the brief is a particularly puzzling group: 19 Republican members of Congress who represent districts in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia and Wisconsin.

Those members all appeared on the same ballot as the presidential candidates and all but one were elected under the same rules to which they are now objecting.

So for the record, these 18 Republicans want to invalidate election results for Joe Biden due to "irregularities", but that their own results, which occurred on the same ballots, are not affected by those very same "irregularities".
And these supposedly intelligent people want the 20+ million people in the four states targeted, to buy that as a coherent argument. Sounds like the brief was prepared by Giuliani or the Kraaken herself....:stupido2:


Most of the lawmakers who supported the effort are far-right conservatives from deep red districts that voted for Trump. But collectively, their support for the lawsuit meant that more than a quarter of the House, including the California congressman Kevin McCarthy, the Republican minority leader, believe the supreme court should invalidate the votes of tens of millions of Americans.

The Guardian contacted the offices of all 18 of those Republicans (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/republicans) who won re-election to ask if they believed there should be further investigation into their electoral victories in November. None of them responded to a request for comment.

Yep....Republican lawmakers are such a great bunch of people, that every effort should be made to bend over backwards to work with these morons, despite the fact they want to destroy democracy. Here's an idea:

Put these idiots on trial for sedition.

[Montmorency]

What's auto-Orwellianism? Pardon my lack of understanding, but my experience of Orwell is principally coloured by his essays on leftism in England, so I may have a different impression of what Orwellianism means that other people do.

Aw, come on man, you've seen the term "Orwellian" deployed in media. It usually has its ultimate derivation from his single work "1984", and while the term is more diluted and generic in colloquial usage, I'm using it in a sense that picks out important features of the 1984 governing ideology and the concerns about political language and totalitarianism Orwell had as a thinker. Orwellianism then is the top-down manipulation of language and thought with the design of eliminating the possibility of dissent or disloyalty. This can involve the twisting of language into a set of partisan shibboleths rather than communicative tokens, the simultaneous or serial adherence to mutually-exclusive ideas or beliefs, and their coordinated and centralized inculcuation into the populace by a domineering government or party establishment. Among other things.

Auto mean "self" and as a prefix usually signifies reflexivity (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/reflexive). Where Orwellianism is definitionally vertical ("top-down"), to the point of being one of the original allegory's weaknessess according to many critics, auto-Orwellianism would be horizontal. It would be self-directed but also social and communal in replicating Orwellian processes. If there is a conceptual distinction between insurgencies with charismatic leading figures (e.g. Garibaldi, Mao, Castro) and those organized around "leaderless resistance" (e.g. Islamic or white supremacist terrorism in theoretical, idealized forms), in analogy auto-Orwellianism would kind of map onto the latter.

While the traditional Orwellianism of course remains an essential feature of movement conservatism and the Republican Party (can you get a purer case study than the Pennsylvania GOP trying to argue against the constitutionality of a law they unilaterally passed a year ago?), we have entered into the queer circumstance of elites and common clay alike becoming equalized through this cognitive horizontalism. Each individual becomes an agent of their own indoctrination as well as the interpenetrative maintainance and development of group norms and ways of knowing. As, for example, seen in Fox News' struggle to avoid falling into the whirlpool of its viewership's moods even as it continues to pursue its mission to hierarchically shape their worldviews and agendas. Despite its strong Murdoch-influenced editorial bent, the audience increasingly shapes the nature and scope of the content an organization like Fox is prepared to generate. I was actually shocked and thankful Fox News quickly (if VERY equivocally) pivoted away from Trump as soon as the voting was done and has at least reprogrammed to devote more time to attacking pandemic regulation and the - presumptively - incoming Biden administration. Had they not called Arizona early (apparently with Daddy Murdoch's personal approval (https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/11/2020-election-live-polls-and-results)) and instead went full bore on the election being stolen by George Soros, the ChiComs, the Venezuelans, urban socialists, Pelosi, AOC, Harris... we would be in a distinctly worse place today (and tomorrow).

So, like, imagine if Big Brother spent all day watching TV and posting on social media, the Inner Party forgot if or whether they were at war with Eurasia or Eastasia, and the proles got agitated enough about rumors of traitors in the Party allowing Emmanuel Goldstein to chill out at a London townhouse that someone at the Ministry of Truth decided it was true and the government, with Big Brother's approval, leveled half a city borough trying to root him out. Someone should write that book...

Which, to be reductive about my themes these past years, TLDR: They're all bug**** crazy now.

It's worth studying how conscious lies and pretensions become mass delusion.


Reflecting further on the Flight 93 essay - and I was remiss in not establishing what Flight 93 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_93) the author referred to - this end-of-era Soviet protest song is pretty much what all the reactionaries are singing along to.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3RQ6x9qD8w


Colonel Vasin has come to the frontline
And brought his young wife along
Colonel Vasin has rallied his corps
And told them: "Let's go home"
We fought this war for seventy years
We were taught that life is a fight
But the intelligence has just reported
We fought ourselves all this time.

And I have seen generals
They drink and eat our death
Their children are going crazy
Cause there's nothing left that they don't have
And our land lies in rust
Our churches are burnt.
If we want to have a home to return to
Now is the time to return

Our train is on fire
There are no buttons to push
Our train is on fire
There is no place to run to
Long ago this land was ours
Before we got trapped in this war
And it will die if it is nobody's
It's time for it to be returned

And the torches are burning around us
It's the rallying of all perished troops
And people who shot our fathers
Are now making plans for our youths.
We were born by the sound of marches
We were threatened by jail
I say it's about time we stopped crawling.
We have returned to our land.

It's barely metaphorical for Confederate rage, just tweak the lyrics slightly.



With the Texas lawsuit, most focused on sleazy Paxton, but the statistics cooking was even more comical (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/10/technology/texas-election-lawsuit-legality.html). One in a quadrillion and the Bolsheviks still won.:shifty:

Well, our convicted Nazi gangster (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54657540) also succeeded in running away, despite the police announcing that his chances were fewer than one in a trillion. Granted, a trillion is a significantly smaller number than a quadrillion, but it shows that you can never be certain with Socialists and National-Socialists.

I hate to break it to you, but this has been (https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/04/27/cruz_there_is_a_liberal_fascism_dedicated_to_going_after_christians.html) the received wisdom (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f5slRBGv_88&list=PLq6GxdP6CuaoMXZOu1_PBsIEguZsQAunP&index=5&t=0s) for years (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh6MPVoUNl8).




At some point in the next few weeks, there should be consideration given to a thread covering the new Biden/Harris administration, yes? Cabinet nominations, for instance, are currently ongoing and certainly generating a lot of controversy.

Just a thought...

A Trump Thread was started on Jan. 20, 2017, so we might as well start a Biden thread on Inauguration Day.


I don't know anything about the author, but I tip my hat to a quality bit of 18th century political satire:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/12/11/presidents-new-suit/?outputType=amp#csi=1&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&_tf=From%20%251%24s

It's Petri, she's the resident satirist at WaPo.


Yep....Republican lawmakers are such a great bunch of people, that every effort should be made to bend over backwards to work with these morons, despite the fact they want to destroy democracy. Here's an idea:

Put these idiots on trial for sedition.

I noted sometime in the past two years that our winning the governor's office in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan in 2018 offered us an appreciable security in flipping those states back. Lucky breaks and tiny margins in multiple states were our shield this cycle. But Democrats can't be expected to win decisively every time.

Republicans know that treason doth never prosper, for if it do...

[Gilrandir]

Incorrect. I meant ALL of Congress. If I had wanted to target just Republicans, I would have referenced the GOP only...:404:

There are plenty of examples of corporatism, corruption, and criminal activity amongst Democrats, which is again why I referenced the ENTIRE Congress.


You don't say! I'm getting pretty much disappointed in Democrats and Samurais! Next thing you would say that both of them can go back on their word and return to the thread they said they would not.

[Pannonian]

Aw, come on man, you've seen the term "Orwellian" deployed in media. It usually has its ultimate derivation from his single work "1984", and while the term is more diluted and generic in colloquial usage, I'm using it in a sense that picks out important features of the 1984 governing ideology and the concerns about political language and totalitarianism Orwell had as a thinker. Orwellianism then is the top-down manipulation of language and thought with the design of eliminating the possibility of dissent or disloyalty. This can involve the twisting of language into a set of partisan shibboleths rather than communicative tokens, the simultaneous or serial adherence to mutually-exclusive ideas or beliefs, and their coordinated and centralized inculcuation into the populace by a domineering government or party establishment. Among other things.

Auto mean "self" and as a prefix usually signifies reflexivity (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/reflexive). Where Orwellianism is definitionally vertical ("top-down"), to the point of being one of the original allegory's weaknessess according to many critics, auto-Orwellianism would be horizontal. It would be self-directed but also social and communal in replicating Orwellian processes. If there is a conceptual distinction between insurgencies with charismatic leading figures (e.g. Garibaldi, Mao, Castro) and those organized around "leaderless resistance" (e.g. Islamic or white supremacist terrorism in theoretical, idealized forms), in analogy auto-Orwellianism would kind of map onto the latter.

While the traditional Orwellianism of course remains an essential feature of movement conservatism and the Republican Party (can you get a purer case study than the Pennsylvania GOP trying to argue against the constitutionality of a law they unilaterally passed a year ago?), we have entered into the queer circumstance of elites and common clay alike becoming equalized through this cognitive horizontalism. Each individual becomes an agent of their own indoctrination as well as the interpenetrative maintainance and development of group norms and ways of knowing. As, for example, seen in Fox News' struggle to avoid falling into the whirlpool of its viewership's moods even as it continues to pursue its mission to hierarchically shape their worldviews and agendas. Despite its strong Murdoch-influenced editorial bent, the audience increasingly shapes the nature and scope of the content an organization like Fox is prepared to generate. I was actually shocked and thankful Fox News quickly (if VERY equivocally) pivoted away from Trump as soon as the voting was done and has at least reprogrammed to devote more time to attacking pandemic regulation and the - presumptively - incoming Biden administration. Had they not called Arizona early (apparently with Daddy Murdoch's personal approval (https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/11/2020-election-live-polls-and-results)) and instead went full bore on the election being stolen by George Soros, the ChiComs, the Venezuelans, urban socialists, Pelosi, AOC, Harris... we would be in a distinctly worse place today (and tomorrow).

So, like, imagine if Big Brother spent all day watching TV and posting on social media, the Inner Party forgot if or whether they were at war with Eurasia or Eastasia, and the proles got agitated enough about rumors of traitors in the Party allowing Emmanuel Goldstein to chill out at a London townhouse that someone at the Ministry of Truth decided it was true and the government, with Big Brother's approval, leveled half a city borough trying to root him out. Someone should write that book...


That's what I meant. I've read 1984, but his piece about the use of English language that I remember most was an excerpt about how socialists get caught up in comrade this and comrade that, that dulls the ears of everyone except their own little group, whereas right wingers tend to use more dynamic language that is more immediately appealing. The use of language in 1984 that you cite is still largely fictional, but his piece on the difference in language between left and right wingers is still true to life over half a century on. Eg. the Labour left's darling Laura Pidcock going down a storm in the Durham Miners' Gala whilst losing a constituency that has been Labour for 70 years.

[ReluctantSamurai]

I guess shit really does run downhill:

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/13/trump-2020-election-gop-444682


Trump, it seems, isn’t the only dead-ender holding out more than a month after the election, refusing to acknowledge defeat. Even as Trump lost again in court on Friday, with the Supreme Court rejecting a long-shot effort to overturn the election, he remains a lodestar for denialists of the GOP.

It isn't just that the losers of the campaign's mentioned in the article are challenging the results, it's the margin's of defeat that they lost by that is absurd:


[...] Loren Culp, the unsuccessful Republican nominee for governor in Washington state, where he lost by more than 13 percentage points on Nov. 3. Like Donald Trump, Culp insists he’s the victim of a rigged election.

In Maryland, a congressional candidate beaten by more than 40 percentage points is still complaining about “irregularities” in her election.

And in Tennessee, a House candidate defeated by more than 57 percentage points has reached out to the ubiquitous pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell to air her grievances about an election that no Republican had any chance of winning — but that she’s convinced she did.

Errol Webber, a little-known Republican who lost his race to unseat Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) by more than 70 percentage points. “It’s on principle that we will not let up until the truth is known.”

Buzz Patterson, a Republican who lost to Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.) by more than 13 percentage points, has refused to concede and is complaining about voting machines.

In Massachusetts, Republican John Paul Moran is using unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud to fundraise (https://www.eagletribune.com/news/moulton-opponent-fuels-fraud-claims/article_3adae661-0d3d-535d-b421-060a9583877e.html), after losing his long-shot bid to unseat Rep. Seth Moulton by more than 30 percentage points.

30 points, 40 points, 57 points, 70 points, and the election was rigged? But....let's follow the biggest loser of all, CoviDon, and make a mockery of the election process...:rolleyes:


John Thomas, a Republican strategist who advised a dozen House candidates across the country this year, said he could understand a candidate refusing to concede if the margin of defeat was “literally razor-thin and they were going to pay for a recount.” In any other case, he said, it’s a strategy “just for sore losers … And the problem is the damage it could potentially do to the electorate is huge, and I’m nervous as hell.”

I can only find two Democrats, thus far, contesting results (there may be more, I just haven't found them):

Iowa's 2d Congressional District:


Iowa’s state elections board on Monday certified Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks’s victory in the 2nd district, flipping a seat currently held by a Democrat. But her opponent, Rita Hart, is dusting off a 1969 federal statute to have the House of Representatives pick the winner. That means Democrats in Washington could overrule Iowa voters to seat a co-partisan and grow their majority.

The Iowa race was decided by six votes. The counting went on for weeks as 24 counties canvassed and recanvassed over 390,000 ballots, and lawyers from both sides haggled with election officials over machine counting, ballot qualifications and voter intent.

New York 22d Congressional District


[...] also in New York’s 22nd district upstate, where Democrat Anthony Brindisi is down by 12 votes in the preliminary final count to Republican Claudia Tenney. They want a judge to review county election board decisions on disputed ballots. Ms. Tenney’s lawyers warn in a court filing of “the perils of trying to recreate a Board’s findings in the absence of appropriate Board notations,” and ask the judge to put the race to an end.

This is beginning to look like the new norm in elections, from now on...:no:


Next thing you would say that both of them can go back on their word

"Let him who is without sin cast the first stone"

[spmetla]

It'll only be the new normal if it works, though it certainly highlights the danger to democracy that Trump and ilk have been when any unfavorable result will be declared as rigged.

I can only hope that Biden has the new congress enact laws to codify many of the norms that have been trampled upon by Trump. An honor system doesn't work with a thoroughly dishonorable person at the top.
Biden will need the courage to actually ask for legislation that can limit executive power, perhaps even a constitutional amendment.

[Montmorency]

Samurai, here's a Twitter clipping of a Senate floor speech by Chris Murphy. He's starting to talk just like how we need Dems to.
https://twitter.com/ChrisMurphyCT/status/1337467239906283531[VIDEO - 2 min]


“Right now, the most serious attempt to overthrow our democracy in the history of our of country is underway.

Those who are pushing to make Donald Trump President, no matter the outcome of the election, are engaged in a treachery against their nation.”

You cannot, at the same time, love this country and hate democracy.
[...]
Democracies are really fragile things. Ours only continues because we make choices so that it can remain. Our government really isn't the piece of paper upon which the Constitution is written. ...[D]emocracy comes first, not the perpetuation of our own political power.


This election (https://twitter.com/ChrisMurphyCT/status/1338127492419346436) wasn't close enough to steal. But it's clear that most Republicans now think if a Democrat wins an election, it is, by definition, fraudulent. And next time, when some GOP controlled election board DOES overturn a legitimate Dem victory, our democracy is cooked.

On the subject of messaging, what kind of play is this gesture getting in the media? Is it filtering down to the public? Good case study, because one can message however one wants, and with any level of organizational uniformity, but very few people actually go directly to legislators' pages to hear the words they choose to prioritize, so the impact depends on how the message is disseminated by third parties.



It'll only be the new normal if it works, though it certainly highlights the danger to democracy that Trump and ilk have been when any unfavorable result will be declared as rigged.

I can only hope that Biden has the new congress enact laws to codify many of the norms that have been trampled upon by Trump. An honor system doesn't work with a thoroughly dishonorable person at the top.
Biden will need the courage to actually ask for legislation that can limit executive power, perhaps even a constitutional amendment.

If we're very very lucky Biden and Dems will have just enough votes to pass a third-loaf pandemic stimulus - and little else. I don't believe a Constitutional amendment or convention can be activated under any circumstances given the established thresholds. Though there could be many distasteful submissions (https://www.governing.com/topics/politics/state-conservatives-seek-amend-us-constitution.html) if the opportunity arose, such as maybe disabling the social welfare state or enshrining white nationalist immigration policy in some form.

Sadly, the only chance of legislating restraint on the executive in the medium-term was for Dems to win a decisive majority in both chambers.

[Gilrandir]

"Let him who is without sin cast the first stone"

A good excuse for doing anything unseemly.

[ReluctantSamurai]

A good excuse for doing anything unseemly.

New hat now, I see...the moral police:7cop:

In an effort to keep this thread on topic.....are those politicians that are attempting to subvert democracy by claiming "voter fraud" whenever they lose, doing anything "unseemly?" Before you answer, bear this in mind:


Sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organisation, that tends toward rebellion against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent toward, or rebellion against, established authority.

I also have another question...you made these statements earlier this summer:


But, like I said, if they limit their activities to protecting their families and property, their ideology doens't matter to me. When they start excessive actions, hang them on the lamp posts. Next to looters.


Many social groups around the world (and sometimes all of them together) come out to voice their resentment. But, somehow, many of them keep within decency limits like it was in the 1960s in the MLK epoch, in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s, in Ukraine in 2004 and 2013/14, in Armenia in 2018, in Hong Kong in 2019, in Belarus just now and even during Occupy Wall street events. By decency limits I mean fighting the authorities, not their fellow citizens. How come current tensions are so mistargeted?


It is not about being legitimate or not, it is about the lack of common sense. Protesters demand "law and order and justice", as you say, but by that they mean all these FOR THEMSELVES, and not for those who happened to own shops on a wrong street. If this is "justice for all" why do you attack innocent people's property? They aren't included into all? How are they guilty in the depravity of the police? Do the rioters realize that they alienate people by looting?

So should these people, pictured in the link below, be "hung from the lamp posts"? Are they "keeping within decency limits"? Is the church just "on the wrong street"? Why are you not as outraged now as you were at BLM protesters?

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/13/vandals-black-churches-washington-dc-444940

And BTW, the American flag being waved there, while once a symbol of a fledgling country, is now predominantly seen in white supremacy gatherings. That tell you anything about what these folks think of our country?

@spmetla (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/member.php?u=1419)


It'll only be the new normal if it works

I think it already has worked, in the sense that it's undermined the legitimacy of the voting process. When you get trounced by 70 points in a race, there should be no doubt about the winner. But now, due to all the constant verbal lashing Trump has given the voting process in the last 4 years, that 70 point loser thinks that he/she has grounds for claiming they won by putting forth all kinds of wild assertions. The Bergmann case in Tennessee (from the above link) follows the same bizarre rhetoric as Trump's:


In Tennessee, Charlotte Bergmann, who lost her race to unseat Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) by more than 57 percentage points, said she became a “household name” in the Memphis-based district and that for Cohen, the sitting congressman, “to get the vote that he got in this race, people couldn’t understand it.”

“I’ve been active in politics since 1999, helping to get Republicans elected, starting with George W. Bush,” she wrote to her secretary of state, Tre Hargett. “That’s 21 years of service, and I’m the angriest I have been in decades! There are a group of corrupt people who have absolute contempt for the American people, who believe that we’re so spineless, so cowardly, so unwilling to stand up for ourselves, that they can steal the presidency, and down ballot seats, and we’ll just wring our hands, bring in a few lawyers, and do nothing.”

Being a "household name" and "active in politics since 1999" does not constitute voter fraud. You lost the election by 57 points. Take you're damn ball and go home. Better luck next time. WTF?


Sadly, the only chance of legislating restraint on the executive in the medium-term was for Dems to win a decisive majority in both chambers.

That, I'm afraid, is the sad reality. One only has to look at the total cluster-@#$% that's happening in Congress at this moment. Dr. No has almost the same power as POTUS. If anything, legislation was needed to put some restraints on the powers of the Senate Majority Leader. One man's refusal to authorize legislation that would ease the suffering of millions of Americans, while prioritizing Senate sessions to push through the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett, is just as criminal as almost anything Trump has done.

And that also went out the door with the mediocre results down-ballot.

[Hooahguy]

The electoral college has made it formal today. No faithless electors, thank god.

Edit: also this means that technically Biden got more electoral college votes than Trump did in 2016 since there were two faithless electors then.

[Montmorency]

Any comments on Chris Murphy above? (Pascrell in the House is somewhere similar, and the Squad have naturally always been more defiant than the baseline Dem).


Fun fact (Vox): Only three people had been executed by the federal government in the past 50 years. Meanwhile, in less than five months, eight people have already been put to death by Trump’s Justice Department.


If the remaining executions in December are carried out — making a total of 10 for 2020 — it will mark more civilian executions in a single calendar year than any other presidency in the 20th and 21st centuries.


Interesting contrast to the pardons agenda.



To avoid a separate post, NYGov Cuomo released some updated stats on the local epidemic.

https://i.imgur.com/X3XjFbB.jpg

It's a surprise to me that industrial or public-facing establishments have improved their praxis so much, and that private persons have laxened it so much.


(And yet another useful resource (http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/) for visualizing COVID)

[spmetla]

If the remaining executions in December are carried out — making a total of 10 for 2020 — it will mark more civilian executions in a single calendar year than any other presidency in the 20th and 21st centuries.
I support the death penalty in general so personally I see no issue in these all being signed off on all together or spread out throughout a presidential term. I'd say it's stupid that he's only doing these now, at the end of his time in office and the only real thing I have against them would be that it shows the President is likely not reviewing each case to doublecheck before he goes signing off on death. Executions are the ultimate punishment and should be conducted with deliberation and thought. Yes, the judicial system should already have done their part to ensure all those on death row deserve it but this country has executed innocents before so it shouldn't be taken lightly.

“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.”- Gandalf: J.R.R. Tolkien


It's a surprise to me that industrial or public-facing establishments have improved their praxis so much, and that private persons have laxened it so much.
In 'western' countries with 'hyper-individualism' the collective good of society is not a factor in a lot of peoples mind. It's the greatest weakness of our liberal world order even though the reason for so much of its strength.

The 'tragedy of the commons' played out during a pandemic just leads to worsened public health and more death. A govt functionary or businessperson is somewhat obligated to look out for the public/consumer good if no for other reason then confidence in that institution if not the general health of the public/consumers.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

A number of folks of my acquaintance cited his "pro-life" stance as their reason for voting for Trump despite acknowledging his flaws. All of those so indicating were good Catholics.

Ironically, Mother Church ALSO thinks capital punishment is unnecessary. I wonder how they missed that part of the memo.

[a completely inoffensive name]

A number of folks of my acquaintance cited his "pro-life" stance as their reason for voting for Trump despite acknowledging his flaws. All of those so indicating were good Catholics.

Although hypocrites, I think the only people who are acting rational in voting Republican are the pro-life single issue voters (and the white supremists, good company for the pro-lifers) since it's such a charged moral and ethical problem.

[Montmorency]

I support the death penalty in general so personally I see no issue in these all being signed off on all together or spread out throughout a presidential term. I'd say it's stupid that he's only doing these now, at the end of his time in office and the only real thing I have against them would be that it shows the President is likely not reviewing each case to doublecheck before he goes signing off on death. Executions are the ultimate punishment and should be conducted with deliberation and thought. Yes, the judicial system should already have done their part to ensure all those on death row deserve it but this country has executed innocents before so it shouldn't be taken lightly.


You can imagine that for the half of the public that generally opposes the death penalty, learning that Trump's admin is signing off on more civilian executions than any since the Wild West was still open isn't a cute development.

There have been some Supreme Court pleas around these cases, and I haven't heard great things about the majority decisions, but sticking to the facts of the cases themselves it appears to be so that some (https://theappeal.org/brandon-bernards-death-sentence-should-be-commuted-immediately-by-president-trump/) of these executions (https://twitter.com/LemieuxLGM/status/1337242384879427584) fit that cautioned-about category of low-quality death penalty material (https://www.vox.com/21736993/trump-federal-execution-december).

[Gilrandir]

New hat now, I see...the moral police:7cop:



Miami vice.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Although hypocrites, I think the only people who are acting rational in voting Republican are the pro-life single issue voters (and the white supremists, good company for the pro-lifers) since it's such a charged moral and ethical problem.

I am not, myself, a single-issue voter. My point was not to suggest that it was irrational to be pro-life and vote in that vein (it is, with that stance as a given, a rational choice). My problem is with the irony in being pro-life for the unborn and disturbingly avid in favor of the death penalty for criminals. I find this attitude especially saddening when encountered among members of a faith group founded on the idea of forgiveness and redemption -- a redemption accomplished, at least according to the accounts handed down to us, via a mis-use of capital punishment during which the person being killed called for the forgiveness of those killing him. Pro-life is not supposed to have an "until birth" label attached to it.

[Montmorency]

Too many famous quips on this subject. Two of the best-known:


"Pro-lifers" believe that life begins at conception and ends at birth


Boy, these conservatives are really something, aren't they? They're all in favor of the unborn. They will do anything for the unborn. But once you're born, you're on your own. Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that, they don't want to know about you. They don't want to hear from you. No nothing. No neonatal care, no day care, no head start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you're preborn, you're fine; if you're preschool, you're f****d.

[ReluctantSamurai]

On the lighter side:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/dec/16/atlantic-city-auction-blow-up-trump-casino


One of Donald Trump’s former Atlantic City casinos will be blown up next month, and for the right amount of money, you could be the one to press the button that brings it down. The demolition of the former Trump Plaza casino will become a fundraiser to benefit the Boys & Girls Club of Atlantic City that the mayor hopes will raise in excess of $1m.

[Montmorency]

One of Donald Trump’s former Atlantic City casinos will be blown up next month

A fitting icon for our fallen world? We were kings once.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTodK24KG6E

[ReluctantSamurai]

Can someone explain to me how there aren't additional charges of 'aiding & abetting in this?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/16/us/houston-police-captain-mark-aguirre.html


A former Houston police captain, who the authorities said was investigating a voter fraud conspiracy theory for a conservative activist group, was arrested and charged with pointing his gun at an air-conditioner repairman he had pursued to try to uncover fraudulent ballots, prosecutors said Tuesday.

According to a police affidavit, Mr. Aguirre struck the repairman’s box truck with his sport utility vehicle on the morning of Oct. 19. When the man got out of his truck, Mr. Aguirre pointed a handgun at him, ordered him to get on the ground and pressed a knee into his back, it said.

Other people who arrived searched the repairman’s truck for ballots and, finding none, drove it away, the repairman said, according to the affidavit. The truck was found abandoned nearby.

Yep, two months late, but whatever....Now the 'aiding & abetting' part:


Mr. Aguirre had been hired by a conservative activist group, the Liberty Center for God & Country, to investigate claims of voter fraud, according to a statement (https://app.dao.hctx.net/former-houston-police-captain-charged-holding-repairman-gunpoint-bogus-voter-fraud-conspiracy) from the office of Kim Ogg, the Harris County district attorney.

“He crossed the line from dirty politics to commission of a violent crime and we are lucky no one was killed,” Ms. Ogg said. “His alleged investigation was backward from the start — first alleging a crime had occurred and then trying to prove it happened.”

Perhaps there will be additional forthcoming charges that haven't been made public yet, but why is Liberty Center for God & Country not being charged?


The Liberty Center group that hired Mr. Aguirre had promoted the false narrative that mail-in ballots would be used to steal the election from President Trump. According to the district attorney’s office, the group paid $266,400 to Mr. Aguirre, and $211,400 of that was deposited into his account the day after his collision with the repairman’s truck.This sounds like it could've come straight from Rudy Giuliani or The Kraaken:
Mr. Aguirre told Detective Varela that he and the Liberty Center had been investigating a ballot harvesting conspiracy, according to the affidavit, and that he and his friends had been surveilling the repairman’s home for four days.
The affidavit said that Mr. Aguirre claimed the repairman “has approximately seven hundred and fifty thousand fraudulent mail ballots and is using Hispanic children to sign the ballots because the children’s fingerprints would not appear in any databases.”

750,000 ballots signed by Hispanic children...:rolleyes:

And the latest in GOP bullshit:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-17/gop-loses-georgia-bid-to-tweak-mail-in-ballot-rules-for-runoff?in_source=postr_story_1


A federal judge in Georgia rejected a lawsuit by the state’s two Republican senators seeking to change the mail-in ballot signature verification rules for their Jan. 5 runoff election, calling their worries about voter fraud “far too speculative.”

U.S. District Judge Eleanor L. Ross in Atlanta on Thursday granted the state’s motion to dismiss the suit brought by the Georgia Republican Party and the campaigns of Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, whose races will determine control of the U.S. Senate.


The GOP was seeking a court order that would force state election officials to have three people verify each signature and allow significantly more access to the canvassing process for partisan observers. But the state argued no such demands were made for in-person voting, even though verification of a state ID was open to just as much interpretation and error. The true motive, the state argued, was to vastly increase the rejection of mail-in ballots.

Jeezus, it never ends.:no:

[Montmorency]

34% of eligible voters voted Biden in 2020. 31% voted Trump. 34% didn't vote for anyone. Roughly.

https://i.imgur.com/EYO32uh.png

[ReluctantSamurai]

It would not surprise me if this is attempted:

https://www.vox.com/2020/12/20/22191988/trump-sidney-powell-special-counsel-election-fraud


President Donald Trump asked key advisers about appointing a controversial lawyer formerly associated with his campaign as a special counsel charged with overseeing an investigation of alleged — and nonexistent — voter fraud, according to a report from the New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/19/us/politics/trump-sidney-powell-voter-fraud.html).

According to Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Zolan Kanno-Youngs (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/19/us/politics/trump-sidney-powell-voter-fraud.html), Trump held a meeting at the White House on Friday to weigh whether to name Powell as a special counsel to investigate his repeatedly debunked claims of mass voter fraud in last month’s presidential election.

It is not clear that Trump could actually appoint Powell — or anyone else — to investigate fraud as a special counsel in his remaining days in office.

[...] special counsels are usually appointed by the US attorney general, and that counsel would be supervised by the attorney general themselves. Trump could ask Barr to appoint Powell, but it is not clear that he would do so, and Barr is due to step down on Wednesday.

Should his Justice Department refuse to cooperate, Trump could name a special counsel without DOJ support. But that person would essentially be toothless, with no access to federal law enforcement resources, subpoena power, or the ability to set up a grand jury.

The other possibility is that Trump, in his final weeks in office, could fire Rosen and replace him with someone more likely to enact his wishes, although who that person could be is not immediately obvious.

All the talk about seizing voting machines, or enacting the Insurrection Act is simply a smokescreen for the obvious reason for such skullduggery:


And having a special counsel on election fraud would be a powerful legacy. The Biden administration would likely face pressure not to interfere in a special counsel investigation, even one led by a partisan actor like Powell, thus ensuring that debate over the legitimacy of the last election would continue at the federal level even once Trump is no longer in office.

If Trump can pull this off, we are guaranteed a media circus for who knows how long that continues to keep the MAGA base stirred up for months about "voter fraud" (and of course keeps the Save America money scam going), and will continue to give oxygen to the possibility of more violence from far-right groups.

[Hooahguy]

Well, at least Barr said he wont do that (https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1341052958511919106?s=20). But since hes leaving in a few days anyways, who knows what his temporary successor might do.

[ReluctantSamurai]

This could probably go in any of several threads, but I'll put it here.

My views on Donald Trump is certainly no secret. The man disgusts me, and I've been a Trump-basher here for a long time. However, in this case, I'm going to say I actually agree with him, regardless of his true intentions [looks around for a thunderbolt to come and strike me dead:boxedin:]:

https://www.businessinsider.com/lose-lose-mcconnell-as-trump-dems-support-2000-stimulus-checks-2020-12


President Donald Trump on Tuesday night launched a surprise push to hike the stimulus checks (https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-asks-congress-for-2000-stimulus-checks-2020-12) in the COVID-19 relief package to $2,000 per person from $600.

Trump released a video (https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-asks-congress-for-2000-stimulus-checks-2020-12) criticizing the $900 billion coronavirus relief package that congressional lawmakers passed on Monday and demanding they increase the checks.

Democrats certainly showed how little they care for the American people (looking at you, Nancy Pelosi), when they rejected an earlier Trump aid package worth $1.8 trillion, saying it was unacceptable (and in fairness, there were some questionable items included in that bill), and instead, settled for a fraction of that in the latest proposal (of which almost half is unused money from the CARES ACT).

When one considers that the average back rent due by Americans amounts to about $5,400, that nearly 8 million Americans have fallen into poverty over the last 5 months, and there are nearly 50 million people with inadequate food supplies, a $600/person one-time check, an 11 week extension for unemployment, and a $300 unemployment benefits extension, is nowhere near enough.

There is certainly not an ounce of concern for people by Trump in demanding more money, but at this point, people desperately need the help, so who cares? GET THE MONEY OUT THERE!

And then there's this twit:

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/531521-klobuchar-trump-trying-to-burn-this-country-down-on-his-way-out


Sen. Amy Klobuchar (https://thehill.com/people/amy-klobuchar) (D-Minn.) this week claimed that President Trump (https://thehill.com/people/donald-trump) is “trying to burn this country down on his way out” of office by not supporting the new coronavirus stimulus and government funding bill passed by Congress on Monday.

In an appearance on (https://twitter.com/JordanUhl/status/1341587611283054592)Rachel Maddow (https://thehill.com/people/rachel-maddow)’s MSNBC show Tuesday night, Klobuchar responded to the president’s remarks shared on Twitter (https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/531381-trump-slams-relief-bill-calls-on-congress-to-increase-stimulus-money) earlier in the day, in which he called the $2.3 trillion package that includes stimulus checks of $600 to Americans “a disgrace,” adding that the payments should be increased to $2,000.

The Minnesota senator and former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate told Maddow that Trump’s failure to support the bill “is an attack on every American.”
“People who are struggling to get by right now, out of work, whose unemployment, the unemployment is going to basically end the day after Christmas if this doesn’t pass, people who are out of work, people who need the help,” she added.

So let me get this straight Amy, you'd rather send out a paltry $600 instead of a more robust $2000 (still inadequate, but more than triple what's in the current bill), and call the inclusion of $2000 instead of $600 "an attack on every American"?? Oh, BTW, you are worth around $2,000,000, so I doubt you understand what "struggling to get by" actually means:inquisitive:

We will see how effective the Democrats will be in exploiting the GOP on this issue. I expect more spinelessness, and I feel sorry for those who could benefit from this. But perhaps they will surprise me and actually grow some cohonees.....

[Hooahguy]

Lol if you actually think that Trump is serious about $2,000 checks then you have either not been paying attention or are just an unserious person. The House GOP has already stated its complete rejection of it and the Senate GOP is deeply divided on the issue. As I recall it was Pat Toomey (R-PA) who blocked the Sanders/Hawley amendment that would have made the checks $1,200. And it was McConnell who put the brakes on a stimulus bill back in October (https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/10/20/trump-economic-stimulus-pelosi/).

As for Amy's comment, that clip you posted was laughably out of context. If you watch the whole thing (https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/trump-trying-to-burn-this-country-down-on-his-way-out-klobuchar-on-covid-relief-bill-98310725724) (only 2:34), its extremely clear she was referring to Trump tanking the current relief bill, not the idea of larger checks. I invite you to go back and look at her past and current statements, she's been supporting larger checks for a while. The fact is that Jordan Uhl did not make that tweet in good faith. But then again he's never really been the brightest (https://i.redd.it/q94cybyohvv51.jpg). Anyways you do realize that by Trump vetoing the aid bill, which was tied in with the government funding omnibus bill, we are headed for another government shutdown if something isnt resolved in the next six days right? With it goes a whole bunch of government programs that helps people. He isn't serious about this. If he was, he wouldn't have spent the past month focused on his dumb election fraud shtick. Nor would he have skipped town today for Christmas holiday as negotiations start up again. He just wants to muck things up. Thats what he's always done. Its a grave mistake to think that just because Trump said it that the GOP will automatically fall in line. This isnt something that will be resolved overnight, its going to be a protracted battle again which will result in delayed relief and even more people suffering. Its not just the $600 checks, its also the extra unemployment money, small business loans, funding for public health infrastructure for testing and the vaccine, etc. People are too focused on the $600 checks that they forget the rest of it.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Lol if you actually think that Trump is serious about $2,000 checks then you have either not been paying attention or are just an unserious person.

Please don't insult me. OF COURSE it's a PR stunt, but it's a possible way to get some REAL relief to those who need it instead of the crumbs being offered. Congresswoman Tlaib already has an amendment ready to go:

https://twitter.com/RashidaTlaib/status/1341568309955874818


[...]you do realize that by Trump vetoing the aid bill, which was tied in with the government funding omnibus bill, we are headed for another government shutdown if something isnt resolved in the next six days right? With it goes a whole bunch of government programs that helps people

Pelosi is claiming it could get done in a week or less.....


As for Amy's comment, that clip you posted was laughably out of context.

Not so. Her pathetic bleating for the American people is what's laughable. Talking about unemployment running out---do you really think this bill is going to help with that? Consider the numbers I quoted....back rent to the tune of $5400 on average, 8 million more Americans fallen below the poverty line (in America that's $12760 for single people, $26200 for a family of four).

She fails to mention that the $284 billion in the bill for small businesses will take weeks/months to process, and more of those businesses are going to fail regardless. And the duration of this stimulus is very short---much of it expires in March which is just kicking the can down the road. And aid to states and local governments is completely lacking in the bill. If Congress hadn't been sitting on its' collective duffs all summer and fall, the situation wouldn't be this dire. But holy hell, three cheers for the sudden cause for bi-partisanship...:laugh4:....and the fact that an over 5000 page bill was dumped on staff desks to be voted on two hours later.

Her best line came at the very end...."Which party has people's back, and which party is in the White House?" Now THAT'S laughable...:laugh4:

You missed my point altogether, made in the first link. My bad for not being more clear. This whole bunch of BS puts Dr. No in a tough spot:

1. He can cave and accept a larger stimulus figure after fighting for months to keep it down.

2. He can block the larger checks and take the political heat for it.

Pelosi is already hedging:

https://www.dailyposter.com/p/force-the-vote-on-direct-aid


She says she wants to bring it up by unanimous consent — a process that gives any single member of the House the ability to raise an objection and block it. That could let her pretend she tried to force a vote, but was thwarted by a Republican dissenter. But she is House Speaker — there are ways for her to truly force a vote.

As the American Prospect’s David Dayen notes (https://twitter.com/ddayen/status/1341561428071776256?s=20), Pelosi could, for instance, do it under a separate process of suspending the rules which would mean that to stop it, “140 Republicans have to buck Trump and deny a cash lump-sum payout to the American people.”

Further noted in the article:


The whole situation could be a big winner for Democrats and show they actually care about human beings. It gives them a high-profile moment to appear as if they care about improving the grotesque spending package that’s currently on the table.

Americans are in bread lines (https://apnews.com/article/race-and-ethnicity-hunger-coronavirus-pandemic-4c7f1705c6d8ef5bac241e6cc8e331bb), and yet the current omnibus legislation skimps on direct aid to millions of people — while offering billions of dollars worth of tax breaks for race horse owners (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/coronavirus-stimulus-deal-tax-breaks-business-201042359.html), landlords, NASCAR (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-21/beer-restaurants-and-nascar-win-tax-breaks-in-virus-relief-bill) and corporate executives’ three-martini lunches (https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/12/20/meal-tax-deduction/).
The current bill spends only $166 billion on survival checks, while devoting $200 billion (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/22/us/politics/coronavirus-relief-bill.html?smid=tw-share) to new tax breaks for the rich. It exempts (https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2020/12/21/expenses-with-ppp-money-are-tax-deductible-congress-reverses-irs/?sh=11b6f5d71e1f) business expenses under the paycheck protection program from taxes, while taxing workers’ jobless benefits (https://prospect.org/coronavirus/unsanitized-tax-time-bomb-unemployment-benefits-taxed/) and ending (https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/paulmcleod/paid-sick-leave-ends-coronavirus-mcconnell) a paid coronavirus sick leave mandate.

It offers just $25 billion in rental assistance, at a moment when an estimated 14 million (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/12/16/million-could-face-eviction-after-holidays-heres-how-help/3821743001/) American households are in danger of eviction and will owe roughly $70 billion (https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/12/07/unemployed-debt-rent-utilities/) in unpaid rental and utility debt by January, according to Moody's Analytics Mark Zandi. The bill includes a separate retroactive tax break for landlords projected to cost $3 billion (https://www.jct.gov/publications/2020/jcx-24-20/) — which probably doesn’t help people pay their rent.

So unless a third round of stimulus is in the works, this round will serve as a small band-aid until spring. And unless the Democrats win both Georgia seats, getting anything from the GOP for another stimulus package will be worse than pulling eye teeth.

[Montmorency]

Meh (https://twitter.com/SpeakerPelosi/status/1341557535732604935).


Republicans repeatedly refused to say what amount the President wanted for direct checks. At last, the President has agreed to $2,000 — Democrats are ready to bring this to the Floor this week by unanimous consent. Let’s do it!

To the extent this information is reaching the public - remember that the House passed the relatively-generous HEROES Act in like June - I'm not sure there is a difference in impact on whatever audience there is between a tweet and a unanimous consent process (and attendant inevitable loud Republican dissent) and, well, doing something else specific.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-24/gop-blocks-democrats-move-for-2-000-payments-trump-demanded

Gotta get ahead of the Backroom truce.

[Hooahguy]

The fact that you read anything written by Walker Bragman really speaks volumes... anyone who wrote an article titled "a liberal case for Donald Trump" is a deeply unserious person who does not argue in good faith. Ever.

Yes, the GOP shot down the UC vote today, but if you did a bit more research you would see that the House is going to do a full vote on Monday on the issue. But it will go nowhere because of Mitch.

There was never a chance $2k checks would pass in a Republican Senate. Trump's entire goal this whole time is to cause chaos. And this is that chaos. It is distressing to me that you are falling for the "both sides" thing, Dems passed multiple aid bills months ago (hardly sitting on their behinds like you claim), yet they seem to be the main focus of your ire. I would say its curious, but then again you do read Bragman and Co. so it makes sense.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Yes, the GOP shot down the UC vote today, but if you did a bit more research you would see that the House is going to do a full vote on Monday on the issue.

Yes, I did "more research" and realize the procedure. Pelosi already knew the UC vote would fail, hence the call for full vote on Monday.


But it will go nowhere because of Mitch.

That's the point. Do everything you can, and when the GOP blocks an attempted amendment in favor of more money, the onus falls on the Republicans.


It is distressing to me that you are falling for the "both sides" thing

And how is that? I've been saying for a long time, that even if the Democrats snag the two Georgia seats, it's still going to be difficult to get meaningful legislation passed. There will be little incentive for cross aisle co-operation, and I don't expect anything to come from attempts at making that happen.


...yet they seem to be the main focus of your ire. I would say its curious, but then again you do read Bragman and Co. so it makes sense

The difference between a centrist political view, and a leftist view. That you consider anything he publishes as not arguing in good faith speaks volumes.....

[ReluctantSamurai]

This will make things interesting:

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/28/gohmert-suit-pence-overturn-trumps-defeat-451485


Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) and President Donald Trump's defeated electors from Arizona may force Vice President Mike Pence to publicly pick a side in Trump’s bid to overturn his 2020 election loss.

Gohmert and a handful of the would-be electors sued Pence in federal court on Monday in a long-shot bid to throw out the rules that govern Congress' counting of electoral votes next week. It’s an effort they hope will permit Pence — who is tasked with leading the Jan. 6 session of the House and Senate — to simply ignore President-elect Joe Biden's electors and count Trump's losing slates instead.

Though the lawsuit itself is unlikely to gain legal traction, it does put Pence in the position of having to either contest the suit — putting him on the opposite side of Trump and his GOP defenders — or support it and lay bare the intention to subvert the will over the voters in the 2020 election.

It's likely Pence skips town after the Biden win is confirmed:


At least earlier this month, Pence was planning to oversee Biden’s victory and then try to escape Trump’s ire by heading abroad for what might be his final diplomatic trip (https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/17/pence-trump-election-loss-447326) in office. If Pence ultimately opts out of participating in the session, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the Senate president pro tem, would likely preside.


:creep:

[Hooahguy]

Yes, I did "more research" and realize the procedure. Pelosi already knew the UC vote would fail, hence the call for full vote on Monday.
The vast majority of MoC were already gone for the Christmas holiday hence the UC. Even if she did drag every MoC back for a last minute full vote, McConnell wouldnt have acted on it anyways. The result would have been the same either way. I was going to write up a whole paragraph and all that but to be completely honest, I dont have this fight in me so I'll just leave Rep. Omar's tweet (https://twitter.com/IlhanMN/status/1343281015817723910?s=20) on the subject and be done with it:


Dems attempted to negotiate a deal with Mnuchin, but McConnell shut it down.

Dems successfully negotiated a deal with McConnell, but Trump refused to sign the bill.

At this point, no one knows who we are suppose to negotiate with.

Stop the “two sides” narrative to this mess.

Anyways, Trump ended up caving and signed the Covid bill/omnibus bill on Sunday. I found this is a really interesting t (https://twitter.com/DavidMillerTax/status/1341779867717804034)hread (https://twitter.com/DavidMillerTax/status/1341779867717804034), written by someone who was a lawyer who worked with him on a deal in the 90s:


He will sign. In 1998, I was the tax lawyer representing Conseco in a joint venture with the Trump Organization to buy the General Motors Building. Conseco put up 99.9% of the capital, Trump put up 0.1% of the capital, and Lehman Brothers loaned the rest. The joint venture agreement was very straightforward. Income and deductions were based on capital contributions. Everything was agreed quickly by the lawyers. However, on the day before signing, we were told that Mr. Trump would be arriving at 10pm at our offices to negotiate the deal (which had already been negotiated).

He arrives with an entourage. A podium had been set up for him at the front of a long table in a conference room. He asks for some minor corporate changes. But then he demands that he get all of the depreciation deductions. Having negotiated, he put on his coat and left. All of the lawyers look at each other. The general counsel of Conseco said, “We put up 99.9% of the money; we get 99.9% of the depreciation deductions.” Trump’s lawyers say, “Don’t worry, he’ll sign.” I go home to sleep.

The next morning my corporate partner and Trump’s corporate lawyer take the joint venture agreement to Trump Tower for Trump’s signature. I’m in my office. The phone rings.
It’s my corporate partner. “Mr. Trump wants to speak to you.”
“Yes, Mr. Trump,” I say.
“Were you there last night?” he asks.
“Yes, Mr. Trump, I was.”
“Did you hear me last night?” he asks.
“Yes, Mr. Trump, I did.” I reply.
“So, does this agreement give me the depreciation deductions?” he asks.
“No, Mr. Trump, it does not.”
He’s angry now. “You were there last night, you heard me, and this agreement does not give me the depreciation deductions? Why not?!”

I know that the agreement could have been structured for Trump to get depreciation deductions (if he was willing to provide a “bottom guarantee”). But it wasn’t, so I answer truthfully: “Mr. Trump, the law does not permit you to get depreciation deductions.” He’s furious now. “The law does not permit me to get depreciation deductions?!”
“That’s right, Mr. Trump.”

He slams down the phone and signs the agreement.
Basically he's done this before.

One notable thing to watch is the NDAA, which he made good on his veto threat for. The House voted overwhelmingly to override the veto, but things are stalling in the Senate. Bernie rightfully threatened to filibuster the veto override vote as a way of forcing McConnell to bring up the $2,000 checks for a vote (which he wasnt going to do until the filibuster threat it seems). McConnell responded by trying to tie the higher stimulus checks to a full repeal of Section 230, which they are mad about because Republicans like big corporations until they get de-platformed due to hate speech. But repealing 230 is a huge risk as it may lead to a serious crackdown of all speech on the internet. So thats a potential poison pill. Definitely will be following the developments here.

[Montmorency]

I'm surprised the Christmas truce has ended so early this year.


Credit where credit is due (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/28/us/politics/stimulus-georgia-senate-runoffs.html), this Democratic candidate for the Senate is saying just what I wanted him to say.


“David Perdue does not care about us, and $600 is a joke,” Mr. Ossoff told several hundred people at an outdoor get-out-the-vote rally with Mr. Warnock in DeKalb County, one of the suburban Atlanta counties that has become increasingly diverse over the past decade.

“You send me and Reverend Warnock to the Senate and we will put money in your pocket,” Mr. Ossoff said. He faces Mr. Perdue in the runoff, while Mr. Warnock is challenging Ms. Loeffler.

Of course, telling it to a few hundred copartisans won't move votes, but it's the thought that counts, somewhat.



Basically he's done this before.

Technically speaking, making threats or promises that he immediately fails to live up to is a defining characteristic of Trump the man and Trump the president.


Check out this encomium (https://amgreatness.com/2020/12/26/an-essential-man/) to Trump from one of the "intellectual" far-right publications. (The writer's far too old to be our Panzerjaeger though.)


Media commentators, themselves products of the post-1960s counterculture, pronounced Trump a buffoon and a vulgarian; millions of Americans, however, looked at him and saw a potential savior—a real warrior who shared their love of America and who, it seemed, might just win the culture war.

Like Reagan, Trump actually seemed to care about ordinary Americans. The Bushes and Clintons had gotten rich as “public servants”; Trump, a billionaire, stood only to lose money by throwing his hat in the ring.

A longtime New York fixture, he was famous for hiring smart people regardless of their sex, race, or sexual orientation. He supported same-sex marriage long before Obama or Hillary Clinton did. During the campaign, unlike GOP candidates before him, he never came close to gay-bashing. Yet the Left portrayed him as a bigot, and veteran GOP bigshots accused him, hilariously, of having sullied a party that had once oozed dignity and class.

Yes, the idea of a country being saved by a single “great man” can be dangerous. In the last century, it led to the dictatorships of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and several others. But facts are facts: Trump, today, is America’s essential man. Though surrounded by enemies in the White House, on Capitol Hill, and all over Washington, he’s enjoyed an unprecedented level of public support.

Finally, the ultimate culture war atrocity: a manifestly stolen election.

The theft was breathtaking in the insane lust for power, and the contempt for opponents, that made it possible. It was stunning in its brazenness. Which made sense: for decades, as it had advanced apace—in what has been called “the long march through the institutions”—the counterculture had grown used to easy conquests. It apparently hadn’t expected much in the way of resistance this time, either.

The whole scenario is quite clear. They’re just like schoolyard bullies. Because Trump supporters are honest, good-mannered, and peaceable, they take us for wimps.

Isn't this just genuine insanity? Like, actionable insanity; if we still had asylums it would be fair game to commit the writer for this piece. It's beyond even those select Sanders-supporting commentators who acted as though his election would bring full communism to the horizon.


Never—and this assertion seems unarguable—have so many Americans loved their president so much, or trusted him so implicitly, or been so certain of his genuine concern for their welfare.

This much, sadly, is true.

Suspiciously n the same vein (https://geocalifornian.medium.com/the-philistine-democrats-and-leftmedia-are-enemies-of-our-nation-b98f72d31bde), also from over the weekend.


Clumsy accusations that President Trump is some sort of autocrat ring awfully hollow when he more scrupulously follows the Constitution than any POTUS since Ronald Reagan.
[...]
Other clumsy accusations that President Trump is an uncaring monster ring very hollow in light of his wildly successful America-centric policies, in addition to his numerous public acts of kindness and more of his private acts of kindness that come to light via the testimony of other citizens.
[...]
Donald J. Trump is the essential Man of This Time …
… Americans know it, and the President’s public rallies are the empirical evidence of it. May We and He defeat another nascent Evil Empire in its soiled crib.

[Hooahguy]

I'm surprised the Christmas truce has ended so early this year.
Well the mod team kinda figured that since there isn't a whole lot of activity on the Org in general, no sense in shutting down the most active part of the forum for the whole week so we agreed on a partial truce for the weekend around Christmas. Good tidings and cheer and all that.


Credit where credit is due (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/28/us/politics/stimulus-georgia-senate-runoffs.html), this Democratic candidate for the Senate is saying just what I wanted him to say.
Of course, telling it to a few hundred copartisans won't move votes, but it's the thought that counts, somewhat.
Im not a huge fan of Ossoff and tbh Im still not entirely sure how he got to be the Senate nominee after losing a special election in a district the Dems flipped a year later, but I guess here we are.

[Montmorency]

Well the mod team kinda figured that since there isn't a whole lot of activity on the Org in general, no sense in shutting down the most active part of the forum for the whole week so we agreed on a partial truce for the weekend around Christmas. Good tidings and cheer and all that.


Im not a huge fan of Ossoff and tbh Im still not entirely sure how he got to be the Senate nominee after losing a special election in a district the Dems flipped a year later, but I guess here we are.

I could have sworn you were in favor of Ossoff himself in 2017 (not that he had much competition among the party bench), but maybe I'm misremembering. His face, like his politics, might resemble a cross between Beto O'Rourke and Pete Buttigieg, but here I'm gathering you dislike the rhetorical strategy of promising voters money??

Anyway, he got a majority of votes in a crowded primary and that makes him good. /snark More seriously, I get the feeling Warnock is affirmatively more popular among the base than Ossoff. Why is that?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

First he stands tough and claims he'll veto.

Then he waits for the first benefits to lapse.

THEN he signs the thing anyway.

And also calls for $2k having heard that number (probably on Limbaugh) somewhere.

And thus hands the would-be GA dem senators a talking point with which to hammer the GOP'ers for nothing.`


Petulant, disconnected, AND incompetent -- I am starting to think he WILL surpass Jemmy Buchannan on the list.

[Hooahguy]

I could have sworn you were in favor of Ossoff himself in 2017 (not that he had much competition among the party bench), but maybe I'm misremembering. His face, like his politics, might resemble a cross between Beto O'Rourke and Pete Buttigieg, but here I'm gathering you dislike the rhetorical strategy of promising voters money??

Anyway, he got a majority of votes in a crowded primary and that makes him good. /snark More seriously, I get the feeling Warnock is affirmatively more popular among the base than Ossoff. Why is that?
I dont remember that, I honestly dont even remember if I was even paying attention in the short primary for the GA-06 seat back in 2017 as I didn't live in the district. I was pro-Ossoff in comparison to his GOP opponent of course, but I was never really on his bandwagon. I was also going through a major breakup during that time so my memory might be hazy.

My biggest issue with him is the lack of experience to stand upon. Like what is he known for most? Losing the most expensive House race in US history. And he was a Congressional staffer for a few years. Rev. Warnock is the senior pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church which carries huge weight and prestige in the Black community in Georgia, and within Georgia in general. Yes I know the GOP have put up less qualified people but the Dems should strive to be better when it comes to the Senate. If Ossoff wins I think he does it on Rev. Warnock's coattails. Otherwise he will be known just as the guy who lost the most expensive House and Senate races in US history.

As for the rhetorical strategy, no issues with what he's doing.

[Montmorency]

Petulant, disconnected, AND incompetent -- I am starting to think he WILL surpass Jemmy Buchannan on the list.

Starting to?

On the other hand, Trump still has approximately 463 hours in which to finally become President. :wink:

[Crandar]

Bezmenov was right, even conservatives are now gradually being indoctrinated (https://twitter.com/shoe0nhead/status/1342345192184172544) to socialism and its various, nefarious offshoots.

[ReluctantSamurai]

One week to go before the Electoral College votes are certified by Congress, on 6 Jan. Three days before that, however, we get a preview of how much of a shit-show will occur on the sixth:

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/30/electoral-college-biden-trump-452081


The least-understood aspect of Congress’ electoral vote certification occurs days before the main event. On Jan. 3, the first day of the new congressional session, the House and Senate will adopt a set of rules that govern the Jan. 6 meeting.

The so-called “concurrent resolution” usually originates in the Senate, where the rules committee — chaired by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo) — would issue the first version. In recent decades, even after fiercely contested elections like in 2000 and 2016, the rules have been adopted unanimously and without debate.

Those rules have been unaltered for decades, and they simply reaffirm that Congress will abide by the processes in the Constitution and in the Electoral Count Act. Those processes include a requirement that the vice president, in this case Mike Pence, will preside over the Jan. 6 session and that electoral votes are to be read aloud one state at a time, alphabetically.

So much for the rules, which has been discussed here for some time. What McConnell and Pelosi have planned to expedite the confirmation process should become apparent at this point:


Rather than take the extreme route of bypassing the Electoral Count Act altogether, constitutional scholars say lawmakers could use the opportunity to clarify and add onto existing processes in order to stave off uncertainty stoked by Trump’s hardline allies. That could include restricting Pence’s power to make sweeping procedural rulings or setting criteria that prevent him from introducing alternate slates of presidential electors in states won by Biden, a gambit some Trump allies have urged him to attempt.

The alternate slates of Trump electors carry no legal force. But the language of the Electoral Count Act indicates that Congress must consider any documents “purporting to be certificates of the electoral votes.” Multiple constitutional experts said in interviews that Congress could help define the boundaries of what are considered legitimate electoral votes — such as those endorsed by a governor, state legislature or other state authority — and prevent the Trump votes from being read into the joint session.

3 Jan will also provide a window into just how much support Trump will have 3 days later when Congress meets to certify the results:


Trump allies could also seek to make a stand on Jan. 3 by attempting to amend the rules in their favor or opposing any new constraints adopted in either chamber. Although those votes would likely fail, they would provide an early window into the level of support for any challenges that they intend to bring on Jan. 6 — and just how many Republicans are prepared to vote to affirm Biden’s victory as well.

The fly in the ointment:


The Twelfth Amendment requires that the vice president oversee the joint session of Congress and open each state’s certificate of electoral votes. The Electoral Count Act spells out his role further, requiring him to hand over the opened certificates to four “tellers” — two appointed by the House and two by the Senate — who then read them aloud to the chamber. Pence then asks for any objections.

But neither provision indicates what criteria Pence may use to decide whether he may introduce alternative slates of Trump electors. In fact, the rules require him to introduce any papers “purporting” to be elector slates — and it’s up to him to determine whether Trump’s electors in states won by Biden should be considered by Congress.

If Pence agrees with Gohmert’s theory, he can attempt to assert it when he presides over the Jan. 6 session. If he doesn’t, Trump and his allies are positioning it to be the ultimate betrayal of the president. And if Pence bows out altogether, the duty of presiding would fall to Senate President Pro Tem Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). [see earlier post about Gohmert's lawsuit against Pence]

It's either going to be a spectacle, or much ado about nothing....

[Hooahguy]

Ossoff today (https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1344427113059856387?s=20): "Kelly Loeffler has been campaigning with a Klansman"

I guess I am a fan of Ossoff today. I like this gloves-off version of him.

[Montmorency]

Starting to?

On the other hand, Trump still has approximately 463 hours in which to finally become President. :wink:

I know I said approximately, but at the time of posting I somehow overlooked that there were two full days remaining in 2020. Happy New Year.



Holy shit, I saw an incredible thought experiment proposed regarding the unconscionable infinitude of the President's constitutional pardon power. The idea is, a President could issue an ultimatum to Congress that he will effectively legalize murdering them, Purge-style, in federal spaces, unless they initiate/complete a Constitutional amendment process to delimit the pardon power. Another illustration is the point that pres-elect Biden could, reasonably, bruit free pardons for anyone willing to eliminate Donald Trump or any of Biden's political enemies. Of course, broadly speaking the making such pronouncements or the attempt to follow up on them would ipso facto be activity subject to criminal (to say nothing of civil) penalties. But Donald Trump's administration has clearly established that the justice system doesn't give a crap about corrupt or otherwise criminal abuse of the pardon power, so...

https://i.imgur.com/0kc0xmX.png


Also, Rasmussen Polling (https://twitter.com/Rasmussen_Poll/status/1343193422996393987) appears to have formally declared fascist affiliation.


Come January 6th:

(Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything. - Stalin)

"Come January 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence will be presented with the sealed certificates containing the ballots of the presidential electors.

1/4

At that moment, the Presidency will be in his hands.

And there is nothing stopping Pence, under the (plenary and unappealable) authority vested in him as President of the Senate, from declining to open and count the certificates from the six disputed states.

If they are (as more than 70% of Republicans believe) certificates from non-electors appointed via voter fraud, why should he open & count them?"

If the votes of all 7 contested states are registered as zero, President Trump will have 232 votes, Joe Biden will have 222.

3/4

If they are (as more than 70% of Republicans believe) certificates from non-electors appointed via voter fraud, why should he open & count them?"

If the votes of all 7 contested states are registered as zero, President Trump will have 232 votes, Joe Biden will have 222.

4/4

Very cool sentiments for a polling firm to stake out.


From the pardons thread:


When Collins, from the Buffalo area, became the first member of Congress to endorse Trump in 2016, he declared: "Donald Trump is the individual as president that can lead this country and reclaim our great state and provide a bright future for our children."

Can't they help paraphrasing the 14 Words? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteen_Words)


Fourteen Words, 14, or 14/88, is a reference to the 14-word slogan "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children",[1] followed by the less commonly used "Because the beauty of the White Aryan woman must not perish from the earth." The 8s represent the eighth letter of the alphabet (H), and "HH" stands for "Heil Hitler." [2] The slogans were originally coined by American white supremacist David Lane,[3] a founding member of terrorist organization The Order,[4] and serve as a rallying cry for militant white nationalists across the globe.[5]

[a completely inoffensive name]

May God guide our history for the better in 2021.

https://twitter.com/Pontifex/status/1342802590447398915


We too can change evil into good each day. Loving actions change history: even the ones that are small, hidden, everyday. For God guides history through the humble courage of those who pray, love and forgive.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Continuation of the Pence Saga:

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/31/pence-overturn-election-results-lawsuit-453207


Vice President Mike Pence has asked a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit brought against him by Republicans seeking to empower him to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

But Pence, in a 14-page filing brought by Justice Department attorneys (https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000176-baf5-d67a-a3f7-bffd0fe90000), said the suit shouldn’t be aimed at him, since he is who Gohmert is trying to empower. “A suit to establish that the Vice President has discretion over the count, filed against the Vice President, is a walking legal contradiction,” Pence’s brief said.

From the case filing:


Plaintiffs have presented this Court with an emergency motion raising a host of weighty legal issues about the manner in which the electoral votes for President are to be counted. But these plaintiffs’ suit is not a proper vehicle for addressing those issues because plaintiffs have sued the wrong defendant. The Vice President—the only defendant in this case—is ironically the very person whose power they seek to promote. The Senate and the House, not the Vice President, have legal interests that are sufficiently adverse to plaintiffs to ground a case or controversy under Article III. Defendant respectfully request denial of plaintiffs’ emergency motion because the relief that plaintiffs request does not properly lie against the Vice President.

These plaintiffs’ claims against the Vice President in his capacity as President of the Senate also fail to address the Constitution’s Speech and Debate Clause, which prevents the other Branches of Government from questioning Congress in connection with “legislative acts,” which have “consistently been defined as an act generally done in Congress in relation to the business before it.” United States v. Brewster, 408 U.S. 501, 512 (1972). See also supra n.1. Moreover, nothing in Ex Parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 (1908), or its progeny supports these particular plaintiffs’ novel suit to enjoin the Vice President in the exercise of his constitutional authority as President of the Senate. See Armstrong v. Exceptional Child Center, Inc., 575 U.S. 320, 327 (2015) (looking to history to understand the scope of equitable suits to enjoin executive action). To the extent the Court is inclined to address these and other issues, the House of Representatives has informed the Defendant that it intends to present this Court with a number of arguments in response to plaintiffs’ motion. In light of Congress’s comparative legal interests in the Electoral Count Act, Defendant respectfully defers to the Senate and the House of Representatives, as those bodies see fit, to present those arguments.

An amusing sidenote:


Ironically, Representative Gohmert’s position, if adopted by the Court, would actually deprive him of his opportunity as a Member of the House under the Electoral Count Act to raise objections to the counting of electoral votes, and then to debate and vote on them.

Pence probably has his bags packed for his "diplomatic trip" as the coming Trump twitter-storm against him on Jan 6 is going to be nuclear fallout....

Republicans suing Republicans......:bounce:

[spmetla]

I'm glad that they overrode his veto today, should demonstrate to Trump that he really is a lame duck now. The Jan 6th confirmation of Biden should be the final nail in the coffin of his illegal hopes and dreams.

The following fortnight of whatever he does though will likely be some of the worst things a president can do, what new norms will he trample in that period will probably be worrisome. Wonder what beyond pardons for family and friends he'll do...

[Montmorency]

Interestingly, Murkowski and Manchin (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/21/climate/climate-change-stimulus.html) were responsible for putting clean energy funding priorities in the latest stimulus bill (more properly, the omnibus spending bill), which suggests Manchin won't be a particular obstacle to a Biden-esque climate plan should we ever regain a sniffable majority in the Senate (Manchin will never, for anything, support removing the filibuster if there are only 50 Dem votes in the Senate).




May God guide our history for the better in 2021.

https://twitter.com/Pontifex/status/1342802590447398915

You're Catholic?


Continuation of the Pence Saga:


Defendant respectfully request denial of plaintiffs’ emergency motion because the relief that plaintiffs request does not properly lie against the Vice President.

The Pence filing is amusingly-trenchant, but in the end his staff might as well have saved their time; every last one of these Trump suits is organized around the principle of drawing headlines and building the narrative, not legal reasoning. They might as well be scrawled in crayon.

[spmetla]

The Pence filing is amusingly-trenchant, but in the end his staff might as well have saved their time; every last one of these Trump suits is organized around the principle of drawing headlines and building the narrative, not legal reasoning. They might as well be scrawled in crayon.

Sadly this is probably going to be the longest lasting legacy of Trump's, that drawing headlines and building a narrative is more important than facts for everything outside a courtroom. It's frightening how many completely believe the narrative that Trump has built and how paralyzing it has been to the Republicans that would love to ditch Trump but fear the wrath of his mob.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Manchin won't be a particular obstacle to a Biden-esque climate plan should we ever regain a sniffable majority in the Senate

Perhaps. We'll see which way he leans when more substantial legislation involving big energy comes along...


The Pence filing is amusingly-trenchant, but in the end his staff might as well have saved their time

Well...you can't just ignore a lawsuit...:creep:


every last one of these Trump suits is organized around the principle of drawing headlines and building the narrative, not legal reasoning

Disagree...well, sort of. It's been about raising money...:quiet:


It's frightening how many completely believe the narrative that Trump has built

It's going to get worse for the mid-terms in 2022. It could be catastrophic for the presidential election in 2024. When you see GOP candidates that lose by overwhelming margins claiming voter fraud, it doesn't bode well. I expect to see Republican led state legislatures, particularly in all the states Trump filed suits, to introduce legislation designed to tilt the board in their direction....:shrug:

[ReluctantSamurai]

Second to last nail in the coffin:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/02/us-judge-dismisses-suit-filed-against-pence-seeking-to-overturn-election-result


A US judge has rejected a lawsuit from a Republican congressman that sought to allow vice president Mike Pence to reject electoral college votes for Joe Biden when Congress meets on Wednesday to certify his victory over president Donald Trump. The latest long-shot attempt by Trump’s Republican allies to overturn the November election result was dismissed by one of Trump’s own appointees to the federal bench, Jeremy Kernodle.

He ruled that representative Louie Gohmert of Texas and a slate of Republican electors from Arizona could not show they suffered any personal harm “fairly traceable” to Pence’s allegedly unlawful conduct and, therefore, lacked legal standing to bring the case.

The standing requirement “helps enforce the limited role of federal courts in our constitutional system. The problem for plaintiffs here is that they lack standing,” Kernodle wrote.

A hint at what's in store for 2024:


Gohmert and his fellow plaintiffs said they would appeal. In an interview with the broadcaster Newsmax, the congressman said the ruling was “an example of when the institutions that our constitution created to resolve disputes so that you didn’t have to have riots and violence in the streets, it’s when they go wrong.”

“All this stuff about it [election fraud] being debunked, unsubstantiated, those are absolute lies,” he said, without evidence. “Basically in effect the ruling would be that you got to go to the streets and be as violent as antifa and BLM [Black Lives Matter].”

"Riots and violence in the streets"...."you got to go to the streets and be as violent as antifa and BLM". Yep. Expect to see more politically motivated violence. Sooner or later there will be folks killed...:shame:

[Montmorency]

Disagree...well, sort of. It's been about raising money...:quiet:

It's tomato-tohmahtoe really. Trump only raises half a billion or whatever since the election by leaning into the "steal" narrative. For Trump it's about ego management and personal benefit, which can range from collecting tithes to longshot overthrowing the government. For Republican elites it's about riding the Trump train for their own benefit and delegitimizing Democrats, though they too increasingly buy into the mythology for its own sake. The long-term effect is as you discuss.


"Riots and violence in the streets"...."you got to go to the streets and be as violent as antifa and BLM". Yep. Expect to see more politically motivated violence. Sooner or later there will be folks killed...

I've been a little surprised at the minimal post-election violence so far. Maybe Trump supporters and/or Americans in aggregate are just too passive to take the plunge.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I've been a little surprised at the minimal post-election violence so far. Maybe Trump supporters and/or Americans in aggregate are just too passive to take the plunge.

Rebellions tend to occur at the end of some crisis, as things are starting to rebuild and not during the crisis wherein folks are more focused on personal survival etc. See Davies, Gurr, etc. on Rebellion/Disorder patterns.

The conditions faced by the Trumpeteers do not rise to this level. So that vast majority will not go to the barricades.


The BLM post-Floyd flareup WAS an example. Conditions (at least prior to covid) had improved in terms of jobs etc., lessening survival worries, but the larger inequity concerns still persisted (and still do).

[Hooahguy]

I've been a little surprised at the minimal post-election violence so far. Maybe Trump supporters and/or Americans in aggregate are just too passive to take the plunge.
Well that remains to be seen, the Proud Boys are planning (https://www.rawstory.com/trump-inciting-violence-2649717814/) violence on Wednesday.


"Trump diehards from across the country have organized their travel to Washington on 'The Donald' forum," the Beast's report states. "One of the hottest topics on the site is how protesters can bring guns to D.C., which would count as a local crime in nearly all circumstances under Washington's strict gun laws. Others have talked about breaking into federal buildings or committing violence against law enforcement officers who try to stop them from storming Congress."

One comment that received approving nods stated, "I'm thinking it will be literal war on that day. Where we'll storm offices and physically remove and even kill all the D.C. traitors and reclaim the country."

The report notes that noted Trump supporter Proud Boy Joe Biggs, boasted on Parler, "Watch out, January 6 — you ain't gonna know who the f*ck it is standing beside you."

The Beast also reports that Trump fans are discussing dressing up as Antifa protesters so the anti-fascist group will be blamed for any violence.

I plan on not leaving my apartment for anything that day if at all possible. I am also nervous about counter-protesters. If it was a large and unified counter-protest effort I'd be ok with it as the Proud boys in the past have backed down in the face of significant numbers, but from what I have seen, its been small groups counter-protesting and they get overwhelmed by fascists (which I think contributed to the four stabbings last time), so I think in this case it might be best to hang back and dont let the fascists control the narrative.

[Montmorency]

John Quincy Adams was an underrated president. 1828 campaign materials:


Now, “gentle reader,” prepare yourself to receive a shock, which I fear will prove more than you
can bear! Shortly after these unfortunate American Militiamen had been consigned to the earth, a peremptory order arrived from the monster Jackson, directing Col Pipkin to have them sent off immediately to him at New Orleans, nailed up in their coffins, or incur the penalty of having his head severed from his body, the first time he (Jackson) came in reach of him.—They were accordingly disinterred, and upon their arrival at head quarters—I shudder whilst I relate it! Would you believe it, “gentle reader,” this monster, this more than cannibal, Gen. Andrew Jackson, eat the whole Six Militiamen at one meal!!! Yes, my shuddering countrymen, he swallowed them whole, coffins and all, without the slightest attempt at mastication!!!!!! If you are disposed to doubt this statement, I can refer you to many of the most respectable officers, who were in service with him at New Orleans. And can you, my deluded countrymen, even think of making this horrible anthropophagian monster President of the United States? If you place him at the head of the government, what pledge can you have, that if he should at any time he displeased with his cabinet, that he will not have all four of his secretaries roasted, and eat them for his dinner!!!!

At least Republicans didn't say Hillary Clinton was literally Baba Yaga. (Though I heard we can't find Seth Rich's body because she swallowed it whole, bones and all, just like she did with her email server.)



Rebellions tend to occur at the end of some crisis, as things are starting to rebuild and not during the crisis wherein folks are more focused on personal survival etc. See Davies, Gurr, etc. on Rebellion/Disorder patterns.

The conditions faced by the Trumpeteers do not rise to this level. So that vast majority will not go to the barricades.


The BLM post-Floyd flareup WAS an example. Conditions (at least prior to covid) had improved in terms of jobs etc., lessening survival worries, but the larger inequity concerns still persisted (and still do).

Right, but that's an extreme end of the spectrum where status quo regimes get dissolved (e.g. perestroika and Soviet collapse). Why haven't there been any attacks by individuals or small cells? I can think of two reasons:

1. Shootings in many cities are way up this year, as previously observed, but they are petty street violence and not the mediatized mass shootings that have become prominent in the 21st century. In fact, there have been zero of those this year, to my knowledge. This is probably because of pandemic-related constraints on behavior that pare the target environment or otherwise problematize opportunities for attacks. On the other hand, there have still been plenty of mass gatherings this year, protests and counterprotests, including after the election.

2. Serious planned attacks have all been disrupted/dissuaded by law enforcement, such as with the plot against Governor Whitmer.
2.a. Plots against elected officials are some of the likeliest to be interdicted before fruition, so I'm not surprised we haven't seen those.


The only instance of mass violence so far (the DC street scuffles don't count) has AFAIK been the Nashville bombing, which from the information I have seen was apolitical crazy person stuff that doesn't reflect much on or from contemporary events.

[Gilrandir]

I've been a little surprised at the minimal post-election violence so far. Maybe Trump supporters and/or Americans in aggregate are just too passive to take the plunge.

Or wiser than some squash-the-bastards here. Like I said, the electoral frenzy is dying down and people are returning to normalcy. And would return quicker if it were not for those who mentally still live on the next day after voting and are surprised that there are more adequate people around them.

[Montmorency]

Every word of what you just said was wrong.

https://i.imgur.com/y0byU8A.jpg


In other news, the Georgia government appears to have leaked an hour-long recording (https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/audio-trumps-full-jan-2-call-with-ga-secretary-of-state/2021/01/03/3f9426f4-7937-4718-8a8e-9d6052001991_video.html) of the president trying to shake down the governor for 11,000 Trump votes.

[ReluctantSamurai]

@Monty

The content provided in the link (and any other journalistic source dealing with the very same topic) is the proof of why your opening sentence in the above post, is true. And you can bet the farm that Trump knew he was being taped, and therefore the oft-discussed self-pardon will be forthcoming before 20 Jan...


Like I said, the electoral frenzy is dying down and people are returning to normalcy

Oh, you mean like these folks:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trump-january6-dc-protest/2020/12/30/1773b19c-4acc-11eb-839a-cf4ba7b7c48c_story.html


Formal rallies are planned most of the day and will draw pro-Trump demonstrators to the Washington Monument, Freedom Plaza and the Capitol. But online forums and encrypted chat messages among far-right groups indicate a number of demonstrators might be planning more than chanting and waving signs.

Threats of violence, ploys to smuggle guns into the District and calls to set up an “armed encampment” on the Mall have proliferated in online chats about the Jan. 6 day of protest. The Proud Boys, members of armed right-wing groups, conspiracy theorists and white supremacists have pledged to attend.

Earlier this month, a day of largely peaceful demonstrations descended into violent chaos as night fell and small bands of Proud Boys dressed in the group’s signature black and gold garb roamed downtown looking for a fight. Several people, including passersby who said they did not know about planned protests that day, were injured.

I guess we'll see how "adequate" and "wise" the behavior of these folks will be...:shrug:

In other news:

www.politico.com/news/2021/01/03/congress-rules-electoral-college-count-454023 (http://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/03/congress-rules-electoral-college-count-454023)


And Roy went further on Sunday evening, forcing a vote on whether to allow Speaker Nancy Pelosi to seat the House members in the states Trump is challenging. The move forced Republicans on the record validating the results of the House elections that occurred on the same ballots that resulted in Biden's win in November. The result was a 371-2 vote in favor of seating all of the members.

Credit where credit is due. Chip Roy (R) Texas, called their bluff. If Biden's election is a fraud, so is yours.:inquisitive: I'd be curious as to who cast the two nay votes.....

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I am beginning to believe that he more or less HAS to try a self pardon. I do not see Biden taking a Jerry Ford approach to the issue -- especially as Trump does not seem to be willing to quietly fade from the scene as did RN. I do not see a 25th amendment letter working as I do not believe Pence would sign such a pardon as he wants to be President himself someday and I think pardoning Trump would ruin such an effort.


If Trump does self-pardon we will be in for an interesting SCOTUS decision. The SCOTUS, in the past, has generally taken a fairly consistent stance supporting pretty broad powers under the pardon section of the Constitution. In contrast of course is the principle that one cannot stand as a judge in one's own case which suggests that self pardons would be impossible. So is the pardon a form of judicial review exercised by the President (acting as a "judge") or a specific executive power independent of "judge" status?

My guess is the SCOTUS would rule against a self pardon, though not unanimously.

As to the Constitution's relevant portion:

...and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

[rory_20_uk]

Looks like he's going for some sort of Lawsuit Bingo - now he's decided to break the State Law in Georgia.

And of course the Federal government isn't going to do anything since punishing crimes isn't really their thing at the moment. Will Georgia also turn a blind eye and just murmur something about moving on and it's all in the past, possibly throwing in something about healing as well. Yes, there might be evidence that is approaching irrefutable but so what?

As an aside, may I say how wonderful it is to finally be able to say that relatively speaking the Government in the UK is doing a great job and has hardly any corruption.

~:smoking:

[Pannonian]

Looks like he's going for some sort of Lawsuit Bingo - now he's decided to break the State Law in Georgia.

And of course the Federal government isn't going to do anything since punishing crimes isn't really their thing at the moment. Will Georgia also turn a blind eye and just murmur something about moving on and it's all in the past, possibly throwing in something about healing as well. Yes, there might be evidence that is approaching irrefutable but so what?

As an aside, may I say how wonderful it is to finally be able to say that relatively speaking the Government in the UK is doing a great job and has hardly any corruption.

~:smoking:

It's the most financially corrupt UK government in living memory, as the NYT has shown. The only consolation is that it hasn't yet felt the urge to engage in electoral corruption. Plenty of grift, but not yet any attempt at defying elections.

[Pannonian]

I am beginning to believe that he more or less HAS to try a self pardon. I do not see Biden taking a Jerry Ford approach to the issue -- especially as Trump does not seem to be willing to quietly fade from the scene as did RN. I do not see a 25th amendment letter working as I do not believe Pence would sign such a pardon as he wants to be President himself someday and I think pardoning Trump would ruin such an effort.


If Trump does self-pardon we will be in for an interesting SCOTUS decision. The SCOTUS, in the past, has generally taken a fairly consistent stance supporting pretty broad powers under the pardon section of the Constitution. In contrast of course is the principle that one cannot stand as a judge in one's own case which suggests that self pardons would be impossible. So is the pardon a form of judicial review exercised by the President (acting as a "judge") or a specific executive power independent of "judge" status?

My guess is the SCOTUS would rule against a self pardon, though not unanimously.

As to the Constitution's relevant portion:

Would a substantial portion of the Repubs rule on the principle, or would they vote consistent with faction? Are they still united behind Trump?

FWIW, I've been looking up some prepper type sites and channels. They've got some strange interpretation of defending the country and constitution that means standing behind Trump. There was a particularly intriguing video on what to do with prisoners they capture during the breakdown. How common is this kind of thinking? Over here, one such video would probably put you in the nutter to be monitored by the MI6 category.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Would a substantial portion of the Repubs rule on the principle, or would they vote consistent with faction? Are they still united behind Trump?

Of late, Trump's appointees to the various federal benches have been just as likely to strike down the various frivolous election fraud lawsuits as have any other set of judges. The only time SCOTUS addressed the issue was to kybosh the Texas AG suit as having no standing (as in not worthy of sitting in judgement over at all). Once appointed to the bench (for life, barring impeachment) most take their jobs pretty seriously and with an emphasis on the law and on history -- not political games play. J.P Stephens was self identified as a conservative and a republican when appointed to the SCOTUS. His record trended toward the "liberal" side for many of his decisions. Warren, CJ nominee by Eisenhower, was Dewey's GOP running mate in 1948, a known fiscal conservative, though considered moderate on social issues. On the court he voted with the majority in Brown v Board, Miranda, and loving v Virginia. He led what many consider the most progressive/liberal SCOTUS in history. I would not look for the SCOTUS to pick party over the Constitution at Trump's desire.


FWIW, I've been looking up some prepper type sites and channels. They've got some strange interpretation of defending the country and constitution that means standing behind Trump. There was a particularly intriguing video on what to do with prisoners they capture during the breakdown. How common is this kind of thinking? Over here, one such video would probably put you in the nutter to be monitored by the MI6 category.

That kind of thing quickly gets you on the FBI's "let's keep tabs on these folks" list. And yes, the core 20% of Trumps supporters are fringer nut jobs who really do equate defending the Constitution with the curtailment of Socialism or near socialism. They also interpret anything a European [or a Brit ~;)] would think of as a Social Democrat (Centrist, minimally to the left of center) as a Commie Socialist who is out to destroy the country. Trump is their hero because he is the "outsider" fighting back against all the bureaucrats -- really, you cannot make this stuff up. I've read fiction by Nuttall and Kratman that are less distorted and less lauding of reactionary conservatism. Sadly, Limbaugh and Hannity have swayed many who are ignorant but not outright nutjobs in support of this agenda as well. And it is THAT coalition -- nutjobs and dittoheads -- who are the active elements of the current GOP.

One of the reasons why I am no longer a member of that party.

[Montmorency]

Would a substantial portion of the Repubs rule on the principle, or would they vote consistent with faction? Are they still united behind Trump?

So far it seems as though the majority of House Republicans will side with Trump on Jan. 6, but only a minority of Senate Republicans. It will be as good a poll of our politics as the runoff elections in Georgia tomorrow.


Of late, Trump's appointees to the various federal benches have been just as likely to strike down the various frivolous election fraud lawsuits as have any other set of judges. The only time SCOTUS addressed the issue was to kybosh the Texas AG suit as having no standing (as in not worthy of sitting in judgement over at all).

While technically true, we shouldn't take this as evidence for their jurisprudential integrity in general. Of the dozens of Trumpist election suits so far, I believe all but one of them were dropped, rejected, or dismissed. IIRC the one ruling in Trump's favor was on a narrow technical question. In other words, if (effectively) every Trump-appointed judge and every non-Trump appointed judge rules against Trump on a particular category of question, all we can take away is that we should be comparing Trump judges to non-Trump judges in other respects (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/14/us/trump-appeals-court-judges.html), where they are not univocal. Posing a matter like 'I am injured that the court will not suck my dick' will always find the same result, and that makes the like minimally-informative.

The limit of legal realism as an interpretive framework is that judges won't do literally anything for their team, especially where (see below) the team and the individual are distinguished. With what Trump was giving them to work, a partisan strategy might as well have gone to the heart of the matter and declared the existence of Democrats unconstitutional.


Once appointed to the bench (for life, barring impeachment) most take their jobs pretty seriously and with an emphasis on the law and on history -- not political games play. J.P Stephens was self identified as a conservative and a republican when appointed to the SCOTUS. His record trended toward the "liberal" side for many of his decisions. Warren, CJ nominee by Eisenhower, was Dewey's GOP running mate in 1948, a known fiscal conservative, though considered moderate on social issues. On the court he voted with the majority in Brown v Board, Miranda, and loving v Virginia. He led what many consider the most progressive/liberal SCOTUS in history.

Republicans loathed Warren, Souter, and Stevens! That's why the conservative movement made sure no further Republican appointees would replicate their defections. "Impeach Earl Warren" was before your time, but...

Judges like Warren, Souter, Stevens, and so on, can't exist any longer and haven't since the 20th century, because the Federalist Society selects for and inculcates reliability.


I would not look for the SCOTUS to pick party over the Constitution at Trump's desire.

The critical thing is that we can observe Republican judges will and do pick party over Constitution/law, or minimally ideology over Constitution, but they are agents of the institutional elite of the GOP - they are not quite the nutjobs and dittoheads who identify God and country with the person of Trump.

If there is a McConnell/Roberts faction of the GOP, they are very much independent of Trump the man. The judges know that fruitlessly exhausting institutional and political capital on assuaging Trump's insecurities (or worse, committing to violent power struggle) will damage the long-term interests of their movement.


That kind of thing quickly gets you on the FBI's "let's keep tabs on these folks" list.

Not quickly enough. And as we know the Trump administration has for its part kept its thumb on the scale of law enforcement when it comes to white supremacists. But the phenomenon Pann happened upon has proliferated since the Clinton era in particular, in no small part due to Limbaugh's agitations.

[Montmorency]

Oh, Seamus, I just recalled that in Wisconsin the state Supreme Court would have been in a position to award the state to Donald Trump, had a liberal justice not won one of the seats up for election in the past 2 years. The decision against Trump was 4-3 in the event. (This is all separate from the handful of Republican bureaucrats who were in a genuine position to withhold certification of tabulated votes in Michigan.)

All our circumstances are highly contingent. If Republicans could repeat Florida 2000 (even Sandra Day O'Connor was on board there), they would do it instantly. As we'll have opportunity to discuss in the next few days, the only question is how much further they will go of their own initiative the next time.

[Hooahguy]

I dont want to get anyone's hopes up just yet, but things are looking good (https://twitter.com/gelliottmorris/status/1346633511546081281?s=20) in Georgia right now.

The first heavily-Democratic county, Macon County, has fully reported its results. Dems are doing about four points better than in November and turnout is better than in heavily-Republican counties.

I have no idea how this is going to go, I think its still a tossup but I guess we will see by tomorrow morning.

Edit: the totals arent in yet, but its looking like (https://twitter.com/gelliottmorris/status/1346655451350519810?s=20) a Dem sweep now, which means that the Dems will be retaking the Senate with a 50-50 split and VP Harris the tie-breaking vote. Wild. Super proud of my home state right now.

[Montmorency]

It looks like there will be 4.5 million recorded votes in this runoff. There were 5 million in the general. There were 4.1 million in the 2016 general.

As of now R-Perdue is up 3 points and R-Loeffler by 2.2 points, but at every point from the early early voting returns to the political geography of the remaining ballots, Dems have hit every milestone they have needed to. Which is not to say it's certain that they will win, but that everything has happened that one would expect to happen if the final result were to be at least one victory.

[Hooahguy]

I am being super cautious about this as anything can happen, but goddamn is it hard not to be at least a bit giddy at the thought of Dems winning both Senate seats.

[Montmorency]

I've seen enough (lol): Dem sweep. From 538:



Want to see what a realignment looks like? Cobb County (94 percent of the expected vote reporting) and Gwinnett County (98 percent reporting) — both in the Atlanta suburbs — voted for Mitt Romney by 12 points and 9 points respectively. Tonight, they are voting for Warnock by 16 points and 21 points, respectively.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/screen_shot_2021-01-05_at_23.27.58.png?w=700

Warnock is the first Black Democratic senator ever from the South.

And the victories won't even be that narrow by all accounts. Someone give Stacey Abrams more power in the party. She knows how to reach black voters in the South, but the ideal is of course a 50-state strategy.


Nate Silver has mathematically-determined that a Dem presidential candidate needs at least 3% popular vote margin against a Republican to have a better-than-even shot at winning in the Electoral College. After 2020, winning less than 3% over the Republican will almost certainly translate to a loss, as Republicans are sure to double down on voter suppression for 2024; all their incentives align against honest administration, which we have basically seen in Georgia this cycle. Kemp and Raffensperger could well be defeated in primaries in 2022 for their troubles. The needle moves a little closer toward state Republicans embracing para-electoral fraud.

Biden won by 4.5%. No one else has exceeded that this century - did you know we're more than 20 years into the 21st century? We're all old. - other than Obama's +7D in 2008. Obama 2012 was +4D. Clinton 2016 was +2D.

Lot of opportunities for the country to get :daisy:

2024 prediction: Trump will run in the Republican primary, but he can't (or won't be allowed to) win. He will, however, distort the process significantly, which can have either positive or negative repercussions for Democrats. Regardless, explicitly Trumpist candidates (putatively the likes of Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton, now maybe including Ted Cruz) in the 2024 Republican primary will flame out in his wake. Same goes for Trump's sons/daughter in his place, though to a much lesser effect.

Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump competing against each other in 2024 would be a Lovecraftian obscenity.

Governor Kristi Noem is sadly one to watch.


Meanwhile, the best thing Biden can do with his 50 Senators is to confirm all his judges and civil servants and govern as hard as he can from the White House. Beyond that, 2021 will likely see a pandemic relief bill passed through reconciliation, featuring much-needed aid for states at last. Other than that we'll have to wait for the midterms.

[a completely inoffensive name]

https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1346695657357250560


Turnout are as a share of general by type of precinct:
>80% Trump: 88%
>80% Biden: 92%
>80% Black: 93%
>50% college: 92%
>80% no college&white: 87%
Urban 91%
Suburban 90%
Rural 88%

The change in strategy paid off. Glad to see Georgia Dems use its resources for door to door ground coverage and not on endless TV ads.
CA 25th came down to just 500 votes, if only the Dems had paid a skeleton crew knocking on doors and registering voters we would have had one more in the House.

Expand the lower courts as a matter of scale (there are too few judges, too many cases) and reverse McConnell's project. SCOTUS will need a replacement for Breyer, but otherwise the composition remains the same.
New Voting Rights Act, courts have given carte-blanche for redistricting as a political question, so pass a law there as well before the lines are drawn.

Other than that...$2000 stimulus checks and just govern as best we can.

[Hooahguy]

I think the initial priorities will be judges, more Covid relief, expansion of voting/civil rights, and a policing bill. Climate will be trickier as Manchin is a potential roadblock when it comes to things like coal, but on the other hand, I am struggling to think of any instance where Manchin was the deciding vote on something and voted against the Dems. IIRC, in the instances when he voted with the GOP they had the 50 votes needed anyways. But I might be wrong on this, time will tell what part Manchin plays in all this. He might fall in line, he might not.

Also LOL about VP-elect Harris leaving her job as senator to essentially become the 101st senator. Does bode well for a future presidential run for her though.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Like I said, the electoral frenzy is dying down and people are returning to normalcy

Yep, they sure are....:rolleyes:

https://www.msnbc.com/mtp-daily/watch/protestors-breach-capitol-steps-as-congress-debates-vote-count-98934853819

https://abcnews.go.com/ (https://www.msnbc.com/mtp-daily/watch/protestors-breach-capitol-steps-as-congress-debates-vote-count-98934853819)

https://twitter.com/igorbobic/status/1346898433689399297

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I am hopeful that the moderate bloc of the Senate -- those folks not rabidly Trump or hyper-progressives -- can get some legislation through, at least on practical concerns like infrastructure and the like.

You know, infrastructure, like The Donald claimed was a key focus but for which he actually achieved little aside from exec orders favoring fossil fuels.

[Hooahguy]

Trump traitors have stormed the Capitol complex after overwhelming Capitol Police. Guns Drawn (https://twitter.com/AnthonyQuintano/status/1346910409190608904?s=20) in the House Chamber. At least one shot. The Pentagon denied DC's request for National Guard support. This is a coup. I am sick to my stomach.

[Pannonian]

What's this about Trump supporters storming the Capitol and causing business to be suspended?

[Hooahguy]

Where to even begin. Trump encouraged his supporters to take action earlier this morning. And a couple hours ago they started storming the Capitol complex, overwhelming Capitol Police. Its a huge area so its unreasonable that everything can be locked down completely. I wonder if there will be more support now to impeach again this week. He certainly deserves a second impeachment.

If it was BLM doing this they would have been shot at ages ago.

[Crandar]

It was the Antifa all along and they would have gotten away with it, hadn't been for Congressman Mo Brooks (https://twitter.com/RepMoBrooks/status/1346899440989310980)!

Yep, they sure are....:rolleyes:
Girlandir's contributions have aged as well Ukraine's occupation of Crimea.

[Xantan]

Shocking, shocking scenes. Incredible.

They broke into the Capitol, the House floor, the offices of the Congressmen and Congresswomen. I'm surprised the Capitol police was nowhere to be seen.

[Montmorency]

viva la reaccion

https://i.imgur.com/BCrNvr3.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/YWdjbLk.jpg

[Hooahguy]

Shocking, shocking scenes. Incredible.

They broke into the Capitol, the House floor, the offices of the Congressmen and Congresswomen. I'm surprised the Capitol police was nowhere to be seen.
As I mentioned earlier, the Capitol Complex is massive, and was never designed to be locked down like this so once they got inside it would be very hard to stop them. There are fewer than 2,500 Capitol Police officers so there never would have been enough manpower for every potential entry point. But the real question is why werent there more officers from other agencies on-scene to prevent this in the first place and why they handled them with kid gloves. I think we know the answer to that unfortunately.
Also Biden flatly called (https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1346927464279371776?s=20) this insurrection (@1:02). Didn't mince words, good.

[ReluctantSamurai]

But the real question is why werent there more officers from other agencies on-scene to prevent this in the first place and why they handled them with kid gloves. I think we know the answer to that unfortunately.

Spot on!

First, I don't know why anyone is surprised. CoviDon has been calling for this for quite some time. Social media was chock full of information that would have predicted this.

Secondly, as Hooahguy pointed out, why wasn't the Capital Complex cordoned off for at least several blocks, even if that required National Guard presence? Irresponsible on the part of law enforcement. And we all know if this had been blacks and other people of color, they'd be taking body bags out of the Capital.

[Pannonian]

Spot on!

First, I don't know why anyone is surprised. CoviDon has been calling for this for quite some time. Social media was chock full of information that would have predicted this.

Secondly, as Hooahguy pointed out, why wasn't the Capital Complex cordoned off for at least several blocks, even if that required National Guard presence? Irresponsible on the part of law enforcement. And we all know if this had been blacks and other people of color, they'd be taking body bags out of the Capital.

Who controls the local National Guard?

[ReluctantSamurai]

340 National Guard had already been deployed at "traffic control points"...whatever that means. I'm talking about shoulder-to-shoulder law enforcement, like we saw during the summer protests.

The DC mayor, Muriel Bowser, made the request on 31 Dec and it was granted by the acting Secretary of Defense. Unlike other states' National Guards -- whose activation is controlled by state governors -- the responsibility for the D.C. National Guard falls to the Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy, who then must have the decision approved by the defense secretary.

[Hooahguy]

It also has to be approved by the White House I believe. But if the info here (https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/national-international/watch-pro-trump-rioters-smash-glass-in-attempt-to-break-into-us-capitol/2531940/) is true, it means that Pence ordered them deployed, and did not discuss with Trump. Definitely another strong case for DC statehood, to allow full control over our own National Guard.

[Pannonian]

Pence has apparently made it clear that he ordered the current deployment of DC NG.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Montmorency

My apologies. You have been correct all along and I have been wrong.

Trump is not among the worst Presidents. He makes Buchannan look benign and Harding competent. He has done, directly and indirectly, more to damage our institutions and our republican democracy than any other person to hold that office. I thought we would hold up fine and move forward after 4 years of drecky administration. We will be decades recovering from it instead.

His core supporters do not seek to reform the government, but to trash it. The most ardent of those, who stormed the Capitol today to stop the Constitutionally mandated process of the elections, have gone further and actively attacked our government and Constitution. This is not protest but sedition. Trump has allowed this to fester, has even nurtured it. That is anathema.

The very persons so enamored of Rush Limbaugh's trumpeting of "American Exceptionalism" have today trashed the idea entirely. We are no better than the next developing semi-democracy and need two battalions of troops and a host of police just to get the votes counted under the threat of reactionary thugs.

I am ashamed.



Any Republican Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Senator, or Representative currently in office should be recalled or voted out at the earliest opportunity for allowing this cancer on our Constitution to spread.


:shame:

[Pannonian]

One wonders what Aaron Sorkin makes of this.

[Pannonian]

Montmorency

My apologies. You have been correct all along and I have been wrong.

Trump is not among the worst Presidents. He makes Buchannan look benign and Harding competent. He has done, directly and indirectly, more to damage our institutions and our republican democracy than any other person to hold that office. I thought we would hold up fine and move forward after 4 years of drecky administration. We will be decades recovering from it instead.

His core supporters do not seek to reform the government, but to trash it. The most ardent of those, who stormed the Capitol today to stop the Constitutionally mandated process of the elections, have gone further and actively attacked our government and Constitution. This is not protest but sedition. Trump has allowed this to fester, has even nurtured it. That is anathema.

The very persons so enamored of Rush Limbaugh's trumpeting of "American Exceptionalism" have today trashed the idea entirely. We are no better than the next developing semi-democracy and need two battalions of troops and a host of police just to get the votes counted under the threat of reactionary thugs.

I am ashamed.



Any Republican Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Senator, or Representative currently in office should be recalled or voted out at the earliest opportunity for allowing this cancer on our Constitution to spread.


:shame:

I wonder how much the spirit of rebellion embodied in the defence of the second amendment has contributed to this.

[Hooahguy]

They also found a pipe bomb (https://twitter.com/weinbergersa/status/1346949205739397120?s=20) near the Capitol, which they managed to safely remove.

Ok I am going to go more in-depth into the layout of the Capitol complex from the point of view of someone who used to work there. In case anyone didn't truly understand how massive of a job it is to secure it:

24185

Lets start with the Capitol building itself: Huge building, about a dozen entry points around the building itself with a number of staff doors that are hidden from public view. I haven't seen all the staff doors but I believe they are solid, as are some of the "main" doors, which are ornate. but most of the doors have glass in them. You might have seen video (https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/national-international/watch-pro-trump-rioters-smash-glass-in-attempt-to-break-into-us-capitol/2531940/) of the terrorists smashing down the windows in these doors to gain access. That is the type of door for 90% of the outside-facing doors in the Capitol Complex. My prediction is that this will change in the near future and the glass will be removed to prevent this from happening again.

Now there are six surrounding buildings, three for Senate offices and three for House offices (technically there's 5 for the House but two of them are further away and they don't count lol). The number of entry points vary from building to building as some are larger than others, but I'd say there's a minimum of 4 doors for each building plus a few access doors that are not as well known. Some of the larger buildings have 6 or 8. Not all doors are usually open for the public (usually only about 2-3 are open for non-staff), but as we saw today, they aren't the most secure and can be breached by a determined attacker. Then there are also ground floor windows that are not the most secure due to not having bars or anything on them, just normal glass. So its a nightmare when it comes to trying to keep determined attackers out. Once they are inside, good luck trying to contain anyone as the number of winding hallways and staircases would make a medieval knight proud, especially in the Capitol itself. I can't tell you how often I've taken a wrong turn trying to navigate the Capitol and gotten lost.

Now the offices themselves are fairly secure. Almost all have solid wood doors that are rather heavy and seem like they would be resistant to attempts to bash them down. But it also seems that the situation deteriorated so quickly that there wasnt time to properly secure all the offices, hence why some managed to get into places like Pelosi's office. There's also a super complex system of tunnels running from every building, which was useful today as it allowed staffers to escape compromised buildings quickly and safely to other buildings without being subject to the mob. I should also mention that there are no "airlock-type" doors for security to fall back to and lock besides individual offices. And the few doors there are in between corridors are the kind you might find in a house, aka kinda flimsy. Once you are in, you are in.

So taking this as a whole, its a really daunting security challenge and one that Capitol Police was painfully unprepared for. If I was the chief I'd be submitting my resignation the minute this was over.


Meanwhile, a number of Representatives are endorsing immediate impeachment, including the Assistant Speaker (https://twitter.com/BenjySarlin/status/1346953869062975488?s=20). And many calls for the 25th Amendment to remove Trump.

[Montmorency]

Montmorency

My apologies. You have been correct all along and I have been wrong.

It doesn't please me to hear it...

All I've strove to do is challenge my own preconceptions about the country and the nature of the Republican party, which has led to harsh but lucid, if not prescient, places.

All I can recommend to you is, maybe it pays to seek out the commentators who have been right on this for decades, and who have consistently called the balls during the Trump era. Why did they get it right when most others got it wrong, or were motivated to? Look to them before me.


Trump is not among the worst Presidents. He makes Buchannan look benign and Harding competent.

What decisively ratified Johnson in the consensus as WOAT (or at least worst as often as second-worst) was his wholesale pardoning of the Confederacy. Without that, despite the mortal injury he dealt to Reconstruction he might not be the worst.

How many times do I have to say that we're still living through the Cold War against the Confederacy of the Mind?

A scene out of a Harry Turtledove novel:

https://i.imgur.com/BCrNvr3.jpg



I am hopeful that the moderate bloc of the Senate -- those folks not rabidly Trump or hyper-progressives -- can get some legislation through, at least on practical concerns like infrastructure and the like.

I too have high hopes for Manchin and Sinema. :wink: But not that high. If you mean the Collins-Murkowski-Romney crew, well, alone they don't breach the filibuster, and as relatively self-interested as they are without the filibuster they have little incentive to work with Democrats (unless Collins thinks she can ride the maverick Maine electorate to Feinstein-tier tenure). In my view the likelihood of Dems having to go it alone in whatever it is available to them to do is similar to the likelihood of Manchin remaining a Democrat. Maybe one Republican joins Dems on pandemic relief via budget reconciliation in exchange for heavy larded pork, but never as a deciding vote in place of a Dem defector.

[Hooahguy]

Report (https://twitter.com/AprilDRyan/status/1346960706512576514?s=20) that Congressional leaders are discussing the 25th Amendment. Wrong discussion, isnt the 25th a cabinet-level decision? They should be discussing impeachment.

But I am also incensed that the terrorists are being allowed (https://twitter.com/KevinMKruse/status/1346967359614033921?s=20) to file out and not be arrested. Word on the street is that fewer than 15 have been arrested so far. This is a travesty.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Section 4 of the 25th Amendment:


Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President. Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.

If I read it correctly, to permanently remove Trump from office would require 21 days, and a 2/3 vote from both houses.

[Hooahguy]

I stand corrected re:only cabinet being able to invoke the 25th, but also I read it as within 21 days, not a required 21 days. So it could be tomorrow. Pipe dream though.

[Pannonian]

Section 4 of the 25th Amendment:



If I read it correctly, to permanently remove Trump from office would require 21 days, and a 2/3 vote from both houses.

It's 14 days until Biden is inaugurated. Pence would be acting president for that period.

[ReluctantSamurai]

it means that Pence ordered them deployed, and did not discuss with Trump.

That the DC National Guard was compelled to answer to the Vice President, rather than POTUS, speaks volumes....

I like Cori Bush, but this is a bridge too far:

https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article248321025.html


I believe the Republican members of Congress who have incited this domestic terror attack through their attempts to overturn the election must face consequences. They have broken their sacred Oath of Office.

I will be introducing a resolution calling for their expulsion.

Not going to happen, and it's not going to help what's happening.

[Hooahguy]

Melania Trump's chief of staff just resigned (https://twitter.com/CynthiaMcFadden/status/1346980168166871043) and House Minority Leader McCarthy's staff is threatening to resign too (https://twitter.com/JimSwiftDC/status/1346967025306898434?s=20). The bar is super low but at least theres a bar somewhere.

[Montmorency]

"We are at war. We're coming for bodies."
https://twitter.com/ellievhall/status/1346944103074979843 [VIDEO]

It's sickening, the violent malice evinced by liberals for these fellow countryfolk, to suggest that there might be something wrong with them. Don't the haters know they are obliged to sacrifice everything to coexist with fascists?


'You are a slow learner (http://www.george-orwell.org/1984/18.html), Montmorency,' said Gilrandir gently.

'How can I help it?' he blubbered. 'How can I help seeing what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four.'

'Sometimes, Montmorency. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.'

You are here because you have failed in humility, in self-discipline. You would not make the act of submission which is the price of sanity. You preferred to be a lunatic, a minority of one. Only the disciplined mind can see reality, Montmorency. You believe that reality is something objective, external, existing in its own right. You also believe that the nature of reality is self-evident. When you delude yourself into thinking that you see something, you assume that everyone else sees the same thing as you. ...That is the fact that you have got to relearn, Montmorency. It needs an act of self-destruction, an effort of the will. You must humble yourself before you can become sane.'



arrest the president (https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/1346898874284302336)

i’m not joking. he incited a riot to try to sack the congress and install himself in office. our laws mean nothing if he can continue to live a free man.

Correct. Impeach and strip of the privilege of running for public office at a minimum (can be done with bare Congressional majorities). But I'm radical enough to think Bowser should consider mustering her battalions to make a play at physically apprehending the man. On the other hand, maybe a bad idea while thousands of juiced up redcaps are milling about the capital.


This video clip is a perfect summation (https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/01/trump-supporters-storm-the-us-capitol-washington-dc) and all of you should view it.

https://twitter.com/igorbobic/status/1346908735059456005

In a typical revolutionary-chic vista, the camera captures the insurgents appearing out from a high balcony of the parliament and waving a flag. What flag are they waving though? A Trump flag.

Someone holding an American flag tosses it over the balustrade onto the crowd below, while the Trump flag is flourished. As the clip ends it looks like a second American flag is about to be dumped. Respect the flag, as they say.

24190

24191

24189



Section 4 of the 25th Amendment:

If I read it correctly, to permanently remove Trump from office would require 21 days, and a 2/3 vote from both houses.

There was another option (https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/12/if-trump-uses-martial-law-pence-should-use-25th-amendment.html), but the time has passed; this is the sort of thing you like to read about.

[Pannonian]

Just wondering, if the 25th amendment is necessary to allow the VP to act with the authority of POTUS, and it hasn't been invoked, then what authority is Pence acting with ATM?

[Hooahguy]

I dont think anyone knows to be honest. Confusion is definitely reigning tonight. At least Twitter banned Trump from tweeting for the next 12 hours. :uneasy:

Edit: report (https://twitter.com/edokeefe/status/1346993660718698496?s=20)that the cabinet is seriously discussing the 25th amendment.

Edit 2: and Trump banned (https://twitter.com/SalehaMohsin/status/1347002442894999559?s=20) the VP's chief of staff from the White House. Also, National security adviser Robert O'Brien, deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger and deputy chief of staff Chris Liddell are all considering resigning.

And every Dem on the House Judiciary signed a letter (https://twitter.com/ThePlumLineGS/status/1347008682035437575?s=20) to Pence urging him to invoke the 25th.

Aaaand firings are imminent (https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/06/capitol-riots-police-firings-455698)among Capitol Police after today (GOOD).

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Section 4 of the 25th allows the VEEP and a Majority of the cabinet to make the VEEP acting President. The President can deny their unfitness. Should the VEEP/acting Pres and a majority of the cabinet still maintain that lack of fitness the Congress must take up the issue within 4 days and resolve/vote on the issue before 21 total days have passed.

The inauguration is in just under 14 days.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Watching House Republicans and Senators continue to push the narrative of 'both sides' and 'election issues need to be discussed' has convinced me that democracy in the US is on its last breath. Expel everyone who votes this night to toss out states results, lock up every single MAGA hat wearing moron hold up in DC hotels, impeach the president tomorrow.

Ted Cruz is a traitor to the country.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Or wiser than some squash-the-bastards here. Like I said, the electoral frenzy is dying down and people are returning to normalcy. And would return quicker if it were not for those who mentally still live on the next day after voting and are surprised that there are more adequate people around them.

Btw, I vote that the remaining 6 people in this forum vote to kick you out for gaslighting the state of American democracy for 4 years.

[Montmorency]

Really, I'm not even angry at the redcap mob themselves, as individuals. They're awful people, but not a tenth as bad as those who foment and defend and minimize and instrumentalize them. If the Qbert shot and killed in the capitol was a victim of police overcompensation, that should be investigated.

(lol @ Sean Hannity using his program to declare the insurrectionists "peaceful, law-abiding protesters." Now that's the real shit.


Any Republican Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Senator, or Representative currently in office should be recalled or voted out at the earliest opportunity for allowing this cancer on our Constitution to spread.


:shame:

I just want to be encouraging and point out that Seamus has radicalized to the extent that he's probably to the left of me from 2017.

Welcome to the Antifa.

[Hooahguy]

Section 4 of the 25th allows the VEEP and a Majority of the cabinet to make the VEEP acting President. The President can deny their unfitness. Should the VEEP/acting Pres and a majority of the cabinet still maintain that lack of fitness the Congress must take up the issue within 4 days and resolve/vote on the issue before 21 total days have passed.

The inauguration is in just under 14 days.
Well a bit more complicated than that, but I found a nice flow chart online:

24200

Also apparently (https://twitter.com/MarkBurnettDC/status/1347030648188514317?s=20)three others have died today at the Capitol but I dont know if we have any details about them yet.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Let's be honest, if the Veep and Cabinet invoke the 25th, no one will care about Trump's letter signalling his fitness. They will just wait for Pence to give the follow up letter.

The context of the 25th Amendment has been and always will be, when a President is physically dead or not available to perform his duties, is the Veep now President or merely 'caretaker'. This was the original discussion when Presidents started dying in office and the 25th only codified what was practiced since the mid 1800s.

It will never be a substitute for impeachment.

[spmetla]

The events today have been absolutely sickening. As a patriotic American I'd saddened, angered, and have a simmering rage against the President and his crew for inciting these actions today. It is terrible that a life was lost by a undoubtedly deluded woman following the lies of narcissist wannabe dictator. Her blood and the fact that the Capitol was stormed at all at the incitement of the sitting President seems to thankfully have led to a further disgust of Trump's actions by many of the fence sitting pro Trump folks I know. Thankfully many of these are citizens first and republicans second. The feelings seem similar to post 9/11 but nowhere near as strong or unifying.

Sadly the fringe excuse making is already happening, claiming that black-flag ANTIFA and BLM members were responsible for any vandalism. Though many Republican congressmembers have switched to not opposing the count of the electoral votes most that signed on originally remain un-swayed.

In a perfect world the House could draft articles of impeachment tomorrow and the senate could vote on it the following day. This together with any 25th Amendment expulsion are just pipe-dreams for those of us that cannot stand Trump. Sadly after today I imagine all these politicians will go home and then go back to shrewd calculations of what is favorable for their political fortunes though the speeches of many today show some sort of reconciliation.

I expected political theater and nonsense today and have been deeply disappointed though I still think the institutions remain overall strong. I also think that today's actions have demonstrated to the old guard political class that Trump's violations of norms and traditions can only be prevented for future presidents through clear legislation and possible constitutional amendments limited some of the POTUS powers, only the future will show though.

I think the only other silver lining to today is this will likely have significantly sunk Trump's post presidency power. How he acts in the next few days and his remaining few weeks will determine whether he has Republicans that will protect him from serious investigation and prosecution.

[ReluctantSamurai]

What's concerning for the future of the Biden Administration, is that given all that's happened in the last two months, and especially what occurred today, that 126 Republicans STILL voted to deny the legitimacy of this election.

If they want to be obstructive to this incoming Democratic administration, fine. Do your worst. But for this single day, show that you still believe in democracy, admit that your guy lost the election legitimately, and move forward.

Somehow, some way, there should be some consequences for sedtion-like behavior... :inquisitive:

And BTW, Washington wasn't the only capital under assault today:

https://www.vox.com/2021/1/6/22217736/state-capitol-stop-the-steal-protests-rallies

[Gilrandir]

Girlandir's contributions have aged as well Ukraine's occupation of Crimea.

You mean like Greece's occupation of Constantinople?


Btw, I vote that the remaining 6 people in this forum vote to kick you out for gaslighting the state of American democracy for 4 years.

It's no wonder that only six people remain on the forum with such an attitude. When people here in 2014 made wrong assumptions as to the development of Russia-Ukraine war no one wanted to kick them out. And kicking out seems to be becoming the hallmark of democracy both here and in the US.

[Ser Clegane]

This whole episode makes you want to weep in disgust and frustration. Unbelievable (but unfortunately not surprising anymore) that it comes down to this and that so many representatives play(ed) along with this madman... :shame:

I hope that this might be a deathblow to "Trumpism" even though this might be wishful thinking.

All the best to you guys in the US - difficult times ahead

[Seamus Fermanagh]

They will think they didn't "Trump" hard enough instead. The other choice, Sir C, is too rational.

There are too many members of the Trump cadre who are, functionally, separatists now. They no longer want to continue governance as it has been.

Civil war? I think not, but others I know fear it.


But we will be a long time recovering from this (not just yesterday, that was only a crystalizing moment). "America's Century" is over. That has been growingly true since our victory in the Cold War. What way forward?

Perhaps as we remaining "cold warriors" die off (not you younglings but my generation) a newer and better definition of that "shining city upon a hill" can be brought to be.

[ReluctantSamurai]

The difference between being a Black American, and a White American:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/07/us/police-response-black-lives-matter-protest-us-capitol/index.html



“The trouble with you, Spode, is that just because you have succeeded in inducing a handful of half-wits to disfigure the London scene by going about in black shorts, you think you’re someone,” Wooster says, mockingly. “You hear them shouting ‘Heil, Spode!’ and you imagine it is the Voice of the People.”

[Hooahguy]

Video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWMpTHLJXbw) of the lady who was killed at the Capitol yesterday. Watch at your own discretion. From the video it is clear that she was trying to breach the barricaded entrance to the Speakers Lobby, which is the area that leads to the entrance to the House Floor as well as various high profile offices. It is speculated that the VP was there at the time and that it was a Secret Service agent who fired the shot but I dont really know. But it would make sense as they are far more lethal when it comes to protecting their charges.

Edit: in a statement (https://twitter.com/NatashaBertrand/status/1347214268740096002?s=20) from the Capitol Police chief, it wasn't secret service. In the statement it was also noted that two live pipe bombs were found. Definitely looking forward to seeing him hauled before the House and Senate to explain what happened.

[Crandar]

YouGov poll (https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/01/07/US-capitol-trump-poll). Vast majority of the Republicans doesn't consider the storming of the Capitol as a threat to democracy. Now, I don't find this very worrying, but the fact that 45% support the storming, while only 43% oppose it is a tad ridiculous. Overall, I'd rate it as a very amateurish coup attempt, near our Pyjama coup (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyjamas_coup).

You mean like Greece's occupation of Constantinople?
Not that bad, but you get the gist.

[rory_20_uk]

Will American politicians finally stop with the ridiculous "America is the best country in the world" shtick.


https://youtu.be/G01L40adL0I

~:smoking:

[Hooahguy]

I think for most sane people in the US, that belief went away in November 2016.

[spmetla]

It really is crazy the disconnect that yesterday even has. Talking with my mom she holds the duality of thought that the protests and occupation of the capitol are justified because they feel disenfranchised while at the same time saying that the violence must have been ANTIFA infiltrators despite clear proud-boy, Q-anon, and other links. The online fringe forums have already got the talking points and spin to try and divert all blame for the bad while continuing to 'fight.'
It's fine if people don't accept Biden as president, many did that with Trump, and Obama, and Bush Jr. Crossing the line into wanting to overthrow the government and foment a revolution because you didn't get your way though is just crazy and seditious. I'm glad that the social media platforms are freezing Trump's account for the short term future. The token resignations I still value though two weeks before the end is a bit laughable.

Questions for discussion: if impeachment proceedings are started over this insurrection incitement and election interference that should make these areas off limits for pardoning right? If so then starting even doomed impeachment proceedings may be valuable even if removal from office cannot be achieved.


The President ... shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of impeachment.

[Hooahguy]

Pelosi calls (https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1347259064326221824?s=20) for invoking the 25th Amendment for insurrection, and should the VP not act on it, they are prepared to move forward with impeachment. She also said that she recieved the resignation of the House Sergeant at Arms, who was in charge of protecting the House. Similar calls are being made for the Senate Sergeant at Arms to resign as well.

Its going to be a wild next few days. A news report that Trump pressured (https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/07/politics/trump-pence-riot/index.html) Pence to do a coup, and the Secretary for Transportation, Elaine Chao (who is married to McConnell), says that she will resign (https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/07/politics/elaine-chao-cabinet-resignation-trump/index.html) on the 11th, potentially giving her some time to act on the 25th Amendment.

Oh also Facebook banned (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/business/facebook-trump-ban.html) Trump through the 20th, so theres that. Twitter should follow suit.

Edit: this is just the perfect quote (https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/capitol-trump-insurrection-explosions/)-

“This is not America,” a woman said to a small group, her voice shaking. “They’re shooting at us. They’re supposed to shoot BLM, but they’re shooting the patriots.”

Flipped off a bunch of Trump supporters on my walk this morning. They didnt say anything. Felt good.

[rory_20_uk]

What did they expect the Sergeant at Arms to do when faced by a mob - when the police let the insurrectionists in and even took some selfies with them - die at their posts? Unless the buildings have a decent protection (currently it is neither built as a redoubt or has the armed staff) they are expecting a standard of conduct that Congress has failed to meet for decades at best.

~:smoking:

[Hooahguy]

The Sergeant at Arms for the House and Senate are in charge of the coordination of Capitol security procedures, working with the Capitol Police force to implement security plans to protect Congress. Nobody thinks they alone need to stand alone to face down the mob, but rather it was a critical planning failure that they must be held accountable for, especially since there were so many prior warnings that the protest would turn violent.

Edit: the chief of Capitol Police will be resigning (https://twitter.com/jennygathright/status/1347319901938188289?s=20) on Jan. 16th. Good timing, because of this report that they rejected assistance (https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-riots-police-coronavirus-pandemic-9c39a4ddef0ab60a48828a07e4d03380?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP&utm_campaign=SocialFlow) prior to the riot and even as it was materializing.


Three days before supporters of President Donald Trump rioted at the Capitol, the Pentagon asked the U.S Capitol Police if it needed National Guard manpower. And as the mob descended on the building Wednesday, Justice Department leaders reached out to offer up FBI agents. The police turned them down both times, according to senior defense officials and two people familiar with the matter.

Despite plenty of warnings of a possible insurrection and ample resources and time to prepare, the Capitol Police planned only for a free speech demonstration.

[Hooahguy]

Pence is saying he opposes (https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/1347316067182456833?s=20) using the 25th Amendment. Coward. So we are back to impeachment.

Also a Capitol Police officer has died (https://twitter.com/NoahGrayCNN/status/1347328675776225280?s=20) from injuries sustained. Guess blue lives only matter when they are beating down minorities.

The plot thickens (https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/07/capitol-hill-riots-doj-456178):

One current Metro D.C. police officer said in a public Facebook post that off-duty police officers and members of the military, who were among the rioters, flashed their badges and I.D. cards as they attempted to overrun the building.

[Pannonian]

One dead police officer.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Quick poll on American voter views concerning the events of 6 Jan at the Capital:

https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/01/07/US-capitol-trump-poll


A YouGov Direct poll of 1,397 registered voters who had heard about the event finds that most (62%) voters perceive these actions as a threat to democracy. Democrats (93%) overwhelmingly see it this way, while most (55%) Independents also agree. Among Republicans, however, only a quarter (27%) think this should be considered a threat to democracy, with two-thirds (68%) saying otherwise.

In fact, many Republicans (45%) actively support the actions of those at the Capitol, although as many expressed their opposition (43%).

Among all voters, almost two-thirds (63%) say that they “strongly” oppose the actions taken by President Trump’s supporters, with another 8% say they “somewhat” oppose what has happened.

The partisan difference in support could be down to differing perceptions of the nature of the protests. While 59% of voters who are aware of the events at the Capitol perceive them as being more violent than more peaceful (28%), the opposite is true of Republicans. By 58% to 22%, Republicans see the goings on as more peaceful than more violent.

Voters most consider those who stormed the Capitol "domestic terrorists" or "extremists". Republicans are more likely to call them "patriots".

And these are the people that should be welcomed back into the flock with open arms...:huh2:

[a completely inoffensive name]

Pence is saying he opposes (https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/1347316067182456833?s=20) using the 25th Amendment. Coward. So we are back to impeachment.

Probably a coward, but we don't want the 25th Amendment. It would only block him until the 20th, this is the definition of a half measure.

Impeachment followed by a permanent removal and ban from public office is the only way to stop the Trump threat. If we do not achieve this now and let him come back for 2024, American democracy as we know it will be dead within our lifetimes.

[Hooahguy]

Probably a coward, but we don't want the 25th Amendment. It would only block him until the 20th, this is the definition of a half measure.

Impeachment followed by a permanent removal and ban from public office is the only way to stop the Trump threat. If we do not achieve this now and let him come back for 2024, American democracy as we know it will be dead within our lifetimes.
Oh I completely agree that impeachment is the preferred route. I was just interested to see how Pence would react to the day's events. Though reportedly (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-pompeo-mnuchin/pompeo-mnuchin-among-those-who-discussed-possibility-of-25th-amendment-cnbc-idUSKBN29D062) Pompeo and Mnuchin were discussing it.

Betsy Devos has resigned, adding to a growing list:
Elaine Chao
Stephanie Grisham
Sarah Matthews
Rickie Niceta
Matthew Pottinger
Tyler Goodspeed
Ryan Tully
John Costello
Mick Mulvaney

Still a bunch of cowards who are bailing at the last minute.

[Hooahguy]

Rep. Omar says that impeachment might be announced tomorrow (https://twitter.com/IlhanMN/status/1347386742085705728?s=20).

[Montmorency]

Briefly returning to the interrupted topic of the Georgia runoffs.

538's polling aggregate was incidentally excellent on this one, less than a point off on Ossoff and less than a half-point off Warnock.

In a state Stacey Abrams lost by 60K votes IIRC, Ossoff won by close to 50K and Warnock by close to 100K, in part due to her nonstop fieldwork from shortly after she lost in 2018. Georgia is officially purple, like Virginia (now solid-Dem) was 10-15 years ago.

I'd like to bring to everyone's attention the intense, suprahistorical, partisanship of the runoffs (ignoring the state Public Service Commission election that was low-key on the same ballot Tuesday). In something of a surprise to me, both elections saw very approximately the same number of votes recorded (there's a gap of ~53 votes between Ossoff-Perdue and Warnock-Loeffler, or ~0.00001% of the total). Therefore, we can make comparisons along the Newtonian assumption that both races had the same number of votes by all the same voters. The gap between Warnock's net vote and Ossoff's net vote is 79300 - 41300 = 38000.

That is to say, in an election where split ticket voters (who split votes between parties on various available races) were established ahead of time as potentially wielding immense influence over the course of American governance, not even 1% of voters split their tickets. Just what one would expect from an era of partisan hyperpolarization; and the 2020 (November) election continued the trend of historically-low rates of ticket splitting.

Some exit polling.
https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/exit-polls/senate-special-election-runoff/georgia
https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/exit-polls/senate-runoff/georgia
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/nbc-news-exit-poll-georgia-runoff-voters-split-party-whether-n1252851

As expected, white people vote overwhelmingly for Republicans, and white evangelicals vote for Republicans at the same rates as black people for Democrats. Black voters make up the majority of the Democratic electorate in Georgia. Still, without a grindingly-slow shift against Republicans among white voters, these victories would not have been possible.




"Well that escalated steadily for four years."

Short thread (https://twitter.com/EdStern/status/1346932730525667331) by some British centrist.


OK, this has blown up. I hope nothing else does.

Before I hand the mic to people who have actual wisdom to impart, let me say this. Obviously, this sorry idiocy didn't begin four years ago, or forty, or even four hundred.

All those "it couldn't happen here", "let's hear from both sides" or "this isn't who we are" takes are, at best, ahistorical bullshit. This is precisely what the USA (a nation I love, but am not of) is and has been, for most of its history.

Go read @thenewjimcrow, go read @sarahkendzior, go read Ta-Nehisi Coates' The Case for Reparations https://theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/ which barely TOUCHES on slavery.

Go read about Redlining https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining,
Reconstruction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstruction_era
Dred Scott v. Sandford https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott_v._Sandford

I'm a wishy washy centrist Brit. I didn't know ANY of this stuff ten years ago. I'd read Coates and see him refer to the orchestration of White Flight by white banks or the deliberation creation of the African-American Ghetto and think "well, hmm, maybe. Sounds a stretch."

And then you read about white real estate agents paying African-American women to wheel prams around white areas to panic white owners into fleeing for the suburbs, and then installing African-American tenants on bullshit mortgages they could never pay off.

And how much work, how much deliberate effort went into the preventing the creation of an African-American middle class. Good enough to pay taxes, good enough to be drafted, fight and die in wars, not quite equal access to life, liberty or happiness.

But I hadn't seen a movie about it, so it all felt less real than the movies and TV shows I had seen. Those were fictions, and deliberately or otherwise they served a purpose.




I expected political theater and nonsense today and have been deeply disappointed though I still think the institutions remain overall strong. I also think that today's actions have demonstrated to the old guard political class that Trump's violations of norms and traditions can only be prevented for future presidents through clear legislation and possible constitutional amendments limited some of the POTUS powers, only the future will show though.

One way to look at it is, American institutions are like a submarine superstructure that is steadily buckling under pressure. If you want to live, you need to escape fast, or remove the ship from its environment. Sure, it's resisted the worst of the strain surprisingly-well in a life-or-death situation and most of the compartments remain uncompromised, so far. But the ordeal, crucially, that has not concluded. Those worrisome leaks and dents can't hold the water back forever, and voyage repair won't sustain the mission. It's no longer fit for purpose if that purpose is prolonged survival.

We can take the luxury of giving the old beast a forlorn pat once we're no longer inside it...


And kicking out seems to be becoming the hallmark of democracy both here and in the US.

I wish you would have pause when conceiving lines like this one, which is not only indefensible, but inexplicable.


I hope that this might be a deathblow to "Trumpism" even though this might be wishful thinking.

The answer (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/us/politics/trump-republicans.htm) came quickly.


The gulf between Republican leaders and their grass-roots activists has never been wider since the start of the Trump era. And, as when the divisions first emerged after Mr. Trump denigrated Mexicans, Muslims and women, the party is not feuding over any sort of grand policy agenda. It’s simply a personal loyalty test.
[...]
While veteran lawmakers were flatly urging a separation, more than 100 House Republicans, unpersuaded by the chaos in the Capitol, continued with their effort to block Congress from certifying President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory. Some adopted conspiracy theories from right-wing news outlets and social media that it was left-wing saboteurs carrying out a false flag operation who ravaged the halls of Congress.

By Thursday morning, Mr. Trump was greeted with applause when he dialed into a breakfast at the winter meeting of the Republican National Committee, most of whose members have become a reflection of the party’s pro-Trump activist wing. On Friday, the committee was set to re-elect Mr. Trump’s handpicked committee chair with no opposition.

Representative Tom Reed of New York, who has emerged as a leader of more moderate Republicans in the House, said Thursday that the party needed to begin “not worrying about base politics as much, and standing up to that base.” He argued that Republicans should pursue compromise legislation with Mr. Biden on issues like climate change, and forecast that a sizable number of Republicans would take that path.

“If that means standing up to the base in order to achieve something, they’ll do it,” Mr. Reed predicted.

Action. We need action.


Perhaps as we remaining "cold warriors" die off (not you younglings but my generation) a newer and better definition of that "shining city upon a hill" can be brought to be.

We'll need your help.

:freak: Quick, commence the Long March through the institutions while the Black Brigades of the Anarkitty Syndicate buy us time against the ecopilled post-Groypers in the digital skreets. Service guarantees comradeship. :freak:

No, but seriously.


YouGov poll (https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/01/07/US-capitol-trump-poll). Vast majority of the Republicans doesn't consider the storming of the Capitol as a threat to democracy. Now, I don't find this very worrying, but the fact that 45% support the storming, while only 43% oppose it is a tad ridiculous. Overall, I'd rate it as a very amateurish coup attempt, near our Pyjama coup (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyjamas_coup).

Not that bad, but you get the gist.

Nincomcoup. But what's worse, the knowledge that a quarter of the military wants to install a favored general, or that a quarter of the population wants to install an ethnic dictatorship? (Figures used for rhetorical effect.)


I think for most sane people in the US, that belief went away in November 2016.

My impression is that most DC pols and professionals believe especially strongly in the doctrine of American exceptionalism. Many of the tweets and statements in the aftermath of Wednesday's events confirmed it, with talk of the "greatest democracy in the world" and whatnot.

[Gilrandir]

Not that bad, but you get the gist.

No I don't. The only thing I get is that you delight in constantly reminding me that the Crimea is occupied by Russia. Still I don't get why the occupation should delight you.

[ReluctantSamurai]

the party is not feuding over any sort of grand policy agenda. It’s simply a personal loyalty test.

The earlier posted meme said it all:

"I just want to own the libs. Beyond that, I have no politics."

[Crandar]

No I don't. The only thing I get is that you delight in constantly reminding me that the Crimea is occupied by Russia. Still I don't get why the occupation should delight you.
Your defensiveness makes you an irresistible target. Relax a bit, Ukraine will survive, even if you don't protect her honour every time. Did I get mad that the Greek army was expelled from Istanbul and Anatolia? No, in fact, I'm glad that our invasion and attempted annexation of foreign lands failed, which also renders me less vulnerable to jabs at national sensitivities.

Anyway, back to topic, our Caucasian brothers (https://twitter.com/eoinburgin/status/1346946053082378245) were also featured in Wednesday's Capitol affair.

I think for most sane people in the US, that belief went away in November 2016.
Exceptionalism is one of the main factors that the Trump phenomenon was allowed to gain such extraordinary influence. For a developed nation, America seems too much indoctrinated with chauvinism and militarism, both of which are inherently far-right principles and contribute to make xenophobic and racist messages more easily digestible to the wider public. Even here in the backwards Balkans, people are less obsessed with the uniqueness of the nation, the army and the veterans. The most long-term way to safeguard the republican foundations of your institution is to reconsider the values that mainstream/pop culture and the education system transmits to the citizens. The situation has improved since the Cold War, but in a very slow pace, judging from how absurdly nationalistic concepts like American supremacy and exceptionalism are still taken seriously by both sides of the political spectrum.

An even clearer video of the shooting (https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/ks8gtj/clearest_view_of_a_terrorist_attempting_to_breach/). Watch at your own discretion. A question that might sound stupid to our American members: If I understood correctly, the person who shot her is said to have been a police officer, but I got the impression that he was not dressed in uniform. Doesn't this mean he belonged to the secret services or are police officers also allowed to wear suits, while on duty?

[rory_20_uk]

One dead police officer.

Given all the rioters were committing an act that they knew could be dangerous, under the Law can't they all be charged with the murder?

~:smoking:

[Hooahguy]

Given all the rioters were committing an act that they knew could be dangerous, under the Law can't they all be charged with the murder?

~:smoking:
I dont think murder, but probably accessory or something along those lines.

It is increasingly looking like this was something with a lot of organization and that there was inside help:

Rep. Clyburn (https://twitter.com/carlquintanilla/status/1347584903324594177): "My office, if you don't know where it is, you ain't going to find it by accident. And the one place where my name is on the door, that office is right on Statuary Hall. They didn't touch that door, but they went into that other place where I do most of my work, they showed up there harassing my staff. How did they know to go there? How come they didn't go where my name was? They went to where you won't find my name, but they found where I was supposed to be. So something else was going on untoward here."

Coupled with that NYT story (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/us/names-of-rioters-capitol.html) which said that a Capitol Police officer helped rioters find Schumer's office, its clear that the Capitol Police were compromised.

Make no mistake, this was a huge victory for the far-right and they will be lionizing this event for years. I really hope the Biden Justice Dept. cracks down hard on these folk.

[Pannonian]

I dont think murder, but probably accessory or something along those lines.

It is increasingly looking like this was something with a lot of organization and that there was inside help:

Rep. Clyburn (https://twitter.com/carlquintanilla/status/1347584903324594177): "My office, if you don't know where it is, you ain't going to find it by accident. And the one place where my name is on the door, that office is right on Statuary Hall. They didn't touch that door, but they went into that other place where I do most of my work, they showed up there harassing my staff. How did they know to go there? How come they didn't go where my name was? They went to where you won't find my name, but they found where I was supposed to be. So something else was going on untoward here."

Coupled with that NYT story (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/us/names-of-rioters-capitol.html) which said that a Capitol Police officer helped rioters find Schumer's office, its clear that the Capitol Police were compromised.

Make no mistake, this was a huge victory for the far-right and they will be lionizing this event for years. I really hope the Biden Justice Dept. cracks down hard on these folk.

The top brass in the military are by now pretty fervently anti-Trump. How is it with the police? AFAIK they're locally elected.

[Hooahguy]

The top brass in the military are by now pretty fervently anti-Trump. How is it with the police? AFAIK they're locally elected.
US police forces have a fairly well-known (https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/hidden-plain-sight-racism-white-supremacy-and-far-right-militancy-law) problem with white nationalism. If the lower ranks are sympathetic to white nationalism it wont really matter what the brass thinks.

But hey, at least they just arrested (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/man-foot-desk-pelosi-s-office-capitol-arrested-n1253490?fbclid=IwAR30M39qWTtJlwuoyHVJZh5uGugfSmuaFpM7WJdktMnUmfjxjXCDTAgrjm0) the guy who took the photo at Pelosi's desk. Two days late is better than never I guess.

[edyzmedieval]

Anyway, back to topic, our Caucasian brothers (https://twitter.com/eoinburgin/status/1346946053082378245) were also featured in Wednesday's Capitol affair.

There was also a Romanian flag waved over there, cut in the middle (symbolising the Romanian Revolution against Communism), which I found odd, confusing, and if the symbolism is implied, beyond shameful to compare the Romanian Revolution to this insurrection.

I'm almost 10.000 miles away and this has been left, right, front, back and center news over here.

[Pannonian]

US police forces have a fairly well-known (https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/hidden-plain-sight-racism-white-supremacy-and-far-right-militancy-law) problem with white nationalism. If the lower ranks are sympathetic to white nationalism it wont really matter what the brass thinks.

But hey, at least they just arrested (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/man-foot-desk-pelosi-s-office-capitol-arrested-n1253490?fbclid=IwAR30M39qWTtJlwuoyHVJZh5uGugfSmuaFpM7WJdktMnUmfjxjXCDTAgrjm0) the guy who took the photo at Pelosi's desk. Two days late is better than never I guess.

Will the insurrection and the death of the officer change attitudes, I wonder.

[Montmorency]

If the Qbert shot and killed in the capitol was a victim of police overcompensation, that should be investigated.

Having mulled this over I need to revise. First, under prior standards the shoot is justified - some of the only real force used against the coup - as an imminent deterrent against a violent mob by the last line of defense between said mob and their targets: the elected Congress. But never even mind that, look at the big picture. The slain was a terrorist attempting, as the vanguard of the fascist leagues (as in France 1934) to overthrow (capture/abduct/kill/depose) the entire elected government and institute a comprehensive fascist regime. As was planned online in public forums ahead of time (https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2021/01/05/how-the-insurgent-and-maga-right-are-being-welded-together-on-the-streets-of-washington-d-c/).

There are few better behavioral justifications for ending a person.

In the event this revolt was so disorganized and ill-prepared that the suitable level of escalation (which could have been expected to end the event very quickly) was to blanket the crowd in tear gas before they reached the doors of the Capitol. But they intended and attempted not just to install Trump but to remove the entire democratic (and Democratic) federal government, which we now understand the local security services halfway allowed, if not encouraged, them to do; had they been a little better organized, better armed, more determined, a little more successful, it would have become immediately obligatory to kill as many of them as dynamically necessary to neutralize the opposition. And they're still out there, promising to return.

You only get brownie points for being pathetic if you can only remain pathetic. Beyond that exists the realm of clear, present, and ongoing danger.

At some point it really becomes an uncomplicated good for each participating individual to perish from this earth. The fascist movement needs to be taught that they can't simply roll into the federal or state capitols and attempt to impose their will without consequence. Because that's the lesson so far.

If it's this easy to halfway-storm the citadel, it is only incentivized as an insurgent tactic in coming years. Future attempts will be iteratively refined.

Resolve to nip the cycle in the bud - aggressively. If they return on the 20th, either do what it takes to secure the premises and maintain control, or shoot to kill. This isn't a game.

[Pannonian]

Having mulled this over I need to revise. First, under prior standards the shoot is justified - some of the only real force used against the coup - as an imminent deterrent against a violent mob by the last line of defense between said mob and their targets: the elected Congress. But never even mind that, look at the big picture. The slain was a terrorist attempting, as the vanguard of the fascist leagues (as in France 1934) to overthrow (capture/abduct/kill/depose) the entire elected government and institute a comprehensive fascist regime. As was planned online in public forums ahead of time (https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2021/01/05/how-the-insurgent-and-maga-right-are-being-welded-together-on-the-streets-of-washington-d-c/).

There are few better behavioral justifications for ending a person.

In the event this revolt was so disorganized and ill-prepared that the suitable level of escalation (which could have been expected to end the event very quickly) was to blanket the crowd in tear gas before they reached the doors of the Capitol. But they intended and attempted not just to install Trump but to remove the entire democratic (and Democratic) federal government, which we now understand the local security services halfway allowed, if not encouraged, them to do; had they been a little better organized, better armed, more determined, a little more successful, it would have become immediately obligatory to kill as many of them as dynamically necessary to neutralize the opposition. And they're still out there, promising to return.

You only get brownie points for being pathetic if you can only remain pathetic. Beyond that exists the realm of clear, present, and ongoing danger.

At some point it really becomes an uncomplicated good for each participating individual to perish from this earth. The fascist movement needs to be taught that they can't simply roll into the federal or state capitols and attempt to impose their will without consequence. Because that's the lesson so far.

If it's this easy to halfway-storm the citadel, it is only incentivized as an insurgent tactic in coming years. Future attempts will be iteratively refined.

Resolve to nip the cycle in the bud - aggressively. If they return on the 20th, either do what it takes to secure the premises and maintain control, or shoot to kill. This isn't a game.

It's a Belgrano moment. There will be some nitpicking at the details and looking to be outraged at anything they can find. But overall, the target was a legitimate one, given plenty of opportunity to not be a target, and they went ahead and made themselves one anyway. With the usual caveats about reliability of accounts, one of the rioters who was there said that the officer vocally warned her not to come through, and she did anyway.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Hopefully this doesn't go unnoticed:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/us/derrick-evans-west-virginia-capitol.html


A newly elected lawmaker from West Virginia was among the mob of Trump supporters who stormed the United States Capitol (https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/01/06/us/electoral-vote?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage) on Wednesday, filming as he stood among the crowd outside a door, rushed with them inside and then wandered through the halls along with the scores of others who had breached the building.

Mr. Evans yells several times to the people milling around not to commit any vandalism, insisting “this is our house and we respect it.” To one man, who appears to be a Capitol security officer, he says: “God bless you, sir. We still respect you,” adding that there was “nothing personal” about what they were doing. Another officer asks him and a group of others to head to the exit, a directive that he ignores. “Patriots inside, baby!” he shouts.

“I want to assure you all that I did not have any negative interactions with law enforcement nor did I participate in any destruction that may have occurred,” he wrote. “I was simply there as an independent member of the media to film history.”

Independent member of the media? Right-o Derrick...and I've got some ocean-front property in Montana I'd like to sell...:rolleyes:

[EDIT] He has since been arrested and charged. Unfortunately, the 147 Republicans who voted against certifying the election results, should get the same treatment (but won't), as their actions were worse, IMHO.[EDIT]

The list of seditionists:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/07/us/elections/electoral-college-biden-objectors.html


The fascist movement needs to be taught that they can't simply roll into the federal or state capitols and attempt to impose their will without consequence. Because that's the lesson so far.

As another example of duplicity, look at the videos of people streaming out the doors when order was being restored. Not a single one of them was expecting to be accosted by law enforcement. Just a leisurely stroll through Congress on a Wednesday afternoon.

[Pannonian]

Is this standard OP when a mob wants to get into government buildings?

https://twitter.com/asthehosptuRNs/status/1347616679791091712

In case the tweet is deleted, a side door is opened, and as the rioters move in, you can see a number of police officers standing aside.

[Montmorency]

Hopefully this doesn't go unnoticed:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/us/derrick-evans-west-virginia-capitol.html



Independent member of the media? Right-o Derrick...and I've got some ocean-front property in Montana I'd like to sell...:rolleyes:



As another example of duplicity, look at the videos of people streaming out the doors when order was being restored. Not a single one of them was expecting to be accosted by law enforcement. Just a leisurely stroll through Congress on a Wednesday afternoon.

West Virginia, huh?

https://twitter.com/BNONews/status/1347630360297938945 [VIDEO]


BREAKING: West Virginia lawmaker Derrick Evans, who livestreamed himself entering the U.S. Capitol, has been arrested by the FBI

:blush::blush::blush:

[Hooahguy]

In the event this revolt was so disorganized and ill-prepared that the suitable level of escalation (which could have been expected to end the event very quickly) was to blanket the crowd in tear gas before they reached the doors of the Capitol. But they intended and attempted not just to install Trump but to remove the entire democratic (and Democratic) federal government, which we now understand the local security services halfway allowed, if not encouraged, them to do; had they been a little better organized, better armed, more determined, a little more successful, it would have become immediately obligatory to kill as many of them as dynamically necessary to neutralize the opposition. And they're still out there, promising to return.
I saw some national security experts say something similar. This could have been a lot worse. They also speculated that there might have been classified information taken from some of the offices.


Resolve to nip the cycle in the bud - aggressively. If they return on the 20th, either do what it takes to secure the premises and maintain control, or shoot to kill. This isn't a game.
I was thinking about attending the inauguration but now Im not so sure.

Also re: impeachment, likely wont have the time to do it as detailed here (https://www.legislativeprocedure.com/blog/2021/1/8/latest-impeachment-effort-not-possible-under-rules). In short, the Senate is out of session until right after the inauguration, and they can only be brought back to do business by unanimous consent, which they probably wont get.

[Hooahguy]

Twitter bans Trump permanently. (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55597840) And Apple has given Parler 24 hours (https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/apple-threatens-ban-parler?fbclid=IwAR18ogghiM_hoL33zHuaLLTp47ZpIv2xo0DUyZwNNF1X0zzgWIKEBb1JJcs) to start moderating its content or it will be banned from the App Store.

~:wave:

[edyzmedieval]

12 days in which many politicians on both sides will count down to the second. Pelosi apparently requested a top-level meeting with top-level Pentagon brass.

[Hooahguy]

Pelosi apparently requested a top-level meeting with top-level Pentagon brass.
Yes, among the things she talked about with them was the issue of nuclear launch authority. Which unfortunately Trump still has sole command over as long as he is president. I do wonder if this will be something that will be addressed in the coming session too, because having all this authority laid on one person is probably too much.

[Gilrandir]

Did I get mad that the Greek army was expelled from Istanbul and Anatolia? No, in fact, I'm glad that our invasion and attempted annexation of foreign lands failed, which also renders me less vulnerable to jabs at national sensitivities.



There is a whole world of difference between "invasion and attempted annexation of foreign lands" and protection of one's own integrity.

But in general, I take it that any sensitive issues and tragic events are allowed to be mocked at on this forum, including holocaust, massacres, racist lynchings, gas chambers and so on.

[edyzmedieval]

But in general, I take it that any sensitive issues and tragic events are allowed to be mocked at on this forum, including holocaust, massacres, racist lynchings, gas chambers and so on.

Of course not. Denying such events is a rather quick trip to Cooldown Town but there's also a fine line about mocking such events.

I personally do not like it, I find it distasteful and wrong towards the memory of those who were wronged, but keep in mind there is also dark humour, which in many cases was a coping mechanism. Case by case basis.

[Hooahguy]

If anyone is interested, George Washington University set up an online database (https://extremism.gwu.edu/Capitol-Hill-Cases?fbclid=IwAR1mRT1tlBMbVtMQbRu_1wcQ91zrtLyO_qo8dF7FAGES750zfXNkIsS4PJ0) detailing everyone who has been charged so far in the Capitol riots.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Not sure this is going anywhere:

https://beta.documentcloud.org/documents/20445930-rep-bush_resolution-condemning-republican-efforts-to-overturn-election

On the one hand, doing nothing encourages more of the same type of behavior from these seditionists, but dwelling too long on the subject seems like a witch-hunt. Certainly Mo Brooks (AL) should come under scrutiny for this horse-shit:

https://theintercept.com/2021/01/07/capitol-violence-republican-mo-brooks/


Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., one of the most outspoken lawmakers in support of Donald Trump’s false claim that the presidential election was stolen, floated the possibility of violence as a reasonable form of political resistance while speaking on local Alabama talk radio today. [note: this was a day AFTER the 6 Jan debacle]

Brooks was one of the featured speakers at the rally and had more to say about it:


On the radio, Brooks defended his participation in the rally the previous day, baselessly charged that there was “mounting evidence of fascist antifa’s involvement in all of this,” and said that those involved in storming Congress should be prosecuted.

The inflammatory rhetoric suggests the Alabama lawmaker has little interest in stepping back from his rhetoric earlier this week. Brooks opened the “Save America” rally with a searing speech that charged, “Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass.”

During his remarks, he asked the crowd to consider the American ancestors who sacrificed their blood and “sometimes their lives” to create the “greatest nation in world history.” “So I have a question for you,” Brooks continued. “Are you willing to do the same?”

Republicans who would not support the effort to decertify Electoral College votes for President-elect Joe Biden also received scorn. “America does not need and cannot stand and cannot tolerate anymore weakling, cowering, wimpy Republican congressmen and senators,” yelled Brooks at the rally.

If Papa Don gets deserved condemnation for incentivizing the crowd, then this seditionist should get the same.


I take it that any sensitive issues and tragic events are allowed to be mocked at on this forum, including holocaust, massacres, racist lynchings, gas chambers and so on

I'm not aware of any members here that are neo-nazi, or extreme right-wing racists....~:confused:

[Montmorency]

Not the typical 538 feature:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/storming-the-u-s-capitol-was-about-maintaining-white-power-in-america/


In a famous essay from 1958 on the topic, entitled “Race Prejudice as a Sense of Group Position,” Herbert Blumer, a noted sociologist, wrote the following:


There are four basic types of feeling that seem to be always present in race prejudice in the dominant group. They are (1) a feeling of superiority, (2) a feeling that the subordinate race is intrinsically different and alien, (3) a feeling of proprietary claim to certain areas of privilege and advantage, and (4) a fear and suspicion that the subordinate race harbors designs on the prerogatives of the dominant race.

[...]

And most recently, Larry Bartels, a renowned scholar of American politics at Vanderbilt University, wrote the following in his research focused on the erosion of Republicans’ commitment to democracy:


The support expressed by many Republicans for violations of a variety of crucial democratic norms is primarily attributable not to partisan affect, enthusiasm for President Trump, political cynicism, economic conservatism, or general cultural conservatism, but to what I have termed ethnic antagonism. The single survey item with the highest average correlation with antidemocratic sentiments is not a measure of attitudes toward Trump, but an item inviting respondents to agree that “discrimination against whites is as big a problem today as discrimination against blacks and other minorities.” Not far behind are items positing that “things have changed so much that I often feel like a stranger in my own country,” that immigrants get more than their fair share of government resources, that people on welfare often have it better than those who work for a living, that speaking English is “essential for being a true American,” and that African-Americans “need to stop using racism as an excuse.”

To summarize Bartels’s claims, white Republicans who have come to oppose democracy do so, in part, because they don’t like those whom they believe democracy serves. And, more than that, they believe that the interests of nonwhite Americans have been given priority over the interests of their racial group. Many white Americans seem to be asking themselves, Why act in defense of a democracy that benefits “those people”?

For those who broke glass in windows of the Capitol, who marched in opposition to American democracy, who held up as a model the seditious behaviors of slaveholding states, who threatened the lives of elected officials and caused chaos that lays bare the dangerous situation we are in as a country — these are not political protesters asking their government for a redress of grievances. Nor are they patriots whose actions should be countenanced in a society governed by the rule of law.

Instead, we must characterize them as they are: They are a dangerous mob of grievous white people worried that their position in the status hierarchy is threatened by a multiracial coalition of Americans who brought Biden to power and defeated Trump, whom back in 2017 Ta-Nehisi Coates called the first white president. Making this provocative point, Coates wrote, “It is often said that Trump has no real ideology, which is not true — his ideology is white supremacy, in all its truculent and sanctimonious power.” So, when we think about those who gathered in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday and who will surely continue their advance in opposition to democratic rule, let it not be lost on us that they do not simply come in defense of Donald Trump. They come in defense of white supremacy.

More and more pieces have been written to this effect over the past 3 years.


Reminder (https://twitter.com/mollycrabapple/status/1347081342945808384):


On January 20, 2017, the day of Trump's inauguration, police kettled 217 anti-Trump protesters in the freezing cold and arrested them after sixteen hours.

Prosecutors then tried to put them in prison for 70+ years, on the accusation that all of them collectively broke a window.




Not sure this is going anywhere:

https://beta.documentcloud.org/documents/20445930-rep-bush_resolution-condemning-republican-efforts-to-overturn-election

It's not going anywhere (neither are 25th Am or impeachment solutions), but it's within her progressive ambit to put it into the discourse. I'm fine with her doing so.


Certainly Mo Brooks (AL) should come under scrutiny for this horse-shit:

Now, an appropriate response would be "Death to fascism, freedom to the people", but I recognize it as a more problematic token for elected officials of the Dem party to submit.

[Hooahguy]

Troubling info (https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emmanuelfelton/black-capitol-police-racism-mob) coming from a couple of African-American USCP officers:


BuzzFeed News spoke to two Black officers who described a harrowing day in which they were forced to endure racist abuse — including repeatedly being called the n-word — as they tried to do their job of protecting the Capitol building, and by extension the very functioning of American democracy. The officers said they were wrong footed, fighting off an invading force that their managers had downplayed, and not prepared them for. They had all been issued gas masks, for example, but management didn’t tell them to bring them in on the day. Capitol Police did not respond to BuzzFeed News’s request for comment about the allegations made by officers.

While some of the images from that day appeared to show officers standing by to let the mob into the Capitol building, the veteran officer said that they had fought them off for two hours before the attackers eventually gained access. The officer said that many of the widely spread images of smiling marauders, wandering the halls dressed in absurd costumes, had the effect of downplaying how well prepared some of the rioters were to overtake the building, and even to capture and kill Congress members.

“That was a heavily trained group of militia terrorists that attacked us,” said the officer, who has been with the department for more than a decade. “They had radios, we found them, they had two-way communicators and earpieces. They had bear spray. They had flash bangs ... They were prepared. They strategically put two IEDs, pipe bombs in two different locations. These guys were military trained. A lot of them were former military,” the veteran said, referring to two suspected pipe bombs that were found outside the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee.

The officer even described coming face to face with police officers from across the country in the mob. He said some of them flashed the badges, telling him to let them through, and trying to explain that this was all part of a movement that was supposed to help.

“You have the nerve to be holding a blue lives matter flag, and you are out there fucking us up,” he told one group of protestors he encountered inside the Capitol. “[One guy] pulled out his badge and he said, ‘we’re doing this for you.’ Another guy had his badge. So I was like, ‘well, you gotta be kidding.’”

....

At the end of the night, after the crowds had been dispersed and Congress got back to the business of certifying president-elect Joe Biden’s victory, the veteran officer was overwhelmed with emotion, and broke down in the rotunda.

“I sat down with one of my buddies, another Black guy, and tears just started streaming down my face,” he said. “I said, ‘what the fuck, man? Is this America? What the fuck just happened? I’m so sick and tired of this shit.’”

Soon he was screaming, so that everyone in the rotunda, including his white colleagues, could hear what he had just gone through.

“These are racist ass terrorists,” he yelled out.

In the seven years since Black Lives Matter has become a rallying cry, the image of a white cop, deciding how and when to enforce law and order, has become ubiquitous. On Wednesday, Americans saw something different, as Black officers tried to do the same, as they attempted to protect the very heart of American democracy. And instead of being honored by the supporters of a man who likes to call himself the “law and order” president, Black Capitol officers found themselves under attack.

“I got called a nigger 15 times today,” the veteran officer shouted in the rotunda to no one in particular. “Trump did this and we got all of these fucking people in our department that voted for him. How the fuck can you support him?”

“I cried for about 15 minutes and I just let it out.”

This is really heartbreaking. Im usually not in favor of purges, but I think one might be in order here. And for the Secret Service.

[Gilrandir]

Why am I not surprised?
https://www.unian.info/world/u-s-protests-chants-in-russian-suggest-moscow-s-trace-11278463.html

[ReluctantSamurai]

Why am I not surprised?

There were all kinds of references to foreign nations on display, besides Russia. Flags from India, Romania, and Australia were seen. Far and away the biggest "conspiracy" theory by some conservative lawmakers and right-wing media is trying to place the blame on....wait for it.....Antifa!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2021/01/07/conservative-media-capitol-breach-reaction-tucker-carlson-sean-hannity/


The desire to tease a forumer and a total lack of decency will do

I hardly think that teasing this unnamed "forumer" is even in the same universe as the "holocaust, massacres, racist lynchings, gas chambers.":rolleyes:

[Hooahguy]

Guys, lets keep it focused on the main topic at hand and not venture into Ukraine issues. There is another thread you can discuss this in.

[Pannonian]

Is it wrong to feel Schadenfreude at seeing the rioters treated as personae non gratae by the general public and businesses? No fly list, rioters fired by their employers, non-brown skinned people called terrorists to their face, etc. It's usually the left who are accused of lack of patriotism.

[Hooahguy]

Is it wrong to feel Schadenfreude at seeing the rioters treated as personae non gratae by the general public and businesses? No fly list, rioters fired by their employers, non-brown skinned people called terrorists to their face, etc. It's usually the left who are accused of lack of patriotism.
I dont think so. These people ran amok with glee as they committed sedition. Now that some of them are starting to see them get their just deserts, it is ok to be happy.

Meanwhile someone retweeted Michael Cohen's testimony (https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1100881276343672832?s=20) from early 2019. Sadly prescient:

Given my experience working for Mr. Trump, I fear that if he loses the election in 2020, that there will never be a peaceful transition of power.

On the Congressional front, Dems are moving forward (https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/10/pelosi-says-democrats-will-move-forward-with-trying-to-remove-trump-457257) with impeachment, starting with a 25th Amendment vote on Monday. I have no idea why they are saying that the unanimous consent vote will be Monday, and then a full vote on Tuesday should it fail. Seems to be a stalling tactic and I disagree vehemently. Can't say that "we will act with urgency" and then spend an extra day doing something thats pointless. Ugh.

[Pannonian]

I dont think so. These people ran amok with glee as they committed sedition. Now that some of them are starting to see them get their just deserts, it is ok to be happy.

Meanwhile someone retweeted Michael Cohen's testimony (https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1100881276343672832?s=20) from early 2019. Sadly prescient:


On the Congressional front, Dems are moving forward (https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/10/pelosi-says-democrats-will-move-forward-with-trying-to-remove-trump-457257) with impeachment, starting with a 24th Amendment vote on Monday. I have no idea why they are saying that the unanimous consent vote will be Monday, and then a full vote on Tuesday should it fail. Seems to be a stalling tactic and I disagree vehemently. Can't say that "we will act with urgency" and then spend an extra day doing something thats pointless. Ugh.

Poll tax?

[Hooahguy]

Oops sorry, meant the 25th.

[Pannonian]

Oops sorry, meant the 25th.

Can never tell with legal interpretations of various amendments. One of the amendments says that troops should not be quartered on the population, something which sounds archaic, but which apparently has other legal meanings in the modern world.

[Hooahguy]

Also should make note that Pelosi brought up Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which allows for the expulsion of any elected official who engaged in insurrection. Apparently it only requires a simple majority to do so. I could definitely see GOP reps Mo Brooks, Boebert, and Greene being expelled at the very least.

[Montmorency]

The ivory tower terminological debate over whether America has been experiencing a coup attempt verges on sterile, but this intellectual examination covers all the bases so well that I'm reprinting (https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/01/would-a-coup-by-any-other-name-smell-so-wrong) it in whole:


Paul Musgrave argues that the effort to prevent Congress from declaring Biden the next president was, in fact, a coup.


As I write this a few hours later, rioters incited by President Donald Trump have stormed the Capitol building. Both the House and the Senate have suspended their counting because of security threats. Reportedly, shots have been fired. A photograph of a rioter occupying the House speaker’s chair shows that the Capitol is, essentially, being occupied. C-SPAN is reporting that senior members of leadership of the legislative branch are being held in an “undisclosed location.” Reporters are refusing to divulge their locations on the grounds—entirely reasonable—that doing so could endanger their safety. The National Guard has been deployed.

It’s undeniable at this point. The United States is witnessing a coup attempt—a forceful effort to seize power against the legal framework. The president has caused the interruption of the process that would certify his removal from office. The mechanics of constitutional government have been suspended. Americans are in danger of losing constitutional government to a degree unmatched even during the Civil War, a period when secession itself did not postpone either the holding of elections or the transition of power between presidents.

For Musgrave, the unwillingness of many to call it a coup reflects a worrying tendency to downplay threats to U.S. democracy – a tendency that’s contributed to U.S. democratic erosion. On the academic side, this blindness stems from methodological exceptionalism.


Mostly, though, the optimists’ reluctance to see what’s in front of their faces has had less to do with scholarly integrity and more to do with wish-casting—making predictions because you want them to be true, not because the evidence supports it. For U.S. political scientists, coups and paramilitary political forces are axiomatically things that happen out there.

Their study fits in the mainstream of comparative politics, which studies foreigners, not U.S. politics (except for the small tribe of specialists in U.S. political development, who are well aware of the history of violence in the country’s political history). Until Wednesday, Americanists modeled what election outcomes would be, not whether their results would matter—those questions mattered for others.

Musgrave’s argument has generated significant pushback on various platforms. Naunihal Singh, in both an interview at Foreign Policy and a piece at The Monkey Cage, argues that what happened on January 6th was definitely not a coup.

In the interview, Singh argues that:


I think it’s extremely telling that the violence we’re seeing is coming from street protesters whom Trump has incited. This is the president of the United States. He is the most powerful man in the world, in quotes. And yet he’s not using any of his official authorities. He’s using his bully pulpit to stir up what is a poorly organized ragtag bunch of protesters who are being treated with kid gloves in a way that peaceful protesters in Portland, in D.C., and all over the nation were not treated last summer. In fact, if the D.C. police or the National Guard had treated this bunch of protesters the way they treated any of the Black Lives Matters protesters, they would never have been allowed to breach the first perimeter, let alone get into the Senate building. There are two reasons they’re being treated with kid gloves. One is that they are affiliated with the president, so they have some political protection. The other is that the protesters have, for a long time, styled themselves as Blue Lives Matter supporters, so law enforcement may have been hesitant to use force against them.

In neither case is this actually a threat to the Republic. But, look, whether or not force was used, the president engaged in an illegitimate, immoral, and probably illegal attempt to grab power [emphasis added].

While there are ways in which the insurrectionists did get easy treatment, some of these claims show their age. Much of this argument derives from snippets of video that appeared on social media during the day. Longer videos, as well as efforts by reporters to piece together events, make clear that the Capital Police were simply overwhelmed. Moreover, as numerous posts at LGM have highlighted, it looks pretty clear that some of the insurrectionists sought to capture – and even execute – high-ranking U.S. government officials.

In his article, Singh writes that:


Although scholars differ in how they define coup attempts, most definitions have a common core of agreed-upon conditions. In my book, “Seizing Power,” I define a coup attempt as an explicit action, involving some portion of the state military, police or security forces, undertaken with intent to overthrow the government.

What occurred on Wednesday meets some — but not all — of the conditions to be a coup attempt. Efforts to block the transfer of power to the legitimate victor of an election meet the intent portion of the definition, even if the person who is overthrowing the government is also the incumbent. But the raid on the nation’s capital in this instance was committed by a mob, not the country’s own armed forces. It is the involvement of state security forces that critically separates a coup attempt from an assassination, an invasion, an insurrection or a civil war.

What occurred is better described as an insurrection, since it was a violent uprising by citizens against the government. Those bearing arms were civilians, members of the public. This is different from a coup, where a branch of the government uses state forces to attempt to seize power — and this distinction matters.

Singh draws an analogy:


A coup is like being robbed at gunpoint. But Trump’s attempt to convince Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, to “find” enough votes to overturn his defeat was more like a swindle, with Trump attempting to talk Raffensperger into handing over his wallet. The attack on the U.S. Capitol was more forceful, yet still different from a coup, more like somebody grabbing your wallet. All three are forms of theft, but the forms are very different, and the responses differ accordingly.

I agree that each crime involves a different modus operandi, but I don’t get the analogy. If we follow Singh’s definition, what differentiates a military coup from a civilian insurrection has nothing do with with the level of force involved; which category applies depends entirely on the actors. Provincial rebellions may easily bring more force to the table than a handful of colonels.

Perhaps Singh intends for the analogy to only illustrate how the same outcome can be generated by three distinctive processes. So why does it matter, then?


Calling something a coup attempt turns our attention toward the state. But what is striking about Trump’s behavior is that he is acting as if he is a private citizen rather than president of the United States. He is stirring up protesters, but not using state security forces; he is attempting to wheedle Raffensperger into committing electoral fraud but not — other than vaguely threatening Raffensperger with criminal consequences — using state authority to coerce Raffensperger into doing so.

Trump is able to engage in these anti-democratic actions because of the people who are voluntarily supporting him — not because he is the commander in chief.

But the president is not a private citizen; his call for his supporters to march on the Capitol and help keep him in power is obviously inflected by his authority and his prerogatives.

This is really no different than if Trump ordered the military to occupy the Capitol and arrest members of the legislative branch. Military officers don’t have a chip in their head that makes them compelled to obey his orders; they have every right to resist an illegal order. This is why ten former Secretaries of Defense signed an open letter urging the military not to intervene in a disputed election: to warn the military not to participate in any attempt by the president to mount a coup.

Indeed, Rob noted yesterday that “if the military disobeyed a lawful order from the President to launch nuclear weapons (and there’s almost no question, under existing US law, that such an order would be lawful) then it would in effect constitute a military coup.” What would make such an assurance to Pelosi a coup is precisely the fact that nether Speaker Pelosi nor General Milley have the legal authority to interdict such an order. We don’t call Muammar Gaddafi’s seizure of power in Libya a “coup” because overthrowing the government was within his authority.

Okay, but what substantive difference does it make?


Those who want to prevent insurrection could respond in a number of ways. One path, taken by Twitter and Facebook, was to suspend Trump’s account, thus taking away his megaphone at a time when his remarks might whip up violence.

If Trump were calling on the military to seize the Capitol then taking away his megaphone would also be a good idea. He still needs to communicate with supporters, whether they’re in uniform or in civilian clothes.


Another approach is to make it clear to the other politicians who are helping him undermine democracy that there is no return to respectability or business as usual afterward. Would they choose opportunistic behavior in the moment if they knew they would pay the cost of being associated with a rejection of democracy for the rest of their lives? Would they undercut democracy if it shut the door to lucrative employment as a lobbyist? Would they be willing to be shunned socially for decades?

Change “other politicians” to “military personnel” or “internal security services” or whatever and this paragraph still makes sense.


The point is not the specifics of the response, but rather that the diagnosis suggests an analysis and an appropriate reaction. Compared to a coup, an insurrection involves a different set of people, communication is used differently, the role of the police is different, and the remedies are different. The terminology matters because it illuminates the dynamics of this event and how they are different from other kinds of events.

Singh presumably would consider all the following examples of attempted coups if they happened in the USSR in the 1987:

The NVD, in whole or in part and either at the behest of the General Secretary of the Communist Party or against him, tries to seize control of Moscow
The KGB – in whole or in part and either at the behest of the General Secretary of the Communist Party or against him – tries to seize control of Moscow; and
The Red Army – in whole or in part and either at the behest of the General Secretary of the Communist Party or against him – tries to seize control of Moscow.
Each of these would entail different sets of people, uses of communication, roles for the police, and remedies. The disposition of the overall KGB would matter not only in each of these scenarios, but also if civilians acted as the primary ‘troops’ of an attempted seizure of power.

Singh maintains that the events of January 6th amounted to an insurrection rather than a coup. I’m not entirely sure about the basis of the distinction. In U.S. law, “rebellion and insurrection refer specifically to acts of violence against the state or its officers.”

Since all of Singh’s coups involve the threat of violence, they would all seem to also constitute insurrections. That is, Singh’s “coup” is a specific type of insurrection, one involving at least one of the state’s security services.

This isn’t a problem per se for Singh, but it does suggest some analytic issues. Singh’s substantive objection to referring to January 6th as a coup attempt is, in essence, that insurrections involving a state’s own security services are not comparable to insurrections that don’t involve a state’s security services. While I’m not persuaded by the specific examples Singh provides, I do think that his argument makes some degree of sense.

However, are the events of January 6th more comparable to non-coup insurrections? Ceteris paribus, I don’t see how we learn more about January 6th by placing it in the same pot as the FMLN insurgency in El Salvador, the Greek Civil War, and the Indian Rebellion of 1857 than by placing it in the same pot as Operation Rubicon.

Why, then, is the relevant distinction between “coup” and “insurrection”? We can solve Singh’s concerns just as easily by distinguishing between kinds of coups. Maybe coups that involve the security services constitute one cluster of coups, while those that don’t constitute another. Some of examples of both kinds would take the form of self-coups, others would not.

Should we adopt Singh’s nomenclature or something like I’ve just suggested? I’m not sure. But we can’t choose between the two options based on the criteria Singh has offered. Both preserve a distinction between, on the one hand, what happened on January 6th and, on the other hand, attempts to overthrow governments that involve some slice of their security services.

If this weren’t already getting too long, I’d turn to a discussion of the various dynamics that drive stability and change in social-scientific concepts. In its absence, I’ll just make a few claims about their implications:

The way that social scientists define a concept – or even that a social-scientific field defines a term – is not inherently better than alternatives.
The considerations that lead us to settle on specific definitions may not be decisive, or even relevant, in different contexts.
There’s often less consensus about the precise meaning of concepts than we like to imply.
Disputes about the meaning of concepts can reflect substantive disagreements about how to do social science, and these often – for good reasons – reman implicit when we argue about definitions in public-facing contexts.
So what do I think? To the extent that it matters, my own view is closer to Musgrave’s and overlaps with Zeynep Tufekci’s:


In Turkish, we do have many different words for different types of coups, because our experience similarly demands it. For example, coups that are attempted through threatening letters from the military are called memorandum coups. A 2007 attempt is commonly referred to as the “e-coup” because the threatening letter from the military was first posted on the internet. (The one before that, in 1997, is often referred to as a “postmodern” or “soft” coup.) We know the difference between military coups that start from the top and follow the military chain of command and those that do not. The term autogolpe comes from the Spanish partly because there have been so many such attempts in Latin America.

The U.S. president is trying to steal the election, and, crucially, his party either tacitly approves or is pretending not to see it. This is a particularly dangerous combination, and makes it much more than just typical Trumpian bluster or norm shattering.

Maybe in other languages, from places with more experience with this particular type of power grab, we’d be better able to discuss the subtleties of this effort, to distinguish the postelection intervention from the Election Day injustices, to separate the legal but frivolous from the outright lawless, and to understand why his party’s reaction—lack of reaction—is not just about wanting to conclude an embarrassing presidency with minimal fanfare. But in English, only one widely understood word captures what Donald Trump is trying to do, even though his acts do not meet its technical definition. Trump is attempting to stage some kind of coup, one that is embedded in a broader and ongoing power grab.

And if that’s hard to recognize, this might be your first.


IMHO:

Coups are (ex ante) extralegal appropriations of authority by an actor within, or by part of, a government from another.

Notice that, for me, the defining characteristic of coups is neither the employment of violence nor which part of the government is implicated in the usurpation of authority: if the Speaker of the House appropriates presidential authority with respect to the military, that’s a coup; if Al Haig really had tried to jump the line of succession, then he attempted a coup; if the president incites a mob to force Congress to declare him the victor of an election, then that’s a coup; and if the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff deploys the military to declare himself Supreme Executive, then we’re looking at a coup.

What makes coups ‘special’ is their internal character; they involve struggles among incumbents – sometimes specific actors, sometimes bureaucratic divisions, sometimes branches – over the distribution of authority within a government.

We can handle the rest by attaching adjectives.

But realize that I come from a social-scientific tradition that thinks what’s in the arrows is more important than what’s in the boxes. For me, Charles Tilly’s observation about social-scientific explanation and revolutions applies:


I am arguing that regularities in political life are very broad, indeed transhistorical, but do not operate in the form of recurrent structures and processes at a large scale. They consist of recurrent causes which in different circumstances and sequences compound into highly variable but nonetheless explicable effects. Students of revolution have imagined they were dealing with phenomena like ocean tides, whose regularities they could deduce from sufficient knowledge of celestial motion, when they were actually confronting phenomena like great floods, equally coherent occurrences from a causal perspective, but enormously variable in structure, sequence, and consequences as a function of terrain, previous precipitation, built environment, and human response.

For hydrologists, a flood is a wave of water that passes through a basin; a severe flood is one in which a considerable share of the water overflows the basin’s perimeter. For our purposes, the equations hydrologists use to compute water flow in floods have three revealing characteristics: they reduce floods to special cases of water flow within basins rather than making them sui generis, their results depend heavily on the hydrologist’s delineation of the basin, while estimation of the flood’s parameters requires extensive empirical knowledge of that basin. Yet the equations embody very general principles, the physics of incompressible fluids in open channels (Bras 1990, pp. 478-82).

Note several implications of the analogy. First, every instance of the phenomenon – flood or revolution – differs from every other one; the test of a good theory is therefore not so much to identify similarities among instances as to account systematically and parsimoniously for their variation. Second, in different combinations, circumstances, and sequences, the same causes that produce floods or revolutions also produce a number of adjacent phenomena: smoothly flowing rivers and stagnant swamps on the one side, coups d’etat and guerrilla warfare on the other. Third, time, place, and sequence strongly influence how the relevant processes unfold; in that sense, they have an inescapably historical character. Finally, the events in question are far from self motivating experiences of self-contained structures; they are local manifestations of fluxes extending far beyond their own perimeters. Floods and revolutions have no natural boundaries; observers draw lines around them for their own analytic convenience. In these regards, they resemble a number of other complex but lawful phenomena: traffic jams, earthquakes, segmented labor markets, forest fires, and many more. I suppose, indeed, that most interesting social phenomena have exactly these characteristics

Thus, it doesn’t trouble me if the category “coup” expands beyond the participation of the security services; I’m happy to make the participation of security services a source of variation rather than a defining feature of coups. But it’s also totally understandable why other scholars would prefer narrower, more precise definitions that mandate a greater number of shared attributes.

So should we call January 6th an attempted coup – or, more properly, one part of an unfolding effort by Trump to mount a successful coup? I don’t think the question of causation is all that important. Most of the debate over whether to call it a coup isn’t about coup-proofing. It’s basically normative and political in character: what label for Trump’s actions – and those of his mob – best captures their degree of illegitimacy?

To be honest, I don’t see a lot of difference between “coup” and “insurrection” here.

The major disadvantage of “insurrection,” I suppose, is that it makes Trump’s role one of “inciter” or “fomenter.” This places him one step away from the action itself. It also locates his conduct in the murky domain of where freedom of speech ends and criminal incitement begins. Saying that he attempted a coup, however, removes any such complications.

The advantages of “incitement of insurrection” are that it’s a defined legal offense and that it’ll be the grounds for impeachment.

TLDR:

Coups are (ex ante) extralegal appropriations of authority by an actor within, or by part of, a government from another. ...What makes coups ‘special’ is their internal character; they involve struggles among incumbents – sometimes specific actors, sometimes bureaucratic divisions, sometimes branches – over the distribution of authority within a government. We can handle the rest by attaching adjectives.

Also, here it is good to recall other, smaller-scale coups or attempts in American history, particularly those that occurred in the wake of the Civil War, such as Wilmington 1898 and the Indianapolis Treason/Northwestern Conspiracy. The former in particular was essentially the same kind of operation as we saw on Jan. 6, except totally successful.




Meanwhile, an update on the two House races that are still unresolved, some of the closest in American history:

New York:
https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/binghamton/politics/2021/01/04/judge-weighing-disputed-ballots-in-undecided-ny-22-race
https://www.wicz.com/story/43146249/tenney-appeals-judges-dec-8th-decision-to-not-certify-her-winner-of-ny22-election

Iowa (the Democrat may find success in appealing directly to Pelosi to seat her):
https://kwwl.com/2021/01/03/rita-hart-at-least-22-legally-cast-ballots-in-iowas-2nd-congressional-district-were-not-counted/

[Hooahguy]

Alright here we go: House Dems introduce (https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/01/11/us/joe-biden-trump#an-impeachment-charge-against-trump-is-introduced-as-republicans-block-a-measure-demanding-pence-act)an article of impeachment against Trump for incitement of insurrection. Full text of it is here (https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/articles-impeachment-trump-xml/b0422e292cebafda/full.pdf) (pdf warning). No idea why they are waiting until Wednesday to vote on it. Seems like a dumb move and they should move as quickly as possible.

Edit: also, a Capitol Police officer has been arrested (https://twitter.com/AlexMillerNews/status/1348750694094942208), according to the reporter the cop put on a maga hat and led rioters around and another was suspended for taking selfies. And another 10 to 15 (https://twitter.com/AnnieGrayerCNN/status/1348756456603082756?s=20) are under investigation.

[spmetla]

I also have no idea why they are waiting on it, seems pretty open and shut. The delays is allowing those on the fence to already try and say that impeachment is too divisive and that censure is more suitable. Get the impeachment done and over to the Senate ASAP.

Glad to see those police that violated their oaths getting their just deserts. Just because the protestors were on 'your side' doesn't change your duty one bit, failure to do your duty means you shouldn't hold your position.

Crazy talking with my right wing friends, the talk is all of the sort trying to say essentially that this is overblown because BLM and Antifa protests/riots caused more damage. Local businesses and cars are NOT the seat of government!

[Hooahguy]

Unfortunately, impeachment was never meant to be an emergency action, but rather a long court case. The 25th amendment is supposed to be for those emergency moments but the VP is too cowardly to use it. As I posted earlier, it seemed like impeachment would be doomed anyways due to the Senate not being in session until Jan 20th unless all senators consented to gaveling back in. But the Washington Post reported (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/11/trump-impeachment-biden-transition-live-updates/#link-7RYGDCVEFNA6XLMLDDNPOWKZFU)that Schumer is considering invoking a lesser known rule that might be able to bring the Senate back without unanimous consent:

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) is exploring using an obscure, post-Sept. 11-era authority to reconvene the Senate as the House barrels toward a likely impeachment vote of President Trump this week, according to a senior Democratic aide.

In 2004, the Senate majority and minority leaders were given the power to bring the Senate back into session in times of emergency, and the senior Democratic aide said Schumer is exploring this option to allow for a potential impeachment trial for Trump to begin immediately after the House transmits the articles to the Senate. The aide spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss evolving party strategy.

Schumer’s exploration of this option is one way the incoming majority leader is rebutting an argument laid out by his counterpart, Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who told GOP senators in a memo last week that it was virtually impossible to begin an impeachment trial before Jan. 19, which is when the Senate reconvenes.

Both McConnell and Schumer would have to agree to reconvene the Senate, putting pressure back on the outgoing majority leader to confront Trump as the House heads toward an impeachment vote this week for the president’s role in inciting the violent siege on the Capitol on Jan. 6.

The resolution, which passed the Senate unanimously in February 2004, allows the chamber’s majority and minority leaders to reconvene at a time when, “in their opinion, such action is warranted by intervening circumstances,” according to a legislative summary.

Also super angry that all these right-wingers are calling for calm and unity like they didnt just spend the past two months riling things up. As has been said before, there needs to be accountability before we can move on. I mean Trump still hasnt moved on (https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-sneak-peek-1c44d7d7-d31e-4879-bff1-11965803be69.html?chunk=0&utm_term=twsocialshare#story0) from the election:

The White House official said the call was tense and aggressive at times, with Trump ranting about election fraud and an exasperated McCarthy cutting in to say, "Stop it. It's over. The election is over."
What a sad, pathetic man.

Meanwhile the feeling here in DC is weird. Something is in the air when I walk around, like everyone is on edge for next week. 10,000 troops will be arriving by the weekend. I do hope that nothing will come of all the threats, the maga cultists would have to be morons to try anything now.

To close for the evening, I really enjoyed this article (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/01/conservatism-reaches-dead-end/617629/) on conservative victimhood by David Frum. The last conversation mentioned in the article is just so telling.

An ex-conservative friend of mine told me a story about a conversation she had with someone who remained much more active in the conservative movement. The active conservative had raged about “liberal elites” until finally my friend could stand it no longer: “You went to law school. Why aren’t you an elite?” The active conservative paused, reflected, and then answered, “Well, what do you want me to call the people I hate?”

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I also have no idea why they are waiting on it, seems pretty open and shut. The delays is allowing those on the fence to already try and say that impeachment is too divisive and that censure is more suitable. Get the impeachment done and over to the Senate ASAP.

Glad to see those police that violated their oaths getting their just deserts. Just because the protestors were on 'your side' doesn't change your duty one bit, failure to do your duty means you shouldn't hold your position.

Crazy talking with my right wing friends, the talk is all of the sort trying to say essentially that this is overblown because BLM and Antifa protests/riots caused more damage. Local businesses and cars are NOT the seat of government!

The Senate is not in session. To change that under the current rules would require the agreement of all 100 senators. Trump will have at least one who says "too busy with my constituents, sorry." So impeachment prior to the inauguration is functionally impossible. The only reason to continue with an impeachment effort is to bar Trump from further federal office and/or strip away Presidential retirement privileges. These goals are worthy of continuing the effort, but are not as pressing.

For the same reason, censure by Congress is impossible prior to the inauguration as well.

The only immediate response, use of the 25th on grounds of mental instability, would require Pence to take that step and for the cabinet (who are dropping like flies) to agree and not to simply leave the sinking ship. I suspect that Pence is holding this over Trump to keep him quiescent until the 20th but not acting on it so as to keep the ReTrumplicans pacified.

This is, I suspect, because he wants their votes come 2024. I think he's fooling himself AND not doing right by the USA or his oath -- but pols love to play both ends against the middle.

[Montmorency]

rofl (https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/01/capitol-riot-senior-trump-official-calls-him-a-fascist.html) everyone talks like Millennials now. (As always, take the self-serving leaks as greasing the skids.)


On Friday afternoon, 48 hours after the U.S. Capitol was stormed by violent insurrectionists encouraged by Donald Trump in an attempt to overthrow the government in protest of his election loss, a senior member of his administration spoke to me while he was driving to work.

“This is confirmation of so much that everyone has said for years now — things that a lot of us thought were hyperbolic. We’d say, ‘Trump’s not a fascist,’ or ‘He’s not a wannabe dictator.’ Now, it’s like, ‘Well, what do you even say in response to that now?’”

For four years, people like this official — lifelong Republican operatives — have convinced themselves that Trump’s obvious faults were worth tolerating if it meant implementing a conservative policy agenda. These officials believed the benefits of remaking the courts with conservative justices, or passing tax reform, outweighed the risks that a Trump presidency posed to democracy and to the reputation of the country in the world. Now, at the 11th hour, with 12 days left before Joe Biden is sworn into office, it’s clear to some that it was always a delusion.

“This is like a plot straight out of the later, sucky seasons of House of Cards where they just go full evil and say, ‘Let’s spark mass protests and start wars and whatever,’” the senior administration official said.
[...]
Advisers have expressed concern and anger over Mark Meadows, the chief of staff, whose actions have been perceived as an effort to secure employment with Trump in his post-presidency, perhaps at the Trump Organization. “Jared has been telling people, ‘Don’t even deal with him anymore,’” one adviser said. “Mark’s responsible for bringing kook after crazy after conniver after Rudy into the West Wing.” (“This is completely false,” Avi Berkowitz, Jared Kushner’s spokesman, said in a tweet responding to this article, “Jared has never said that.”) A former senior White House official said, “Morale plummeted under him, huge mistakes were made — and now he’s scrambling to stick around after. He’s a dishonest asshole who pretends to be this religious Southern gentleman. Fuck that.”
[...]
This adviser, who spoke to Trump on Wednesday amid the siege, said Trump watched the events on television intently. CNN reported that he was so excited by the action, it “freaked out” some staffers around him. The adviser told me that Trump expressed disgust on aesthetic grounds over how “low class” his supporters looked. “He doesn’t like low-class things,” the adviser said, explaining that Trump had a similar reaction over the summer to a video of Brad Parscale, his former campaign manager, shirtless and drinking a beer in his driveway during a mental-health emergency in which police tackled him and seized his weapons. “He kept mentioning, ‘Oh, did you see him in his beer shirt?’ He was annoyed. To him, it’s just low class, in other words.”

The adviser said that Trump recently offered them a pardon, although they have not been charged with any crime. The adviser “politely declined.” Others are taking Trump’s pardon offers more seriously, whether they’ve been investigated or are at risk of jail time or not. “He’s just talking up a storm about giving pardons to allies: his kids, and their significant others, and staffers. He’s pretty generous with the offers. When you’re offered one, it’s like, Should I take it? Is it like insurance?”




Crazy talking with my right wing friends, the talk is all of the sort trying to say essentially that this is overblown because BLM and Antifa protests/riots caused more damage. Local businesses and cars are NOT the seat of government!

Hard-nosed analysis always resounds the same dour intonation, in the observation that these petulant comparisons aren't meant to actually identify and contest concrete factual or ethical dimensions in either object of comparison. When fascists deflect to BLM in this or any context, what they are communicating is their internal representation of rage that 'these f****** uppity n****** and their race-cucked accomplices get to be seen and heard while our rightful assertion of ownership and control over this society is rebuffed.'

Anyone who has ever spent much time with conservatives - and many patrons likely have more clocked than I do - shouldn't have illusions about what defines these mentalities by now.

:brood:

[Hooahguy]

So this is a fascinating development- McConnell is reportedly (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/12/us/mitch-mcconnell-trump-impeachment.html) "pleased" about impeachment. I dont blame him for wanting Trump out. He served his purpose before but McConnell undoubtedly blames Trump for losing the Senate. I mean on November 10th, the GOP was in a great place- narrow Dem majority in the House and seemed likely to hold onto the Senate. But then Trump kept going on about election fraud for two months and cost the GOP the Senate in a very winnable election. Trump is now a toxic entity and McConnell wants a clean break to try to get rid of Trumpism. Unfortunately for him, it wont be that easy as the Trumpists will plague the GOP for a long time to come. He sowed the wind and will reap the whirlwind.

Edit: Liz Cheney, chair of the House Republican Conference (#3 in leadership) says she will (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/12/trump-impeachment-biden-transition-live-updates/?fbclid=IwAR3K3Cfmwo1BbT59RkjWw27VR1tYNeU-YstEjdE0IvQkXzJeza8IxguZbwE) vote to impeach. Fascinating power play here as shes essentially angling to replace McCarthy as House minority leader by detaching herself from Trump (McCarthy and Scalise have stayed close to Trump). Huge rift in the GOP right now.

[Pannonian]

So this is a fascinating development- McConnell is reportedly (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/12/us/mitch-mcconnell-trump-impeachment.html) "pleased" about impeachment. I dont blame him for wanting Trump out. He served his purpose before but McConnell undoubtedly blames Trump for losing the Senate. I mean on November 10th, the GOP was in a great place- narrow Dem majority in the House and seemed likely to hold onto the Senate. But then Trump kept going on about election fraud for two months and cost the GOP the Senate in a very winnable election. Trump is now a toxic entity and McConnell wants a clean break to try to get rid of Trumpism. Unfortunately for him, it wont be that easy as the Trumpists will plague the GOP for a long time to come. He sowed the wind and will reap the whirlwind.

A bit like the Corbynites on the left here in the UK. He managed to energise the base, but was toxic to everyone else, and now his personal following are determined to ruin the party he's with. Corbyn never got into power here though, and it's hard to imagine him being as bad as Trump has been, or his support as destructive. But in terms of their relationship with the party they were affiliated with, they're comparable.

[spmetla]

Hard-nosed analysis always resounds the same dour intonation, in the observation that these petulant comparisons aren't meant to actually identify and contest concrete factual or ethical dimensions in either object of comparison. When fascists deflect to BLM in this or any context, what they are communicating is their internal representation of rage that 'these f****** uppity n****** and their race-cucked accomplices get to be seen and heard while our rightful assertion of ownership and control over this society is rebuffed.'

Anyone who has ever spent much time with conservatives - and many patrons likely have more clocked than I do - shouldn't have illusions about what defines these mentalities by now.

That's the unique thing in the Hawaii National Guard, the right wingers don't have a racial tone or even a very Christian one. They just see the 'libs' as the enemy and as others have said in here, they love Trump because he upsets the SJWs and Libs. As others here have noted, it's not about policy for them anymore, it's just their team versus their enemies. It's hilarious when I call Trump out on things how they expect me to then have to defend BLM and Antifa as if I were a partisan supporter of those. Being against Trump somehow makes me a Liberal to them, can't have opposition of too many shades, it's all one bad entity for them to save America from, even if it means destroying America.

Think the Trumpers have learned this from 1984:

And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. ‘Who controls the past’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.

[Hooahguy]

A bit like the Corbynites on the left here in the UK. He managed to energise the base, but was toxic to everyone else, and now his personal following are determined to ruin the party he's with. Corbyn never got into power here though, and it's hard to imagine him being as bad as Trump has been, or his support as destructive. But in terms of their relationship with the party they were affiliated with, they're comparable.
Thats a definitely interesting comparison, didnt make that connection but I definitely see it.

Also if anyone wants some reading tonight, the House Judiciary Dems put together a 50 page report supporting the impeachment. PDF link (https://judiciary.house.gov/uploadedfiles/house_judiciary_committee_report_-_materials_in_support_of_h._res._24.pdf)

[Pannonian]

That's the unique thing in the Hawaii National Guard, the right wingers don't have a racial tone or even a very Christian one. They just see the 'libs' as the enemy and as others have said in here, they love Trump because he upsets the SJWs and Libs. As others here have noted, it's not about policy for them anymore, it's just their team versus their enemies. It's hilarious when I call Trump out on things how they expect me to then have to defend BLM and Antifa as if I were a partisan supporter of those. Being against Trump somehow makes me a Liberal to them, can't have opposition of too many shades, it's all one bad entity for them to save America from, even if it means destroying America.

Think the Trumpers have learned this from 1984:

Orwell is the most prescient political writer I've ever read. My interest in him is a bit more focused on his British-left-centred writings though, although there may be lessons to be learned there too for Americans. One such lesson is to never disappear up your own backside. Don't converse in language that is only accessible to your base. Spread the appeal with widely appealing language. There were some complaints from Democratic congress members after the elections in a similar vein, that every time outside campaigners appeared to help, they lost a few more votes.

[Pannonian]

The joint chiefs of staff have turned against the sitting president. Has this happened before?

[Hooahguy]

I wouldn't characterize it as "going against the president" rather that they affirmed that they aren't going to do a coup like some Trumpists wanted (though of course they will just say "oh its a diversion!!!").

[spmetla]

They haven't turned against the sitting President, they are merely reminding the rank and file that their oath is to the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. They are condemning violence, upholding rule of law and making clear that they recognize the results of the election with Biden as the 46th POTUS.

The only thing unique about any of the above is that it needs to be said at all.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/12/politics/joint-chiefs-memo-capitol-insurrection/index.html

This situation is the only reason I've been somewhat okay with Trump being incompetent at knowing how to utilize the government. Were he capable of using the tools of government he could have exploited COVID-19 to gain power, utilized his following to create an organized paramilitary wing like the SA or SS, sent them in the streets as patriots against the Floyd protestors and then used the overall unrest to declare a national emergency and seize more power.
His incompetency in managing the bureaucracy and intellectual laziness is the only reason he's failed to keep himself in office. Last week he attempted to create his 'Reichstag Fire' moment without any of the ground work laid beyond establishing a cult of personality following.

Like I've lamented before, the institutions have barely held their own but legislative power has failed to be a check on the power of the executive. Biden MUST in his term have Congress draft legislation to curb his own power, perhaps even a constitutional amendment.

[Hooahguy]

McConnell leaning towards (https://www.axios.com/mcconnell-trump-convict-impeachment-trial-99246975-8c02-47f4-90d3-14a23c00afd1.html?utm_campaign=organic&utm_medium=socialshare&utm_source=twitter) convicting Trump. Never thought I'd see that headline.

I honestly think that Jan 6th is going to go down in history as a single monumental event akin to 9/11. Not as horrible as 9/11, but similar in the sense that it provokes huge changes across the board which I think we are starting to see now. I mean it seems like we are finally getting some pushback (https://twitter.com/alaynatreene/status/1349203964827459585?s=20)from within about the Qanon quacks. I will hold my breath though.

[Montmorency]

From the Joint Chiefs' statement (https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/20449003/jcs-message-to-the-joint-force-jan-12-21.pdf):


As Service Members, we must embody the values and ideals of the Nation. We support and defend the Constitution. Any act to disrupt the Constitutional process is not only against our traditions, values and oath; it is against the law. On Jan. 20, in accordance with the Constitution, confirmed by the states and courts and certified by Congress, President-elect Joe Biden will be inaugurated and will become our 46th Commander in Chief.


That's the unique thing in the Hawaii National Guard, the right wingers don't have a racial tone or even a very Christian one. They just see the 'libs' as the enemy and as others have said in here, they love Trump because he upsets the SJWs and Libs. As others here have noted, it's not about policy for them anymore, it's just their team versus their enemies. It's hilarious when I call Trump out on things how they expect me to then have to defend BLM and Antifa as if I were a partisan supporter of those. Being against Trump somehow makes me a Liberal to them, can't have opposition of too many shades, it's all one bad entity for them to save America from, even if it means destroying America.

Think the Trumpers have learned this from 1984:

Hawaii is an unusual state in the union, in some ways perhaps the future of the country. Is there an official report on the demographics of the Hawaii NG?

More to the point, what value for "liberal" do these people assign? Does liberal mean "black" or "woman?" Not by definition, yet so often that's the way it's treated. Protest against police violence, for example, wouldn't at face value appear to be an intrinsically liberal or racial issue, so what the underlying representation is comes down to is whether the partisan tribalism is purely arbitrary or not. If anti-liberalism as affinity grouping, rather than ideological or psychological posture, were arbitrary, we would expect to see more random distribution of demographic attributes and political intuitions, which we don't (as though we were some Rawlsian ghosts picking out a sports team for the incarnation to support, or RPG players rolling classes in character creation). If, on the other hand, there were an animus toward or resentment against disfavored groups as such, where conservatism reduces to 'I am rightfully high-status, so I win; you are rightfully low-status, so you lose,' then all the observed behaviors and attitudes fall into place...

[spmetla]

I don't think there is a specific report on the Hawaii NG demographics. From personal experience the enlisted are primarily Asian with a fair number of Pacific Islanders and Caucasians. The Officers are about 2/3s Asians and the balance is mostly Caucasian with some Pacific Islanders.

When deployed other units usually don't think I'm in the Hawaii guard because I'm white and have a Northern-midwest accent. About a month into my Egyptian deployment as part of the MFO there was another US NCO I was working with in the higher HQ and he was brutally ragging on guardsmen in general and the Hawaii guard specifically, after about a minute of this I had to interject and tell him I'm Hawaii guard and don't appreciate his comments! Just one example of many assumptions I'm not from Hawaii due to my race, accent, and mannerisms over 19 years in the Hawaii NG.

As for the discussion on why they are anti-liberal I'd say it anger toward general social changes. The topics of gender fluidity and such are definitely opposed, especially when they see what's perceived as social engineering agendas to change the demographics of the military to be more inclusive (talking gender, trans-gender inclusion not race). The military also has a lot of gun lovers in general which means most are gun owners and very strong 2nd amendment types so they see the left as trying to curtail that.

I think liberal to a lot of conservatives means any of the following topics: trans-gender/gender fluidity acceptance, anti-2nd amendment, teaching history of US as guilt with emphasis on white-male-christian guilt, reparations and social engineering to correct said guilt, socialism/communism despite no real understanding of what that is, and anti-christian somehow. That's including single issue people like the 'pro-life' crowd. In general I'd call the conservative movement of today more of a social-reactionary movement as it's really just opposition to times changing faster than they can accept them. Change for many people is difficult to accept and fear of change is definitely easy to exploit.

Trump was able to exploit that fear of change very effectively, as many politicians have done in the past, and as many in the future will continue to do. That's why these brainwashed extremists in the Trump camp think their violence is okay, they seem to think they are saving American from a future in which its communist/socialist, ruled by china, with 'forced' demographic reparations to wipe out their race/religion/worldview. All this is looney stuff but seeing how my own mom who hated Trump with a fervor a year ago is now on board with the Trumpers because they are anti-vaccine (anti-science/reality more like) and anti-chipping and all the other crazy stuff that comprises this vague yet dangerous reactionary movement and its flirtation/acceptance of straight up racists and fascists.

[Gilrandir]

I don't think there is a specific report on the Hawaii NG demographics. From personal experience the enlisted are primarily Asian with a fair number of Pacific Islanders and Caucasians. The Officers are about 2/3s Asians and the balance is mostly Caucasian with some Pacific Islanders.



https://www.workforce.com/news/6-reasons-not-say-caucasian

[Hooahguy]

Something to consider: definitely seems like McConnell and co. moved towards impeachment when all the corporate donors started pulling out from Republicans. Money talks.

Edit: also worthy to point out that Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO-6) claimed (https://twitter.com/MeetThePress/status/1349369689227603968?s=20) that a number of his GOP colleagues told him that they want to vote for impeachment but fear for their lives if they do so. The GOP is fundamentally broken.

[Hooahguy]

The House has voted to impeach Trump again, making Trump the only president to be impeached twice. It was a unanimous vote on the Dem side, with ten Republicans voting to impeach. With 232 votes, its the most votes (https://twitter.com/ryanstruyk/status/1349474465495863310?s=20) to impeach in modern US history. However, McConnell has stated (https://twitter.com/ryanobles/status/1349474864567037958?s=20) he will not move on impeachment until after Biden has taken office. I believe one can still convict a president when out of office, but I think it might end up at SCOTUS. We will see. Now we just need to make it through the next 7 days. Pretty cold-blooded by McConnell, its a win-win for him to do this as it punts the issue of impeachment to the Dems, mucks up Biden's first few weeks, and if Trump is convicted, it removes Trump from running again.

[spmetla]

At the very least he's now not able to pardon people involved in the insurrection attempt which will leave members of his circle vulnerable even with the most generous blanket pardons.

[Hooahguy]

Yes that is definitely a plus. I was worried that as his last action he would give a blanket pardon to everyone involved and now he can't do that. Especially since most of the charges being leveraged are federal.

[Pannonian]

At the very least he's now not able to pardon people involved in the insurrection attempt which will leave members of his circle vulnerable even with the most generous blanket pardons.

Why not?

[Hooahguy]

Why not?
In article 2 section 2 of the Constitution, right after it says the president has the ability to pardon it says "except in cases of impeachment." Which most seem to interpret as that the president is unable to pardon from when the House passes the articles of impeachment until the Senate votes. Some also interpret it as him being unable to pardon with regards to the scope of the impeachment, so no pardons for anyone's role in last week's riot.

Also if you havent seen the pictures of national guardsmen napping in the Capitol, its truly something to see (https://twitter.com/igorbobic/status/1349386390291828744?s=20). For all the time I have spent in that historic building I never for a second thought it would come to this. Incredibly depressing.

[Montmorency]

Article on what Democrats can accomplish through Congressional budget reconciliation with their 50 Senate votes.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22217054/joe-biden-senate-majority-budget-reconciliation


Joe Biden’s agenda is vast and impossible to summarize in a single article, even when confined to what’s possible under budget reconciliation. But to pick out some of its most important aspects, Biden could:

Approve $2,000 checks, state and local aid, and a boost to vaccine funding
Create a $3,000-per-year child allowance for parents
Make housing a human right funded through federal vouchers
Guarantee paid maternal/sick leave
Achieve universal pre-K for all 3- and 4-year-olds, and massively expand child care access
Spend $2 trillion investing in clean energy and climate R&D
Forgive the first $10,000 in student loans for all debtors
Make community college free for all
Reduce Medicare eligibility to age 60 and perhaps create a public option open for all
Raise taxes on the rich by $4 trillion
Effectively abolish the debt ceiling to prevent future GOP hostage-taking
To understand why this is possible, and much of the rest of his agenda is likely not, you have to know a bit about the filibuster.

I'm pretty sure reconciliation will not permit many of the regulatory changes implied here, and where stripped bare of regulatory complement to enable passage, some of these programs won't be as desirable. Particularly so in the areas of paid leave, childcare, and housing, to my mind. What made Warren's and Sanders' plans here worthier was, beside their greater generosity, their commitment to creating legal protections and raising industry standards. Also, just forgive more student debt, Congress isn't even implicated.



Trump's polling, even among Republicans, is really sliding now, and while it's recovered every time before, I suspect there just won't be time enough for him. RCP and 538 both have him at 40% currently. How low can he go? Separately, I predict that by the end of the month, or maybe just prior to Biden's inauguration, polling on Direction of the Country will hit an all-time low (<15%).


Internet comment:


I can tell you that the FBI is taking all this seriously. One of my best childhood friends, Air Force Academy grad (not a religious loony, not a gun nut, not a Trumper) spent 10 or 12 years active duty and then has flown for United since, called me yesterday pretty shaken.

He has six kids. About half are also in military. Youngest daughter is marine nurse married to a marine living in OK. The dumb son in law took part in some of right wing protests for 2nd Amendment months ago. The son-in-law also had some,as my friend described, associations with some less savory gun nuts in OK one of whom filmed himself discharging fully automatic weapon in a place where that is unlawful. Little more to it but that was the gist.

Apparently, the son-in-law was pulled over Monday by police, and when they ran his plate, the FBI had issued some sort of warning with an acronym I can't recall, informing law enforcement to contact FBI immediately, but not to detain. Said son-in-law was immediately contacted by FBI to report for interview or be arrested, had to lawyer up and spent 6 hours yesterday being interrogated by the FBI.

They released him, but I got the sense from what my friend described was the FBI are not fucking around and are turning over rocks and connections everywhere. Any known associates of anyone they've got their eyes on.

That's somewhat reassuring.




I think liberal to a lot of conservatives means any of the following topics: trans-gender/gender fluidity acceptance, anti-2nd amendment, teaching history of US as guilt with emphasis on white-male-christian guilt, reparations and social engineering to correct said guilt, socialism/communism despite no real understanding of what that is, and anti-christian somehow. That's including single issue people like the 'pro-life' crowd. In general I'd call the conservative movement of today more of a social-reactionary movement as it's really just opposition to times changing faster than they can accept them. Change for many people is difficult to accept and fear of change is definitely easy to exploit.

That's exactly it, when one asks "What do these people despite?" - or better yet, whom - there's an overwhelming pattern. We're talking not about people who hold a mix of liberal and moderate views, or even who are retrograde in a mild way, but who are uniformly enraged and disgusted by what is straightforwardly an increasing prominence of issues of people who don't share their demographics or affinities. It's not that they arbitrarily dislike talk of gender or oppression - many of them will go on about how masculine they are and lament the "assault" on masculinity. It's not that they inherently disagree with government safety regulations (although to be fair some segment do actually think this way), they may even support stringency when it comes to "those people" having guns; most of their reaction is against what they perceive as a hindrance, realized or not, on their personal affairs. It's not that they actually care about government tyranny, which they simply define as anything that offends their own sensibilities or doesn't support their tribe. It's not that they don't think anyone does wrong or has to change anything about them, as they'll be first to denigrate the supposedly-terroristic Muslim and ghetto Black for perceived collective flaws. It's not that they oppose any statist implication in cultural change, when they typically call for the government to prioritize and embody their own values. It's not that they think their religion is under threat, but that they identify a loss of what they see as an official Christian status of American society and government as ipso facto a threat.

Intermission: Holy shit did you see what Josh Hawley (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/11/opinion/josh-hawley-religion-democracy.html) said about this early Christian sage?


In multiple speeches, an interview and a widely shared article for Christianity Today, Mr. Hawley has explained that the blame for society’s ills traces all the way back to Pelagius — a British-born monk who lived 17 centuries ago. In a 2019 commencement address at The King’s College, a small conservative Christian college devoted to “a biblical worldview,” Mr. Hawley denounced Pelagius for teaching that human beings have the freedom to choose how they live their lives and that grace comes to those who do good things, as opposed to those who believe the right doctrines.

The most eloquent summary of the Pelagian vision, Mr. Hawley went on to say, can be found in the Supreme Court’s 1992 opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Mr. Hawley specifically cited Justice Anthony Kennedy’s words reprovingly: “At the heart of liberty,” Kennedy wrote, “is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”The fifth century church fathers were right to condemn this terrifying variety of heresy, Mr. Hawley argued: “Replacing it and repairing the harm it has caused is one of the challenges of our day.”

In other words, Mr. Hawley’s idea of freedom is the freedom to conform to what he and his preferred religious authorities know to be right. Mr. Hawley is not shy about making the point explicit. In a 2017 speech to the American Renewal Project, he declared — paraphrasing the Dutch Reformed theologian and onetime prime minister Abraham Kuyper — “There is not one square inch of all creation over which Jesus Christ is not Lord.” Mr. Kuyper is perhaps best known for his claim that Christianity has sole legitimate authority over all aspects of human life.

Reminder that up to a full half of the national Republican electorate is White Evangelical Christians, who incidentally have protruded their tentacles far into Latin America and Africa in recent years, converting tens of millions. What a blight, ever since they perverted their religion into an institutional defense of slavery and never reformed even after slavery did. They would never tolerate Catholics like Hawley in the ascendancy, despite the staggering overlap in their cherished doctrines.


If one looks for strict linguistic meaning in the far-right usage of words and terms, one will always be confused by the seeming incoherence and irrelevance of their grievances. Only the realization that the nature of the grievance is to do with status, hierarchy, and taste-based affinity can comprehensively explain what is observed. In all the named elements what comes to the surface is an ironclad belief that they are the rightful Masters of the Universe, a club that not everyone can be a part of (to paraphrase George Carlin again). Not so much "they hate liberals" as "they know that they win, we lose, and they hate liberals for upsetting the balance of the Great Chain of Being."

And sure, like any model this can't cover every single case. Maybe there are outright Communists out there voting straight ticket Republican because they're obsessed with the meme of "pro-life" anti-abortionism. Or more realistically someone like Ammon Bundy, a far-right militant who supports Trumpism in basically everything (despite his pretensions to fighting for liberty), yet nearly got cancelled in the far-right ecosystem for offering that maybe immigrants aren't vermin to be cleansed from the nation. But it's the decisive thread that characterizes almost everything of Reaction, in and beyond America.

Case in point (https://twitter.com/MarkFooterman/status/1349019631932088320):


A very talented friend of mine, who interned w/
@GOPLeader
, and at 20 was one of the highest ranked staffers in the Trump campaign, was just fired from his new job when client found out he worked for Trump. He now can’t afford rent. Still think cancel culture isn’t that serious?

I wonder what this fellow thinks of unions and mandatory drug-testing.



In article 2 section 2 of the Constitution, right after it says the president has the ability to pardon it says "except in cases of impeachment." Which most seem to interpret as that the president is unable to pardon from when the House passes the articles of impeachment until the Senate votes. Some also interpret it as him being unable to pardon with regards to the scope of the impeachment, so no pardons for anyone's role in last week's riot.

Also if you havent seen the pictures of national guardsmen napping in the Capitol, its truly something to see (https://twitter.com/igorbobic/status/1349386390291828744?s=20). For all the time I have spent in that historic building I never for a second thought it would come to this. Incredibly depressing.

Seems like a stretch; my intuition has always been that the clause renders a crime unpardonable if the President was herself impeached over it as a Congressionally-enumerated offense. Then again, push it to the SCOTUS for all I care, make them decide what to license in Trump's downfall. Or maybe he refuses to pardon anyone at all and it's moot. :shrug:

[ReluctantSamurai]

Also if you havent seen the pictures of national guardsmen napping in the Capitol, its truly something to see (https://twitter.com/igorbobic/status/1349386390291828744?s=20). For all the time I have spent in that historic building I never for a second thought it would come to this. Incredibly depressing.

There are now more troops deployed in Washington than Iraq & Afghanistan combined. War has come home to roost.

[Hooahguy]

Well this is very on-brand (https://www.thedailybeast.com/after-all-that-donald-trump-told-aides-not-to-pay-rudy-giuliani-for-his-legal-services-wapo?via=twitter_page) for Trump.

The commander in chief has told aides not to pay Giuliani at all for his legal work attempting to overturn Trump’s loss in the November presidential election, according to The Washington Post.

:laugh4:

[ReluctantSamurai]

Quote of the day from Rashida Tlaib:


Just had to go through a metal detector before entering the House floor. Some colleagues are frustrated (guess which ones) by this requirement. Now they know how HS students in my district feel. Suck it up buttercups. Y’all brought this on yourselves.

https://www.vox.com/22226869/congress-security-lauren-boebert-guns-storming-capitol-metal-detectors

[Hooahguy]

Quote of the day from Rashida Tlaib:


Just had to go through a metal detector before entering the House floor. Some colleagues are frustrated (guess which ones) by this requirement. Now they know how HS students in my district feel. Suck it up buttercups. Y’all brought this on yourselves.

https://www.vox.com/22226869/congress-security-lauren-boebert-guns-storming-capitol-metal-detectors

Whats funny is that Pelosi instituted a new rule (https://thehill.com/homenews/house/534165-pelosi-announces-lawmakers-will-be-fined-if-they-bypass-metal-detectors-to) now that says if they refuse to go through the metal detector they will be fined $5,000 for the first offense and then $10,000 for every subsequent offense with the money being taken out of their paychecks. House members make $174,000 so if morons like Boebert keep it up they will be broke after about 17 trips. :laugh4:

On a side note, the FBI created (https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/capitol-riot-arrests-coffman-mostofsky/2021/01/12/634441e0-54f4-11eb-a08b-f1381ef3d207_story.html)a sedition and conspiracy task force to bring the hammer down on the capitol rioters. Sedition itself is up to a 20 year prison sentence. Definitely will be following this.

What do people here think about creating new anti-domestic terror laws to go after the white nationalists? Im torn because I remember reading an article about how the FBI has certain gaps in their enforcement abilities for domestic terror (I dont remember specifics), but on the other hand I'm pretty sure those would end up being used against peaceful protesters one day which is not desirable.
So I lean towards no, with the hope that the Feds create a dedicated white nationalism task force to pursue these people using existing laws.

[Montmorency]

https://i.imgur.com/w5uP3y3.png

Hey, if DC statehood gets us half the loaf...


Re: soldiers in the Capitol. [There are too many iconic photos to link here, I urge you all too peruse the link.]
https://twitter.com/igorbobic/status/1349386390291828744

https://i.imgur.com/OJd4khM.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/Lr836KA.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/A9pTd9Z.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/fDp5ma4.jpg



1. I've never seen this type of thing outside World War-vintage photos: prison camps and transport ships. They have tents and futons in Afghanistan surely, why not in Washington DC?

2. This was just 8-D chess to maneuver the country into Trump's herd immunity/coup strategy. Tomorrow, Pelosi is diagnosed with SARS-2, infected by House Republicans in the safe room. On January 28th she dies, the same day Joe Biden is announced to have contracted the disease as well, from one of the many troops defending his inauguration. On Valentine's Day Biden dies, as Trump's team knew he would following state-of-the-art genetic analysis performed on a hair obtained at the September debate. An hour later, Kamala Harris is assassinated by a loyalist SS, who surrenders immediately. While all this transpired, it was discovered that Dianne Feinstein had died of a fall, presumably attendant to the onset of senescence. The Republicans temporarily hold the majority in the Senate before a replacement for Feinstein arrives and quickly reinstate Chuck Grassley as President pro tempore. By the chain of presidential succession, Grassley is now President. He appoints Donald Trump as Vice President.

This was all planned. Trump now assembles whatever acting Cabinet members have been made available and declares Grassley unfit for office. Grassley does not demur; this was a good time for the elder statesman to retire anyway. The killer SS operative graciously receives the first pardon of the second Trump term.

Welcome to Keep America Great Again.



Well this is very on-brand (https://www.thedailybeast.com/after-all-that-donald-trump-told-aides-not-to-pay-rudy-giuliani-for-his-legal-services-wapo?via=twitter_page) for Trump.

I thought he was working pro bono.


Trump Financial Disclosure Values Rudy Giuliani’s Legal Services At… Zero
Aug 3, 2020 at 4:13 PM (https://abovethelaw.com/2020/08/trump-financial-disclosure-values-rudy-giulianis-legal-services-at-zero/)

Nevertheless, those sticklers at the Office of Government Ethics suggested that the hundreds of hours of legal services provided to the president gratis by America’s Looniest Mayor are worth something and must be declared as a gift on his financial disclosure. After all, Giuliani spent weeks gallivanting around Europe trying to prove that Joe Biden was corrupt. He pressured the Justice Department to open an investigation into allegations that Joe Biden stole $5.3 billion dollars from Ukraine, and he plastered the State Department with affidavits from Eastern European politicians who would testify to Biden’s perfidy if only they could get a visa to enter the United States. The president’s free lawyer was so successful that he managed to get his client impeached, which is no mean feat!

And yet, according to Donald Trump’s latest financial disclosure, the value of Rudy’s services is priceless, and thus doesn’t have to be disclosed.


Although we did not believe and do not believe that any pro bono publico counsel is reportable as a “gift,” at the request of OGE, we note that as has been widely reported in the media, Rudy Giuliani provided such pro bono publico counsel in 2018 and 2019. In any event, Mr. Giuliani is not able to estimate the value of that pro bono publico counsel; therefore, the value is unascertainable.


What do people here think about creating new anti-domestic terror laws to go after the white nationalists?

Do we even need them?

[Hooahguy]

Hey, if DC statehood gets us half the loaf...
Also important to point out that Puerto Rico is not necessarily a safe D seat. For example, the current non-voting representative (Jenniffer González) from PR to the House caucuses with the GOP. So it would be more politically advantageous for Dems to just pursue DC statehood and not PR statehood. Which of course is super hypocritical, but thats what the cold and calculating part of me would say.



Re: soldiers in the Capitol. [There are too many iconic photos to link here, I urge you all too peruse the link.]
https://twitter.com/igorbobic/status/1349386390291828744

1. I've never seen this type of thing outside World War-vintage photos: prison camps and transport ships. They have tents and futons in Afghanistan surely, why not in Washington DC?
I posted this earlier, but yeah its really something to see. As for why they arent on cots or proper bedding, I'm not really sure. In the twitter thread you posted one soldier said that a cot would scuff the floor but Im pretty sure that in the past the government got hotel rooms for the soldiers who came in to help with unrest. But with 20,000 soldiers coming in, I wonder if DC ran out of available hotel rooms lol.

Should also be mentioned that the last time troops were quartered in the Capitol was during the Civil War.


I thought he was working pro bono.
I've heard various things too, I just think the sentiment is funny regardless if he was pro bono or not.


Do we even need them?
Well thats the question. Something I do think is needed though is stronger laws against the right-wing militias which have festered over the past decade and desperately need a check on them. Though one of my favorite unnamed internet personalities would take issue with calling them militias. If you havent read this relatively short article (https://angrystaffofficer.com/2020/01/20/stop-calling-armed-mobs-the-militia/), I'd highly recommend it if you want to learn something about militias.

[drone]

My understanding is that all the soldiers racked out are still on duty (I think they said 12 hour shifts) and they are floor-crashing during their breaks. Off-duty, they have lodgings off the grounds.


On a side note, the FBI created (https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/capitol-riot-arrests-coffman-mostofsky/2021/01/12/634441e0-54f4-11eb-a08b-f1381ef3d207_story.html)a sedition and conspiracy task force to bring the hammer down on the capitol rioters. Sedition itself is up to a 20 year prison sentence. Definitely will be following this.
During the FBI press conference, one of the two (FBI or US attorney) speakers said the task force consisted of national security and public corruption personnel. The former is obvious, the latter more interesting. They will be going after the GOP pols that assisted or incited. :yes:

[spmetla]

"This area of the Capitol has been designated a rest area for National Guard members when they are on duty but between shifts," Maj. Renee Lee, a spokeswoman for the D.C. National Guard, tells U.S. News. "To be clear, this is not where they are lodging when off-duty."

https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2021-01-13/dc-guard-troops-sleeping-at-us-capitol-resting-not-lodged-there

Standing around in full kit outside can take a toll on anyone so having a rest area near by is important. This is all last minute and ad hoc so those large open areas likely make sense to be the best areas, a lot of the capitol will have sensitive areas where you wouldn't be able to have off duty Soldiers wandering around with rifles and cell phones so the large public access areas are likely the easiest from a sensitive info stand point. Not all Soldiers have Secret security clearance, very very few would have Top Secret.


Should also be mentioned that the last time troops were quartered in the Capitol was during the Civil War.
I was thinking that it's sadly appropriate to have troops back in the Capitol due to people with confederate sympathies.


Also important to point out that Puerto Rico is not necessarily a safe D seat. For example, the current non-voting representative (Jenniffer González) from PR to the House caucuses with the GOP. So it would be more politically advantageous for Dems to just pursue DC statehood and not PR statehood. Which of course is super hypocritical, but thats what the cold and calculating part of me would say.
Most latinos that I know are fairly conservative, they only seem to support Moderates and Democrats due to the underlying anti-immigrant anti-Hispanic polices of the GOP. If more of the GOP base accepted latinos and catholics they might start winning the popular vote again.

[Pannonian]

Something that's occurred to me since I've seen it suggested that impeachment will occupy parliamentary time that's needed for legislation. How much work does the Senate do in legislation? It was my understanding that it's mostly Congress that does the preparatory work. If so, then the impeachment process has gone over to the Senate, so Congress is now freed up for legislation, which is not affected by the continuing impeachment.

[Hooahguy]

Something that's occurred to me since I've seen it suggested that impeachment will occupy parliamentary time that's needed for legislation. How much work does the Senate do in legislation? It was my understanding that it's mostly Congress that does the preparatory work. If so, then the impeachment process has gone over to the Senate, so Congress is now freed up for legislation, which is not affected by the continuing impeachment.
So Congress is the broad term used for both the House and Senate. They both have equal say when it comes to legislation in the sense that if something passes one chamber, it must pass the other for it to be sent to the president to sign into law. Bills can be introduced either chamber as well. As it pertains to impeachment, nobody really knows how long it will take. Could be just a week, or even a month. I think it will be the first thing the Senate does starting on the 20th, but I did read that Biden is working with the Dems in the Senate to figure out how to do the trial as well as get to work on passing legislation at the same time so time isnt lost. Something else that needs to be done in the Senate is to confirm Biden's cabinet nominees which is really important too. So they got a lot on their plate starting on Jan. 20th.


Edit: a peek behind the curtain (https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/01/14/dc-police-capitol-riot/?arc404=true) from the police side of things during the riot. Its not the easiest article to read and I suspect more of such accounts will surface in the coming weeks.

Someone in the crowd grabbed Fanone’s helmet, pulled him to the ground and dragged him on his stomach down a set of steps. At around the same time, police said, the crowd pulled a second officer down the stairs. Police said that chaotic and violent scene was captured in a video that would later spread widely on the Internet.

Rioters swarmed, battering the officers with metal pipes peeled from scaffolding and a pole with an American flag attached, police said. Both were struck with stun guns. Fanone suffered a mild heart attack and drifted in and out of consciousness.

All the while, the mob was chanting “U.S.A.” over and over and over again.

Full article because I realize its behind a paywall:
Blinded by smoke and choking on gas and bear spray, stripped of his radio and badge, D.C. police officer Michael Fanone and his battered colleagues fought to push back rioters trying to force their way into an entrance to the U.S. Capitol.

The officers had been at it for hours, unaware that others in the mob had already breached the building through different entrances. For them, the West Terrace doors — which open into a tunnel-like hallway allowing access to an area under the Rotunda — represented the last stand before the Capitol fell.

“Dig in!” Fanone yelled, his voice cracking, as he and others were being struck with their own clubs and shields, ripped from their hands by rioters. “We got to get these doors shut.”

An officer since 9/11, the 40-year-old Fanone, who has four daughters, had been working a crime-suppression detail in another part of the District on Jan. 6. He and his partner sped to the Capitol when dispatchers broadcast an urgent citywide emergency call.

“They were overthrowing the Capitol, the seat of democracy, and I f---ing went,” Fanone said.

The officers at the West Terrace eventually pushed people away from the doors. It was only then that Fanone saw the immense, volatile crowd stretched out in front of him and realized what police were up against.

“We weren’t battling 50 or 60 rioters in this tunnel,” he said in the first public account from D.C. police officers who fought to protect the Capitol during last week’s siege. “We were battling 15,000 people. It looked like a medieval battle scene.”

Someone in the crowd grabbed Fanone’s helmet, pulled him to the ground and dragged him on his stomach down a set of steps. At around the same time, police said, the crowd pulled a second officer down the stairs. Police said that chaotic and violent scene was captured in a video that would later spread widely on the Internet.

Rioters swarmed, battering the officers with metal pipes peeled from scaffolding and a pole with an American flag attached, police said. Both were struck with stun guns. Fanone suffered a mild heart attack and drifted in and out of consciousness.

All the while, the mob was chanting “U.S.A.” over and over and over again.

“We got one! We got one!” Fanone said he heard rioters shout. “Kill him with his own gun!”

D.C. police had been worried for weeks about trouble on Jan. 6, when Congress would meet to tally the electoral votes and formalize President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. Supporters of President Trump who believe his false claims that he was the real winner called for a mass demonstration, with Trump tweeting, “Be there, will be wild!”

The 3,800-member D.C. police force, responsible for protecting city streets, not federal buildings, had all hands on deck that day and asked neighboring jurisdictions to line up help if needed. The mayor asked the D.C. National Guard to assist with traffic control, freeing officers for more-urgent duties.


But no such preparations were being made at the Capitol building, a prime target on social media postings calling for an armed insurrection. The Capitol has its own 2,100-member police force controlled by Congress. Its police chief at the time, Steven Sund, who resigned in the riot’s aftermath, said that he began to worry Jan. 4 and that his requests to enlist the Guard were repeatedly thwarted until the Capitol was already overrun.

Acting D.C. police chief Robert J. Contee III has said D.C. officers “saved democracy” by coming to the rescue of Capitol Police personnel overwhelmed by the crowd. Authorities said the attack resulted in the deaths of Capitol Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick, who had been confronting the mob, as well as four rioters, including a woman fatally shot by a Capitol officer.

This account is based on interviews with Contee, in the top job just four days before the riot, along with members of his command staff and officers on the front lines.

These police leaders talked of battles using metaphors typically reserved for wars, describing fighting on three fronts, including the West Terrace, one of the few places where police prevented rioters from breaking through. Had those rioters succeeded, authorities said, thousands more people could have poured into the Capitol, with possible catastrophic consequences.

Nearly 60 D.C. police officers and an unknown number of Capitol officers were hurt in the siege, with injuries that included bruised and sprained limbs, concussions and irritated lungs. Sicknick, who police said physically engaged rioters, died the next day. Authorities said he was injured, but they did not elaborate.

A time-lapsed security-camera video police played for The Washington Post shows the crowd building along First Street, near the Capitol Reflecting Pool, around 11:15 a.m. First, a couple hundred showed. Trump started his incendiary speech outside the White House shortly before noon.

Inside the Capitol, the House convened at noon and the Senate at 12:30 p.m. in preparation for the joint session, with some Republican lawmakers preparing to contest the count.

By then, thousands of Trump supporters were starting to stream toward the Capitol. The demonstrators were mostly White people, many wearing red Make America Great Again hats or other similar regalia, and some carrying Confederate battle flags.

They began encircling an expanse of grass protected only by some makeshift metal fences and bicycle racks — and only a few Capitol Police officers.

At 12:50 p.m., protesters jumped bike racks, the first of many breaches that day, and headed en masse toward the Capitol steps and the towering scaffolding prepared for the inaugural viewing stands and media tower.

Capitol Police called D.C. police for help around 1 p.m., and the first officers quickly arrived, dressed in bright yellow jackets. Within 15 minutes, they streamed down the Capitol steps toward the surging crowd, led by Robert Glover, the D.C. police on-scene commander who this week was promoted to the rank of commander.

He declared a riot at 1:50 p.m.

By then, congressional staffers were being told to rush to secure locations. Suspected pipe bombs had been found outside the grounds.

Glover, a 26-year veteran who headed the force’s Special Events Branch, overseeing security for presidential inaugurations and large-scale demonstrations, met with a Capitol Police supervisor to coordinate a response. Glover sent in two civil-disturbance units and kept a third on standby.

The front of the Capitol is divided into terraces linked by stairs, and Glover first positioned officers on the middle terrace. Cmdr. Ramey Kyle of the D.C. police was directing officers on a lower terrace. Capitol Police turned their focus inside the building, confronting protesters who had gotten inside and securing members of Congress and Vice President Pence, there in a ceremonial role overseeing the proceedings.

Rioters who had scaled the scaffolding were on an upper terrace pelting officers with debris from above. Others were hitting them from below, armed with metal poles ripped from scaffolding, wooden 2-by-4 boards, bats, sledgehammers, table legs and 50-pound fire extinguishers. The mob erected a barricade from the debris, using bleacher and scaffolding parts to block officers from moving along the upper terrace.

Police had exhausted their chemical munitions, which Glover said had done little to slow the attackers, and rioters inside maneuvered through the many passageways, only to suddenly appear in the middle of police lines, causing further havoc.

“As we’re pushing, literally foot by foot, we were taking law enforcement injuries, serious in nature,” Glover said.

Glover ordered officers to take back the inauguration bleachers first, the “high ground,” to stop attacks from above.

Help soon arrived. Police from Virginia — from Arlington and Fairfax counties, along with state troopers — and from Maryland, from Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, replaced hurt and tired D.C. officers on the front lines.

Pushing people down from the Capitol proved difficult. “We were literally taking 15 to 20 minutes to get each stair back,” Glover said.

Looking over the chaotic scene in front of him from the Capitol steps, Glover grew concerned as the battle raged. There were people caught up in the moment, he said, doing things they would not ordinarily do. But many appeared to be on a mission, and they launched what he and the police chief described as a coordinated assault.

“Everything they did was in a military fashion,” Glover said, saying he witnessed rioters apparently using hand signs and waving flags to signal positions, and using what he described as “military formations.” They took high positions and talked over wireless communications.

Authorities would later learn that some former members of the military and off-duty police officers from across the country were in the pro-Trump crowd. Glover called it disturbing that off-duty police “would knowingly and intentionally come to the United States Capitol and engage in this riotous and criminal behavior against their brothers and sisters in uniform, who are upholding their oaths of office.”

In all the commotion, Glover lost sight of Kyle.

Kyle has the rank of commander and works in the criminal investigation division, two things that on most occasions keep him out of immediate danger. He went to the Capitol to help process mass arrests and found himself battling.

At Glover’s direction, Kyle went to an area where the crowd at first did not seem overly hostile. That quickly changed. “I was fairly certain we were going to be overrun,” Kyle said. “I scouted out an area we could fall back to another fighting position.”

He ended up retreating through West Terrace doors.

It had been a public entryway before it was closed several years ago for security. The ground-floor entrance leads into a tunnel-shaped hallway that ends at a T-section. To the left are private offices for lawmakers. To the right is the basement on the House side.

Kyle got the officers inside and closed the doors. He thought they were safe, that the Capitol doors and windows were fortified to withstand blows and bullets. He found out quickly they were not. Thirty seconds later, people outside had already bashed them open and were headed inside. Officers raced forward to confront the mob in the vestibule.

The violent standoff would last hours.

Officers lined up six deep and five abreast. “We all just made a decision,” Kyle said. “We weren’t going to let these individuals in the building. No matter what.”

Rioters employed bear spray and other chemical irritants that blinded officers and threw smoke grenades that turned the tunnel pitch black. “If you didn’t have a gas mask,” Kyle said — and many officers didn’t — “it was almost impossible to breathe.”

The number of officers changed by the minute — anywhere between 30 and 60 — depending on injuries and how long it took to step aside, recover from the gas that seared their lungs, and get back into battle.

“We all believed we were fighting for our lives,” Kyle said. “We believed at the time that we were the only door in jeopardy of being breached.”

Rioters took shields and batons and used them against the officers. One person threw a ladder. Kyle wondered whether police could keep holding the door.

As rioters yelled “Heave ho” for one big push, he grabbed injured officers and told them: “I know you’re in pain. I know you’re fatigued. But you have to get up and get back in the fight.”

D.C. officer Daniel Hodges, assigned to a civil-disturbance unit, entered the Capitol grounds with the riot well underway. He was quickly separated from colleagues, and someone in the mob grabbed his radio.

The 32-year-old waded through the hostile crowd, only to be knocked down. Someone tried to gouge his eyes and others piled on top of him before a fellow officer wrested him free. He reached the Capitol and got inside. With no assignment and no way to find his supervisor, he went “looking for work.”

He found it at the West Terrace doors.

He had a gas mask and put it on, then worked his way to the front of the police line. He tried to hold the rioters back “as best I could,” he said.

Shortly after 3 p.m., Hodges got caught between the interior glass doors, sandwiched by rioters pushing forward and by police behind him pushing the other way. His arms were trapped, then his head, on the rioter’s side.

“I really couldn’t defend myself at that point,” he said.

A rioter grabbed his gas mask from the bottom and shoved upward, tearing it off his helmet. Another took his baton “and started beating me in the head with it.” He took face-fulls of bear spray with no way to shield himself, and a video captured his agonizing groans and twisted face as the assault continued before he was finally freed and pulled back.

“The zealotry of these people is absolutely unreal,” said Hodges, who suffered from a severe headache but otherwise emerged unhurt. “There were points where I thought it was possible I could either die or become seriously disfigured.”

Still, Hodges said, he did not want to turn to his gun.

“I didn’t want to be the guy who starts shooting, because I knew they had guns — we had been seizing guns all day,” he said. “And the only reason I could think of that they weren’t shooting us was they were waiting for us to shoot first. And if it became a firefight between a couple hundred officers and a couple thousand demonstrators, we would have lost.”

Fanone and his partner, Jimmy Albright, entered the Capitol through a door on the east side and rushed through the building. They ended up at the West Terrace, where they saw the backs of officers pressing against the mob.

Another officer, dressed in a white uniform worn by upper-level supervisors, an eight-point hat and a trench coat, was doubled over in a hallway, hacking from the bear and pepper spray. Fanone recognized him as Kyle, whom he first met 20 years ago when both were on the Capitol Police force.

Still coughing, Kyle stood and turned toward the officers holding the tunnel: “We got to hold this door.”

Fanone made his way to the front of the line, relieving officers who by then could stay upright only by leaning on someone else.

“It was body against body, just crushing, like a barbaric scene,” Fanone recalled.

He yelled for officers who needed a break. “Nobody was volunteering,” Fanone said, adding that they all pointed at others and said, “This guy needs help.”

Fanone and Albright had started their Wednesday tour as usual at 7:30 a.m. Assigned to a crime-suppression unit in the 1st District, which includes Capitol Hill, they usually patrol in plain clothes. But to increase visibility on a day fraught with tension, they had been ordered to wear their uniforms. Now they were in the thick of things.

Injured officers were passed back through the line, one bleeding from the mouth and nose.

As people in the mob dragged Fanone down the steps, he said he feared he would be stripped and dragged through the Capitol.

“I was being beat from every angle,” he said. “I thought, maybe, I could appeal to somebody’s humanity.”

With other officers swinging clubs, Albright pulled Fanone back inside.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Bills can be introduced either chamber as well.

Point of order. Bills that raise new revenue can only be introduced in the House.

[a completely inoffensive name]

This is a separate tangent but this thread is basically a catch all US politics thread.

A direct message to Monty: Please vote for Yang as your mayor or I will hereby boycott your city and starve it of my tourism dollars. And believe me, I love buying dumb tourist stuff like snowglobes and mini-statues of famous buildings.


A top priority will include building Bus Rapid Transit throughout the City. Every New Yorker in every neighborhood should expect affordable and fast transit. The 14th Street Busway is a great example of what we can accomplish. And within ten years, we will electrify our entire bus fleet.

Last time I was in NY, I rode in a cab with a driver smoking a cigar with the windows rolled up and the fan in the backseat was broken. Never again. Roads should be for buses and bikes only.

If you get Yang in the office, I promise within the year you will find me walking around Moynihan Station in a I love NYC t-shirt taking pictures of the pretty ceiling which I will never look at ever again.

[a completely inoffensive name]

As for the discussion on why they are anti-liberal I'd say it anger toward general social changes. The topics of gender fluidity and such are definitely opposed, especially when they see what's perceived as social engineering agendas to change the demographics of the military to be more inclusive (talking gender, trans-gender inclusion not race). The military also has a lot of gun lovers in general which means most are gun owners and very strong 2nd amendment types so they see the left as trying to curtail that.

I think liberal to a lot of conservatives means any of the following topics: trans-gender/gender fluidity acceptance, anti-2nd amendment, teaching history of US as guilt with emphasis on white-male-christian guilt, reparations and social engineering to correct said guilt, socialism/communism despite no real understanding of what that is, and anti-christian somehow. That's including single issue people like the 'pro-life' crowd. In general I'd call the conservative movement of today more of a social-reactionary movement as it's really just opposition to times changing faster than they can accept them. Change for many people is difficult to accept and fear of change is definitely easy to exploit.

Since 1877 unrest in the US has been almost entirely driven by race and primarily the efforts of southern conservatives to maintain white political hegemony.

As I have said in here before, many Trump supporters are supporters not because of inherent evilness but because they are manipulated by a sophisticated machine that runs back to Reconstruction.
But there is a core group that still holds onto a culture that Sherman and Grant couldn't stamp out. Once they were back in political power, they acted within to exclude for as long as possible and were pretty successful.

Also as I have said before, the status quo is a house of cards as demographics since 1877 have turned majoritarian structures against them. The only way out as the minority is to remake American democracy as minoritarian, hence the Red State redistricting project, the self-sabotage of red state industry [1] that drives young and liberal minded people to congregate in a small number of states, off-year elections, voter suppression, blocking court nominations, poor education, etc.

[1] It's not really all that surprising why Georgia just elected two Dem Senators when NC hasn't elected a single Dem statewide since Obama 2008. We should had been paying more attention when Georgia's cultivated a film industry in 2008 that surpassed California's in 2016. Ben Shapiro licking his lips seeing Big Tech move from CA to TX and FL, I'm not sure he understands that states are not liberal/conservative in and of themselves. When the Senior Programmer at Oracle gets on the plane to move from San Fran to Austin, Texas is shaping his opinions to the same degree that he will be shaping Texas politics.

[Idaho]

The anti trump bias of the US deep state is undeniable. All those on the right were funded by the US government, and all those on the left had to buy their own guns :book2:
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[Hooahguy]

[1] It's not really all that surprising why Georgia just elected two Dem Senators when NC hasn't elected a single Dem statewide since Obama 2008. We should had been paying more attention when Georgia's cultivated a film industry in 2008 that surpassed California's in 2016. Ben Shapiro licking his lips seeing Big Tech move from CA to TX and FL, I'm not sure he understands that states are not liberal/conservative in and of themselves. When the Senior Programmer at Oracle gets on the plane to move from San Fran to Austin, Texas is shaping his opinions to the same degree that he will be shaping Texas politics.
Quick point about NC, Roy Cooper won his re-election for governor back in November which honestly makes me wonder why Cal Cunningham didnt beat Thom Tillis. Probably due to not being able to keep it in his pants unfortunately. :no:

Agreed about states not being inherently liberal/conservative. Yes, some areas of California are super liberal, but then its also the state that gave us Devin Nunes. What I find interesting though is that I heard a lot of commentators before the election saying that Texas might go Dem this year while mostly ignoring Georgia, but now I am of the opinion that Georgia can be a solid purple state while Texas will likely remain red for a while.

Also as long as anyone doesnt object, I will rename this thread to be a generalized election thread dealing with anything pertaining to the 2020 election through the 2022 midterms and I will open a separate thread for the Biden administration on Jan 20th.

[ReluctantSamurai]

The Plot thickens:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/15/trump-republicans-election-defeat-club-for-growth


An anti-tax group funded primarily by billionaires has emerged as one of the biggest backers of the Republican lawmakers who sought to overturn the US election results, according to an analysis by the Guardian.

The Club for Growth has supported the campaigns of 42 of the rightwing Republicans senators and members of Congress who voted last week to challenge US election results, doling out an estimated $20m to directly (https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/recips.php?cmte=Club+for+Growth&cycle=2020) and indirectly support their campaigns in 2018 (https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/contrib.php?cycle=2018&cmte=Club%20for%20Growth) and 2020 (https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/contrib.php?cmte=Club+for+Growth&cycle=2020), according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

The Club for Growth’s biggest beneficiaries include Josh Hawley (https://www.clubforgrowth.org/scorecards/legislator/H001089/Josh-Hawley/) and Ted Cruz (https://www.clubforgrowth.org/club-for-growth-pac-endorses-ted-cruz-for-u-s-senate/), the two Republican senators who led the effort to invalidate Joe Biden’s electoral victory, and the newly elected far-right gun-rights activist Lauren Boebert (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/05/republican-lauren-boebert-gun-congress-washington), a QAnon conspiracy theorist. Boebert was criticised last week for tweeting about the House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s location during the attack on the Capitol, even after lawmakers were told not to do so by police.

[Hooahguy]

FBI is investigating (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/15/us/politics/fbi-investigation-sicknick.html)37 people for the murder of USCP officer Brian Sicknick. Also this is a fun little website: seditiontracker.com (https://seditiontracker.com/)

So this poll (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/01/15/new-poll-trump-gop-approval-authoritarian/) is extremely troubling. The authoritarian streak within the GOP is very real.

By 66 percent to 30 percent, overall Americans say Trump acted irresponsibly in his statements and actions since the election. But Republicans say Trump acted responsibly by 66 percent to 29 percent.By 62 percent to 31 percent, Americans say there’s no solid evidence of the claims of voter fraud that Trump cited to refuse to accept Joe Biden’s victory. But Republicans say there is solid evidence of fraud by 65 percent to 25 percent.

57 percent of Americans say Trump bears a great deal or good amount of responsibility for the assault on the Capitol. But 56 percent of Republicans say Trump bears no responsibility at all, and another 22 percent say he bears just some, totaling 78 percent who largely exonerate him.

52 percent of Americans say Republican leaders went too far in supporting Trump’s efforts to overturn the election. But 51 percent of Republicans say GOP leaders didn’t go far enough, while 27 percent say they got it right, a total of 78 percent who are fully on board or wanted more. Only 16 percent of Republicans say they went too far.
A sizable number of the Republicans who support the rioters also appear to be relatively affluent, so much for that "economic anxiety" excuse.

[a completely inoffensive name]

So this poll (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/01/15/new-poll-trump-gop-approval-authoritarian/) is extremely troubling. The authoritarian streak within the GOP is very real.

A sizable number of the Republicans who support the rioters also appear to be relatively affluent, so much for that "economic anxiety" excuse.

That poll is amazing. Sounds like roughly 25% of Republican voters found a line they were not willing to cross with Trump.
When a 5 point lead is considered a blow out, depressing the enthusiasm of a full quarter of your base sets you up for disaster.

[Hooahguy]

That poll is amazing. Sounds like roughly 25% of Republican voters found a line they were not willing to cross with Trump.
When a 5 point lead is considered a blow out, depressing the enthusiasm of a full quarter of your base sets you up for disaster.
Well the question really is whether or not those 25% will come back if Trump is not convicted in the Senate and decides to run in 2024. Or what effect this has down-ballot. We know that Trump can depress turnout, but will him not being on the ballot impact races for 2022 and 2024? We will find out I guess.

I saw a long line of military trucks when walking to the store this evening which was oddly comforting and terrifying at the same time. In a similar vein, enjoy this biting satire: Critics warn National Guard lacks exit strategy for presidential inauguration. (https://www.duffelblog.com/p/critics-warn-national-guard-lacks)

[Montmorency]

Hmmm, according to the Senate Historical Office troops have been deployed in the Capitol before in 1968 and during WW2.

Re: militias: Meh, we call them militias when they're in Syria or Iraq, though in Iraq and Syria most of the extant ones have some type of state sanction by now, and are perhaps better organized than what we have here. Maybe we can call ours rebel militias, or something like a revised English calque for Freikorps ("free corps" won't do).



This is a separate tangent but this thread is basically a catch all US politics thread.

A direct message to Monty: Please vote for Yang as your mayor or I will hereby boycott your city and starve it of my tourism dollars. And believe me, I love buying dumb tourist stuff like snowglobes and mini-statues of famous buildings.

Last time I was in NY, I rode in a cab with a driver smoking a cigar with the windows rolled up and the fan in the backseat was broken. Never again. Roads should be for buses and bikes only.

I'll vote for him in the primary if he makes a good case for himself against the other contenders. Thankfully, AFAIK this is the very first NYC primary with ranked choice voting, so I don't have to be tactical and can make an unvarnished assessment. The same applies to the rest of the electorate, making this a good comprehensive test of Yang's political career.

I don't care for him pushing basic income on NYC certainly, as it's a strictly-federal issue. What NYC needs, among other things, is someone who can manage and transcend all its competing factions and interests toward the greater good, someone who can skillfully interface with Albany to our advantage, someone who can keep city government and local politics functioning on a day-to-day basis, and someone who can direct foresighted long-term investments in the business, regulatory, and infrastructure landscape of the city. It's up to him to demonstrate how in-touch he is.


If you get Yang in the office, I promise within the year you will find me walking around Moynihan Station in a I love NYC t-shirt taking pictures of the pretty ceiling which I will never look at ever again.

I mean, it's a commuter rail station, why would you be there?


As I have said in here before, many Trump supporters are supporters not because of inherent evilness but because they are manipulated by a sophisticated machine that runs back to Reconstruction.

Why are they and only they so easily manipulated into expressing and supporting malice and cruelty? Indoctrination is not infinitely-extensible, else Russia and China should have the most left-leaning populations in the world.


It's not really all that surprising why Georgia just elected two Dem Senators when NC hasn't elected a single Dem statewide since Obama 2008

To be pedantic, the governor is a Democrat.


Agreed about states not being inherently liberal/conservative. Yes, some areas of California are super liberal, but then its also the state that gave us Devin Nunes. What I find interesting though is that I heard a lot of commentators before the election saying that Texas might go Dem this year while mostly ignoring Georgia, but now I am of the opinion that Georgia can be a solid purple state while Texas will likely remain red for a while.

Also as long as anyone doesnt object, I will rename this thread to be a generalized election thread dealing with anything pertaining to the 2020 election through the 2022 midterms and I will open a separate thread for the Biden administration on Jan 20th.

To be clear, for Texas to go blue, it was predicted that Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina would all have to go blue by even higher margins. For my part IIRC I placed Georgia in a trifecta with NC-FL, of which "at least two" should go for Biden. (Assuming a purely linear trend from 21st century margins, Texas should definitively go blue in 2028, but of course various factors will push that one direction or another.)

I'd prefer we make a different thread for the midterms when it comes to that, or just keep it in the Biden thread, which I estimate will prove uneventful enough to fill but a few pages.


A sizable number of the Republicans who support the rioters also appear to be relatively affluent, so much for that "economic anxiety" excuse.

https://whitonjacob.medium.com/where-sedition-is-rewarded-2a50ccc70fd

[ReluctantSamurai]

One reason why the next four years are going to be long and full of this kind of horse-bleep:

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/534178-marjorie-taylor-greene-says-she-will-introduce-impeachment-articles-against

Georgia might have given the Dems control of the Senate for the next two years, but they also gave us this twit....:inquisitive:

[Seamus Fermanagh]

One reason why the next four years are going to be long and full of this kind of horse-bleep:

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/534178-marjorie-taylor-greene-says-she-will-introduce-impeachment-articles-against

Georgia might have given the Dems control of the Senate for the next two years, but they also gave us this twit....:inquisitive:

I read that one earlier today. Just shook my head.

I think Pelosi should allow its immediate introduction to the entire House, skip the committee pigeon-holing, and then call for a vote on the thing immediately, after allowing the introducer to debate its merits.

On second thought, the introducer AND any supporters should be granted 10-15 minutes to speak. Lets get all of them in the Congressional Record so that this is clearly set out.


Of course, my attitude may reflect my love of alternate history novels and other similar fantasies...

[Hooahguy]

Hmmm, according to the Senate Historical Office troops have been deployed in the Capitol before in 1968 and during WW2. I think people were referring to troops being billeted in the Capitol, not just deployed. Which as it turns out isn't the case anyways since the guardsmen aren't sleeping there overnight, just taking naps.


To be clear, for Texas to go blue, it was predicted that Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina would all have to go blue by even higher margins. For my part IIRC I placed Georgia in a trifecta with NC-FL, of which "at least two" should go for Biden. (Assuming a purely linear trend from 21st century margins, Texas should definitively go blue in 2028, but of course various factors will push that one direction or another.)

I'd prefer we make a different thread for the midterms when it comes to that, or just keep it in the Biden thread, which I estimate will prove uneventful enough to fill but a few pages.
Was that the analysis? Honestly the pre-November stuff feels like eons ago and I hardly remember anymore. What I do think is that it will all depend on whether or not the GOP can do more to court the Hispanic vote. They clearly had great success in November in this regard and Dems will need to figure out how to counter it. I do feel however that Florida is solid R now. Really hard to see any Dem making headway there anymore.

And yeah that seems like a plan for the various threads.


I read that one earlier today. Just shook my head.

I think Pelosi should allow its immediate introduction to the entire House, skip the committee pigeon-holing, and then call for a vote on the thing immediately, after allowing the introducer to debate its merits.

On second thought, the introducer AND any supporters should be granted 10-15 minutes to speak. Lets get all of them in the Congressional Record so that this is clearly set out.

Of course, my attitude may reflect my love of alternate history novels and other similar fantasies...
Strongly disagree, we should not entertain moronic stunts like this on the House floor. There's better use for the time.

A day or two ago, DC's mayor said that we could be looking at a "new normal" for security even after the inauguration. This morning I took a walk around the outer security perimeter which is less than a 10 minute walk from where I live. It is definitely very strange to see military checkpoints so close to me.
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There was a much larger checkpoint a block over with a small squad of soldiers patrolling that I decided against taking a picture of as I didn't feel like getting interrogated this morning.

I feel like there wont be any large assaults like we saw on Jan. 6 in the near future thankfully, but there are definitely threats- CNN reported (https://twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/1350517778407706628)that a man was arrested near Union Station yesterday evening with a gun & a lot of ammunition.

I'm starting to get the feeling that this will be our "new normal." Not so much the checkpoints around the city, but that we will see a surge of lone wolf/small cell attacks as the most fervent Trump supporters try to exact revenge or something like that. I saw an article (https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/534347-belfasts-troubles-echo-in-todays-washington) talk about how this might become an American version of The Troubles and now I feel like we aren't far off from that. The article makes the distressing point that when The Troubles first started people thought it wouldn't last very long, but it ended up lasting decades. I hope it doesn't come to that here.

[Pannonian]

'I’m facing a prison sentence': US Capitol rioters plead with Trump for pardons (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/16/us-capitol-rioters-donald-trump-pardons)

Is this legal?

[Hooahguy]

'I’m facing a prison sentence': US Capitol rioters plead with Trump for pardons (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/16/us-capitol-rioters-donald-trump-pardons)

Is this legal?
It is, but it also puts Trump in a legal bind because if he pardons them he could potentially open himself up for civil lawsuits as the people asking for pardons are doing so because they claim they went there at his request. So its essentially an admission of guilt which would then mean that the families of the people who died or were injured could sue him for damages. At least thats my understanding, Im sure someone else has a better grasp on these legal issues than I do.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

It is, but it also puts Trump in a legal bind because if he pardons them he could potentially open himself up for civil lawsuits as the people asking for pardons are doing so because they claim they went there at his request. So its essentially an admission of guilt which would then mean that the families of the people who died or were injured could sue him for damages. At least thats my understanding, Im sure someone else has a better grasp on these legal issues than I do.

I suspect that parties can claim wrongful death at Trump's expense because of his incitement of the mob in civil court regardless of whether or not he issues pardons for the federal crimes involved. It remains to be seen if a jury would award for the plaintiff's or view Trump's efforts as too indirect. DC wrongful death (https://statelaws.findlaw.com/dc-law/district-of-columbia-wrongful-death-laws.html)

I still think he will attempt to self-pardon, inclusive of incitement to riot on the 6th. I hope it would not stand up.

He is a loathsome creature and reminds me more and more of Gollum without the deeply hidden streak of almost forgotten goodness.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Well the question really is whether or not those 25% will come back if Trump is not convicted in the Senate and decides to run in 2024. Or what effect this has down-ballot. We know that Trump can depress turnout, but will him not being on the ballot impact races for 2022 and 2024? We will find out I guess.

Well there is a non-zero chance those 25% are now receptive to a 21st century 'Return to Normalcy'. Harding did get 60% popular vote on the message.



I'll vote for him in the primary if he makes a good case for himself against the other contenders. Thankfully, AFAIK this is the very first NYC primary with ranked choice voting, so I don't have to be tactical and can make an unvarnished assessment. The same applies to the rest of the electorate, making this a good comprehensive test of Yang's political career.

I don't care for him pushing basic income on NYC certainly, as it's a strictly-federal issue. What NYC needs, among other things, is someone who can manage and transcend all its competing factions and interests toward the greater good, someone who can skillfully interface with Albany to our advantage, someone who can keep city government and local politics functioning on a day-to-day basis, and someone who can direct foresighted long-term investments in the business, regulatory, and infrastructure landscape of the city. It's up to him to demonstrate how in-touch he is.

His twitter has videos of him buying bananas at bodegas talking about there being 18,000 of them in NYC and they need help. Is some company killing NYC's bodegas? Also, why do you call them bodegas, they just look like tiny grocery stores.
As far the logistical management, the dude is the wonkish policy man ever to hit mainstream politics. I would think he is the best case for level-headed long term reforms, what makes you think any of the other candidates would not be bogged down by personal politics over real data?

Small tid bit about basic income, New York is leading as the state with the highest population decline correct? You tell me how much of a grind it is to afford to live in your area and how much would an NYC residential BI would help to keep artistic/cultural talent (vast majority barely scrapping by) in the city. At the very least, such a BI experiment on one of the worlds largest cities would put an end to the 'feasibility' question and we can move on knowing whether to spend on time on it or not.




I mean, it's a commuter rail station, why would you be there?
That's the one recently renovated right? I like trains and architecture, particularly styles from the late 1800s to pre-WW2.




Why are they and only they so easily manipulated into expressing and supporting malice and cruelty? Indoctrination is not infinitely-extensible, else Russia and China should have the most left-leaning populations in the world.
Isn't CPRF still the second largest party in Russia, and what can we say about their potential once Putin is out of the picture and no longer suppressing opponents?
What's your understanding of the Chinese culture? Don't they for the most part still have large support for the government that mismanaged and starved their grandparents and parents for 5 decades? Post 1980s China has been an economic miracle, but China isn't the only example of such rapid growth from market reforms after years of economic isolationism. The assumption was always "the new Chinese middle class will demand democracy" and it just didn't pan out.




To be pedantic, the governor is a Democrat.
The exception that proves the rule.




To be clear, for Texas to go blue, it was predicted that Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina would all have to go blue by even higher margins. For my part IIRC I placed Georgia in a trifecta with NC-FL, of which "at least two" should go for Biden. (Assuming a purely linear trend from 21st century margins, Texas should definitively go blue in 2028, but of course various factors will push that one direction or another.)

That prediction is now understood to be garbage though. The assumption of the Southern domino theory was Florida > North Carolina > Georgia > Texas, but as it turns out the demographic compositions are just too different to link them in such a manner. Florida may as well be Ruby Red if Cuban Americans align with the GOP to same degree in the future and Texas could go blue next cycle before NC if the 'Tejanos' (I think that is the term from an article I read) return back to the normal level of Dem support of earlier cycles.

[Hooahguy]

His twitter has videos of him buying bananas at bodegas talking about there being 18,000 of them in NYC and they need help. Is some company killing NYC's bodegas? Also, why do you call them bodegas, they just look like tiny grocery stores.
I heard one cynical New Yorker say that those videos are just a way to reinforce his New Yorker credentials. I'll let the actual New Yorkers here weigh in on that claim. As for the bodega thing, I don't know either. Bodegas aren't an exclusively NYC thing and both of the bodegas near me have been flourishing this past year by all appearances. I will say though that Im a bit confused by his UBI plan. If the cost of living in NYC is similar to DC, $2,000 really is not all that much.


That prediction is now understood to be garbage though. The assumption of the Southern domino theory was Florida > North Carolina > Georgia > Texas, but as it turns out the demographic compositions are just too different to link them in such a manner. Florida may as well be Ruby Red if Cuban Americans align with the GOP to same degree in the future and Texas could go blue next cycle before NC if the 'Tejanos' (I think that is the term from an article I read) return back to the normal level of Dem support of earlier cycles.
I think one of the biggest takeaways from 2020 for Dems is to not paint the Hispanic population with such a broad brush, and realize that immigration isnt the highest priority for a lot of these communities.

[ReluctantSamurai]

a man was arrested near Union Station yesterday evening with a gun & a lot of ammunition.

Unfortunately, not all the lone wolf's will be as stupid as this guy:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/16/washington-man-arrest-fake-inaugural-id-loaded-gun


The man, identified in court papers as Wesley Allen Beeler, was driving a pickup truck with several firearm-related bumper stickers, including one that read: “If they come for your guns Give ‘Em your bullets first,” the papers said.

So you try to pass a police checkpoint with a loaded handgun, 500 rounds of ammunition, AND a bumper sticker that reads “If they come for your guns Give ‘Em your bullets first.”

~:joker:

[a completely inoffensive name]

I heard one cynical New Yorker say that those videos are just a way to reinforce his New Yorker credentials. I'll let the actual New Yorkers here weigh in on that claim. As for the bodega thing, I don't know either. Bodegas aren't an exclusively NYC thing and both of the bodegas near me have been flourishing this past year by all appearances. I will say though that Im a bit confused by his UBI plan. If the cost of living in NYC is similar to DC, $2,000 really is not all that much.
$2000 a month doesn't cover the rent in DC?



I think one of the biggest takeaways from 2020 for Dems is to not paint the Hispanic population with such a broad brush, and realize that immigration isnt the highest priority for a lot of these communities.

I don't think Dems have a viable plan to win back Cuban-Americans if they plan on pushing progressive ideas. Learn what the various Hispanic demographics want but with that understanding comes an acceptance that some are not just not amenable to the party's goals. North Carolina is odd as I haven't seen anyone suggest a potential path forward there. Articles continue to claim that with African-Americans only making 20-25% of the population it is not enough for Georgia type turnout to win the day and the state is also just more rural than the others mentioned.

[Hooahguy]

$2000 a month doesn't cover the rent in DC?
I'd wager for most it does, for a month anyways. But I just feel that considering the really high cost of living in NYC that $2,000 a year is on the low side. I'm not particularly well-versed in UBI issues but it seems like the money might be better used going towards other social programs like SNAP or rent relief, or done in a different way that gives out the money on a monthly basis. $2,000 a year turns into a bit over $166 a month which doesnt really go very far per month. I know that Stockton CA is trying out $500 per month ($6,000/year) which would seem to be much more helpful. If you know you have an extra $500 coming every month, I think that makes it far easier to budget with compared to a single payment of $2,000. Like sure that might pay all the bills for a single month, but would participants also have access to free resources like financial planners to use that windfall to help them become more financially secure? I dont have the answers to this, but I hope Yang can address them.


I don't think Dems have a viable plan to win back Cuban-Americans if they plan on pushing progressive ideas. Learn what the various Hispanic demographics want but with that understanding comes an acceptance that some are not just not amenable to the party's goals. North Carolina is odd as I haven't seen anyone suggest a potential path forward there. Articles continue to claim that with African-Americans only making 20-25% of the population it is not enough for Georgia type turnout to win the day and the state is also just more rural than the others mentioned.
I completely agree, thats why I think Florida is a lost cause. Potentially NC as well, I am still mystified that Roy Cooper got re-elected but otherwise it appears to be trending red. Like what about him makes him more electable in NC?

[a completely inoffensive name]

I'd wager for most it does, for a month anyways. But I just feel that considering the really high cost of living in NYC that $2,000 a year is on the low side. I'm not particularly well-versed in UBI issues but it seems like the money might be better used going towards other social programs like SNAP or rent relief, or done in a different way that gives out the money on a monthly basis. $2,000 a year turns into a bit over $166 a month which doesnt really go very far per month. I know that Stockton CA is trying out $500 per month which would seem to be much more helpful. If you know you have an extra $500 coming every month, I think that makes it far easier to budget with compared to a single payment of $2,000. Like sure that might pay all the bills for a single month, but would participants also have access to free resources like financial planners to use that windfall to help them become more financially secure? I dont have the answers to this, but I hope Yang can address them.

Oh, I thought it was 2k a month, not a year. Yeah not sure if that is big enough to help. Agreed, need to bump it up to at least 500 a month. Although Monty has papers on how effective the one time 1200 payment was (i.e. it was pretty effective) so maybe 2000 is still a good stimulus.

I mean, putting ourselves in the position of someone under the poverty line, it seems privileged to write off $166 a month. That still covers a good chunk of car insurance, or it could cover a family cell phone plan + internet.
$166 a month can go towards eating higher quality food and eating more of it, possibly cutting down NYC child hunger and malnutrition.

[Hooahguy]

I definitely agree that $166 isn't nothing, but if the goal is to lift people out of poverty (per Yang's website), I just dont think it goes far enough to achieve that goal. To his credit, his website says that with more public and private funding the payments can increase, but if thats the case, why not start with a smaller group and expand if it proves successful? His plan says he wants to include 500,000 in his program. So to me it would make far more sense to start with a smaller group, show everyone that it works, and build it up to include more people. I would be worried that starting with only $2,000 a year is setting itself up for less than ideal outcomes.

[Montmorency]

His twitter has videos of him buying bananas at bodegas talking about there being 18,000 of them in NYC and they need help. Is some company killing NYC's bodegas? Also, why do you call them bodegas, they just look like tiny grocery stores.

Because they're bodacious. Probably the general small business issues, loss of revenue and the like.


As far the logistical management, the dude is the wonkish policy man ever to hit mainstream politics.

1. That's his persona
2. The most taped-glasses data bro alone would get blown out of the water trying to meet the criteria I listed above

Clinton and Obama were at least as wonkish, by the by. Warren way more so.


Small tid bit about basic income, New York is leading as the state with the highest population decline correct? You tell me how much of a grind it is to afford to live in your area and how much would an NYC residential BI would help to keep artistic/cultural talent (vast majority barely scrapping by) in the city. At the very least, such a BI experiment on one of the worlds largest cities would put an end to the 'feasibility' question and we can move on knowing whether to spend on time on it or not.

I'd rather we spend the money making NYCHA livable. That way, if Biden makes Section 8 an entitlement, we have an experiment between public housing and rental subsidy. A few hundred a month in a tenant's pocket, for example, won't do anything towards getting the heating, plumbing, and electricity working in a de-roached, de-leaded building (estimated tens of billions in deferred upkeep).

Has Yang defined what the target for a "successful" pilot UBI in the city would be?


That's the one recently renovated right? I like trains and architecture, particularly styles from the late 1800s to pre-WW2.

It used to be a post office.


Isn't CPRF still the second largest party in Russia, and what can we say about their potential once Putin is out of the picture and no longer suppressing opponents?

According to Wiki, they hold <10% of seats in parliament, 3 more than the main liberal party LDPR. The German socialists and communists (Die Linke) have just as much representation in Germany (69/709)...

So in fact your relative statement on their being the second-largest party should be set in context of the second clause about Putinism (leaving aside that any successor to Putin would probably be similarly-authoritarian to hold the country together, unless positing a legendary Russian Spring).



What's your understanding of the Chinese culture? Don't they for the most part still have large support for the government that mismanaged and starved their grandparents and parents for 5 decades? Post 1980s China has been an economic miracle, but China isn't the only example of such rapid growth from market reforms after years of economic isolationism. The assumption was always "the new Chinese middle class will demand democracy" and it just didn't pan out.

Not very much. There's a long-standing aphorism that Mao was 60% right, 40% wrong. I think the Chinese government has done a very good job of convincing the Chinese public of its legitimacy, and the satellite republics provinces are too small and repressed to offer contradiction. Despite its market economy China is way more centralized than the Soviet Union was. Moreover, littoral and riparian China has for almost all the history of civilization been the world center of population and economic density, which Russia has never been. I do, however, think an autocratic China is likelier to fuck things up for itself.


The exception that proves the rule.

Democrats have been governors of North Carolina for 6/7, 8/11, and 30/35 (post-Reconstruction) of the past terms. It went for Obama in 2008, on top of electing its last Dem senator then. I have it on good authority that North Carolina is steadily developing along the same axis of urbanization and professionalization as Virginia did over the past generation.


That prediction is now understood to be garbage though. The assumption of the Southern domino theory was Florida > North Carolina > Georgia > Texas, but as it turns out the demographic compositions are just too different to link them in such a manner. Florida may as well be Ruby Red if Cuban Americans align with the GOP to same degree in the future and Texas could go blue next cycle before NC if the 'Tejanos' (I think that is the term from an article I read) return back to the normal level of Dem support of earlier cycles.

The common sense in the coastal South was Florida > NC > Georgia > SC. Maybe there's an analysis up. I would look for Catalist Consulting or MCI Maps, not sure if they have a product out.

Losses among Tejanos were concentrated in low-population counties along the Rio Grande Valley, the main factors of which may include the extractive economy of the area, the Trump campaign word-of-mouth outreach in social networks, and Trump's personal appeal. Glancing at Election Atlas, I think Biden did about as well as Gore in the RGV.

For interest, here are Georgia and Texas Dem margins from 2000.




Year
Georgia Dem Margin (%)
Texas Dem Margin (%)


2000
-11.7
-21.3


2004
-16.6
-22.9


2008
-5.2
-11.8


2012
-7.8
-15.8


2016
-5.1
-9


2020
+0.2
-5.6





It's not clear that Florida loss (mostly due to dramatic underperformance in Miami-Dade) had to do with Cubans in particular, unless you have granular evidence. What we do know (https://twitter.com/mcimaps/status/1329459716171440129) is that Biden increased in the north, around Jacksonville and Tallahassee and the panhandle, whereas he decreased throughout the South, particularly in the large Broward and Palm Beach counties, representing a net loss of 200K votes against the margin compared to 2016. Broward and Palm Beach have very small Cuban populations, so there's likely something else going on. The county trends outside Miami are actually almost all continuing from 2016 and 2018 (https://mcimaps.com/what-went-wrong-in-miami-dade-county-in-2018/), so it seems as though we've lost some votes in Florida, not just on net, and in a broad-based way. On the bright side, in the Bush era Miami was actually a swing city, so it may be reverting to the mean; we'll have to watch the midterms to make a good judgement of where it's headed. But further evidence appears in the - previously mentioned - decline in Florida registered partisan advantage for Dems, from >0.5 million in the Obama era to ~100K now.


Although Monty has papers on how effective the one time 1200 payment was (i.e. it was pretty effective) so maybe 2000 is still a good stimulus.

IIRC that was more the boosted UI.

[a completely inoffensive name]

I definitely agree that $166 isn't nothing, but if the goal is to lift people out of poverty (per Yang's website), I just dont think it goes far enough to achieve that goal. To his credit, his website says that with more public and private funding the payments can increase, but if thats the case, why not start with a smaller group and expand if it proves successful? His plan says he wants to include 500,000 in his program. So to me it would make far more sense to start with a smaller group, show everyone that it works, and build it up to include more people. I would be worried that starting with only $2,000 a year is setting itself up for less than ideal outcomes.

In your opinion, are initial policy proposals 'out of the gate' so to speak already vetted or circulated among the political class for feasibility, or is it all PR and the policy negotiation comes later when a candidate wins office?

[Hooahguy]

In your opinion, are initial policy proposals 'out of the gate' so to speak already vetted or circulated among the political class for feasibility, or is it all PR and the policy negotiation comes later when a candidate wins office?
A little column A, a little column B. Policy proposals should be well-thought out when initially submitted but also have some flexibility for negotiation. And if the goal is to gain popular support for a UBI plan, why start so low? Its clear that Yang would like to increase it, but I do question how well-thought out this plan is. Almost feels as if its being set up to fail. And I agree with Monty, Yang definitely puts forth the persona of being wonkish.

Also want to point out Trump's ridiculous schedule for the weekend:
24262

Apparently its been the exact same since the 6th. I guess saying that POTUS is moping is a bad look. Only a few days left!

[spmetla]

I love that schedule, it's like a description of a politician's job by a six year old. :laugh4:

[Hooahguy]

I love that schedule, it's like a description of a politician's job by a six year old. :laugh4:
I mean considering he has the coloring skills of one, are we sure he's not a couple of toddlers stacked in a trench coat (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMV8btPW4wU)?
24263

[a completely inoffensive name]

And I agree with Monty, Yang definitely puts forth the persona of being wonkish.

I don't understand where this cynical view of Yang as an actor is coming from. Have you seen his videos? Did we forget his debate performances? I don't believe someone could be that awkward as a political ploy.

[Hooahguy]

I'm not saying he isnt wonkish, but rather that he seems to work hard at appearing as such. Like his math hat. I mean I'm the biggest history dork I know and I'd never wear a hat that said HISTORY on it unless I wanted people to think I was a history dork lol. For what its worth I dont think its a huge deal to work to appear wonkish, but its definitely a strategy.

I would also like to also know why during the presidential campaign he was advocating for $1,000 a month but now he is saying $2,000 a year.

[Hooahguy]

Something I don't think I've seen discussed here much is the Qanon conspiracy phenomenon. I've read a few articles recently about how its been tearing families and friendships apart. While I thankfully do not have any family members or friends who are caught up in it, one of my friend's dad is into it and he is difficult to talk to because of it. I've been listening to a podcast (https://twitter.com/QAnonAnonymous) critically examining the Q phenomenon and the more I listen the more I realize that even as the Q stuff gets disproven, they just go deeper down the rabbit hole. I saw a screenshot of a Q poster claiming that Trump is getting an experimental surgery to make him look like Biden so it looks like Biden is getting inaugurated but really its Trump. Like damn, how do we as a society come back from that type of derangement? And it doesnt seem as if its an insignificant number of people either. I mean we now have two members of Congress who are at least Q-sympathetic. I've seen some researchers point out that Qanon numbers accelerated when the pandemic began and people were in lockdown, leading to social isolation and becoming more vulnerable to radicalization. Does anyone here have any family members or friends who fell into Qanon? Would be interested in hearing those stories.

[Montmorency]

Another thorough compilation/timeline (https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2021/01/16/video-timeline-capitol-siege/) of Jan. 6 events.


One of the better cops:


‘It was my pleasure to crush a white nationalist insurrection’: DC officer injured in Capitol riot speaks out (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/capitol-police-riot-trump-dc-b1788358.html)


“If it wasn’t my job I would’ve done that for free,” Officer Daniel Hodges said in an interview with NBC. “It was absolutely my pleasure to crush a white nationalist insurrection … We’ll do it as many times as it takes."

He was the one on video getting compressed between the battle lines.

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


Yeah (https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/16/misinformation-trump-twitter/), Trump burning his GOP political capital and getting banned from social media probably sealed his fate. We've finally reached the Trumpian maximum. He's chopped liver for 2024 without an audience for t he next 3 years. Fascism blowing its load too early may have even bought us a few years with the rest of the GOP.


Another goddamn inverse-Brexit.

24264

(I know it isn't binding, it's funnier to present it this way.)


Why (https://twitter.com/DC_Draino/status/1349011313268305921) Crandar is feeling mellow these days.



Rogan O’Handley ����
@DC_Draino
Lawyer • Patriot • Civil Rights Activist • Journalist • Bro/Bruh���� #MAGA

If Communism comes to America, it will be enforced by the corporations



I saw a screenshot of a Q poster claiming that Trump is getting an experimental surgery to make him look like Biden so it looks like Biden is getting inaugurated but really its Trump.

Hot damn, that was the last Bond movie I saw in theaters!

More seriously, I thankfully (?) don't know of any Q family, just ones who believe more standard Trumpian conspiracies.


I would also like to also know why during the presidential campaign he was advocating for $1,000 a month but now he is saying $2,000 a year.

Actually a good sign, since a political neophyte pretending that a city could implement the exact same transfers intended for the federal government would be an open-shut joke.

[Hooahguy]

Actually a good sign, since a political neophyte pretending that a city could implement the exact same transfers intended for the federal government would be an open-shut joke.
So what you are saying, if I am understanding you correctly, is that by reducing the amount his is showing that he understands he has less of a budget to work with. Its definitely a valid point, but I think my main concern is still there: is there data that shows $2,000/year is enough to help New Yorkers rise out of poverty? $2,000 for 500,000 New Yorkers is a billion dollars, if I am doing my math right. Thats a lot of money to be working with and to me it seems like it could be spent more efficiently.

In coup news, we may finally get our Russian connection (https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/17/pelosi-laptop-office-capitol-460147), and the Pentagon is saying (https://apnews.com/article/biden-inauguration-joe-biden-capitol-siege-ap-top-news-857bacc273e16ff82dc9fefed1242ae8) they are vetting all the soldiers involved in the inauguration due to concerns of insider attacks. Just wonderful, Wednesday cannot get here soon enough so we can be done with this already.

[Crandar]

Does anyone here have any family members or friends who fell into Qanon? Would be interested in hearing those stories.
No family member, of course, but it's interesting to note that the QAnon conspiracy has infected Greece as well. There's a trending topic in social media about Chinese troops being stationed in Canada and Mexico, ready to intervene if Biden is not inaugurated as the 46th president. Thankfully, the US army remains loyal to Trump, so the Commies have no chance. It's the second hottest topic after the controversy surrounding the fact that the Greek government sold the legal rights of the Greek alphabet to Bill Gates for the development of the 5G network. The funny thing is that we actually scammed Microsoft. We had already sold the copyright for the Greek language/alphabet to Bill Gates, so that the latter can invent the dyadic system used in computers. Now that we mentioned language, did you know that ancient Greek was about to become the official language of the US, but lost in Congress just for a single vote (I think the culprit was a Jewish deputy, colour me surprised)? Not that there's much difference anyway, English being a Greek idiom. Hello comes from the Mycenaean άλο, which means sea and was shouted by the Mycenaean sailors that discovered and civilised the British Isles.
[QUOTE=Montmorency;2053812088Why (https://twitter.com/DC_Draino/status/1349011313268305921) Crandar is feeling mellow these days.[/QUOTE]
Aww, he also has our most famous king as the image background for his twitter account.

[Hooahguy]

The plot continues to thicken, as apparent confirmation (https://twitter.com/JesseDamiani/status/1351197878987927552?s=20) comes that gun nut Rep. Boebert was the one who led a large group in a tour of the Capitol prior to the riot, a charge that she denies. Will be fascinating to see where this goes.

[Pannonian]

The plot continues to thicken, as apparent confirmation (https://twitter.com/JesseDamiani/status/1351197878987927552?s=20) comes that gun nut Rep. Boebert was the one who led a large group in a tour of the Capitol prior to the riot, a charge that she denies. Will be fascinating to see where this goes.

What would it take to depose insurrectionist officials? Court, or House majority, or super majority?

[Hooahguy]

Tricky question. An expulsion through the House would require a 2/3 vote which will likely not happen because the GOP is terrible. However if there are charges brought through the justice system against her then thats a different story and much easier way to remove her.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Will be fascinating to see where this goes.

It will. Just as fascinating will be how the less radical in Congress do post-Trump (damn it's good to be able to say POST-TRUMP) starting in 2022. A fore-shadowing?

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/01/republicans-are-already-rewriting-trump-years/617715/


“We’re about to see a whole political party do a large-scale version of ‘New phone, who dis?’” says Sarah Isgur, a former top spokesperson for the Trump Justice Department. “It will be like that boyfriend you should never have dated—the mistake that shall not be mentioned.”


People who spent years coddling the president will recast themselves as voices of conscience, or whitewash their relationship with Trump altogether. Policy makers who abandoned their dedication to “fiscal responsibility” and “limited government” will rediscover a passion for these timeless conservative principles. Some may dress up their revisionism in the rhetoric of “healing” and “moving forward,” but the strategy will be clear—to escape accountability by taking advantage of America’s notoriously short political memory.

Indeed, the narrative now forming in some GOP circles presents Trump as a secondary figure who presided over an array of important accomplishments thanks to the wisdom and guidance of the Republicans in his orbit. In these accounts, Trump’s race-baiting, corruption, and cruel immigration policies—not to mention his attempts to overturn an election—are treated as minor subplots, rather than defining features.

Terry Sullivan, who ran Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign in 2016, told me he was unimpressed by this sudden rush to righteous indignation. “The newfound outrage from former Trump supporters rings a bit hollow, given how quiet most were during Charlottesville and countless other escapades,” he said. “Forty-seven months of blind loyalty followed by one month of conscience doesn’t earn you much more than the Mick Mulvaney (https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/07/mick-mulvaney-resigns-from-trump-administration-expects-others-to-follow.html) profile-in-courage award.”

Here's the list of Senate seats up for election in 2022:

https://ballotpedia.org/United_States_Congress_elections,_2022#U.S._Senate_2

The list of House seats up for election in 2022:

https://ballotpedia.org/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2022

[rory_20_uk]

The plot continues to thicken, as apparent confirmation (https://twitter.com/JesseDamiani/status/1351197878987927552?s=20) comes that gun nut Rep. Boebert was the one who led a large group in a tour of the Capitol prior to the riot, a charge that she denies. Will be fascinating to see where this goes.

Proving intent will be extremely tough. I imagine she'll either face no criminal charges, or else be found innocent.

~:smoking:

[Hooahguy]

It will. Just as fascinating will be how the less radical in Congress do post-Trump (damn it's good to be able to say POST-TRUMP) starting in 2022. A fore-shadowing?

[...]

Here's the list of Senate seats up for election in 2022:
https://ballotpedia.org/United_States_Congress_elections,_2022#U.S._Senate_2

The only really vulnerable GOP seats seems to be in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Meanwhile Warnock (GA) and Kelly (AZ) are potentially vulnerable on the Dem side. Not going to be an easy year which is why I think that the GOP will simultaneously try to whitewash the Trump years while also trying to get the Trump base back. My predictions are that there wont be enough GOP to vote to convict in the Senate which gives the GOP hope to retain at least a portion of the Trump base. Guess it remains to be seen.


Proving intent will be extremely tough. I imagine she'll either face no criminal charges, or else be found innocent.

~:smoking:
True, unless there's a smoking gun somewhere. I foresee there being a vote in the House to expel her but I think it will fail due to the GOP being sniveling cowards.

[a completely inoffensive name]

The only really vulnerable GOP seats seems to be in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Meanwhile Warnock (GA) and Kelly (AZ) are potentially vulnerable on the Dem side. Not going to be an easy year which is why I think that the GOP will simultaneously try to whitewash the Trump years while also trying to get the Trump base back. My predictions are that there wont be enough GOP to vote to convict in the Senate which gives the GOP hope to retain at least a portion of the Trump base. Guess it remains to be seen.

Richard Burr in NC is retiring. Best case scenario would be a surprise pick up there. A good Dem turnout would mean +3 in the Senate which is a big deal, I wouldn't downplay it.
Also, check Hawley's approval in Missouri since 1/6. If Roy Blunt has to pick whether to back his fellow Senator or not it could kill GOP turnout and give Dems an opportunity there.

[Hooahguy]

Richard Burr in NC is retiring. Best case scenario would be a surprise pick up there. A good Dem turnout would mean +3 in the Senate which is a big deal, I wouldn't downplay it.
Also, check Hawley's approval in Missouri since 1/6. If Roy Blunt has to pick whether to back his fellow Senator or not it could kill GOP turnout and give Dems an opportunity there.
A lot would have to go really right for Dems to pull of those two. The best chance would be for an intra-GOP struggle that tears it apart and leads Trump to lead his die-hards away. I think the impeachment conviction vote will be the biggest indicator of what will happen with regard to where the GOP is headed. If only 3-4 of them vote to convict I think we can reliably say that the GOP wont try to distance itself from Trump.

[a completely inoffensive name]

If only 3-4 of them vote to convict I think we can reliably say that the GOP wont try to distance itself from Trump.

Approval ratings of Trump are dipping hard since 1/6 among independents, hasn't been this low since Jan of 2018. The crazy may be starting to turning off people the GOP need to win in traditionally non-competitive races.
If the GOP votes to acquit and most remain Trump loyalists, their image continues to suffer and quite probably internal leadership will be run by the crazies which doesn't bode well for government in the immediate but in all honesty these people are not able to properly manage the Republican Party as a competitive institution.

If enough of the GOP convicts Trump, the entire base becomes fractured. They are hitching their wagon to a guy who has been de-platformed and getting more unpopular by the day. Assuming the economy comes roaring back in 2021 and Biden's approval rating soars, you know the GOP strategy of 'endorsed by Trump' becomes dead in the water because who wants to go back to the days of 2020? It's like if the GOP in 2012 theoretically pushed for Jeb Bush in 2012.

[Hooahguy]

I wish I was as optimistic as you were. Yes his approval ratings are bad now, but if they are still as bad in another month or two then I will start to believe. My worry is that the GOP will look at the GA runoffs where the Trump base was demoralized and see that as an indication that they need to lean back into Trumpism to get the base excited again. Also too many Republicans are worried about primary challenges for not being sufficiently pro-Trump. So what would the game plan be from here? Acquit Trump in the Senate, and use him and a promise of running in 2024 to whip up the base again for the midterms. Of course, Trump would have to be willing to go along with this plan. It would definitely be risky and from their standpoint its a big gamble: on one hand they could sever Trump from the party and a chance at 2024 completely, or they could take the chance at using him to whip up the Trump base to get back into power, which might backfire. Unfortunately though I have a feeling I know which way they will go.