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  #71  
Unread 01-13-2021, 12:30 AM
Andrew Frisardi Andrew Frisardi is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Max Goodman View Post
Belatedly, he admits that there might be reasons for the cops being so overwhelmed, so I guess what he means is that we don't yet know whether racism was responsible. Fair enough. I'm open to learning how those decisions were made. The stark contrast between the police presence for the BLM protests and the riot certainly requires some explanation.
This doesn't directly address the race question, but an article on Bill Moyers's website shows how the Department of Defense apparently was and is complicit in a plot/cover-up. Trump's firing of Esper back in November, and filling his post and some others in that department with loyalists is the background to the National Guard's two hour delay in showing up after DC Mayor Muriel Bowser's request:

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At such a late date in Trump’s presidency, many asked why the shake-up at the Department of Defense? We may be learning the answer.
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  #72  
Unread 01-13-2021, 12:53 AM
Aaron Novick Aaron Novick is offline
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Originally Posted by Andrew Szilvasy View Post
Some GOPers are coming out in favor of impeachment.
McConnell, who has always hated Trump, appears to be in favor. If that's so, they will certainly have the votes.
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  #73  
Unread 01-13-2021, 07:06 AM
Roger Slater Roger Slater is offline
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I'm reading that there may be as many as 12 senate votes to convict, though the magic number is 17 (assuming some Republicans don't take a middle road and stay away, thus reducing the number needed).

McConnell is playing it down the middle, though. Still not a profile in courage. He has let it be known through anonymous sources that he thinks there are grounds for impeachment, but that's not nearly the same thing as speaking for yourself the way Liz Cheney is doing. And while he is not trying to persuade his fellow senators to acquit, he is also not trying to persuade them to convict. It will be interesting to see what his own vote will be. In the meantime, he's refusing to join Schumer in calling for a trial to be held before Trump's term is up so Trump can actually be removed from office, however briefly, and Biden can start his presidency with a Congress free to focus on other matters.
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  #74  
Unread 01-13-2021, 07:30 AM
Jim Moonan Jim Moonan is offline
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"Trump is the tumor of a deeper cancer. But that doesn't mean you don't cut out the tumor. It's one of many steps."


Agreed. To put in in a slightly different light, Trump is the American political system's novel virus that has so decimated our country. Step one: The vaccine was the election. Now we must go further and irradiate it from ever invading our political system again by utilizing the mechanism built-in to our constitutional DNA: Impeachment by congress. Get it done.
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  #75  
Unread 01-16-2021, 08:16 AM
Max Goodman Max Goodman is offline
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Default stochastic terrorism

https://slate.com/podcasts/trumpcast...ism-post-trump

The podcast above is about Trump's mastery of “stochastic terrorism,” speaking in ways that make violence more likely, without being specific enough to be easily prosecutable.

Former Assistant Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Juliet Kayim (spelling?) argues that Trump and many of his violent followers intentionally operate in ways designed to be viewed as unserious. The goal is to be communicate clearly to those they aim to comfort or incite, while avoiding both prosecution and a strong counter-response.

Some aspects of the capitol attack itself (outlandish costumes, selfies) were designed, she says, with this in mind. According to the podcast, lawyers from some of them are now arguing in court that their threats (against Pence and Pelosi, for instance) were meant as jokes.

This might explain (and, yes, I realize there are other explanations) comments like

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kevin Rainbow View Post
There's nothing in Trump's words or actions that expresses a belief in, a calling for, or condoning of resorting to such disturbing acts of violence, to any violence, nor does he have any background of anything toward a violent nature
Some Republican lawmakers are making similar arguments in their opposition to impeachment.
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  #76  
Unread 01-16-2021, 08:51 AM
Jim Moonan Jim Moonan is offline
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In my dictionary, rainbows provide levity:

https://youtu.be/LPQYAT3wH_g

And God the gravitas:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/14/o...y pe=Homepage

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Last edited by Jim Moonan; 01-16-2021 at 09:04 AM.
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  #77  
Unread 01-17-2021, 02:08 AM
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Kevin Rainbow Kevin Rainbow is offline
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Impeachment is meaningless when it is a weapon of political spite instead of something used on the basis of facts and chosen through due process.

You can't connect Trump to an act of encouraging or promoting violence because he hasn't engaged in any. He in no way has been violence-oriented but has stressed the importance of law and order. The mobs that perpetrated the violence might have acted in his name, but didn't act in his nature or in the nature of the overwhelming majority of Trump supporters, who condone no such thing. Many of these folks who are trying to blame Trump for violence were nowhere as shocked by the longterm violence from the protests/riots that took place during the summer which resulted in the death of at least nineteen people, amidst mass destruction, fires, looting.

For every cause that people find important there will be certain mobs who go to extremes and resort to violence in the name of that cause. It is a dangerous direction when you start blaming people for standing up for a cause merely because some people happen to resort to violence in the name of the same cause, and because it is a cause that opposes your side of the story, proclaimed as the holy gospel by the media. Only those who commit violence in the name of a cause are guilty, not those who neither promote it or engage in it.

How can you not see how political and farcical the "impeachment" is and how undemocratic the censorship and suppression of anything that contradicts the narrative they are using to try to justify it? All the major social networks ganged up together at the same convenient time to try to prevent Trump from communicating on them and defending himself. These are corrupt politics and media going out of their way to mass-control the "message" by far and you're going along with it and absorbing it like sponges.

Last edited by Kevin Rainbow; 01-17-2021 at 02:28 AM.
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  #78  
Unread 01-17-2021, 05:38 AM
Max Goodman Max Goodman is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kevin Rainbow View Post
You can't connect Trump to an act of encouraging or promoting violence because he hasn't engaged in any.
Thanks for demonstrating Trump supporters' supernatural ability to ignore facts, even when they are brought directly to their attention.

I don't think Kevin even reads our responses to his nonsense.
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  #79  
Unread 01-17-2021, 06:57 AM
Jim Moonan Jim Moonan is offline
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Kevin, I wish we could talk face to face.
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