“Maybe Kevin Rainbow should have been roughed up, because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing. I have a lot of fans, and they were not happy about it. And this was a very obnoxious guy who was a troublemaker who was looking to make trouble.”

“If you see Kevin Rainbow getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of him, would you? Seriously. Just knock the hell out of him. I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees. I promise."

"I love the old days. You know what they used to do to guys like Kevin Rainbow when they were in a place like this? They’d be carried out on a stretcher, folks.”

Ick. Let's not do this, even in jest.

Kevin, as I have said here before, I really don't see why you think that Eratosphereans should be obliged to take Teleprompter Trump's patently insincere scripted statements at face value. Time after time it has been demonstrated that neither those whom Trump is supposedly telling to back off, nor The Real Donald Trump himself, takes words written for him by others at face value. Time after time, he has delivered scripted statements in a mealy-mouthed way that alt-right figures have said was a signal to them of his true feelings. He also has explicitly walked such statements back in Tweets or in answer to reporters' questions.

Remember that time you said that the liberal media was lying outrageously when they said that Trump had never condemned white supremacists and neo-Nazis?

And I said that since Trump's belated and half-hearted condemnation of them (which came six days after his "very fine people on both sides" remark re: Charlottesville) had been taken by the very people he was condemning as a nod and a wink, not a condemnation, that maybe it didn't count?

If not, let me refresh your memory with a few quotations:

And now, here we are again.

Conclusion: Trump's lip service to reining in his base's violence seems to fool no one but you.

Hey Aaron. Sorry, got caught up in some stuff.
We don't disagree on the possibilities regarding the law. Roger, you should look into journalist Will Potter's (author of Green is the New Red) and it might give you a better feel for where Aaron is coming from. Watch the sentencing disparities upcoming between folks from the left caught up in violent moments of engagement and what gets handed out for this weeks business.
My original question was what was specifically happening and why would you think it more of a priority than stopping a violent fascist takeover of the State itself? Because that is what we are on the toes of. If this plays out in the darkest ways possible we would have laws that make the patriot act
look like the good old days with a State full of fascists drooling to enforce it all. While the 9/11 laws were mostly a total bullshit shadow dance, we have here a legitimate threat of an authoritarian takeover. Trump's game here functions in very similar ways to that of the latter years of Hussein after the original Baath structure had given way completely to just the naked police state being adjusted to the Tikriti mob's survival as its only goal.

Everything is family, tribal, and centered on violent and broken psyche of the person at the center. Law is the best counter to that sort of business and why so much interest in owning the judges. Obviously the right kind of law so I get your concerns.

Of course the republics here are very different universes (aside from the presence of two moron sons in both worlds) and Saddam's followers were in general more educated and, in the end, less willing(see Kevin for example) but still law's replacement by will and desire of the person was the main thrust as it is here. So law may be part of the solution.

Andrew, I don't know why you get the impression that I don't fully acknowledge the racial and ethnic disparities in the way laws are applied. Of course I do, and I think I have made it clear that I feel this way. But that doesn't mean we should get rid of the laws themselves as opposed to applying them in a way that is fair and unbiased. The law that says your car must have working tail lights is a good one and shouldn't be repealed, for example, but if blacks are several times more likely to be pulled over for broken tail lights than whites, that's a problem that should be addressed. Aaron started us off by claiming that there are vitally important and bad new laws, a second Patriot Act, that Biden supports, but he so far has refused to identify those laws and has responded to my continuing requests that he do so by calling me a liar and saying he is too distressed by my unidentified lies to continue speaking with me. Of course, he hasn't identified any of my lies any more than he has identified the horrible laws that Biden supposedly supports and which he says are so much more important than dealing with the recent violent coup attempt. For some reason, Aaron isn't as bothered when you ask for specifics, such as in your last post when you said, "My original question was what was specifically happening and why would you think it more of a priority than stopping a violent fascist takeover of the State itself?", though he is equally resistant to providing a response. Perhaps he is more annoyed when I ask the question because I have sometimes been less than an enthusiastic critic of his poems.

It is perhaps a misjudgment, but I think the current attempt at a violent fascist takeover has failed, and miserably so. I do not believe that removal of Trump from office prior to January 20 matters much. (Two more weeks of Trump in office, recall, is what I initially said is of less import than how Biden responds.) I do not mean, by this, to minimize the long-term threat of fascist violence and attempted violent takeovers, which are serious indeed, and require some form of redress. I just do not see the short-term threat. I could be way off-base, on both counts, but that is how I see it.

I think, further, that Andrew S. is right, in his earlier comment, that we already have ample resources to address right-wing terrorism. The insurrection was not remotely secret. Folks made it very clear, both publicly and in easily infiltratable private channels (Parler's security is a fucking joke, as evidenced by the massive hack they've just been subjected to), that they intended to do crimes. Every security agency in the country knew about it, and it easily could've been stopped, given the will, which was apparently lacking.

How odd that Aaron actually quotes Andrew's repeated request for specific identification of the new "Patriot Act 2.0" that Biden is supposedly supporting and then, after quoting the request, ignores it. Could it be that the liar here is the one who falsely claimed that Biden is promoting a Patriot Act 2.0 and not the one who simply asked for an elaboration of what new law Biden supports that is setting off his alarms? I honestly don't understand how asking someone to back up their own claim can be a "lie" -- it's a request, not a statement.

I didn't say you did. The disparity in my post refers to more politically biased applications and certain specific laws like the ag gag stuff that Potters work refers to. The environmental and animal rights activists have been railroaded by specific laws. I think Aaron was concerned about that sort of law that quickly outlives its usefulness. And I was clear in my posts about the use of well written law often being helpful. I think you and Aaron are odd enemies in that you probably agree with more than you disagree but have at. Great time for the left-ish to divide.

More re: Trump's refusal to condemn Wednesday's violence. This was reported on Thursday:

Trump withdraws Chad Wolf nomination to lead Homeland Security hours after he urged president to condemn riot

Oh, yeah, not related at all to the Acting Secretary's comments less than three hours previously. Complete coincidence.

I'm ticked off at him solely because he called me a liar when I told no lie or anything that can be even remotely characterized as a lie. All I did was ask him what the "Patriot Act 2.0" was that he said Biden was supporting, and I only asked because I honestly wanted to know (as I think you did as well). When he couldn't come up with an answer, he got all defensive and somehow construed my asking the question as a lie that he found so "distressing" that he announced he would no longer address me, though he graciously gave me permission to keep posting in this thread if I chose to do so, which I thought was very generous of him.

Happily, Andrew, I can reassure you that my dislike of Roger is entirely personal and not evidence of left disunity. :)