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welch
January 11th, 2021, 07:49 AM
How can Trump-believers be persuaded that he lost an honest election?

I have asked that question several times. The only answer has been that we -- the majority of Americans -- must coddle right-wing delusion. That is a silly answer. We see that Trump-believers fasten ever more tightly to their disbelief in reality. Pseudo-conservatives continue to practice an extreme post-modernist thinking that "reality" is whatever power says.

Maybe it will wear off. It seems more likely to continue as a new stab-in-the-back myth to give life and soul to far right-wingers, to the people who said and acted "yes" when Trump suggested they follow him to the Capitol to stop the formal counting of electoral votes. These right-wingers should be deplored, but they have demonstrated that they cannot be convinced by experience, evidence, and logic.

Perhaps this is a start. A small one, but a start:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/cumulus-radio-conservative-election-fraud/2021/01/11/e12ec46e-537c-11eb-a817-e5e7f8a406d6_story.html


After months of stoking anger about alleged election fraud, one of America’s largest talk-radio companies has decided on an abrupt change of direction.

Cumulus Media, which employs some of the most popular right-leaning talk-radio hosts in the United States, has told its on-air personalities to stop suggesting that the election was stolen from President Trump — or else face termination.

A Cumulus executive issued the directive on Wednesday, just as Congress met to certify Joe Biden’s election victory and an angry mob of Trump supporters marched on the Capitol, overwhelmed police and briefly occupied the building, terrorizing lawmakers and leading to the deaths of five people.

“We need to help induce national calm NOW,” Brian Philips, executive vice president of content for Cumulus, wrote in an internal memo, which was first reported by Inside Music Media. Cumulus and its program syndication arm, Westwood One, “will not tolerate any suggestion that the election has not ended. The election has been resolved and there are no alternate acceptable ‘paths.’ ”

The memo adds: “If you transgress this policy, you can expect to separate from the company immediately.”

A Cumulus representative did not respond to repeated requests for comment on Sunday.

During the weekend after the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, Apple and Amazon suspended cut off Parler, a platform popular with President Trump's supporters. (Reuters)
The new policy is a stunning corporate clampdown on the kind of provocative and even inflammatory talk that has long driven the business model for Cumulus and other talk show broadcasters. And it came as Apple, Google and Amazon cut off essential business services to Parler, the pro-Trump social media network where users have promoted falsehoods about election fraud and praised the mob that assaulted the Capitol. Apple and Google removed the Parler app from the offerings for its smartphones, while Amazon suspended it from its Web-hosting services. (Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

Since the election, Cumulus has remained silent while its most popular hosts — which include Mark Levin, Ben Shapiro and Dan Bongino — have amplified Trump’s lies that the vote was “rigged” or in some way fraudulent.

On his program on Tuesday, the day before the march on the Capitol, for example, Levin fulminated about Congress’s certification of electoral votes for Biden, describing the normally routine vote as an act of “tyranny.”

“You think the framers of the Constitution … sat there and said, ‘Congress has no choice [to accept the votes], even if there’s fraud, even if there’s some court order, even if some legislature has violated the Constitution?’ ” Levin said, his voice rising to a shout.

Atlanta-based Cumulus owns 416 radio stations in 84 regions across the country. Many of its stations broadcast a talk format, a medium that has been dominated by a conservative point of view for decades. In addition to its national personalities, it employs local talk-radio hosts in many of its markets.

dneal
January 11th, 2021, 09:54 AM
These various forms of censoring will just fuel outrage and conspiracy theories. Even the ACLU is against it. First you lose Dershowitz, and now the whole ACLU.

During the first year of Trump’s Presidency, a common meme/theme was “Do you want more Trump? Because this is how you get more Trump”.

Libs still haven’t learned the lesson, and won’t as long as they keep reading the WashPost for advice.

Ray-VIgo
January 11th, 2021, 12:54 PM
The rioters were Trump voters, but not all Trump voters rioted. Isolate the hardcore "cult of personality supporters" who will never believe Biden won from those who were merely pro-Trump because they were put off by the policies of the left (people who could accept that Biden won, but who voted for Trump). Pursue consensus and common ground with people on the right who might have just voted for Trump, but remain firm against the hardcore loyalists and Q-Anon people.

Where I live, many Trump voters were disaffected Democrats from blue collar backgrounds. They're not Q-Anon, not neo-nazis, not KKK'ers, but are really good people who otherwise are cut from the same cloth as everyone else in the community. Trump was a "hold your nose and vote" for many people, not a god-emperor. But if you now try to add states to skew the Senate, or add justices in retribution for Garland, it will only make things much, much worse because it alienates even reasonable people. Most of the opposition needs to be viewed humanely and as having a difference of opinion. But if we are reduced to "socialists" and "Trumpers" only as our thinking, then civil war is around the corner. Voting for Trump does not make one a neo-nazi and voting for Biden does not make one a Marxist. Yet, the narrative continues...

TSherbs
January 11th, 2021, 01:00 PM
These various forms of censoring will just fuel outrage and conspiracy theories. Even the ACLU is against it. First you lose Dershowitz, and now the whole ACLU.

During the first year of Trump’s Presidency, a common meme/theme was “Do you want more Trump? Because this is how you get more Trump”.

Libs still haven’t learned the lesson, and won’t as long as they keep reading the WashPost for advice.

That's ok. There is prison space for criminals who act out on their disgruntlement. Government does not need to make people happy or content. Just generally compliant and lawful. And felonies are a serious matter (thus the term).

I'd love to see a standoff between radical right and law enforcement. I have suspected all along that Blue Lives Matter (in response to Black Lives Matter) has been a racist ruse, at heart. I'm not sure, but recent violence against the overwhelmed police in DC tends to confirm my suspicions. We'll see.

TSherbs
January 11th, 2021, 01:07 PM
The rioters were Trump voters, but not all Trump voters rioted. Isolate the hardcore "cult of personality supporters" who will never believe Biden won from those who were merely pro-Trump because they were put off by the policies of the left (people who could accept that Biden won, but who voted for Trump). Pursue consensus and common ground with people on the right who might have just voted for Trump, but remain firm against the hardcore loyalists and Q-Anon people.

Where I live, many Trump voters were disaffected Democrats from blue collar backgrounds. They're not Q-Anon, not neo-nazis, not KKK'ers, but are really good people who otherwise are cut from the same cloth as everyone else in the community. Trump was a "hold your nose and vote" for many people, not a god-emperor. But if you now try to add states to skew the Senate, or add justices in retribution for Garland, it will only make things much, much worse because it alienates even reasonable people. Most of the opposition needs to be viewed humanely and as having a difference of opinion. But if we are reduced to "socialists" and "Trumpers" only as our thinking, then civil war is around the corner. Voting for Trump does not make one a neo-nazi and voting for Biden does not make one a Marxist. Yet, the narrative continues...

Well put.

dneal
January 11th, 2021, 01:59 PM
These various forms of censoring will just fuel outrage and conspiracy theories. Even the ACLU is against it. First you lose Dershowitz, and now the whole ACLU.

During the first year of Trump’s Presidency, a common meme/theme was “Do you want more Trump? Because this is how you get more Trump”.

Libs still haven’t learned the lesson, and won’t as long as they keep reading the WashPost for advice.

That's ok. There is prison space for criminals who act out on their disgruntlement. Government does not need to make people happy or content. Just generally compliant and lawful. And felonies are a serious matter (thus the term).

I'd love to see a standoff between radical right and law enforcement. I have suspected all along that Blue Lives Matter (in response to Black Lives Matter) has been a racist ruse, at heart. I'm not sure, but recent violence against the overwhelmed police in DC tends to confirm my suspicions. We'll see.

That's sick and disgusting. I'll assume now that your "outrage" at the Capitol protests is bullshit. There was your taste of standoff. At least one cop dead, and at least one protestor dead. But hey, it's ok since you don't agree with their politics.

welch
January 11th, 2021, 03:37 PM
These various forms of censoring will just fuel outrage and conspiracy theories. Even the ACLU is against it. First you lose Dershowitz, and now the whole ACLU.

During the first year of Trump’s Presidency, a common meme/theme was “Do you want more Trump? Because this is how you get more Trump”.

Libs still haven’t learned the lesson, and won’t as long as they keep reading the WashPost for advice.

Still not much of an answer. Trumpists continue to believe, even through all of Trump Campaign's failure to prove anything in court. They failed everywhere and at all times, except when they could rattle claims without being questioned. That was their problem in every court case: their expert witnesses turned out to have no expertise; their statistical proofs are silly; their eye-witnesses crumbled when examined.

Overall, Trump's spouting has sounded insane. Did Trump win Georgia by a landslide, or by hundreds of thousands of votes? In 2018, the Georgia governor's election was nearly even, indicating that statewide elections there should be close. The triple-counted vote there was won by about 12,000 votes. Further, why has Trump howled about Georgia, of all the states? Why did Trump badger election officials there to "recalculate" another 12,000 votes for him?

Since Trump Believers don't believe in reality, should we just expect them to dive deeper into conspiracy theories? Perhaps, at least, they will split into several squabbling theories, with some believing that President Biden is a lizard person, some that the attack on the World Trade Center was a plot by George Bush to undermine Trump twenty years later, some finding links to the assassination of JFK. I have, not long ago, come across right-wingers who insist that "of course" FDR allowed the Japanese to bomb Pearl Harbor because Roosevelt wanted to declare war on Hitler. Wacky thinking lasts.

TSherbs
January 11th, 2021, 03:57 PM
That's sick and disgusting. I'll assume now that your "outrage" at the Capitol protests is bullshit. There was your taste of standoff. At least one cop dead, and at least one protestor dead. But hey, it's ok since you don't agree with their politics.

Fair enough. I do not want anyone to die, and I was not thinking well when I suggested a standoff. But I actually meant it literally, "a standoff" where people stand off. I don't deny my level of sickness over this topic. And I mean what I said about a racist vein in the Blue Lives Matter motto in reaction to Black Lives Matter.

But since the FBI has said that armed demonstrations are now planned on 50 state capitals and attacks have been planned on both Biden and Harris (and perhaps others), let's put my "sickness" in some perspective. Looks like we are going to get some standoffs whether I want them or not, and probably more assaults, which I assuredly don't want.

But if people come to the capitals with weapons and engage in assault, I believe that municipal and national forces should use force necessary to repel it. I have never believed otherwise, pertaining to any riots or assaults.

TSherbs
January 11th, 2021, 04:02 PM
Overall, Trump's spouting has sounded insane. Did Trump win Georgia by a landslide, or by hundreds of thousands of votes? In 2018, the Georgia governor's election was nearly even, indicating that statewide elections there should be close. The triple-counted vote there was won by about 12,000 votes. Further, why has Trump howled about Georgia, of all the states? Why did Trump badger election officials there to "recalculate"?

Trump also claimed that he "won the House."

Delusion or lie or or a mixture of both (that's Orwellian doublethink, for you).

dneal
January 11th, 2021, 06:10 PM
These various forms of censoring will just fuel outrage and conspiracy theories. Even the ACLU is against it. First you lose Dershowitz, and now the whole ACLU.

During the first year of Trump’s Presidency, a common meme/theme was “Do you want more Trump? Because this is how you get more Trump”.

Libs still haven’t learned the lesson, and won’t as long as they keep reading the WashPost for advice.

Still not much of an answer. Trumpists continue to believe, even through all of Trump Campaign's failure to prove anything in court. They failed everywhere and at all times, except when they could rattle claims without being questioned. That was their problem in every court case: their expert witnesses turned out to have no expertise; their statistical proofs are silly; their eye-witnesses crumbled when examined.

Overall, Trump's spouting has sounded insane. Did Trump win Georgia by a landslide, or by hundreds of thousands of votes? In 2018, the Georgia governor's election was nearly even, indicating that statewide elections there should be close. The triple-counted vote there was won by about 12,000 votes. Further, why has Trump howled about Georgia, of all the states? Why did Trump badger election officials there to "recalculate" another 12,000 votes for him?

Since Trump Believers don't believe in reality, should we just expect them to dive deeper into conspiracy theories? Perhaps, at least, they will split into several squabbling theories, with some believing that President Biden is a lizard person, some that the attack on the World Trade Center was a plot by George Bush to undermine Trump twenty years later, some finding links to the assassination of JFK. I have, not long ago, come across right-wingers who insist that "of course" FDR allowed the Japanese to bomb Pearl Harbor because Roosevelt wanted to declare war on Hitler. Wacky thinking lasts.

As for the title of the thread, I've given you an answer repeatedly. You just don't like it because your TDS automatically refuses to process it, because it suggests there might be just a hint of circumstantial evidence that makes them believe this crap. You then mischaracterize with "The only answer has been that we -- the majority of Americans -- must coddle right-wing delusion. That is a silly answer." So why should I bother with someone as close-minded as you?

Then you post an article about Cumulus telling people "shut up, or else" - which is what I was addressing.

Work on a thesis and supporting argument, and I'll have a better idea what you're talking about. You're all over the place with this thread, which is just another rant and a WashPost article attached.

Ray-VIgo
January 12th, 2021, 07:21 AM
The other thing that helps is to move the focus in politics back down to the state and particularly the local levels. Local offices, races, and politics force people to come face-to-face with others in their communities. It can certainly be hotly contested, but there's a certain human touch to engaging in-person. The problem we have now is that, at least on the national level, it's easy to vilify an abstract "other". The lockdown hasn't helped in this regard in that it sends people to the computer and the internet where they then go and fight over national politics and vilify the "other side". There's a certain "sizing up" of the opposition in local politics. And if you run a door-to-door campaign on the local level you meet all kinds of people with different views and concerns. It has a humanizing effect. Unfortunately the national news media don't profit enough from this sort of thing, so we get the sorts of pundits we have now who stoke hatred on both sides and peddle theories that boil people over and line the pundits' pockets.

welch
January 12th, 2021, 07:30 AM
Still no answer from dneal. You simply repeat the Trumpist fantasy that election workers all over the country conspired to magically cheat Trump out of the landslide victory he claims. You claim "circumstantial" evidence that such a conspiracy happened. Trump lawyers presented nothing, and you should have read the court decisions that tossed Trump lawsuits in fifty or sixty times.

Every "circumstantial" claim got a fair hearing. They failed. In Pennsylvania, as you should know already, Judge Brann rejected Trump-Giuliani claims in US District Court. That's the trial court. You complained that the Circuit Court did not re-hear Trump-Giuliani evidence. So what?

You have ignored the trials in Michigan that, like Pennsylvania, dismissed Trump claims.

You ignored the decision in Nevada that dismissed Trump Campaign, Inc. claims. In that one, the judge, a Judge Stewart, was so annoyed that he ordered Trump Inc. to pay court costs. That's rare.

You ignored the decision in Wisconsin.

You ignored the fumblingly silly attempts to overturn the election in Georgia, even insisting that Trump's demand that the Georgia Secretary of State "recalculate" the vote count, or merely "find" an extra 12,000 Trump votes, was an innocent request.

You ignore the decisions in Arizona.

So, sure, the "circumstantial" evidence is that Trump screamed for months that he would win by a landslide and that only fraud could deny him the election. Trump-fanatics repeated Trump's claims, and he repeated whatever they repeated, as in "people are saying".

Do you, dneal, really mean that sane people should take Trumpist election-conspiracy fantasy seriously? That has been done. Sixty times. What else can sane people, people believing in an evidence-based reality, do for them?

Finally, to pass off my reading of all these court decisions as deriving from "TDS" is just plain crazy. The Trump-conspiracy phrase "TDS" has always been lying garbage, and nothing more.

dneal
January 12th, 2021, 10:36 AM
Still no answer from dneal...

Your derangement prevents you from considering my answer, evidenced in your diatribe that follows.

You confuse my presenting what Trump supporters see with my approval of it. I have not ignored the counterpoints. I see those too. There's little need to list them since you and TSherbs do a good job of that. I tried to explain to you how they are ineffective to the person that believes there was election fraud, but you seem unable to consider any perspective but your own. Just as I understand the Trumper's perspective, I understand yours. Sorry, but you come across to be just as looney as they are; feeding on emotion and ignoring reason. They dismiss Raffensperger's claims. You dismiss Navarro's claims. You understand your belief in your "evidence", but fail to understand their belief in their "evidence". Understanding is not acceptance.

It does not matter what the truth is when people (left or right) drink only the kool-aide of their own narrative.

You repeatedly ask what it will take to make them believe, and dismiss the answer. What will it take for you to believe they are as convinced of their viewpoint as you are of yours? Ask yourself the hypothetical of what it would take to convince you there was election fraud.

I'll reiterate. Iraqis believed our sunglasses had x-ray properties. How do you prove them wrong? Just calling them crazy, delusional, ignorant, deranged, etc... doesn't do that. Letting them examine the sunglasses to their own satisfaction does. It's absolutely that simple, but you still seem to fail to grasp it.

Lest you argue that sunglasses are trivial, I assure you that they were not. The outrage that infidels were looking at their (effectively) naked mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, etc... was plenty enough for them to shoot at us. All because of an irrational belief.

Empty_of_Clouds
January 12th, 2021, 12:02 PM
To use your sunglasses story, how many Iraqis did you let examine them? What level were these Iraqis? Did they represent all Iraqis with sunglasses paranoia? You see where this is going. Those sunglasses weren't offered for examination to every Iraqi who had doubts. The same applies to the Trumpers.

For the election process in the US as I understand it, from non-partisan global news sources, both parties have had ample opportunity to examine the process, and no evidence of widespread or even significant fraud has been found. What you are kind of suggesting is that every individual dissenting Trumper must have the opportunity to investigate the election themselves. That's never going to happen.

The solution here is not to allow the Trumpers to investigate election stuff, but for the responsible party members to do so. And that has already happened. The GOP and the President are the ones who should be reassuring their followers, but they are not doing so. Is it evidence that is preventing them from doing so? No, because as we have all seen, there is insufficient evidence of fraud.

What we are seeing from the POTUS and those in the GOP who are 'loyal' to him, is a willingness to sink to any depths to keep hold of power. Even to the detriment of the people of the US, if that's what it takes. It is nothing more than extremely unenlightened self-interest, and Trump is perhaps the worst such offender I've seen in years - and there's some stiff competition I can tell you.

dneal
January 12th, 2021, 12:56 PM
To use your sunglasses story, how many Iraqis did you let examine them? What level were these Iraqis? Did they represent all Iraqis with sunglasses paranoia? You see where this is going. Those sunglasses weren't offered for examination to every Iraqi who had doubts. The same applies to the Trumpers.

Personally maybe a couple of dozen. An analogy is to foster understanding, not to provide proof. Conversely, disproving an analogy or pointing out its shortcomings doesn't disprove what the analogy is referring to.


For the election process in the US as I understand it, from non-partisan global news sources, both parties have had ample opportunity to examine the process, and no evidence of widespread or even significant fraud has been found. What you are kind of suggesting is that every individual dissenting Trumper must have the opportunity to investigate the election themselves. That's never going to happen.

Again, I'm not advocating what is and what isn't true. I'm talking about what a large portion of people believe. If they still believe it (and of course the true conspiracy theorists will never believe, but we're not really talking about them), then the attempt at dispelling disinformation is unsuccessful.

I am not suggesting that every dissenting individual should have the opportunity to investigate themselves.

Look at the percentages of the American public that don't have faith in the election process. Normally around 40% or so (including both parties), with big swings after an election. 70+% of republicans this time, with a smaller percentage of democrats; and the inverse when Hillary lost. This is the problem that needs fixed (which I keep saying and people keep ignoring because they can't open their cognitive aperture wider than today's headlines).


The solution here is not to allow the Trumpers to investigate election stuff, but for the responsible party members to do so. And that has already happened. The GOP and the President are the ones who should be reassuring their followers, but they are not doing so. Is it evidence that is preventing them from doing so? No, because as we have all seen, there is insufficient evidence of fraud.

What I've been posting is what they believe responsible party members to have been doing. Sure there's Lin Wood crazy (and some listen to him). There are also individuals and groups "proving" there is fraud. John Lott, Peter Navarro, Russell Ramstad, etc... I suspect partisanship in a lot of those conclusions and "proof" as well, but it's plausible and compelling enough for the average Trump supporter to believe - just as the talking point about "60 court cases" 'proved' no issues is plausible and compelling enough to the average Biden supporter. I say talking point because there were not 60 cases where a judge heard all evidence presented by both sides. Most were withdrawn or denied - a point that Trump supporters use to "prove" their assertion that there have been no fair hearings.


What we are seeing from the POTUS and those in the GOP who are 'loyal' to him, is a willingness to sink to any depths to keep hold of power. Even to the detriment of the people of the US, if that's what it takes. It is nothing more than extremely unenlightened self-interest, and Trump is perhaps the worst such offender I've seen in years - and there's some stiff competition I can tell you.

There's some truth to that, but there are literally millions of honest, decent people who honestly have doubts. Characterizing them all as rabid, kooky loyalists is neither fair nor objective.

TSherbs
January 12th, 2021, 01:01 PM
The most effective "solution" would be for Donald Trump to state openly that he was mistaken, that upon reconsideration, the court reviews and lack of persuasive evidence of miscounting or fraud has convinced him that he was wrong in believing in and then promulgating a false narrative of an illegitimate election. He would then ask his followers to refocus on engaging with their local Republican (or another of their choosing) party and trying to effect the change that they seek.

And then repeat this for the next 4 months, which is about how long he has amplified this present false narrative.

This kind of refusal to participate in conspiracy would be like what John McCain did when he shot down that woman at the town hall meeting who wanted to claim that Obama wasn't a legitimate American. John McCain just wouldn't have anything to do with that lie (even when he could have benefited from it).

TSherbs
January 12th, 2021, 01:24 PM
This reminds me of the whole "birther" stuff, again, started in the kooky corner of the internet and then amplified and pioneered by Trump. What happens is that a very unlikely, but nefarious, possibility is speculated where there is a lack of evidence to the public of the contrary, and then in that space trust is intentionally undermined and rumor of evil is amplified until it becomes hardened into a "truth" that is believed simply because certain prominent people on the internet keep repeating it and enough others also repeat it in the general population. Add to this the power of the cult of personality (in Trump's case), and then you get a willingness, or even ardor, to do the bidding of the leader for his or her praise (Trump: "We love you.")

After Obama released his birth certificate, every one kept waiting for Trump to recant because he had been proven wrong and wise persons knew the importance of the recantation in neutering the power of the lie. And then more conspiracies arose even about the valid birth certificate. Deluded beliefs that have been amplified for months or years at the highest levels of cultural prominence are hard to defeat, and in the case of the machines, there is no way to recreate the election nor have any auditing of its accuracy beyond what the states have already conducted themselves. That IS the quality control process, and it was done. Mail in ballots have also been checked and recounted for accuracy. ALREADY. The evidence has been checked by the professionals of both parties. The law and common sense does not just let average joe citizens take apart a machine to see how the reader works nor actually do a manual recount themselves or check signatures. That is against the law. And this is not a nefarious arrangement. This is regulated to protect the privacy of your vote from the public to keep the voter (relatively) free from coercion or consequence of their vote. The states are in charge of this, conduct their own reviews, contract out the machine support, etc. They train their workers in the practice and the law. This is not secrecy; this is freedom and respect.

More audits is not the answer because no further audits (beyond those already done) can actually recount real votes from real citizens with real signatures. Everything would have to be "hypothetical," and these reviews have already been done, too (states look at these in making reviewing vendor bids, etc).

All that can happen now--and this would have a positive effect--is for Trump and the other promulgators to recant their insistence on this "steal" and reject the use of that language going forward every time they encounter it.

Empty_of_Clouds
January 12th, 2021, 02:03 PM
dneal, we are talking past each other somewhat.

My point is that the most reasonable path to bringing about a change of perspective in Trump supporters (the public, not elected officials), is to have the GOP/POTUS accept the results and issue statements to the effect that the election was free and fair with no fraud. Much as has been proposed by TSherbs above, and me a little earlier.

The problem is that POTUS and at least 147 Republican senators/congressman are still pushing the fraud story, when I personally believe - based on observations of their behaviour, various speeches, and mannerisms - that few if any of these people actually think there was any fraud, and that their posturing is not about finding truth but more centred on power-grabbing for its own sake.



An analogy is to foster understanding, not to provide proof. Conversely, disproving an analogy or pointing out its shortcomings doesn't disprove what the analogy is referring to.

I am well aware of this, and was merely using your example to help define limits to similar issues connected to the election.



What I've been posting is what they believe responsible party members to have been doing. Sure there's Lin Wood crazy (and some listen to him). There are also individuals and groups "proving" there is fraud. John Lott, Peter Navarro, Russell Ramstad, etc... I suspect partisanship in a lot of those conclusions and "proof" as well, but it's plausible and compelling enough for the average Trump supporter to believe - just as the talking point about "60 court cases" 'proved' no issues is plausible and compelling enough to the average Biden supporter. I say talking point because there were not 60 cases where a judge heard all evidence presented by both sides. Most were withdrawn or denied - a point that Trump supporters use to "prove" their assertion that there have been no fair hearings.

With this I disagree. I haven't seen anything that qualifies as proof of significant levels of fraud. As for the legal process... if lawyers cannot present properly supported cases they can hardly whine about being dismissed. The onus is on them to prove fraud occurred. They haven't, and in any case that was heard or read, not one single lawyer would go so far as to make a fraud accusation under oath. That in itself implies that they had no supporting evidence to make an argument. A legal case cannot be just a fishing expedition.

dneal
January 12th, 2021, 03:37 PM
I agree that we are talking past each other, and this has been going on for over 30 pages of posts (although very little of it is from you).

There seems to me to be confusion with actual proof and perceived proof. I agree completely that there is little to no actual proof, and there's circumstantial evidence at best. That seems to be what everyone is getting hung up on, as if I'm asserting that there is proof. I'm not.

What I'm asserting is that the argument from the opposing side is extremely compelling to the Trump supporter. I don't know how many times I have to say this, but it doesn't matter if it's actually true or not. What matters is whether or not they perceive it to be true. You have to change their perception. First, one has to understand what is they believe and why. You won't get that from The Washington Post or international news sources. You get that from their "news" sources.

Look at NTD on Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/c/ntdtv/videos). It's part of the Epoch Times, an outlet that "Leans Right" according to All Sides. That makes it appear relatively credible.

Here's testimony to a State level legislative election committee. Suspend judgement for a moment and watch some of it. Surely you can see how this appears to be credible, particularly to one in a right-leaning echo chamber. I'm not vouching for the veracity of it. I am skeptical. These are "results", but I want to see the data and methodology. These people have appealing credentials, but how do we know their actual expertise. Why is there no "Data Integrity Group" on the internet? This is an example of what you're fighting against when you attempt to convince Trump voters. "Courts ruled otherwise" is insufficient to them. They assume no judge has heard this. They'll point out that it was "discovered" after the majority of cases were denied/dismissed/lost/whatever. It reinforces their narrative, and discredits the opposing narrative. This situation is best viewed in the context of information operations. Like Russell Brand points out in the clip I posted, a "you guys are crazy" doesn't suffice; especially to someone who is predisposed to believe in this sort of thing.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKiyAy9vjrk

Empty_of_Clouds
January 12th, 2021, 03:56 PM
Granted, and it's easy to see why these followers hold these beliefs. What I would say though, and echoing my previous post, is that responsibility for encouraging change in these beliefs needs to come from a group or person that the followers trust and accept the word of. In this case that surely has to be the POTUS/GOP and nobody else. Simply put, these followers are never going to accept any evidence, proof or similar if it is coming from a source that they've already decided to distrust.

I agree with the need to change perception. It's how that appears to be problematic but really is only so because key players are stubbornly sticking to their guns and further inflaming the situation.

That's my take on it. I don't think the problem in general is difficult to understand, nor the solution. What does worry me a bit is that there are now more people out there who may resist any attempts to change their perception, no matter what the source.

TSherbs
January 12th, 2021, 05:44 PM
Yes, all the way. The best solution is in the hands of Donald Trump and other top Republican and internet influencers. Maybe Q.

dneal
January 12th, 2021, 06:03 PM
Granted, and it's easy to see why these followers hold these beliefs. What I would say though, and echoing my previous post, is that responsibility for encouraging change in these beliefs needs to come from a group or person that the followers trust and accept the word of. In this case that surely has to be the POTUS/GOP and nobody else. Simply put, these followers are never going to accept any evidence, proof or similar if it is coming from a source that they've already decided to distrust.

I agree with the need to change perception. It's how that appears to be problematic but really is only so because key players are stubbornly sticking to their guns and further inflaming the situation.

That's my take on it. I don't think the problem in general is difficult to understand, nor the solution. What does worry me a bit is that there are now more people out there who may resist any attempts to change their perception, no matter what the source.

The problem has gotten to the point that even rational, otherwise respected republicans like Dan Crenshaw and Trey Gowdy, are crucified for even suggesting it.

Originally I thought an investigation led by those four States' (Republican controlled) legislatures would satisfy them one way or another. Now I'm not so sure. I think there's merit to a variation of Ted Cruz's investigatory panel consisting of 5 republicans, 5 democrats and 5 judges (he suggested Supreme Court Justices, but I don't think that's necessary). Cruz's proposal was to hold off on the electoral count, and I didn't agree with that; but the panel still makes sense. Their work would need to be very transparent - i.e.: no mulling it over behind closed doors for a year or more.

I'm worried about what could happen if the rhetoric from both sides continues. Democrats are inflaming the situation with the impeachment/25th amendment proposal, asking for senators to be disbarred or expelled from the Senate for speech made on the Senate floor (which is even more protected than 1st Amendment free speech); etc... That's all compounded by the "purge" going on in social media.

Empty_of_Clouds
January 12th, 2021, 06:40 PM
Indeed. I don't really understand how the Constitution gets applied to specific scenarios; from what I read the censuring of senators/congressman comes under the 14th Amendment. Having had a read through the 14th, I have to admit I have no idea how that applies. Obviously, I am not a scholar of such arcana.

As for the social media 'purge', I am not really sure that there is anything specifically incorrect with what they are doing. However, as above, I remain unsure how precisely US law appends to social media sites - a lack of certainty that has in no way been improved after watching several congressional hearings where the participants on both sides were vague in their arguments.

TSherbs
January 12th, 2021, 07:31 PM
Cruz's idea is terrible and is not meant seriously as an option. It was proposed for political optics in his own state, and nationally if he tries to run again. No council of members has (nor can have) any legal oversight of any election or its legitimacy except the states' Secretaries of State and the bureaucracy underneath them. Proposing anything else is unlawful and unworkable.

The only thing left at this point is acceptance or rejection of the 306-225 result, and only Donald Trump and other leaders of the "steal" movement can have any sway over their followers. This crisis is a failure of leadership and a readiness to scapegoat a political loss onto one's enemies (that the POTUS ennabled and encouraged). Only reversing that will work.

Building bipartisan confidence in the next election cycle is a different can of worms. Leaders of both parties should be coming together already in order to make plans for that, and should make repeated public statements in support of the professionalism and dedication of our election staffers and auditors. Republican House and Senate members, especially, will have to say these things, or perhaps he we go again.

Since it is the case that in 7 of the last 8 Presidential election cycles Democrats have actually turned out more voters nationally than Republicans, the battle comes down to specific swing states and the Republicans know that they have a real fight over either turnout or legitimacy of results. Trump got beaten clearly nationally (biggest margin since Obama '08) so all he had left as an option was to undermine the legitimacy of the result in certain states as much as he could. This may continue to be the case if the Dems continue to have turnout success like they have had more recently and if the GOP continues not to serious try to win more urban and Black voters. The demographic shift of the country to majority-minority does not bode well for the GOP if they do not change some of their approach, and Trump's defeat this time (and the dearth of GOP popular vote wins) is partly a signal of this. Only the EC is keeping the GOP in the White HOuse since 2008. So I am not confidant that the GOP will relent on this "steal" issue, and I suspect that they will next morph it into a call for voter restrictions on access and voter identification. They will play on this conspiracy of fraud in order to enact tougher rules in certain swing states (at least).

dneal
January 12th, 2021, 07:40 PM
Indeed. I don't really understand how the Constitution gets applied to specific scenarios; from what I read the censuring of senators/congressman comes under the 14th Amendment. Having had a read through the 14th, I have to admit I have no idea how that applies. Obviously, I am not a scholar of such arcana.

As for the social media 'purge', I am not really sure that there is anything specifically incorrect with what they are doing. However, as above, I remain unsure how precisely US law appends to social media sites - a lack of certainty that has in no way been improved after watching several congressional hearings where the participants on both sides were vague in their arguments.

Professor Alan Dershowitz is one of (if not the) preeminent Constitutional scholar. He calls this impeachment "weaponizing" the impeachment clause, and that there's no real possibility for the Senate to convict before Biden is inaugurated. If so, then Trump is a citizen and the Congress has no jurisdiction (he specifically cites the text of "removing a President", which Trump would no longer be). They're trying to invoke the 14th amendment because of the 3rd article.

"No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability."

That explains why "insurrection" has been the language used by politicians and media. Anyway, the goal is to make him ineligible for reelection. It seems kind of petty and vindictive, and I don't think he would win a second term in 2024, but stranger things have happened.

As for the "purge". The whole thing is messy. Key points are:

- Right now, social media sites are not considered publishers and are not legally responsible for their content (that's the "section 230" stuff you might be hearing about). The argument is that if they are curating their sites then they are publishers and lose section 230 protections.

- Conservatives accuse them of singling them out. There is some merit to this argument.

- Lots of charges of hypocrisy (for the above) and that "Hang Mike Pence" still trends on Twitter with no removals, Kathy Griffin reposted the picture of her holding the beheaded Trump, etc...

I think the "purge" is actually going to be an interesting legal issue. Of course leaders in Mexico, France and Germany have criticized it as dangerous to free speech. They have an ethical point that I think resonates with many here in the U.S., and our American Civil Liberties Union (typically a very left leaning organization) has also criticized the move(s). I saw that Poland is going to fine sites $2.2M per incident. It makes it hard for a company like Twitter when they're essentially global and subject to a whole lot of jurisdictions.

Lastly is the effort to get rid of Parler. Apparently they're suing Amazon for breach of contract, and it also appears that Amazon Web Services signed a multi-year deal with Twitter.

There's lots of animosity against the social media giants for things like this, "shadow banning", data collection, etc... The world doesn't really know how to deal with "social media". How does it fit into legal structures, what liabilities does it have, what should it be allowed or forbidden to do, etc... I wouldn't want to be in Zuckerberg's or Dorsey's shoes right now.

dneal
January 12th, 2021, 07:56 PM
Cruz's idea is terrible and is not meant seriously as an option. It was proposed for political optics in his own state, and nationally if he tries to run again. No council of members has (nor can have) any legal oversight of any election or its legitimacy except the states' Secretaries of State and the bureaucracy underneath them. Proposing anything else is unlawful and unworkable.

Long on opinion and short on explanation. Why is Cruz's template terrible (not the specific hold off on counting electors business)? The U.S. Congress has jurisdiction over federal election laws. They can appoint whatever they want and give them whatever authorization they want. It's definitely legal. Enforcement (like charging "contempt of Congress") is another matter.


The only thing left at this point is acceptance or rejection of the 306-225 result, and only Donald Trump and other leaders of the "steal" movement can have any sway over their followers. This crisis is a failure of leadership and a readiness to scapegoat a political loss onto one's enemies (that the POTUS ennabled and encouraged). Only reversing that will work.

The "only" thing? Surely you can be more creative than that. Anyway, this exemplifies an inability to understand the opposition's perspective. Trump certainly isn't going to do that, and neither are his supporters.


Building bipartisan confidence in the next election cycle is a different can of worms. Leaders of both parties should be coming together already in order to make plans for that, and should make repeated public statements in support of the professionalism and dedication of our election staffers and auditors. Republican House and Senate members, especially, will have to say these things, or perhaps he we go again.

Yep. It's almost like we should have a bipartisan commission (*cough* or panel *cough*) investigate and make recommendations to implement. Crazy, I know.

Oh wait, what was that thing Jimmy Carter and James Baker did in 2005? Oh yeah, they published this report (https://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/election_reform_report.pdf).

dneal
January 12th, 2021, 08:12 PM
The five pillars from the 2005 Carter/Baker report (emphasis mine):

1.3 TRANSFORMING THE ELECTORAL SYSTEM - FIVE PILLARS

The recommendations of our Commission on Federal Election Reform aim both to increase voter participation and to assure the integrity of the electoral system. To accomplish these goals, the electoral system we envision should be constructed on the following five sturdy pillars:

- Voter registration that is convenient for voters to complete and even simpler to renew and that produces complete, accurate, and valid lists of citizens who are eligible to vote;

- Voter identification, tied directly to voter registration, that enhances ballot integrity without introducing new barriers to voting, including the casting and counting of ballots;

- Measures to encourage and achieve the greatest possible participation in elections by enabling all eligible voters to have an equal opportunity to vote and have their votes counted;

- Voting machines that tabulate voter preferences accurately and transparently, minimize under - and over - votes, and allow for verifiability and full recounts; and

- Fair, impartial and effective election administration.

How many of these pillars did we fail?

We know voter roles are always jacked up. Dead people voting, out of state people voting in the wrong or multiple states, etc... Happens every election.
Voter identification (the bane of Democrats) tied directly to voter registration certainly was an issue this election.
When judges, officials and even the company obstruct or refuse inspection of voter machines, you don't have transparency or allow for verifiability.
Way too many things to list on "fair, impartial and effective election administration", but to be fair that pillar is kind of fuzzy, happy language.

TSherbs
January 12th, 2021, 08:25 PM
We "failed" only under one of these: voter registration. And that is because the idea has failed to pass muster in the courts because of the failure to meet the criteria of the second half of the sentence: that the requirement pose no "barriers" to voting. And the need to satisfy the unbolded "pillar" above of encouraging and facilitating the greatest amount of voter participation (eg expanding mail-in voting or early voting, especially during a pandemic).

Please. In their hand-counted audit of every vote, Georgia found TWO confirmed dead person votes out of FIVE million total votes.

The rest of these are already satisfied, excepted to the disgruntled losing side that has had the mindworm infection of conspiracy implanted in them.

dneal
January 12th, 2021, 08:27 PM
We "failed" only under one of these: voter registration. And that is because the idea has failed to pass muster in the courts because of the failure to meet the criteria of the second half of the sentence: that the requirement pose no "barriers" to voting. And the need to satisfy the unbolded "pillar" above of encouraging and facilitating the greatest amount of voter participation (eg expanding mail-in voting or early voting, especially during a pandemic).

Please. In their hand-counted audit of every vote, Georgia found TWO confirmed dead person votes out of FIVE million total votes.

The rest of these are already satisfied, excepted to the disgruntled losing side that has had the mindworm infection of conspiracy implanted in them.

Rather than go through the complete list of your selectivity, I'll just point out that I'm pretty sure there are 49 other States you didn't account for.

Please, indeed.

TSherbs
January 12th, 2021, 08:41 PM
Why is Cruz's template terrible (not the specific hold off on counting electors business)?

Yes, exactly that. Cruz wasn't merely saying, let's look into the election process for next time. He was specifically attempting to hold up recording the certification of the EC results in specific states pending review. THAT was a terrible idea and will not ever occur simply to review/approve a result that has already been certified by a state.

Having a commission to look into election processes more generally for the future is never a bad idea, as long as it is an attempt to make them more accurate, equitable, and accessible. "Transparency" is all right, to a point (protecting the citizen's privacy and protecting them from reprisal or coercion). As I wrote above, the average joe citizen has no right or obligation to be shown the workings of voting tallying machines. We already are shown the voting results of every county in the country, and every district in local elections. Observers of both parties are allowed in the counting spaces. Cameras record the counting, also. What more "transparency" could there reasonably be?

TSherbs
January 12th, 2021, 09:00 PM
We "failed" only under one of these: voter registration. And that is because the idea has failed to pass muster in the courts because of the failure to meet the criteria of the second half of the sentence: that the requirement pose no "barriers" to voting. And the need to satisfy the unbolded "pillar" above of encouraging and facilitating the greatest amount of voter participation (eg expanding mail-in voting or early voting, especially during a pandemic).

Please. In their hand-counted audit of every vote, Georgia found TWO confirmed dead person votes out of FIVE million total votes.

The rest of these are already satisfied, excepted to the disgruntled losing side that has had the mindworm infection of conspiracy implanted in them.

Rather than go through the complete list of your selectivity, I'll just point out that I'm pretty sure there are 49 other States you didn't account for.

Please, indeed.

49 more? What for? I am not trying to persuade you or anyone here. It's just a chat thread in a pen forum. But if someone else wants to post research data of dead voting on 49 other states, I'll look at it. I can be persuaded with data that I get a chance to look over and read.

TSherbs
January 12th, 2021, 09:16 PM
Just for jollies, I looked up dead voters in Maine, my state.

I didn't get a hit right off, but I got the Michigan State Department's official statement on their election reliability (several aspects).

Here is the relevant conclusion to the section on "dead persons" voting: We are not aware of a single confirmed
case showing that a ballot was actually cast on behalf of a deceased individual. There are many reasons
why these claims have proven to be inaccurate:...

I read these reasons, and they are all logical and thorough and entirely predictable. You just have to decide to accept the hard work and thorough professionalism of the persons working on this up through the system and not be swayed by a lying immoral creature of a president. But hey. We each get to make up our minds.

I'm going to bed. Maybe another day, for more jollies, I'll look up what Maine has to say, if anything.

So, amended:

Georgia: 2 out of 5,000,000 votes
Michigan: 0 out of 5,450,000 votes
Maine??

edited to add: Maine has had 0 cases of voter fraud from "dead" or "deceased" persons in the last 40 years (as far back as The Heritage Foundation report looked in their research). I haven't found an official Maine statement yet, but now at almost midnight I really must go to bed.

dneal
January 13th, 2021, 03:25 AM
Just for jollies, I looked up dead voters in Maine, my state.

I didn't get a hit right off, but I got the Michigan State Department's official statement on their election reliability (several aspects).

Here is the relevant conclusion to the section on "dead persons" voting: We are not aware of a single confirmed
case showing that a ballot was actually cast on behalf of a deceased individual. There are many reasons
why these claims have proven to be inaccurate:...

I read these reasons, and they are all logical and thorough and entirely predictable. You just have to decide to accept the hard work and thorough professionalism of the persons working on this up through the system and not be swayed by a lying immoral creature of a president. But hey. We each get to make up our minds.

I'm going to bed. Maybe another day, for more jollies, I'll look up what Maine has to say, if anything.

So, amended:

Georgia: 2 out of 5,000,000 votes
Michigan: 0 out of 5,450,000 votes
Maine??

edited to add: Maine has had 0 cases of voter fraud from "dead" or "deceased" persons in the last 40 years (as far back as The Heritage Foundation report looked in their research). I haven't found an official Maine statement yet, but now at almost midnight I really must go to bed.

*Sigh*

If you look back, you'll see I posted "Dead people voting, out of state people voting in the wrong or multiple states, etc..." You do see that the sentence continued beyond "dead people", don't you? You do see "etc...", don't you?

Yet you select one thing, pick one state, and make an assertion that no one can verify is true or false; as if you have demolished the entire argument. I can cite all kinds of numbers of dead voters, curious amounts of 100+ year old voters (some even 220 years old), and other various forms of fraudulent votes.

I'm honest though. I don't know for sure if those numbers are accurate. They're just someone's claims from studying the issue. You on the other hand like to assert that your data is accurate, "debunking" anything to the contrary.

It's curious how that seems to work. Republican makes claim of fraud, you say they're a delusional liar. Democrat makes claim Republican is wrong, and you accept without question. SEE!!! THEY DEBUNKED IT!!! you cheer with delight. I see two competing claims with varying evidence to support either claim. I don't know the truth. (and before you start about Georgia and the SecState being GOP (ignoring that there are "never-Trumpers" in the GOP), look at Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania)

Note that "we are not aware..." is not the same as "there are no...". One sure has a lot of wiggle room. It's almost as if a politician with a legal background selected specific language for a specific reason.

TSherbs
January 13th, 2021, 05:25 AM
Like I said, I am not interested in persuading you, dneal, of anything. You said I left out 49 states, which I did (not that this matters in a pen site chat room). I will look up some more, just for fun. You can ignore the purport of what I post or say I am dodging or pry at the rhetorical differences of the language all you want.

I'll repeat the list and the numbers each time I find something. Feel free to ignore it or question it as you please.

TSherbs
January 13th, 2021, 06:11 AM
I can't find anything about fraudulent "deceased" votes on any official Arizona state websites. But I am quite impressed with how transparent and thorough the Secretary of State's page is. Wow. Even the "Equipment Certification Advisory Committee" agenda and meeting times are posted (open to public attendance and comment), the list of various ballot-counting machines and their firmware and manufacturer, all the links for the live-streaming of ballot counting in the various counties, even the list of machines used going back years. Looks to me like they are bending over backwards to give citizens information and access (beyond anything that has been done in the past, I imagine).

A court ruling over a law restricting assisting a neighbor with their vote being delivered, the court asserted in its ruling that in Arizona "there has never been a case of voter fraud associated with ballot collection charged in Arizona.”

That's about collection, not deceased persons, I know. But the "never" is definitive, and I remember that this issue also received some circulation on social media.

I'll move on to another swing state later today.

TSherbs
January 13th, 2021, 07:10 AM
Pennsylvania: total votes for president = 6,850,000

Total cases of voter fraud = 3 (incidentally, all older males who voted in the name of other persons, and all for Donald Trump). I think that only 2 of these is about voting for a deceased person, so that number is 2.

Updated list (confirmed deceased voter fraud)

Georgia: 2 out of 5,000,000 votes
Michigan: 0 out of 5,450,000 votes
Pennsylvania: 2 of of 6,850,000 votes
__________________________________
Running Total: 4 of 17,300,000 votes [2.31 x 10 *(-5) %]

Arizona?

dneal
January 13th, 2021, 07:30 AM
I'm not asking you to persuade me. I'm pointing out that either side has motive, and their credibility is subject to skepticism.

You accept one, and dismiss the other. I'm skeptical of both. Pro-Trumpers have an interest in "proving" there's more than the SecState is reporting. A SecState (particularly when of the opposing party) has motive too. Job security (can't get reelected or reappointed if you're incompetent), is a non-nefarious example.

--edit--

You'll surely make some point on why governments would lie, and that people are surely conspiracy theorists if they think that; but I'll give you a real example not related to elections.

For years people here said there were mountain lions in the State. They photographed prints, had anecdotal sightings (this was before game cameras were ubiquitous), and Bigfoot-ish blurry pictures. Our department of conservation routinely denied it. Conspiracy theories started.

And then one was hit by a car on the highway. Pictures were in the newspapers. Suddenly the department of conservation "discovered" there was indeed a mountain lion population in Missouri, and they needed to carefully tend to it.

TSherbs
January 13th, 2021, 07:47 AM
Looking into Texas now. I have not yet found any references to cases of fraud in this presidential election, but I will keep looking. No references to "dead" or "deceased" voters, either.

(There was a case in 2017 with a mayor who had people change their addresses so that they could vote for him--and he won. He got arrested and cuffed and taken out of his office.)

Ken Paxton, the Texas AG, has a web page that refers generally to ongoing active cases of voter fraud, but does not name them or even their categories. Interestingly, he also has not put out a news sheet on voter fraud from his office since March of 2020 (start of pandemic?). There are no references to any cases arising from any fraud in 2020. But I will keep looking. The biggest concern for Texas seems to be the possible voting of non-citizens. Again, I have not found yet any facts about any cases from the 2020 November election and this issue.

The Texas Secretary of State issued a statement on November 30, 2020, praising the Governor for supporting the election procedures in the counties and for what was a "resounding success" and a "safe, free, and fair election" in the state. No other statements about fraud or "dead" or "deceased" voting from her office or from the office of the Texas AG. In the Texas newspapers there is one reference in the Houston Chronicle (behind a paywall) to the AG "closing" 16 "minor cases" earlier in 2020, but I can't see what they are, and he does not refer to them in a press release, so....

So, looking like a "0" for November 2020 for Texas, but I will hold off for a bit... Texas cast 11,100,000 votes in 2020 for president.

TSherbs
January 13th, 2021, 09:17 AM
Updated list (confirmed deceased voter fraud in November 2020 election)

Georgia: 2 out of 5,000,000 votes
Michigan: 0 out of 5,450,000 votes
Pennsylvania: 2 out of 6,850,000 votes
Texas: 0(?) out of 11,100,000 votes
__________________________________
tentative Running Total: 4 of 28,400,000 votes [1.41 x 10 *(-5) %] or 0.0000141%

TSherbs
January 13th, 2021, 11:22 AM
Wisconsin (another temporarily disputed state):

The Wisconsin Elections Commission puts out a yearly review of "possible" election fraud cases, of which there were 19 prior to the November election (report dated Sept 1). No cases had anything to do with "dead" or "deceased" voters. I don't know how many of these "possibles" became actual cases the commission is not required to state that), and the report does not cover the November 2020 election. Seven cases were undeliverable registration forms (no resident at the address given), 3 were other "errors" on the registration forms, four were people who tried to vote twice (either different locations or different methods). No mention of dead voter cases (no impersonation fraud). I acknowledge that this report predates November 2020, but I am just reporting this as context for the historical degree and type of possible fraud that the Election Commission identified in the prior 12 months in every election (local, primaries, general elections) that they held in the state. Both the AG and the Secretary of State have no other statements about confirmed cases of impersonation fraud, and the press does not report any either.

I can't find any other reference to actual confirmed voter fraud in the state in any news source or official state document. And no references at all to the idea of "dead" or "deceased" voting.

The report from the prior 12 months found 24 possible instances of voter fraud in all of the elections cycle (local, primaries, general elections). Most of them were labeled as attempts to vote twice. Again, zero cases of impersonation or voting for deceased persons were recorded as suspected.

So, Wisconsin has a tentative "0" from me also. Wisconsin recorded 3,240,000 votes for president in the 2020 election.

TSherbs
January 13th, 2021, 11:26 AM
Updated list (confirmed deceased voter fraud in November 2020 election)

Georgia: 2 out of 5,000,000 votes
Michigan: 0 out of 5,450,000 votes
Pennsylvania: 2 out of 6,850,000 votes
Texas: 0(?) out of 11,100,000 votes
Wisconsin: 0(?) out of 3,240,000 votes
__________________________________
tentative Running Total: 4 of 31,640,000 votes [1.26 x 10 *(-5) %] or 0.0000126%

dneal
January 13th, 2021, 11:31 AM
If nothing else, you're tenacious. Myopic, but tenacious.

TSherbs
January 13th, 2021, 11:46 AM
I'll check into New Mexico, the last of the six contested states.

New Mexico had 903,000 votes cast for president in 2020.

TSherbs
January 13th, 2021, 03:05 PM
Neither the New Mexico Secretary of State nor the Attorney General has any published statements on individual cases of impersonation fraud in their last election, nor can I find anything about any specific cases in the news in the last year or concerning the November election. It looks like another "0," but I will look a little more.

welch
January 13th, 2021, 03:27 PM
I'll check into New Mexico, the last of the six contested states.

New Mexico had 903,000 votes cast for president in 2020.

I think that last was Arizona, another state where Trump's cultists believed that Biden had no right to win, because...because...

Overall, the answer seems to be that die-hard Trump cultists will hold onto their beliefs that Trump's landslide was stolen, just as right-wing Germans continued, after 1918, to believe that "the great German Army was never defeated, took not a single backward step, until it was stabbed in the back by Socialist Jews who agreed to the Armistice". Perhaps Republican voters with a sense of reality will give it up if, and as, Trump recedes into the past. It is clear, though, that some will not. The current Trump Cult lie is that radical leftists dressed in MAGA costumes and took the Capitol last week to make Trump look bad. Some believe that Trump will have the FBI and the Army arrest Joe Biden and a "cabal" of "deep state" agents. Any day now.

dneal
January 13th, 2021, 03:32 PM
Clever indirect Nazi reference.

Lloyd
January 13th, 2021, 05:20 PM
Anyone read this https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/10/world/europe/trump-truth-lies-power.html?

TSherbs
January 13th, 2021, 06:14 PM
Updated list (confirmed deceased voter fraud in November 2020 election)

Georgia: 2 out of 5,000,000 votes
Michigan: 0 out of 5,450,000 votes
Pennsylvania: 2 out of 6,850,000 votes
Texas: 0(?) out of 11,100,000 votes
Wisconsin: 0(?) out of 3,240,000 votes
New Mexico: 0 out of 903,000 votes
__________________________________
Running Total: 4 of 32,543,000 votes [1.23 x 10 *(-5) %] or 0.0000123%


So, to the best of my ability from a livingroom laptop and about three hours of searching, I could only come up with official (state authority) or newspaper references to four confirmed cases of voting in the name of deceased persons in the six states that the Trump campaign contested in their various lawsuits.

I've crossed concern about dead people voting off my list.

Conclude what you will.

Trump said in one of his "perfect" calls that there were "5,000" dead voters in Georgia alone. Fucking liar, and leader of a gullible and impressionable swath of America. He should be impeached simply for his pathological prevarication and assault on the truth. And then, oh yeah. For his part in inciting an armed attack on the US Capitol.

TSherbs
January 13th, 2021, 06:18 PM
Anyone read this https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/10/world/europe/trump-truth-lies-power.html?

I, for one, can't access this. What is it about?

Lloyd
January 13th, 2021, 06:39 PM
I'll try to cut&paste it. There are some image subtitles that you should ignore -
The Art of the Lie? The Bigger the Better
by Andrew Higgins, nytimes.com
January 10, 2021 04:36 PM
Lying as a political tool is hardly new. But a readiness, even enthusiasm, to be deceived has become a driving force in politics around the world, most recently in the United States.


For President Trump’s supporters, rallying near the Washington Monument on Wednesday, it is enough that he says he won.Credit...Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg

阅读简体中文版閱讀繁體中文版
MOSCOW — In a cable to Washington in 1944, George F. Kennan, counselor at the United States Embassy in Stalin’s Moscow, warned of the occult power held by lies, noting that Soviet rule “has proved some strange and disturbing things about human nature.”

Foremost among these, he wrote, is that in the case of many people, “it is possible to make them feel and believe practically anything.” No matter how untrue something might be, he wrote, “for the people who believe it, it becomes true. It attains validity and all the powers of truth.”

Mr. Kennan’s insight, generated by his experience of the Soviet Union, now has a haunting resonance for America, where tens of millions believe a “truth” invented by President Trump: that Joseph R. Biden Jr. lost the November election and became president-elect only through fraud.

Lying as a political tool is hardly new. Niccolo Machiavelli, writing in the 16th century, recommended that a leader try to be honest but lie when telling the truth “would place him at a disadvantage.” People don’t like being lied to, Machiavelli observed, but “one who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived.”

A readiness, even enthusiasm, to be deceived has in recent years become a driving force in politics around the world, notably in countries like Hungary, Poland, Turkey and the Philippines, all governed by populist leaders adept at shaving the truth or inventing it outright.

Janez Jansa, a right-wing populist who in March became prime minister of Slovenia — the home country of Melania Trump — was quick to embrace Mr. Trump’s lie that he won. Mr. Jansa congratulated him after the November vote, saying “it’s pretty clear that the American people have elected” Mr. Trump and lamenting “facts denying” by the mainstream media.

Even Britain, which regards itself as a bastion of democracy, has fallen prey to transparent but widely believed falsehoods, voting in 2016 to leave the European Union after claims by the pro-Brexit camp that exiting the bloc would mean an extra 350 million pounds, or $440 million, every week for the country’s state health service.


Many of the claims of Brexit backers are demonstrably false, but as Britain officially left the European Union, on Jan. 31, some people in London celebrated.Credit...Andrew Testa for The New York Times
Those who advanced this lie, including the Conservative Party politician who has since become Britain’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, later admitted that it was a “mistake” — though only after they had won the vote.

Bigger and more corrosive lies, ones that don’t just fiddle with figures but reshape reality, have found extraordinary traction in Hungary. There, the populist leader Viktor Orban has cast the financier and philanthropist George Soros, a Hungarian-born Jew, as the shadowy mastermind of a sinister plot to undermine the country’s sovereignty, replace native Hungarians with immigrants and destroy traditional values.

The strength of this conspiracy theory, sometimes tinged with anti-Semitism, said Peter Kreko, executive director of Political Capital, a research group in Budapest long critical of Mr. Orban, lies in its appeal to a “tribal mind-set” that sees all issues as a struggle between “good and evil, black and white,” rooted in the interests of a particular tribe.

“The art of tribal politics is that it shapes reality,” Mr. Kreko said. “Lies become truth and explain everything in simple terms.” And political struggles, he added, “become a war between good and evil that demands unconditional support for the leader of the tribe. If you talk against your own camp you betray it and get expelled from the tribe.”

What makes this so dangerous, Mr. Kreko said, is not just that “tribalism is incompatible with pluralism and democratic politics” but that “tribalism is a natural form of politics: Democracy is a deviation.”

In Poland, the deeply conservative Law and Justice Party of Jaroslaw Kaczynski, in power since 2015, has promoted its own multipurpose, reality-shifting conspiracy theory. It revolves around the party’s repeatedly debunked claim that the 2010 death of scores of senior Polish officials, including Mr. Kaczynski’s brother — Poland’s president at the time — in a plane crash in western Russia was the result of a plot orchestrated by Moscow and aided, or at least covered-up by the party’s rivals in Warsaw.

Russian rescue workers inspecting the site of a plane crash that killed Poland’s president, Lech Kaczynski, in 2010.Credit...Natalia Kolesnikova/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
While Polish, Russian and independent experts have all blamed bad weather and pilot error for the crash, the belief that it was foul play has resonated among die-hard Law and Justice supporters. It has both fed on and reinforced their view that leaders of the previous centrist government are not just political rivals but traitors in cahoots with Poland’s centuries-old foe, Russia, and Poland’s own former communist elite.

The utility of lying on a grand scale was first demonstrated nearly a century ago by leaders like Stalin and Hitler, who coined the term “big lie” in 1925 and rose to power on the lie that Jews were responsible for Germany’s defeat in World War I. For the German and Soviet dictators, lying was not merely a habit or a convenient way of sanding down unwanted facts but an essential tool of government.

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It tested and strengthened loyalty by forcing underlings to cheer statements they knew to be false and rallied the support of ordinary people who, Hitler realized, “more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie” because, while they might fib in their daily lives about small things, “it would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths.”

By promoting a colossal untruth of his own — that he won a “sacred landslide election victory” — and sticking to it despite scores of court rulings establishing otherwise, Mr. Trump has outraged his political opponents and left even some of his longtime supporters shaking their heads at his mendacity.

In embracing this big lie, however, the president has taken a path that often works — at least in countries without robustly independent legal systems and news media along with other reality checks.

After 20 years in power in Russia, President Vladimir V. Putin, for example, has shown that Mr. Kennan was right when, writing from the Russian capital in 1944, he said, “Here men determine what is true and what is false.”

Many of Mr. Putin’s falsehoods are relatively small, like the claim that journalists who exposed the role of Russia’s security service in poisoning opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny were working for the C.I.A. Others are not, like his insistence in 2014 that Russian soldiers played no role in the seizure of Crimea from Ukraine, or in fighting in eastern Ukraine. (He later acknowledged that “of course” they were involved in grabbing Crimea.)

But there are differences between the Russian leader and the defeated American one, said Nina Khrushcheva, a professor and expert on Soviet and other forms of propaganda at the New School in New York. “Putin’s lies are not like Trump’s: They are tactical and opportunistic,” she said. “They don’t try to redefine the whole universe. He continues to exist in the real world.”

Unidentified men outside a Ukrainian military base in Crimea in 2014.Credit...Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times
Despite his open admiration for Russia’s president and the system he presides over, she said, Mr. Trump, in insisting that he won in November, is not so much mimicking Mr. Putin as borrowing more from the age of Stalin, who, after engineering a catastrophic famine that killed millions in the early 1930s, declared that “living has become better, comrades, living has become happier.”

“That is what the big lie is,” Ms. Khrushcheva said. “It covers everything and redefines reality. There are no holes in it. You so either accept the whole thing or everything collapses. And that is what happened to the Soviet Union. It collapsed.”

Whether Mr. Trump’s universe will collapse now that some allies have taken flight and Twitter has snatched his most potent bullhorn for broadcasting falsehoods is an open question. Even after the Capitol siege by pro-Trump rioters, more than 100 members of Congress voted to oppose the election outcome. Many millions still believe him, their faith fortified by social media bubbles that are often as hermetically sealed as Soviet-era propaganda.

“Unlimited control of people’s minds,” Mr. Kennan wrote, depends on “not only the ability to feed them your own propaganda but also to see that no other fellow feeds them any of his.”

In Russia, Hungary and Turkey, the realization that the “other fellow” must not be allowed to offer a rival version of reality has led to a steady squeeze on newspapers, television stations and other outlets out of step with the official line.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey has shut down more than 100 media outlets and, through bullying by the tax police and other state agencies, forced leading newspapers and television channels to transfer ownership to government loyalists.

This assault began in 2008 with claims by Mr. Erdogan and his allies that they had discovered a sprawling underground group of coup plotters and subversives comprising senior military officers, writers, professors, editors and many others.

Protesters outside a courthouse in Turkey in 2013 where 275 people were accused of trying to overthrow the government. Turkey’s leader later acknowledged the case was a sham.Credit...Ozan Kose/Agence-France Presse, via Getty Images
“The group was completely invented, a total fabrication,” said Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and author of“The New Sultan: Erdogan and the Crisis of Modern Turkey.”

This big lie, built around a few shards of fact, convinced not only pious Muslims hostile to the country’s secular elite but also liberals, many of whom then viewed the military as the biggest threat to democracy. Trials dragged on for years before Mr. Erdogan acknowledged that the case against the alleged underground group was a sham.

Long before Mr. Trump, Mr. Cagaptay said, the Turkish leader, who has ruled since 2003, “saw the power of nativist and populist politics” rooted in falsehoods and “brought to prominence the idea of the deep state to justify crackdowns on his political opponents.”

Mr. Trump’s ascent also helped empower a cousin of the big lie — a boom in social-media disinformation and far-right conspiracy-theory fiction.

It has most notably been embodied by the global expansion of Qanon, a once-obscure fringe phenomenon that claims the world is run by a cabal of powerful liberal politicians who are sadistic pedophiles. Mr. Trump has not disavowed Qanon disciples, many of whom participated in the Capitol mayhem last Wednesday. In August he praised them as people who “love our country.”

To some extent, each new generation is shocked to learn that leaders lie and that people believe them. “Lying never was more widespread than today. Or more shameless, systematic, and constant,” the Russian-born French philosopher Alexandre Koyré wrote in his 1943 treatise, “Reflections on Lying.”

What most distressed Mr. Koyré, however, was that lies don’t even need to be plausible to work. “On the contrary,” he wrote, “the grosser, the bigger, the cruder the lie, the more readily is it believed and followed.”

© 2021 The New York Times Company.

welch
January 13th, 2021, 07:23 PM
Good article, Lloyd.

TSherbs
January 13th, 2021, 07:41 PM
Very interesting, thanks for posting that. Yes, to some degree, the more often one in power lies about bigger and bigger things, the more consequential to the world view being accepted it becomes to disbelieve or question the lie.

Evil, manipulative psychology, that.

TSherbs
January 13th, 2021, 07:53 PM
Speaking of BIG LIES, didn't Trump recently say that he has had "the greatest first term in presidential history"?

The insensitive brazenness of that lie during a pandemic when, basically, a 9/11 is happening in this country EVERY DAY now, just takes one's breath away.

Lloyd
January 13th, 2021, 08:45 PM
Speaking of BIG LIES, didn't Trump recently say that he has had "the greatest first term in presidential history"?

The insensitive brazenness of that lie during a pandemic when, basically, a 9/11 is happening in this country EVERY DAY now, just takes one's breath away.
"Greatest" is a subjective assessment. Ti a megalomaniac surrounded by sycophants, is an accurate statement.

Cyril
January 15th, 2021, 05:32 PM
It seems Trump has pLayed his LAST TRUMP.
"The executive orders" has signed and he has declared the DISCLOSURE OF THE OBAMA-GATE. He has openly did the declaration saying all the dossiers will be out and be on public.
General Flynn confirmed that and says another recent " Riot coup " which was a preprepared by BLM has been infiltrated military and special agents has a big success.
REMEMBER THE "VIKING DUDE" POSING FREELY FOR MANY PHOTOS? He seems to be one of them just painted his body for the mission? Does anyone believe he was wearing a Go-Pro camera?
There are stories and they are amazing and how TRUMP HAS PLAYED HIS LAST TRUMP?
Does anyone knows the total black out( Power Cut ) that took place in ITALY, Germany, Pakistan simultaneously and in Ukraine there had been some DELTA FORCE OPERATIONS FOLLOWING. These are the events that took before the discourse of OBAMA-GATE.
Is Trump up to something? Where is he going after all these. Is the military around DC.and around the Capitol Building is to do a protection or are they building a prison?
I am not partial to any political groups but I am aware of what is happening there. How the DS is hijacking all politicians , Justice, law and judiciary system to do and let happen anything to serve themselves but not to serve the people.
Honey trap culture and SCA is the festive mission for any one how willingly get involvement in politics and turning the wheel of the MAISON for their agenda.
This is one of the recent evidence . https://realrawnews.com/2021/01/delta-force-raids-biden-compound-in-ukraine/

Chuck Naill
January 16th, 2021, 05:45 AM
Repetition is the key. Speaking of Big Lies, "less filling, tastes great" comes to mind.

Trump has always done as anyone in sales and marketing has always done, repeat the marketing message. It is just when you give one person so much power, they're abuse effect the whole world.

Buyers and listeners should always test the message. Unfortunately, many Trump supports appear to have blinding believed anything he said and never verified. We all can fall into such a bad habit when we hear something we want to here.

Probably the biggest lie was swallowed by the police on hand last Wednesday thinking that people who look like them and think like them would storm the capital.

welch
January 16th, 2021, 10:37 AM
Trump loses again as DoJ ends investigation into nine discarded ballots in Pennsylvania, having found nothing "to support his unfounded claims of election rigging, saying in a statement that the probe had found “insufficient evidence to prove criminal intent on the part of the person who discarded the ballots.”


Though the case drew significant attention because of its public disclosure, investigators had long been skeptical that it would produce a significant finding of wrongdoing. According to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe nonpublic details of the case, the person who discarded the ballots was thought to have an intellectual disability. Local officials said the person was an independent contractor who was fired in the wake of the incident.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/justice-department-pennsylvania-election-investigation/2021/01/15/dcfe5274-55e3-11eb-a817-e5e7f8a406d6_story.html

welch
January 17th, 2021, 08:11 AM
A QAnon devotee waits, hoping that Trump will arrest everyone who opposes him...

Has the US divided into those who accept reality and those who live inside their self-sealing conspiracy theory?




By Kevin Roose
Jan. 17, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ET

Every morning, Valerie Gilbert, a Harvard-educated writer and actress, wakes up in her Upper East Side apartment; feeds her dog, Milo, and her cats, Marlena and Celeste; brews a cup of coffee; and sits down at her oval dining room table.

Then, she opens her laptop and begins fighting the global cabal.

Ms. Gilbert, 57, is a believer in QAnon, the pro-Trump conspiracy theory. Like all QAnon faithful, she is convinced that the world is run by a Satanic group of pedophiles that includes top Democrats and Hollywood elites, and that President Trump has spent years leading a top-secret mission to bring these evildoers to justice.

She unspools this web of falsehoods on her Facebook page, where she posts dozens of times a day, often sharing links from right-wing sites like Breitbart and The Epoch Times or QAnon memes she has pulled off Twitter. On a recent day, her feed included a rant against Covid-19 lockdowns, a grainy meme accusing Congress of “high treason,” a post calling Lady Gaga a Satanist and a claim that “covfefe,” a typo that Mr. Trump accidentally tweeted three years ago, was a coded intelligence message.

“I’m the meme queen,” Ms. Gilbert told me. “I won’t produce them, but I share a mean meme, and I’m kind of raw.”

These are confusing times for followers of QAnon, a deranged conspiracy theory birthed in the bowels of the internet. They were told that Mr. Trump would be re-elected in a landslide, and that a coming “storm” would expose the global pedophile ring and bring its leaders to justice.

But there have been no mass arrests, and Mr. Trump is leaving office on Wednesday under the cloud of a second impeachment. Many prominent QAnon followers have been arrested for their roles in this month’s deadly mob riot at the U.S. Capitol. They are being barred by the thousands from major social networks for spreading misinformation about voter fraud, and law enforcement agencies are treating the movement as a domestic extremist threat.

These setbacks have left QAnon believers like Ms. Gilbert hoping for a last-minute miracle. Her current theory is that Mr. Trump will not actually leave office on Wednesday, but will instead declare martial law, declassify damning information about the “deep state” and arrest thousands of cabal members, including President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Like any movement its size — which is almost certainly in the millions, though it is impossible to quantify — QAnon contains a wide range of beliefs and tactics. Some “anons” are veteran conspiracists who have spent years exploring the theory’s many tributaries. Others are newer converts who have only a vague idea how it all connects. There are law-abiding keyboard warriors as well as violent, unhinged radicals.

There is no question that QAnon, which began in 2017 with a series of anonymous posts on the 4chan online message board by “Q,” a person purporting to be a high-ranking government insider, has outgrown its roots on the far-right fringes. It is now a big-tent conspiracy theory community that includes left-wing yoga moms, anti-lockdown libertarians and “Stop the Steal” Trumpists. QAnon believers are young and old, male and female, educated and not. Every community in America has its fair share of them — dentists and firefighters and real estate agents who disappeared down a social media rabbit hole one day and never came back.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/17/technology/qanon-meme-queen.html

Chuck Naill
January 17th, 2021, 12:26 PM
I do think this is a form of radicalization where there is a sensitivity to a position followed by self identication with a qroup of like minded people. There is probably some difficulty in breaking away or separating yourself if those other radicals are your only contacts.

If you think Trump won the election and you find others who agree, then you have an authoriry figure that agrees with your thoughts, you're liable to fall into the radicalization trap. Something similar occurs with anti vaccine people. I knew of a woman who had her first child in her late 40's The child is autistic. She read the debunked study showing an MMR vaccine connection to autism. She convince many this was the reason her child developed autism.

dneal
January 17th, 2021, 01:47 PM
I do think this is a form of radicalization where there is a sensitivity to a position followed by self identication with a qroup of like minded people. There is probably some difficulty in breaking away or separating yourself if those other radicals are your only contacts.

If you think Trump won the election and you find others who agree, then you have an authoriry figure that agrees with your thoughts, you're liable to fall into the radicalization trap. Something similar occurs with anti vaccine people. I knew of a woman who had her first child in her late 40's The child is autistic. She read the debunked study showing an MMR vaccine connection to autism. She convince many this was the reason her child developed autism.

I'm going to post a thread on it soon, but the former "conspiracy theory" of COVID 19 starting in a lab in Wuhan is now "approved" for discussion. Note that initially, anyone who suggested there might be an alternative explanation to the "wet market" hypothesis was shouted down, ridiculed, "fact-checked" etc...

This was also the case with treatment of COVID. The orthodoxy was whatever Fauci, Birx and The Who said. Point out that China influences the WHO? Point out other experts with credentials on par with Fauci that have differing opinions? Basically disagree at any level with the orthodoxy/"consensus"? You're ridiculed, removed from social media, etc... Now even liberal politicians are deciding that lockdowns and other measures might not be the best course of action. I believe it was Gov Cuomo who said "if we don't open, there will be nothing left to open", or something like that.

Now there is a similar circumstance with this election. Reasonable people may present the hypothesis of fraud. They may present circumstantial evidence (and perhaps some direct evidence) of fraud. The situation was certainly novel (election counting stopping, wide swings of several hundred thousand votes after counting restarted, and 4 cities in 4 states determining the outcome). Just like the two examples regarding COVID (and your words above), anyone who even presents the possibility of an alternative explanation is labeled, ridiculed, and dismissed. One explanation is chosen, its representatives assigned as immaculate arbiters of truth, and all others are burned at the proverbial stake.

If there are competing hypothesis in any other context, they're tested and evaluated and the facts and data determine the strength. When politics (or money) are involved, it's heretical to suggest the narrative might be wrong. Tsherbs couldn't even allow for the usage of "seems plausible" in questioning the election happenings without decrying it as dangerous, careless, or whatever term he used.

Perhaps there is a pattern that we should try to avoid.

Chuck Naill
January 17th, 2021, 02:28 PM
I do think this is a form of radicalization where there is a sensitivity to a position followed by self identication with a qroup of like minded people. There is probably some difficulty in breaking away or separating yourself if those other radicals are your only contacts.

If you think Trump won the election and you find others who agree, then you have an authoriry figure that agrees with your thoughts, you're liable to fall into the radicalization trap. Something similar occurs with anti vaccine people. I knew of a woman who had her first child in her late 40's The child is autistic. She read the debunked study showing an MMR vaccine connection to autism. She convince many this was the reason her child developed autism.

I'm going to post a thread on it soon, but the former "conspiracy theory" of COVID 19 starting in a lab in Wuhan is now "approved" for discussion. Note that initially, anyone who suggested there might be an alternative explanation to the "wet market" hypothesis was shouted down, ridiculed, "fact-checked" etc...

This was also the case with treatment of COVID. The orthodoxy was whatever Fauci, Birx and The Who said. Point out that China influences the WHO? Point out other experts with credentials on par with Fauci that have differing opinions? Basically disagree at any level with the orthodoxy/"consensus"? You're ridiculed, removed from social media, etc... Now even liberal politicians are deciding that lockdowns and other measures might not be the best course of action. I believe it was Gov Cuomo who said "if we don't open, there will be nothing left to open", or something like that.

Now there is a similar circumstance with this election. Reasonable people may present the hypothesis of fraud. They may present circumstantial evidence (and perhaps some direct evidence) of fraud. The situation was certainly novel (election counting stopping, wide swings of several hundred thousand votes after counting restarted, and 4 cities in 4 states determining the outcome). Just like the two examples regarding COVID (and your words above), anyone who even presents the possibility of an alternative explanation is labeled, ridiculed, and dismissed. One explanation is chosen, its representatives assigned as immaculate arbiters of truth, and all others are burned at the proverbial stake.

If there are competing hypothesis in any other context, they're tested and evaluated and the facts and data determine the strength. When politics (or money) are involved, it's heretical to suggest the narrative might be wrong. Tsherbs couldn't even allow for the usage of "seems plausible" in questioning the election happenings without decrying it as dangerous, careless, or whatever term he used.

Perhaps there is a pattern that we should try to avoid.

I don't see the relationship between the virus and the election. If Fauci was making statements that were found to be incorrect, he was not trying to misinform or hide information. Given his career, he has had to follow the evidence or best evidence to date. Otherwise, he would not have risen to the level of respect that he has with several administrations.

Do you remember the MMR vaccine autism link? Wakefields work was published in The Lancet and later his work was debunked. The reason was that his methods was fraudulent. He was found out. This is what happens in medicine. It may take a while, but if it's bad science, it's rooted out.

The problem with calling the election a fraud is that the Republicans, of which I am a member, benefited from the election. So, how it the top of the ballot wrong and the bottom of the ballot correct? Also, if we want to take an eveidenced based approach for what we think is true, what evidence has been discovered that those four states conspired to alter the votes to give Biden the win and at the same time also allow Republicans to gain seats?

Often people make matter of fact statements that are based on anecdotal or hearsay evidence. I am not of Facebook, but I have hear that people repost information. This is no way to formulate a position.

dneal
January 17th, 2021, 03:20 PM
The relationship isn't between the virus and the election. The relationship is the narrative that occurred in each instance.

One line of thinking was decreed as correct, and opposing views weren't allowed to be spoken (let alone investigated). In the case of the source of the coronavirus, we are now far enough along so see the error. We are perhaps far enough along to see the shortcomings of lockdowns.

We are only two months into the "contesting" of the election. From the beginning, the narrative was that anyone who thinks it was suspect is a crazy conspiracy theorist. That in itself is irrational. You consider all explanations for a phenomenon. You develop hypotheses for those. A hypothesis doesn't make a claim other than "here is one possibility". Evidence supports and refutes individual hypotheses.

What happened with the election is that one hypothesis was immediately rejected by one side. The same narrative used with covid was used (by the same party) to discount the "fraud hypothesis". They found their spokespeople and anointed them, ignoring potential conflicts of interest. To even have a legitimate curiosity (in my case) resulted in being labeled a secret Trumpist (by you too, in fact).

One side claims a certain amount of fraud took place, large enough to sway the election. They have their facts and figures to substantiate their argument. I don't know if their data is accurate or true. Some of it seems to be, and some of it doesn't. I'm skeptical. They have personal interest, and therefore a conflict of interest of varying degree, depending on the individual.

The other side claims no fraud took place. They have their facts and figures to substantiate their argument. I don't know if their data is accurate or true. Some of it seems to be, and some of it doesn't. I'm skeptical. They also have personal interest, and therefore a conflict of interest, depending on the individual.

Russell Ramstad is the CEO of the company that has made many assertions about the fraudulent numbers, and problems with Dominion systems. He's a Republican, and has interest in a Pro-Trump outcome. The Michigan Secretary of State is a Democrat, and has offered different numbers and discounts problems with Dominion systems. She has an interest in an anti-Trump outcome.

I still make no judgement whether or not the election was fair or fraudulent. I can see both sides. I see persuasive evidence from both sides, dubious evidence from both sides, and where each side has "shot holes" in the other's argument. I have taken a nuanced position.

As Eric Weinstein points out, there are "internet hyenas" that will not allow anyone to promote a nuanced position. He calls them cults, and names them "Wokestan" and "Magastan". He has a point. "Wokestan" is more prevalent here. It asks the question posed by the title of this thread, and rejects any answer that doesn't agree with some notion that 70million people are deranged lunatics that just need to shut up. I'm sorry, but in what universe is that a reasonable position? It's not. It is evidence of actual delusional thinking. There are plenty of delusional people in "Magastan" too, they just don't (or very rarely) post here.

fountainpenkid
January 17th, 2021, 04:09 PM
Every election has fraud and imperfections—this one was no different. It was abundantly clear back in December that these discrepancies never had any chance of changing the outcome, so what is the point of all this? Is the answer to just declare Trump king for life, because the process will never be perfect? This is so ridiculous to still be worthy of discussion at this point.

Chuck Naill
January 17th, 2021, 04:14 PM
If there is a similar narrative, for me, it came from Trump. I remember the Friday night he equated the COVID -19 virus to the flu. After the election he spoke of election fraud. Two statements unthethered with any evidence.

I would be surprised if some votes did not count for various reasons, but the issue for me is was there an effort to prevent voting or not count a voted cast.

fountainpenkid
January 17th, 2021, 04:24 PM
All this is is a pathetic attempt to debase our electorate by uncoupling elections from any facts or truth. All in service of a narcissistic, evil, wicked, treasonous, shell of an excuse for a man. What the fuck?

dneal
January 17th, 2021, 04:31 PM
Every election has fraud and imperfections—this one was no different. It was abundantly clear back in December that these discrepancies never had any chance of changing the outcome, so what is the point of all this? Is the answer to just declare Trump king for life, because the process will never be perfect? This is so ridiculous to still be worthy of discussion at this point.


All this is is a pathetic attempt to debase our electorate by uncoupling elections from any facts or truth. All in service of a narcissistic, evil, wicked, treasonous, shell of an excuse for a man. What the fuck?


Thank you for illustrating my point so clearly.

fountainpenkid
January 17th, 2021, 04:38 PM
Your point that the other side thinks there was no fraud?

Oh, your point that the other side has a personal bias against rotten apricot? Honestly, if you don’t hate the motherfucker by now, I want nothing to do with you.

Lloyd
January 17th, 2021, 05:09 PM
No (what you refer to as) liberals were shouting that the entire country should be under lockdown. You're (intentionally?) painting the COVID control recommendations in black & white terms. The multiphased approaches, defined regionally, that respond to localized levels was what was always discussed.... Not only Republicans care about the economy.

dneal
January 17th, 2021, 05:55 PM
Your point that the other side thinks there was no fraud?

Oh, your point that the other side has a personal bias against rotten apricot? Honestly, if you don’t hate the motherfucker by now, I want nothing to do with you.

I still don't understand the anger.

My point is simply that each side has a narrative, and in their unbridled passion advocates it as absolute fact when there's no possible way they can have that level of certainty.

As soon as I posted a lengthier version of that, you essentially confirmed it with your posts.

dneal
January 17th, 2021, 05:59 PM
No (what you refer to as) liberals were shouting that the entire country should be under lockdown. You're (intentionally?) painting the COVID control recommendations in black & white terms. The multiphased approaches, defined regionally, that respond to localized levels was what was always discussed.... Not only Republicans care about the economy.

No, I'm talking about narratives. I suppose I still haven't clearly explained, but I'm more inclined to believe people just aren't reading what I'm writing; or giving it a fair read - particularly when my post is strawmanned into a point I never made.

Not that it's relevant to my position, but liberals were indeed talking about shutting down the entire country, speculating on whether or not Biden would do that if elected President. It was in the news for a week at least.

One example from CNBC (https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/11/biden-covid-advisor-says-us-lockdown-of-4-to-6-weeks-could-control-pandemic-and-revive-economy.html)

Lloyd
January 17th, 2021, 06:03 PM
He also said on that article -
In an interview with NBC News on Thursday, Osterholm clarified his comments, saying "it was not a recommendation. I have never made this recommendation to Biden's group. We've never talked about it."
"My only point was if we are going to keep making restrictions state-by-state, there is no compensation for the businesses that are being impacted," he added. "What we're doing right now is not working."
A Biden transition official told NBC News that a shutdown "is not in line with the president-elect's thinking."


IF Worldwide, we all quarantine for two months, COVID numbers would go down. No one (rational) is suggesting this though.

dneal
January 17th, 2021, 06:22 PM
He also said on that article -
In an interview with NBC News on Thursday, Osterholm clarified his comments, saying "it was not a recommendation. I have never made this recommendation to Biden's group. We've never talked about it."
"My only point was if we are going to keep making restrictions state-by-state, there is no compensation for the businesses that are being impacted," he added. "What we're doing right now is not working."
A Biden transition official told NBC News that a shutdown "is not in line with the president-elect's thinking."


IF Worldwide, we all quarantine for two months, COVID numbers would go down. No one (rational) is suggesting this though.

So much deflection.

Newsweek (https://www.newsweek.com/coronavirus-us-national-lockdown-joe-biden-covid-19-plan-strategy-1546581)
Huffpost (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/biden-no-national-shutdown-covid-19_n_5fb6f5d2c5b618e45b4695ad)
CBS affiliate (https://www.wfmynews2.com/article/news/local/president-elect-joe-biden-nationwide-lockdown-coronavirus-covid/83-c7bab3cc-a1bf-4bdd-8146-3448d8921b33)
MSN (https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/what-a-lockdown-could-look-like-under-a-biden-administration/ar-BB1aYYG9)

The media plants these narratives. Where did "Biden lockdown entire country" come from? Journalists posing loaded questions, and then pontificating about them for a week; just like starting the narrative on Trump won't leave the WH. Each side swallows the ones they think are tasty.

Narratives, not covid, not elections, not quarantines. Narratives.

Lloyd
January 17th, 2021, 06:42 PM
Oh, you're taking about the REALLY biased pseudonews.

dneal
January 17th, 2021, 06:55 PM
With the possible exception of Huffpost, Newsweek, CBS and MSN are hardly REALLY biased pseudonews.

They all do this. CNN, Fox, you name it.

The Eric Weinstein interview is worth a listen. You don't have to watch it on Youtube. You can listen to it as a podcast on your way to work or as you go about your day.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-93-why-eric-weinstein-is-finally-talking-to-glenn/id620967489?i=1000505484146
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4myTyggd4Lp5QiwrNFkAKm
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/the-glenn-beck-program-23014384/episode/ep-93-why-eric-weinstein-76321783/
https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-glenn-beck-program/episode/ep-93-why-eric-weinstein-is-finally-talking-to-glenn-beck-the-glenn-beck-podcast-80872777

welch
January 18th, 2021, 09:32 AM
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/18/us/supporters-of-donald-trump.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage


By Sabrina Tavernise
Jan. 18, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON — For many Trump supporters, the inauguration of Joseph R. Biden Jr. this week will be a signal that it is time to move on. The president had four years, but Mr. Biden won, and that is that.

But for a certain slice of the 74 million Americans who voted for President Trump, the events of the past two weeks — the five deaths, including of a Capitol Police officer, the arrests that have followed, and the removal of Mr. Trump and right-wing extremists from tech platforms — have not had a chastening effect.

On the contrary, interviews in recent days show that their anger and paranoia have only deepened, suggesting that even after Mr. Trump leaves the White House, an embrace of conspiracy theories and rage about the 2020 election will live on, not just among extremist groups but among many Americans.

“I can’t just sit back and say, ‘OK, I’ll just go back to watching football,’” said Daniel Scheerer, 43, a fuel truck driver in Grand Junction, Colo., who went to the rally in Washington last week, but said he did not go inside the Capitol and had nothing to do with those who did. He said he did not condone those who were violent, but believed that the news media has “totally skewed” the event, obscuring what he sees as the real story of the day — the people’s protest against election fraud.

“If we tolerate a fraudulent election, I believe we cease to have a republic,” he said. “We turn into a totalitarian state.”

Asked what would happen after Mr. Biden took office, Mr. Scheerer said: “That’s where every person has to soul search.”

Trump campaign billboards displayed along Texas State Highway 71 near La Grange, Texas, on Election Day. Credit...Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times
He continued: “This just isn’t like a candidate that I didn’t want, but he won fair and square. There’s something different happening here. I believe it needs to be resisted and fought against.”

Mr. Scheerer said he was not advocating violence, nor was he part of any group that was. But he echoed the views of many who supported the events in Washington last week: A fervent belief that something bad was about to happen, and an instinct to fight against it.

Polls indicate that only a small fraction of Americans approved of the riot in Washington last week. A Washington Post-ABC News poll showed that 8 percent of adults and 15 percent of Republicans support “the actions of people who stormed the U.S. Capitol last week to protest Biden’s election as president.” That is far from most voters, but enough to show that the belief in a stolen election has entered the American bloodstream and will not be easy to stop.

“It’s a dangerous situation,” said Lucan Way, a political scientist at the University of Toronto who writes about authoritarian regimes. “The ‘election was stolen’ narrative has become part of the political landscape.”

The country’s political divide is no longer a disagreement over issues like guns and abortion but a fundamental difference in how people see reality. That, in turn, is driving more extremist beliefs. This shift has been years in the making, but it went into hyper-speed after the Nov. 3 election as Mr. Trump and many in his party encouraged Americans, despite all the evidence to the contrary, to believe the results were fraudulent. The belief is still common among Republicans: A Quinnipiac poll published Monday found that 73 percent still falsely believe there was widespread voter fraud.


Although Trump had sixty lawsuits in which his campaign could have provided evidence of voter fraud, and although judges reviewed every scrap of Trumpian evidence while dismissing every suit, the delusion continues. Trump, the delusion says, won by a "landslide" but an invisible conspiracy of "democrat cities" -- code words for black people -- plus "Communist" countries of North Korea and Venezuela plus "anti-Trump" Republicans in Georgia and Arizona has "stolen" the election. We saw them act out their delusion at the Capitol.

Where people absolutely believe in unreality, we would ordinarily say that they border on psychosis. As these people, unlike clinical psychotics, hold jobs, feed themselves, and otherwise function, this a disease unlike plain psychosis. Call it "social psychosis".

Yes, it is dangerous.

dneal
January 18th, 2021, 10:39 AM
Trump didn’t have 60 lawsuits. Put down the kool aide.

--edit--

The counter narrative (https://hereistheevidence.com/)

Pennslyvania data, from the PA database (https://hereistheevidence.com/election-2020/pa-update-records/)

Their claim:

UPDATE: On December 16th, PA.gov released another update to the Mail Ballot Request database. This Fact List has been updated to include the data from the most recent release. This is ever evolving research and you can see past versions of this Fact List here.

FACT 1: OpenDataPA allowed anyone to download the Mail Ballot Request CSV database showing the life cycle of every mail-in/absentee ballot, which PA periodically updates.

FACT 2: There have been 4 known versions up this database so far. A Nov 6th Version, Nov 10th Version, Nov 16th Version, and Dec 16th Version. The changes between versions were never disclosed to the public.
Anomalies and irregularities have been a found in all versions. The Nov 10th Version showed 23,305 ballots having a “Returned” date before their actual “Mailed” date. The Nov 16th Version change most of the ballots, leaving only 185 ballots with this anomaly. The December 16th version has only 181.

With each updated version, ballots are deleted. There were 9,763 fewer ballot entries between the Nov 10th Version and Nov 16th Version. 3,687 fewer ballot entries between the Nov 16th Version and the December 16th Version.

The Texas Lawsuit lays out many of the impossible anomalies from the Nov 10th Version.


FACT 3: Access to the database was blocked on November 21st after viral videos drew public attention and then were unblocked on November 25th after Pennsylvania certified Vice President Joe Biden on November 24th.

FACT 4: On December 3rd, HereIsTheEvidence released the HereIsTheEvidence Analyzer to enable anyone (including journalists) to verify/find anomalies in election data.

1. 161,774 mail-in ballot records were changed between Nov 10th version and the Dec 16th Version. Of the changes, 116,840 ballots were given new return dates.

Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that any ballots without a postmark should “be presumed to have been mailed by Election Day” unless there was strong evidence to the contrary.

The evidence from official records show that 116,840 mail-in ballots have had changed “Return Date” entries between November 10th and December 16th.

2. 69,004 ballots were marked “Returned” after November 3rd.

Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar reported on November 10th that only 10,000 ballots were received after November 3rd. She declared that same number to the Supreme Court on November 30th.

3. 19,660 ballots were marked “Returned” after November 6th.

Pennsylvania Supreme Court usurped established Pennsylvania legislation to allow ballots to be counted if received by November 6th. Ballots received after the 6th were to be rejected.

Pennsylvania rejected 7,411 in the 2020 election, as of November 20th.

4. Counties allowed new ballots to be filled out after the election.

Pennsylvania’s deadline for mail-in applications was October 27th, yet new ballots were being filled out and submitted daily.

Berks county was filling out and submitting new ballots on November 16th.

5. OpenDataPA has a visualizer to explore the current dataset, but it hides ballots received after November 3rd.

Until Pennsylvania updates their Visualizer to show all ballots, you can use the HereIsTheEvidence Analyzer to verify these claims.

Check out the code, it’s open source.

6. As laid out in the Texas lawsuit, Pennsylvania’s mail-in ballot anomalies at 118,426 affected ballots. The anomalies from this December 16th version shows:

161,774 records have alterations
Of these alterations:
116,840 were Returned Dates changes
69,004 were marked “Returned” after Nov 3rd
19,660 were marked “Returned” after Nov 6th
13,450 ballots have been deleted since Nov 10th
10,415 Return Date with no Mail Date
5,052 Applications Returned after Ballot Mailed
1,034 Applications Approved after Application Returned

Totaling: 191,725 mail-in ballots were touched by alterations, illegality, or anomalies according to data.PA.gov.

In Pennsylvania’s response to the Texas lawsuit, they did not address the mail-in ballot anomalies.

dneal
January 18th, 2021, 10:54 AM
Now that will trigger many ongoing cases of TDS, and I'll again be accused of being a "Trumpist" or some such nonsense, simply because I look at both narratives and provide the opposing one (since you guys aren't going to look for it).

You should probably reflect on your own emotional stability and bias as you type out your next two minutes of hate.

dneal
January 18th, 2021, 10:59 AM
Why Do Most Countries Ban Mail-In Ballots?: They Have Seen Massive Vote Fraud Problems (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Papers.cfm?abstract_id=3666259)


Abstract
Thirty-seven states have so far changed their mail-in voting procedures this year in response to the Coronavirus. Despite frequent claims that President Trump’s warning about vote fraud/voting buying with mail-in ballots is “baselessly” or “without evidence” about mail-in vote fraud, there are numerous examples of vote fraud and vote buying with mail-in ballots in the United States and across the world. Indeed, concerns over vote fraud and vote buying with mail-in ballots causes the vast majority of countries to ban mail-in voting unless the citizen is living abroad.

There are fraud problems with mail-in absentee ballots but the problems with universal mail-in ballots are much more significant. Still most countries ban even absentee ballots for people living in their countries.

Most developed countries ban absentee ballots unless the citizen is living abroad or require Photo-IDs to obtain those ballots. Even higher percentages of European Union or other European countries ban absentee for in country voters. In addition, some countries that allow voting by mail for citizens living the country don’t allow it for everyone. For example, Japan and Poland have limited mail-in voting to those who have special certificates verifying that they are disabled.

France has made an exception this year to the ban on absentee ballots to those who are sick or at particular risk during the Coronavirus pandemic. Poland and two cities in Russia have adopted mail-in ballots for elections this year only, but most countries haven't changed their regulations.

France banned absentee voting in 1975 because of massive fraud in Corsica, where postal ballots were stolen or bought and voters cast multiple votes. Mail-in ballots were used to cast the votes of dead people. Examples for other countries are provided.

Lloyd
January 18th, 2021, 11:23 AM
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/here-is-the-evidence/

dneal
January 18th, 2021, 11:44 AM
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/here-is-the-evidence/

Ahh, the infamous liberal "fact check", leading to "it's been debunked!!!". This will end up as a novel logical fallacy (although it's really a form of "shoot the messenger" pseudo-argument).

The site offers state election data obtained from the state itself, among other types of data and sources. It allows anyone to examine and correlate that data and draw conclusions. That's how things like the scientific method and peer-review work.

Disagree with the data or the conclusions they drew? Do the work and disprove it. A site simply asserting questionability is hardly a refutation.

I'm not asserting that their conclusions are valid or invalid. I'm simply pointing out that there is an opposing narrative and that it has some evidence to support that narrative.

Lloyd
January 18th, 2021, 12:22 PM
It seems like you're just explaining why conspiracy theories are so pervasive.

dneal
January 18th, 2021, 12:29 PM
Yes, I've said that several times now and that it's what should be addressed; only to receive a horse laugh and comment along the lines of "they're delusional".

Here's a little secret though. The Trump-haters (some of which we see on this forum) are every bit as delusional, deranged, irrational and overly emotional as the Trump-lovers. Neither side thinks they are. Both sides think the other is.

Lloyd
January 18th, 2021, 01:45 PM
Why people believe in conspiracy theories...
https://youtu.be/JpInOs1Fyno

dneal
January 18th, 2021, 02:24 PM
Why people believe in conspiracy theories...
https://youtu.be/JpInOs1Fyno

Fine, but again you make the assumption that the 2020 election is just a conspiracy theory. There's evidence that it's not, and claiming otherwise won't make it go away.

I don't know how many times I have to type this until someone will actually read it.

Covid originating in a lab was immediately labeled a "conspiracy theory". Turns out it's not (https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-escape-theory.html). Also turns out we don't know for sure, but that's why you evaluate all the evidence dispassionately and let the truth fall out where it may. Also turns out we were warned about this sort of thing. (https://thebulletin.org/2012/08/the-unacceptable-risks-of-a-man-made-pandemic/)

In an interesting parallel, "election fraud" was immediately labeled a "conspiracy theory", by Democrats and left-leaning media who I'm sure have no conflict of interest in holding that view and espousing that narrative. "Trump lost 60 court cases!". "The absolutely non-partisan Democrat Michigan Secretary of State promises it was fair!!!". "The absolutely not partisan, elected to 10 year terms, 5-2 Democrat majority Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled Trump lost fair and square!!"

Perhaps there is evidence to discredit that hypothesis. Perhaps there is an alternative hypothesis. Perhaps it is just a conspiracy theory. Perhaps it isn't. Who knows for sure? You certainly will never know unless you objectively evaluate the evidence. For the umpteenth time, shouting it down just fuels the conspiracy (if it is one).

And we have threads like this where people can't for the life of them understand Republican skepticism.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuWrdNNXRGM

Lloyd
January 18th, 2021, 03:30 PM
Georgia's County was overseen by a staunch Republican.... How'd those recounts go?
If you can't disapprove it, then believe the infotainment source that supports your hopes & dreams...despite all the elected officials (many appointed under Trump) stating that the incidents of inconsistencies not amounting to enough to alter the election.

dneal
January 18th, 2021, 03:43 PM
And you continue to cherry pick. Color me surprised.

It might not have occurred to you that there are Republicans that are anti-Trump (see: Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney, Jeff Flake, etc...). There is a large portion of the GOP that is quite happy to return to the status-quo. The fact that Raffensperger is with the GOP is not proof of anything. The data isn't affected.

Lastly, you seem in insinuate that I'm a Trump supporter (from the "hopes and dreams" bit). I'm not.

It occurred to me that the "birther conspiracy theory" is actually a fair example of how to deal with this sort of thing. The argument and accusations went back and forth for years. It was Trump (ironically) who got Obama to "put up", so to speak. He produced a birth certificate, and we didn't hear any more about it. Amazing how that works.

Lloyd
January 18th, 2021, 03:48 PM
Actually, there were plenty that still didn't believe Obama was a US citizen by birth.
I don't think you're a Trumper; I never did. You just try to make people question what can't be proven but that they firmly believe in. That's why I got my degree in Math (the provable) and am agnostic ...

dneal
January 18th, 2021, 04:14 PM
Yep, and there were the few die-hards that said some nonsense about "short-form" vs "long-form"; but the majority "birthers" dismissed them and were satisfied (if not happy). I suspect the same would be the case with the election. A few will never be convinced, but that's not who needs addressed. The many that still doubt, are.

Thanks for the fair assessment. I do just try to make people question what they firmly believe in. Whether or not it can or can't be proven depends on the topic (and there's the whole problem of statistics and probabilities somewhere in the middle...).

Lloyd
January 18th, 2021, 04:46 PM
The really aren't any indisputable "facts" regarding the election nor COVID.
Since might "enjoy" this https://youtu.be/4lg6cZmfpeM

Chuck Naill
January 18th, 2021, 04:47 PM
Yep, and there were the few die-hards that said some nonsense about "short-form" vs "long-form"; but the majority "birthers" dismissed them and were satisfied (if not happy). I suspect the same would be the case with the election. A few will never be convinced, but that's not who needs addressed. The many that still doubt, are.

Thanks for the fair assessment. I do just try to make people question what they firmly believe in. Whether or not it can or can't be proven depends on the topic (and there's the whole problem of statistics and probabilities somewhere in the middle...).

And we try to allow you the opportunity to question what you believe or appear to believe. :) I tend to change my mind with more evidence. Do you?

Lloyd
January 18th, 2021, 05:05 PM
The birthers didn't acknowledge Obama's citizenship. That became unimportant to their God (Trump) and he threw other distractions and distortions into their food dishes.

dneal
January 18th, 2021, 05:50 PM
The really aren't any indisputable "facts" regarding the election nor COVID.
Since might "enjoy" this https://youtu.be/4lg6cZmfpeM

There are plenty of disputable facts. I see both side's evidence. Neither is conclusive to me.



And we try to allow you the opportunity to question what you believe or appear to believe. :) I tend to change my mind with more evidence. Do you?

For the first, I don't need permission; but thanks for the sentiment.

For the second, I do too but one side won't allow it to be admitted - so to speak. I'm still unpersuaded either way but work under the assumption is was a fair election.

Lloyd
January 18th, 2021, 05:59 PM
I don't see any conclusive facts, only my interpretation of what I chose to feed myself.

Chuck Naill
January 19th, 2021, 04:45 AM
There are plenty of disputable facts. I see both side's evidence. Neither is conclusive to me.



And we try to allow you the opportunity to question what you believe or appear to believe. :) I tend to change my mind with more evidence. Do you?

For the first, I don't need permission; but thanks for the sentiment.

For the second, I do too but one side won't allow it to be admitted - so to speak. I'm still unpersuaded either way but work under the assumption is was a fair election.

So, what that one side do or say that would satisfy you?

Chuck Naill
January 19th, 2021, 06:27 AM
I think one way a conspiracy theory can develop is to say to yourself that since a possibility can exist, it does in fact exist.

If you want to think there is a possibility the election was stolen, it was indeed possibly stolen.

Even if the top of the ballot was wrong and the bottom correct, there exists a possibility that somehow , somewhere, it could have happened.

I believe thinking this way reminds me of a quote of a person always studying, but never coming to the truth. Never landing out of fear of having to take a position or of thinking of yourself as wise for that independence. It’s a type of “whatabouttuisism” or thinking you’re right, but you don’t know why. It’s just a feeling. It’s also cynical and can cause one to always throw up another topic rather than dealing with what’s obvious.

Chuck Naill
January 19th, 2021, 07:49 AM
Let’s consider the 1776 Commission released yesterday. How would you respond if you’re familiar.

Did slavery occur and does it taint the American history? Did it really occur? Should it be discussed? How would you teach American history regarding slavery if you think it really occurred?

How did slavery effect the African American experience in a nation where liberty was an institution?

For me, If some topics just cannot be discussed because they are too painful, nothing ever gets accomplished snd we just run the same risk of endless repetition

dneal
January 19th, 2021, 08:10 AM
We keep running around in circles.

The particulars in some states were novel. They were anomalous. That creates curiosity, if nothing else. What is the explanation for these novel anomalies? This sort of thing happens all the time, in all sorts of aspects of human existence. Why was this the coldest day ever recorded? Why was there a big flash of light and a boom above a big Russian city?

In the case of the contentious election, some point out all the things on sites like hereistheevidence.com. Some point out that the results feed to the news outlets show vote tallies decreasing. Some point out that there are many voters with a January 1st, 1900 birthday. Ok, that's curious. It's not a far leap to even say it's suspicious. Perhaps there is a perfectly reasonable explanation. Perhaps there isn't. It needs an explanation satisfactory to the majority of reasonably minded people who are suspicious.

When one side attempts to silence any questioning, through media, public ridicule, "fact checking" and labeling social media posts; it also causes one to wonder why the vehemency? What is wrong with finding an explanation, and why is one side so dead-set on not examining it? If one is prone to suspicion, this only exacerbates it. I'm prone to skepticism. I'm skeptical of the claims that absolutely nothing wrong happened. I'm also skeptical of claims by the "experts" that assert many wrong things happened. Skepticism, and "what do I not know", helps insulate against faulty conclusions, Dunning Kruger effect, etc...

Acknowledging that a possibility can exist doesn't necessarily lead to conspiracy theories. I can acknowledge that there is a possibility of life on other planets. I can acknowledge that there is a possibility that there is a deity. I don't see enough evidence to suppose, or act as if, it is the case (or even probable). When I see the evidence of the "election was stolen" side, I can acknowledge that there is quite a bit and it seems plausible. I can also acknowledge that it is not convincing (i.e.: doesn't overcome my skepticism).

My concern is not my own curiosity. My concern is 70 million Americans that are not sure, or do not believe the election was legitimate. My concern is the divisiveness in the nation. My concern is what happens if we continue down these partisan paths. The question is the title of this thread. Sure, some will never be convinced just as some still believe Obama wasn't an American citizen. Those are the fringe. Trying to persuade them is as silly as trying to lump all Trump supporters as fringe thinkers - yet we see two threads that continue to assert that very thing.

The longer this goes on, the harder it is going to be to convince them and the more volatile the situation becomes. The left is talking about the Trump supporters need "deprogrammed", and the WashPost columnist Eugene Robinson lumps 70 million people into a "cult". That's crazy talk too, btw. This won't just go away. It needs to be addressed. Increasingly it is the case that whoever addresses the "election was stolen" assertions will need some serious credibility. A small nonpartisan commission could perhaps be sufficient at this point.

I don't have any confidence that will happen. One side will continue to shout the election was stolen, and the other will shout that they're delusional. Nothing good will come of that.

dneal
January 19th, 2021, 08:14 AM
Let’s consider the 1776 Commission released yesterday. How would you respond if you’re familiar.

Did slavery occur and does it taint the American history? Did it really occur? Should it be discussed? How would you teach American history regarding slavery if you think it really occurred?

How did slavery effect the African American experience in a nation where liberty was an institution?

For me, If some topics just cannot be discussed because they are too painful, nothing ever gets accomplished snd we just run the same risk of endless repetition

That's an entirely separate topic that although I would be happy to discuss, needs to be raised in a separate thread.

Fermata
January 19th, 2021, 08:24 AM
This is a genuine question with no agenda or judgement.

I am reading a news article on significant images of the past administration and saw this pic of Melania wearing a jacket with a message whilst visiting a migrant camp.

https://fpgeeks.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=58437&d=1611069486

Without fear of contradiction could anyone tell me what message you think she sought to give out by wearing this jacket and why would she do so when visiting a migrant camp, I don't know but I assume she visited the camp on compassionate grounds.

I am English, I have no axe to grind, I am just curious about the objective.

Thank you.

This message

Lloyd
January 19th, 2021, 08:45 AM
What makes you so certain that these ballot irregularities weren't investigated already during the recounts?

dneal
January 19th, 2021, 08:45 AM
This is a genuine question with no agenda or judgement.

I am reading a news article on significant images of the past administration and saw this pic of Melania wearing a jacket with a message whilst visiting a migrant camp.

https://fpgeeks.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=58437&d=1611069486

Without fear of contradiction could anyone tell me what message you think she sought to give out by wearing this jacket and why would she do so when visiting a migrant camp, I don't know but I assume she visited the camp on compassionate grounds.

I am English, I have no axe to grind, I am just curious about the objective.

Thank you.

This message

Probably a fair explanation HERE (https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/former-friend-and-aide-explains-melanias-i-dont-care-jacket/vi-BB18DrTV). A former friend and aide on a not-friendly network. Essentially a faux-pas where she intended to say to the media that she didn’t care what they thought, but missed the potential narrative that it could mean she didn’t care about migrant children.

dneal
January 19th, 2021, 08:55 AM
What makes you so certain that these ballot irregularities weren't investigated already during the recounts?

It’s an issue of perceived credibility. Same election officials. There’s video of auditors questioning ballots and being told to just go ahead and get the totals first (by the official), over their objections of the propriety of that methodology. Like many other video clips, we only see part of the situation and can’t be sure if there’s something critical omitted.

Judge for yourself.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7CHJhwUNvE

Fermata
January 19th, 2021, 09:04 AM
This is a genuine question with no agenda or judgement.

I am reading a news article on significant images of the past administration and saw this pic of Melania wearing a jacket with a message whilst visiting a migrant camp.

https://fpgeeks.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=58437&d=1611069486

Without fear of contradiction could anyone tell me what message you think she sought to give out by wearing this jacket and why would she do so when visiting a migrant camp, I don't know but I assume she visited the camp on compassionate grounds.

I am English, I have no axe to grind, I am just curious about the objective.

Thank you.

This message

Probably a fair explanation HERE (https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/former-friend-and-aide-explains-melanias-i-dont-care-jacket/vi-BB18DrTV). A former friend and aide on a not-friendly network. Essentially a faux-pas where she intended to say to the media that she didn’t care what they thought, but missed the potential narrative that it could mean she didn’t care about migrant children.

Thank you.

Lloyd
January 19th, 2021, 11:16 AM
What makes you so certain that these ballot irregularities weren't investigated already during the recounts?

It’s an issue of perceived credibility. Same election officials. There’s video of auditors questioning ballots and being told to just go ahead and get the totals first (by the official), over their objections of the propriety of that methodology. Like many other video clips, we only see part of the situation and can’t be sure if there’s something critical omitted.

Judge for yourself.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7CHJhwUNvE
Ok, that showed that there were procedures that they followed methodically. First sorting and counting without analyzing. That doesn't look irregular at all.... Unless someone starts to pitch it in some conspiratorial way.
In the end, either you believe all these people that were repeatedly tasked to do this job were scheming (I don't even recall any whistle blowers) or you believe the results.

dneal
January 19th, 2021, 01:13 PM
What makes you so certain that these ballot irregularities weren't investigated already during the recounts?

It’s an issue of perceived credibility. Same election officials. There’s video of auditors questioning ballots and being told to just go ahead and get the totals first (by the official), over their objections of the propriety of that methodology. Like many other video clips, we only see part of the situation and can’t be sure if there’s something critical omitted.

Judge for yourself.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7CHJhwUNvE
Ok, that showed that there were procedures that they followed methodically. First sorting and counting without analyzing. That doesn't look irregular at all.... Unless someone starts to pitch it in some conspiratorial way.
In the end, either you believe all these people that were repeatedly tasked to do this job were scheming (I don't even recall any whistle blowers) or you believe the results.

Were they? Were the ballots claimed to have identical signatures addressed at some point? We don't know. Would republicans trust the democrat local or state leadership to say it was accounted for? I doubt it.

In the end, it depends on what "the end" is. Biden's inauguration? A credible explanation or investigation? Yes, in the end you either believe or not. I'm not sure we're at "the end" yet.

Four months after the Trump inauguration, Nancy Pelosi tweeted this:

58440

Are republicans also entitled to have their "conspiracy theory" investigated?

Lloyd
January 19th, 2021, 01:57 PM
It's been investigated in... how many court cases, many presided by judges appointed under right-wing governments?

Lloyd
January 19th, 2021, 02:00 PM
Until a few elections back, these type of large scale voting disputes didn't happen.... Is this the power of the internet to allow support to all conspiracies?

Sphere
January 19th, 2021, 03:26 PM
Mr Neal, your unceasing penchant for beating a dead horse is wearing thin. If you or anyone has actual proof that will stand up in court - produce it. As has been pointed out by me and others, no judges (including recent Trump appointees on the Supreme Court and lower courts) found any evidence of widespread fraud. I get it that you either don't understand, or have no respect for the basic tenets or American law. But, as I said before, the burden of proof is on the accuser.
I am looking forward to noon on January 20th. It can't come soon enough. So, if you want to closet yourself in the delusions of the past - go ahead, the rest of the world will move on.

dneal
January 19th, 2021, 03:32 PM
It's been investigated in... how many court cases, many presided by judges appointed under right-wing governments?

So that seems to have become a left talking-point, and I tend to agree more with the right when they assert that the majority of courts did not hear the evidence. The vast majority of the 50+ cases were settled procedurally. Cases were withdrawn, denied on standing, denied on laches, etc...

Exacerbating the problem was the timeline. There was no way the GOP was going to discover and assemble the evidence and present a conclusive argument, which is why they tried to delay the electoral process. The democrats certainly fought discovery at every turn. Never-Trump GOP factions are just as obstinate. I'm tracking that Maricopa county is still ignoring the subpoena from the AZ senate. Anyway, the courts, whether for partisan or other political reasons (like simply not wanting to be involved in a political issue), found their way around hearing the cases - the SC declining the Texas case being a prime example.

But as interesting or boring as that is to most folks (and I find the legal arguments interesting), that's not really the question. The question is how to convince the people who doubt the results of the election (particularly when there is a large amount of circumstantial evidence to fuel their doubt)? Four years ago, it took a special counsel, several years and tens of millions of dollars; and some still aren't convinced. Is the GOP entitled to have their "conspiracy theory" investigated? Saying it has, by the court system, is hardly a fair comparison of the effort or attention of the two situations.

For some reason posing the question and positing answers turns into an argument about what actually happened instead of what people believe happened. I don't know how many times I've made that point, and watched it be ignored. Circumstantial evidence is just that. It's not direct evidence. It's not proof. A lot of circumstantial evidence is cause for question. For further examination. That's not the same as arguing that a lot of circumstantial evidence is - in and of itself - cause to overturn an election.


Until a few elections back, these type of large scale voting disputes didn't happen.... Is this the power of the internet to allow support to all conspiracies?

Good question. Looking back at the history of disputed elections, contested voters and whatnot; Adams certified Vermont's electoral votes (to his benefit) when they were in question. Jefferson (his opponent at the time) recommended he do just that. Jefferson certified Georgia's votes (again, to his benefit). There are other examples. Were those "large scale voting disputes" for the time? I'm not really sure. It seems to have settled down until Bush v Gore, and has become worse since then. Hillary's loss and the insanity that resulted was a milestone, only surpassed by Trump's loss.

The internet does indeed have a lot of power to dispense information, good and bad.

Lloyd
January 19th, 2021, 03:40 PM
Drneal, have you thought about how many would have to work together, without interference by whistle blowers, to get the counts in several states, and their courts, to stick with their initial electoral decisions? Is that the Dark State at work?

dneal
January 19th, 2021, 03:45 PM
Mr Neal, your unceasing penchant for beating a dead horse is wearing thin. If you or anyone has actual proof that will stand up in court - produce it. As has been pointed out by me and others, no judges (including recent Trump appointees on the Supreme Court and lower courts) found any evidence of widespread fraud. I get it that you either don't understand, or have no respect for the basic tenets or American law. But, as I said before, the burden of proof is on the accuser.
I am looking forward to noon on January 20th. It can't come soon enough. So, if you want to closet yourself in the delusions of the past - go ahead, the rest of the world will move on.

Maybe you should move on. No one is twisting your arm and making you read any of this. No one made you the hall monitor. I know it sounds crazy, but you might find that there are whole other sections of FPG that don't involve politics. You should go to the pen photos section and tell those folks "enough with the pictures already!!!"

I suspect your discomfort is just typical leftist authoritarian / control-freak attitudes. You're like AOC declaring "I'm the boss". Protip: you're not, and she's not.

dneal
January 19th, 2021, 03:52 PM
Drneal, have you thought about how many would have to work together, without interference by whistle blowers, to get the counts in several states, and their courts, to stick with their initial electoral decisions? Is that the Dark State at work?

Yes, actually I have and that's why I posted that the construct of Ted Cruz's panel is a decent framework, although I disagreed with his proposal that we hold off the electoral count. Most of my responses to you I have already posted. I'm happy to answer again, even if appearing to "beat a dead horse", but Sphere clearly has their panties in a bunch over my responding to you.

I don't know what the rest of your post is about with the "dark state" and whatnot. There are entrenched bureaucrats that will protect their self-licking ice cream cones, but there's no "deep state" or "dark state".

Lloyd
January 19th, 2021, 03:56 PM
Mr Neal, your unceasing penchant for beating a dead horse is wearing thin. If you or anyone has actual proof that will stand up in court - produce it. As has been pointed out by me and others, no judges (including recent Trump appointees on the Supreme Court and lower courts) found any evidence of widespread fraud. I get it that you either don't understand, or have no respect for the basic tenets or American law. But, as I said before, the burden of proof is on the accuser.
I am looking forward to noon on January 20th. It can't come soon enough. So, if you want to closet yourself in the delusions of the past - go ahead, the rest of the world will move on.

Maybe you should move on. No one is twisting your arm and making you read any of this. No one made you the hall monitor. I know it sounds crazy, but you might find that there are whole other sections of FPG that don't involve politics. You should go to the pen photos section and tell those folks "enough with the pictures already!!!"

I suspect your discomfort is just typical leftist authoritarian / control-freak attitudes. You're like AOC declaring "I'm the boss". Protip: you're not, and she's not.
Unless you're a mod here, neither are you, drneal. The OP posed a question about getting those at odds with the election to accept it. No one knows for certain the true results... Who would have the time and access to personally verify every voting form? However, an election winner has been decided and, if the country can re-unify (or get reasonably close to this), many election deniers will need to accept the vote.

dneal
January 19th, 2021, 04:21 PM
=Lloyd]Unless you're a mod here, neither are you, drneal.

That's right, and that's why I don't run around the forum telling people what they can post and when.

I'm thinking I misunderstood your signature. I thought it was humorous. I'm beginning to think it's your method.

Empty_of_Clouds
January 19th, 2021, 05:37 PM
It's Monty Python - a quite amusing sketch.

Chuck Naill
January 19th, 2021, 05:42 PM
Mr Neal, your unceasing penchant for beating a dead horse is wearing thin. If you or anyone has actual proof that will stand up in court - produce it. As has been pointed out by me and others, no judges (including recent Trump appointees on the Supreme Court and lower courts) found any evidence of widespread fraud. I get it that you either don't understand, or have no respect for the basic tenets or American law. But, as I said before, the burden of proof is on the accuser.
I am looking forward to noon on January 20th. It can't come soon enough. So, if you want to closet yourself in the delusions of the past - go ahead, the rest of the world will move on.

Maybe you should move on. No one is twisting your arm and making you read any of this. No one made you the hall monitor. I know it sounds crazy, but you might find that there are whole other sections of FPG that don't involve politics. You should go to the pen photos section and tell those folks "enough with the pictures already!!!"

I suspect your discomfort is just typical leftist authoritarian / control-freak attitudes. You're like AOC declaring "I'm the boss". Protip: you're not, and she's not.

He must have hit a nerve. Are you going to resort to name calling and insults?

Lloyd
January 19th, 2021, 05:48 PM
You're like AOC declaring "I'm the boss". Protip: you're not, and she's not.
and in less than 24 hours, neither will Donald. Unfortunately, many Americans will have a very tough time accepting this.

dneal
January 19th, 2021, 06:26 PM
Mr Neal, your unceasing penchant for beating a dead horse is wearing thin. If you or anyone has actual proof that will stand up in court - produce it. As has been pointed out by me and others, no judges (including recent Trump appointees on the Supreme Court and lower courts) found any evidence of widespread fraud. I get it that you either don't understand, or have no respect for the basic tenets or American law. But, as I said before, the burden of proof is on the accuser.
I am looking forward to noon on January 20th. It can't come soon enough. So, if you want to closet yourself in the delusions of the past - go ahead, the rest of the world will move on.

Maybe you should move on. No one is twisting your arm and making you read any of this. No one made you the hall monitor. I know it sounds crazy, but you might find that there are whole other sections of FPG that don't involve politics. You should go to the pen photos section and tell those folks "enough with the pictures already!!!"

I suspect your discomfort is just typical leftist authoritarian / control-freak attitudes. You're like AOC declaring "I'm the boss". Protip: you're not, and she's not.

He must have hit a nerve. Are you going to resort to name calling and insults?

Chuck - please stop being a hall monitor and shit stirrer. Go revisit your "empathy" thread.

Lloyd
January 19th, 2021, 06:30 PM
Odd... Your words could be used to describe you, too.

dneal
January 19th, 2021, 06:33 PM
Odd... Your words could be used to describe you, too.

What, shit-stirrer? Sure. Not a hypocrite about it though.

Hall monitor? Never. Do what you want and I'll do what I want.

Ray-VIgo
January 20th, 2021, 12:37 PM
Something that's a little ironic, and the die-hard Trump people would not admit to, is that Trump's post-election strategy in Georgia may have actually hurt rather than helped the Republican candidates. From what I saw, and it seems part of his character, is that he would not pull back and focus on winning Georgia. Instead he would ramble on about how the election was "stolen" or about lawsuits, or about recounts. He seemed unable to set aside himself and focus on winning the swing voter, or the pro-Republican voter being ginned up into thinking that the whole thing was a "fraud" and that he should stay home.

His rallies had (and perhaps always had) a combination of tent revival, circus sideshow, and live infomercial. He's one part preacher, one part Barnum, one part QVC host at the rallies. But when the moment came to transcend himself and to focus on the task in Georgia, he fell short. He had the power to occasionally make a prescient point, but then a sentence later or a day later undermine his own position. He fought with a number of people who supposedly were supposed to be allies - Mattis, Bolton, Spicer, Preibus, Barr, Sessions, etc. Plenty of people were willing to hear a populist message, but many people were also turned off by the chaos and constant bickering with anyone and everyone within reach.

I am not sure what the future history of biographies and books and essays about the "historical Trump" will be, or whether there will ever be a "historical Trump". Perhaps it is all so controversial that he will never fully pass into history, but will remain a contentious figure permanently. I cannot, at least for now, see a "neutral" biography of Trump in 50 years' time, but that may just be the perspective of the present.

Sphere
January 20th, 2021, 02:16 PM
Mr Neal, I have moved on. Today's inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris was inspirational and uplifting. You can now choose to be part of the solution or part of the problem.

dneal
January 20th, 2021, 02:25 PM
Mr Neal, I have moved on. Today's inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris was inspirational and uplifting. You can now choose to be part of the solution or part of the problem.

You’ll have to first define what you consider the problem to be.

Freddie
January 20th, 2021, 11:46 PM
Mr Neal, I have moved on. Today's inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris was inspirational and uplifting. You can now choose to be part of the solution or part of the problem.

You’ll have to first define what you consider the problem to be.

Clearly the above is talkin' 'bout youse Mr Neal......If Sphere wants they can define it for you ... counselor.....
I can't cause I'm waitin' on a Mr. Green........................

Fred
Give 'em hell 54th.................

welch
January 21st, 2021, 06:26 AM
The "stop the steal" conspiracy-cultists can adjust to reality or, eyes closed, walk into walls and trees. Perhaps the social psychosis will wear off. Certainly, those who attacked the Capitol -- those with fantasies of lynching Pence and Pelosi and Ocasio-Cortez -- will be arrested and prosecuted. Maybe the rest will slowly give it up.

Some, such as the Republican Party of Arizona, seem determined to commit themselves to die for Trump. That's what Kelli Ward demands. Perhaps there will be a reckoning inside the Republican Party, with conservatives going one way, and Trump-cultists going another -- into irrelevance.

It seems that there is nothing the rest of us can do to help the cultists.

dneal
January 21st, 2021, 06:44 AM
It’ll be interesting to see how long it takes for Fred and welch to be free of the anger.

Ray-VIgo
January 21st, 2021, 08:18 AM
The thing is that the trouble runs deep on both the left and the right. Each side has its cultists, of sorts. They always did, but their number seems to have grown, and I no longer would count on the centrist elements to be able to control or sway the flanks into accepting any compromise. The far left will not be satisfied with Biden or the center-left, while the far-right will not be satisfied with losing or with concessions made by the center-right.

And I can't say as an election to decide between a huckster and a scarecrow will solve it. Most concerning, the rioting in cities last summer, the militia activities in state capitals over the lockdown, and the U.S. Capitol riot seem to have opened a door of sorts to conflict in the open. They may now see more to gain than to lose by employing selective rioting and violence.

Politics is not a substitute for civil society, and maybe we're learning it the hard way. People so opposed to each other should have to collaborate on some non-partisan project. Something like work together on a road crew, or build a house or a barn or something like that. There is no substitute for engagement face-to-face in some collaborative way, re-humanize in the eyes of the opponent. I hope we're not totally beyond it.

dneal
January 21st, 2021, 08:37 AM
There is no substitute for engagement face-to-face in some collaborative way, re-humanize in the eyes of the opponent. I hope we're not totally beyond it.

The internet and social media seem to exacerbate the incivility. Peterson talks about the underlying potential for aggression or violence, and to an extent that is the mechanism for enforcing some semblance of civility. It's much easier to be an asshole when protected by the distance and anonymity of the internet.

Conversely, the internet seems to fuel rage until some seek a physical outlet for it. Punching nazis or storming buildings and whatnot.

kazoolaw
January 21st, 2021, 08:44 AM
The "stop the steal" conspiracy-cultists can adjust to reality or, eyes closed, walk into walls and trees. Perhaps the social psychosis will wear off.

It seems that there is nothing the rest of us can do to help the cultists.

Doesn't seem that 2106 has worn off yet.

welch
January 21st, 2021, 12:12 PM
The "stop the steal" conspiracy-cultists can adjust to reality or, eyes closed, walk into walls and trees. Perhaps the social psychosis will wear off.

It seems that there is nothing the rest of us can do to help the cultists.

Doesn't seem that 2106 has worn off yet.

Does this mean anything?

Do you, Kazoolaw, think I doubted the results of the 2016 election? I hated the results, but the vote was the vote. Too bad that Clinton lost to a white supremacist, but we, who disliked that result organized in 2018 to put the Democratic Party in charge of the House, and kept organizing in 2020 to defeat Trump.

Biden/Harris beat Trump by 7 million popular votes and by about 75 electoral votes. Biden/Harris carried the three important states that Clinton lost in 2016 -- Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Biden/Harris paid special attention to them, and, no surprise, won them. The win was consistent with pre-election polling. The same polling said that Arizona would be a tossup, especially since Mark Kelly was well ahead of the Republican running for Senate. The same polling, and common sense, said that Georgia would be close, since, after all, since Stacy Abrams came very close to winning the governor's race in 2018.

Sure, Trump claimed he had won the election before the votes were counted, but American voters count more than Trump, Giuliani, Fox, Alex Jones, and the assembled far right-wing rage-guys.

kazoolaw
January 21st, 2021, 02:21 PM
Yes, yes it does.

Don't lose to a real candidate, had to be because he was a white supremacist. Not what you meant? Why mention it?

"Cultists". Can't stop the demonizing.

2016 runs deep.

Freddie
January 21st, 2021, 05:39 PM
It’ll be interesting to see how long it takes for Fred and welch to be free of the anger.

dneal ... dneal ... No anger on my part..whatsoever.....Perhaps a defense mechanism at work....?

Evidence Cases and Materials...................

Maybe you could write a Delusional History of the Trump Presidency?

Like I told the judge....Your honor I'd like to/a postpone {ment} 'cause I'm still waitin' on Mr. Green

Still your friend and mine,

Fred
{Freakin'HappySmileyFaceTimeThingie}

dneal
January 22nd, 2021, 04:55 AM
It's been investigated in... how many court cases, many presided by judges appointed under right-wing governments?



It’ll be interesting to see how long it takes for Fred and welch to be free of the anger.

dneal ... dneal ... No anger on my part..whatsoever.....Perhaps a defense mechanism at work....?

Evidence Cases and Materials...................

Maybe you could write a Delusional History of the Trump Presidency?

Like I told the judge....Your honor I'd like to/a postpone {ment} 'cause I'm still waitin' on Mr. Green

Still your friend and mine,

Fred
{Freakin'HappySmileyFaceTimeThingie}

I think you guys have the delusional history of the Trump Presidency covered quite well. I'm using the format for the Biden presidency.

p.s.: I would have rather had Rand Paul than Trump, and Tulsi Gabbard than Biden.

welch
January 25th, 2021, 08:31 AM
While Trump is gone, a good number of Trump voters remain convinced that, astoundingly, he won the election in a landslide but that his "win" was stolen. That belief in the unreal remains to be cleaned up. Dominion voting machines company has been forcing some of the loudest spouters of crazy stuff to admit they fibbed. On to Giuliani:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/25/us/politics/rudy-giuliani-dominion-trump.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

dneal
January 25th, 2021, 09:26 AM
Rand Paul must have the NYT scared. Plus, it's easier to talk about Trump than Biden's dumpster fire of a first week in office.

Freddie
January 25th, 2021, 03:13 PM
It’ll be interesting to see how long it takes for Fred and welch to be free of the anger.

dneal ... dneal ... No anger on my part..whatsoever.....Perhaps a defense mechanism at work....?

Evidence Cases and Materials...................

Maybe you could write a Delusional History of the Trump Presidency?

Like I told the judge....Your honor I'd like to/a postpone {ment} 'cause I'm still waitin' on Mr. Green

Still your friend and mine,

Fred
{Freakin'HappySmileyFaceTimeThingie}

I think you guys have the delusional history of the Trump Presidency covered quite well. I'm using the format for the Biden presidency.

p.s.: I would have rather had Rand Paul than Trump, and Tulsi Gabbard than Biden.

Re Youse Guys ... Whiskey Tango Foxtrot ? Format Good for you ... We all need hobbies.

Re P.S. Ok.

Still your friend and his,

Fred
R-68

welch
January 25th, 2021, 08:54 PM
Trump tried desperately to throw out the election that he lost so badly. Yet another effort:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/22/us/politics/jeffrey-clark-trump-justice-department-election.html


Trump and Justice Dept. Lawyer Said to Have Plotted to Oust Acting Attorney General

Trying to find another avenue to push his baseless election claims, Donald Trump considered installing a loyalist.


Katie Benner
By Katie Benner
Jan. 22, 2021

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department’s top leaders listened in stunned silence this month: One of their peers, they were told, had devised a plan with President Donald J. Trump to oust Jeffrey A. Rosen as acting attorney general and wield the department’s power to force Georgia state lawmakers to overturn its presidential election results.

The unassuming lawyer who worked on the plan, Jeffrey Clark, had been devising ways to cast doubt on the election results and to bolster Mr. Trump’s continuing legal battles and the pressure on Georgia politicians. Because Mr. Rosen had refused the president’s entreaties to carry out those plans, Mr. Trump was about to decide whether to fire Mr. Rosen and replace him with Mr. Clark.

The department officials, convened on a conference call, then asked each other: What will you do if Mr. Rosen is dismissed?

The answer was unanimous. They would resign.

Their informal pact ultimately helped persuade Mr. Trump to keep Mr. Rosen in place, calculating that a furor over mass resignations at the top of the Justice Department would eclipse any attention on his baseless accusations of voter fraud. Mr. Trump’s decision came only after Mr. Rosen and Mr. Clark made their competing cases to him in a bizarre White House meeting that two officials compared with an episode of Mr. Trump’s reality show “The Apprentice,” albeit one that could prompt a constitutional crisis.

The previously unknown chapter was the culmination of the president’s long-running effort to batter the Justice Department into advancing his personal agenda. He also pressed Mr. Rosen to appoint special counsels, including one who would look into Dominion Voting Systems, a maker of election equipment that Mr. Trump’s allies had falsely said was working with Venezuela to flip votes from Mr. Trump to Joseph R. Biden Jr.

This account of the department’s final days under Mr. Trump’s leadership is based on interviews with four former Trump administration officials who asked not to be named because of fear of retaliation.

Mr. Clark said that this account contained inaccuracies but did not specify, adding that he could not discuss any conversations with Mr. Trump or Justice Department lawyers because of “the strictures of legal privilege.” “Senior Justice Department lawyers, not uncommonly, provide legal advice to the White House as part of our duties,” he said. “All my official communications were consistent with law.”

Mr. Clark categorically denied that he devised any plan to oust Mr. Rosen, or to formulate recommendations for action based on factual inaccuracies gleaned from the internet. “My practice is to rely on sworn testimony to assess disputed factual claims,” Mr. Clark said. “There was a candid discussion of options and pros and cons with the president. It is unfortunate that those who were part of a privileged legal conversation would comment in public about such internal deliberations, while also distorting any discussions.”

Mr. Clark also noted that he was the lead signatory on a Justice Department request last month asking a federal judge to reject a lawsuit that sought to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the results of the election.

Mr. Trump declined to comment. An adviser said that Mr. Trump has consistently argued that the justice system should investigate “rampant election fraud that has plagued our system for years.”

The adviser added that “any assertion to the contrary is false and being driven by those who wish to keep the system broken.” Mr. Clark agreed and said that “legal privileges” prevented him from divulging specifics regarding the conversation.

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment, as did Mr. Rosen.

When Mr. Trump said on Dec. 14 that Attorney General William P. Barr was leaving the department, some officials thought that he might allow Mr. Rosen a short reprieve before pressing him about voter fraud. After all, Mr. Barr would be around for another week.

Instead, Mr. Trump summoned Mr. Rosen to the Oval Office the next day. He wanted the Justice Department to file legal briefs supporting his allies’ lawsuits seeking to overturn his election loss. And he urged Mr. Rosen to appoint special counsels to investigate not only unfounded accusations of widespread voter fraud, but also Dominion, the voting machines firm.

Mr. Rosen refused. He maintained that he would make decisions based on the facts and the law, and he reiterated what Mr. Barr had privately told Mr. Trump: The department had investigated voting irregularities and found no evidence of widespread fraud.

But Mr. Trump continued to press Mr. Rosen after the meeting — in phone calls and in person. He repeatedly said that he did not understand why the Justice Department had not found evidence that supported conspiracy theories about the election that some of his personal lawyers had espoused. He declared that the department was not fighting hard enough for him.

As Mr. Rosen and the deputy attorney general, Richard P. Donoghue, pushed back, they were unaware that Mr. Clark had been introduced to Mr. Trump by a Pennsylvania politician and had told the president that he agreed that fraud had affected the election results.

Mr. Trump quickly embraced Mr. Clark, who had been appointed the acting head of the civil division in September and was also the head of the department’s environmental and natural resources division.

As December wore on, Mr. Clark mentioned to Mr. Rosen and Mr. Donoghue that he spent a lot of time reading on the internet — a comment that alarmed them because they inferred that he believed the unfounded conspiracy theory that Mr. Trump had won the election. Mr. Clark also told them that he wanted the department to hold a news conference announcing that it was investigating serious accusations of election fraud. Mr. Rosen and Mr. Donoghue rejected the proposal.

As Mr. Trump focused increasingly on Georgia, a state he lost narrowly to Mr. Biden, he complained to Justice Department leaders that the U.S. attorney in Atlanta, Byung J. Pak, was not trying to find evidence for false election claims pushed by Mr. Trump’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani and others. Mr. Donoghue warned Mr. Pak that the president was now fixated on his office, and that it might not be tenable for him to continue to lead it, according to two people familiar with the conversation.

That conversation and Mr. Trump’s efforts to pressure Georgia’s Republican secretary of state to “find” him votes compelled Mr. Pak to abruptly resign this month.

Mr. Clark was also focused on Georgia. He drafted a letter that he wanted Mr. Rosen to send to Georgia state legislators that wrongly said that the Justice Department was investigating accusations of voter fraud in their state, and that they should move to void Mr. Biden’s win there.

Mr. Rosen and Mr. Donoghue again rejected Mr. Clark’s proposal.

On New Year’s Eve, the trio met to discuss Mr. Clark’s refusal to hew to the department’s conclusion that the election results were valid. Mr. Donoghue flatly told Mr. Clark that what he was doing was wrong. The next day, Mr. Clark told Mr. Rosen — who had mentored him while they worked together at the law firm Kirkland & Ellis — that he was going to discuss his strategy with the president early the next week, just before Congress was set to certify Mr. Biden’s electoral victory.

Unbeknown to the acting attorney general, Mr. Clark’s timeline moved up. He met with Mr. Trump over the weekend, then informed Mr. Rosen midday on Sunday that the president intended to replace him with Mr. Clark, who could then try to stop Congress from certifying the Electoral College results. He said that Mr. Rosen could stay on as his deputy attorney general, leaving Mr. Rosen speechless.

Unwilling to step down without a fight, Mr. Rosen said that he needed to hear straight from Mr. Trump and worked with the White House counsel, Pat A. Cipollone, to convene a meeting for early that evening.

Even as Mr. Clark’s pronouncement was sinking in, stunning news broke out of Georgia: State officials had recorded an hourlong call, published by The Washington Post, during which Mr. Trump pressured them to manufacture enough votes to declare him the victor. As the fallout from the recording ricocheted through Washington, the president’s desperate bid to change the outcome in Georgia came into sharp focus.

Mr. Rosen and Mr. Donoghue pressed ahead, informing Steven Engel, the head of the Justice Department’s office of legal counsel, about Mr. Clark’s latest maneuver. Mr. Donoghue convened a late-afternoon call with the department’s remaining senior leaders, laying out Mr. Clark’s efforts to replace Mr. Rosen.

Mr. Rosen planned to soon head to the White House to discuss his fate, Mr. Donoghue told the group. Should Mr. Rosen be fired, they all agreed to resign en masse. For some, the plan brought to mind the so-called Saturday Night Massacre of the Nixon era, where Attorney General Elliot L. Richardson and his deputy resigned rather than carry out the president’s order to fire the special prosecutor investigating him.

The Clark plan, the officials concluded, would seriously harm the department, the government and the rule of law. For hours, they anxiously messaged and called one another as they awaited Mr. Rosen’s fate.

Around 6 p.m., Mr. Rosen, Mr. Donoghue and Mr. Clark met at the White House with Mr. Trump, Mr. Cipollone, his deputy Patrick Philbin and other lawyers. Mr. Trump had Mr. Rosen and Mr. Clark present their arguments to him.

Mr. Cipollone advised the president not to fire Mr. Rosen and he reiterated, as he had for days, that he did not recommend sending the letter to Georgia lawmakers. Mr. Engel advised Mr. Trump that he and the department’s remaining top officials would resign if he fired Mr. Rosen, leaving Mr. Clark alone at the department.

Mr. Trump seemed somewhat swayed by the idea that firing Mr. Rosen would trigger not only chaos at the Justice Department, but also congressional investigations and possibly recriminations from other Republicans and distract attention from his efforts to overturn the election results.

After nearly three hours, Mr. Trump ultimately decided that Mr. Clark’s plan would fail, and he allowed Mr. Rosen to stay.

Mr. Rosen and his deputies concluded they had weathered the turmoil. Once Congress certified Mr. Biden’s victory, there would be little for them to do until they left along with Mr. Trump in two weeks.

They began to exhale days later as the Electoral College certification at the Capitol got underway. And then they received word: The building had been breached.

Maggie Haberman contributed reporting from New York.

Katie Benner covers the Justice Department. She was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for public service for reporting on workplace sexual harassment issues.

dneal
January 26th, 2021, 03:10 AM
Crazy conspiracy theorists at the NYT...

Chuck Naill
January 26th, 2021, 08:59 AM
I didn’t see the first week as a dumpster 🔥.

He did what he said and immediately. Millions voted for him for reasons they support.

Calling actions dumpster fires because you don’t like it doesn’t make it so because more people want things you don’t want than those who want what you want.

I’ve personally enjoyed not knowing what Trump thinks every minute of the day.

dneal
January 26th, 2021, 12:30 PM
Calling actions dumpster fires because you don’t like it doesn’t make it so because more people want things you don’t want than those who want what you want.

Or maybe I’m just being facetious to illustrate how hyperbolic language does not further conversation except for some virtual chest-bump shared between like-minded opinion holders.

Chuck Naill
January 26th, 2021, 12:37 PM
Calling actions dumpster fires because you don’t like it doesn’t make it so because more people want things you don’t want than those who want what you want.

Or maybe I’m just being facetious to illustrate how hyperbolic language does not further conversation except for some virtual chest-bump shared between like-minded opinion holders.

I agree that it doesn’t further conversation.

Boston Brian
January 26th, 2021, 01:57 PM
Calling actions dumpster fires because you don’t like it doesn’t make it so because more people want things you don’t want than those who want what you want.

Or maybe I’m just being facetious to illustrate how hyperbolic language does not further conversation except for some virtual chest-bump shared between like-minded opinion holders.

I agree that it doesn’t further conversation.

Donald Trump is an egomaniac who is incapable of admitting mistakes of any kind. He has surrounded himself with family members and staff who tell him that every word which passes from his lips is pure gold and that he is quite the smartest person in America.
His track record of hiring people to important roles in his administration, and then firing them when they say something that he disagrees with should speak for it self. He was never a Republican, but a life long support of the Democratic party, but he was a political opportunist.
His supports, or god forbid his new party will damage the Republican party and hand the next Presidential election to the Democratic candidate in the same way that Ross Perrott did to G H W Bush.

dneal
January 26th, 2021, 03:02 PM
Calling actions dumpster fires because you don’t like it doesn’t make it so because more people want things you don’t want than those who want what you want.

Or maybe I’m just being facetious to illustrate how hyperbolic language does not further conversation except for some virtual chest-bump shared between like-minded opinion holders.

I agree that it doesn’t further conversation.

Donald Trump is an egomaniac who is incapable of admitting mistakes of any kind. He has surrounded himself with family members and staff who tell him that every word which passes from his lips is pure gold and that he is quite the smartest person in America.
His track record of hiring people to important roles in his administration, and then firing them when they say something that he disagrees with should speak for it self. He was never a Republican, but a life long support of the Democratic party, but he was a political opportunist.
His supports, or god forbid his new party will damage the Republican party and hand the next Presidential election to the Democratic candidate in the same way that Ross Perrott did to G H W Bush.

Well done.

Chuck Naill
January 26th, 2021, 04:00 PM
For me, DT lacks the skill set to run a demogratic type government. Had he applied online, he would never have gotten an interview. Joe Biden would at least been given an interview. Bernie Sanders would get interview, but perhaps not been invited back. I think Biden could get a third interview and an offer.

Ray-VIgo
January 27th, 2021, 08:55 AM
Trump would not have gotten an interview. Biden might have gotten an interview but then would forget to show up. Sanders might get an interview, show up, and be turned away at the door after appearing in the guise of an elderly hobo. On an abstract level, in a nation of about 330 million people, one would think we could do better. On a practical level, this is where we are.

kazoolaw
January 27th, 2021, 10:34 AM
It's been investigated in... how many court cases, many presided by judges appointed under right-wing governments?

tinyurl.com/47zvb8uw

Chuck Naill
January 28th, 2021, 02:36 PM
Trump would not have gotten an interview. Biden might have gotten an interview but then would forget to show up. Sanders might get an interview, show up, and be turned away at the door after appearing in the guise of an elderly hobo. On an abstract level, in a nation of about 330 million people, one would think we could do better. On a practical level, this is where we are.

Much experience with the online interview process?

Ugly Old Guy
January 29th, 2021, 09:06 AM
How can Trump "believers" be persuaded he lost"?
The same way the Hillary "believers" can that Hillary lost. (ain't going to happen)

As for an "honest election" ... when was that? The 1700's? Early 1800's? There hasn't been one in the 66 years I been here. There won't be until election reforms prevent one of my brothers. my grand parents, and all my aunts and uncles from voting ... now that they are dead.
Wisconsin did find a couple thousand fraudulent votes. Not enough to change the outcome, but over 2,000 absentee ballots were identical, down to the same not completely filled in circles being blank between 8:00 and 12:00, never folded (Wisconsin folds them when they are mailed out, and normally, the voters fold them so they fit in the return envelope.)

You need ID to cash your payroll check, use a debit/credit card, get on a Greyhound bus or a commercial aircraft, to enter some Federal, State, and county buildings, to operate a motor vehicle (to include motorcycles and scooters/mopeds over 49cc) depending upon age/how old a person looks, to buy tobacco products or alcohol, fill a prescription, buy a firearm ... why not to vote?
The Dem's excuse for not backing ID to vote: "some minorities don't have ID ..." is B.S. They have cars, they buy tobacco products and alcoholic beverages. enter those federal/state/county buildings while [I][i][u]not[i an inmate, and everything else, just like a non-minority person does.
I'm pretty sure one of my grand father's would be shocked (and upset) to learn he's voted Democrat in every election held since his early passing in 1966 ... and no doubt more than once in each of those elections ....

There is no such thing as an "honest election". Never has been, never will be.

Skwerlmasta
January 29th, 2021, 01:26 PM
The heated political rhetoric, on both sides of the aisle, isn't helping anything. There is no longer political discourse, no discussions of issues using reason and logic, and we no longer have the ability as a society to agree to disagree on issues.
Instead we have name calling without substance, each side demonizing the other as evil Hitlers bent on total destruction.

To wit the opening of this thread:
"must coddle right-wing delusion"

Opening a discussion in this manner is opening it in bad faith, a complete unwillingness to enter with an open mind and to engage the discussion on its merits. That was equally true of the title, which amounts to no more than, "How can I convince you you're wrong." You most certainly won't convince anyone of anything in this manner.

Substantive discussion can only come on neutral terms. There must be a willingness to listen and to consider which is not there when the discussion starts with insult. Each side of this dispute is stuck in their echo chambers, absolute that they are correct, and unwilling to look at any source that disagrees with their sensibilities. The fact is that none of us possess the absolute truth, the most that we can do is to seek it in earnest and in the hope that we can get that little bit closer. It is a sad condition that so few try.

Chuck Naill
January 29th, 2021, 08:31 PM
Arw there any neutral terms amoung the membership?

Can one wear a thong and remain sanitary?

If we can answer these questions, perhaps we can move forward.

kazoolaw
January 30th, 2021, 06:26 AM
Skwerlmasta kicks off campaign for neutral discussion calling out bad faith coddlers, claiming they are closed minded and unable to discuss issues on their merits, then wonders why people doubt his sincerity.

And Chuck, linking Skwerlmasta's post with your question is the nastiest takedown on record.

Chuck Naill
January 31st, 2021, 06:54 AM
Had a thought this AM that one benefit of DT not winning is that I do not have to be aware of him. I do not think the average citizen needs to be constantly aware of those occupying high offices. I mean, just do your damn job. You asked for it so just do it. Same with Biden. It has been your life ambition. Just do it.

Also, I do not need a person in office that does everything I like, but I do need some maturity. It is not about you!!

These folks that show up to storm the capital must not have a life otherwise.

I'm enjoying some normalcy. Everybody needs an advocate, but some more than others. An immigrant is just trying to survive. Hold can I fault them for trying? I am not less because they get a leg up.

Yesterday my nine year old grand daughter and I went to the market. A man was sitting on the side walk with a sign requesting money. I give him something every weekend when he is there. I gave Olivia $5 to give him. She talked about him all the way home and even this morning.

Yesterday on the way home she was asking about the man and it made me tear up. She asked me if I was crying. I said yes because I was so happy that she was concerned about the man on the side walk.

At the point where we touch others, it really does not matter who is in public office. As disciples of Jesus we know that our neighbor are those we encounter whose needs we are able to meet or contribute. I am sure other philosophies agree. What I do not need to do is shame the man and tell him to get a damn job. I knopw that there have been times where I was alone and jobless. It's not always our fault we have needs. As Biden said, sometimes we need a hand and sometimes we need to give a hand. Not a bad way to life IMHO.

Pendragon
January 31st, 2021, 05:56 PM
Had a thought this AM that one benefit of DT not winning is that I do not have to be aware of him.
Yet you just mentioned him. Is that not being aware of him? The news media won't let us forget about their cash cow so easily.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/04/magazine/cnn-had-a-problem-donald-trump-solved-it.html


I'm enjoying some normalcy. Everybody needs an advocate, but some more than others. An immigrant is just trying to survive. Hold can I fault them for trying? I am not less because they get a leg up.
Immigrants are just trying to survive, and the vast majority come here legally. Illegal aliens, on the other hand, come here in violation of the law and expect to be rewarded for it. How do you think that makes the legal immigrants feel? They go through a bunch of paperwork, wait until the are approved for entry, and have to jump through all kinds of hoops in the process. There is no reason those here illegally could not have done the same.

I don't agree with those who demonize Mexicans and Central Americans, and think that is counterproductive. Enforcing immigration laws equally among all nationalities and ethnic groups is hardly injustice, though. When states declare themselves sanctuary states, they are openly flouting the law. That does not work too well in a nation founded on the rule of law, especially when encouraging that lawlessness is motivated by political ambitions. Those same states become very unhappy indeed when people disregard state laws. "Do as I say and not as I do" just doesn't work.

TSherbs
February 1st, 2021, 04:23 PM
Apparently, Trump wants to continue with his lies that the election was stolen in his impeachment trial, resulting in the resignations of his legal dream team. But we will see what is actually presented next week.

kazoolaw
February 2nd, 2021, 11:17 AM
Apparently, Trump wants to continue with his lies that the election was stolen in his impeachment trial, resulting in the resignations of his legal dream team. But we will see what is actually presented next week.

TS, let not your hear be troubled.

Ray-VIgo
February 2nd, 2021, 11:34 AM
An interesting development this week is that a study by Robert Pape and Keven Ruby showed little that the rioters arrested for entering the Capitol look different from other right-wing rioters in the recent past. The Capitol rioters seemed to look much more like middle-class, white America than like skinheads, Klansmen, or others. In fact, Oath Keepers, III Percenters, Proud Boys made up only a small minority. Most of the rioters studied were older and better-established in the economic mainstream. It begs the question of whether the actions are indicative of something much larger, namely widespread discontent of millions of people to the right of center of the political spectrum, not just a few thousand Trump supporters. If so, it represents a precarious political environment overall.

On the question of the impeachment trial. It strikes me that it actually plays into Trump's hands. It gives him a fresh platform, but one where he is free from the responsibilities of office. I recall the the time the House tried to remove the chairmanship of and to censure John Quincy Adams. Adams deliberately provoked the measure so that then he could use the cover of his defense to attack the institution of slavery. Trump is not as savvy as Quincy Adams certainly, but if handed the soap box of defense, which carries a wide swath of speech, he may use it as a megaphone to stir things up further.

TSherbs
February 2nd, 2021, 12:44 PM
Of course Trump will try to stir things up. It's his MO. And the spark of the riot on the Capitol.

dneal
February 2nd, 2021, 01:58 PM
An interesting development this week is that a study by Robert Pape and Keven Ruby showed little that the rioters arrested for entering the Capitol look different from other right-wing rioters in the recent past. The Capitol rioters seemed to look much more like middle-class, white America than like skinheads, Klansmen, or others. In fact, Oath Keepers, III Percenters, Proud Boys made up only a small minority. Most of the rioters studied were older and better-established in the economic mainstream. It begs the question of whether the actions are indicative of something much larger, namely widespread discontent of millions of people to the right of center of the political spectrum, not just a few thousand Trump supporters. If so, it represents a precarious political environment overall.

On the question of the impeachment trial. It strikes me that it actually plays into Trump's hands. It gives him a fresh platform, but one where he is free from the responsibilities of office. I recall the the time the House tried to remove the chairmanship of and to censure John Quincy Adams. Adams deliberately provoked the measure so that then he could use the cover of his defense to attack the institution of slavery. Trump is not as savvy as Quincy Adams certainly, but if handed the soap box of defense, which carries a wide swath of speech, he may use it as a megaphone to stir things up further.

The impeachment trial (which is absolutely ridiculous in its merit, legality and feasibility) is interesting. The easiest comment to make is to point out just how truly deranged Trump has made the Democrat party. They, like some posters here, are oblivious to it and simply revel in their madness.

Alan Dershowitz has a "podcast" of sorts now. I haven't listened to it since he weighed in on the unconstitutionality of impeaching a President who is not the President (and Justice Roberts confirmed that with his refusal to preside), but I liked his strategy of Trump just ignoring it simply because it isn't Constitutional and they have zero authority to conduct this "trial".

That would go against his nature, and although I think he's much more savvy than people give him credit for there is surely a great temptation to "unload". He could tie it up for months, and introduce all sorts of evidence the kleptocracy certainly doesn't want in public light. It would be entertaining, if nothing else; but I think Professor Dershowitz' initial instinct is correct and he should just ignore it as some silly invalid proceeding by petty vengeful lunatics.

Ray-VIgo
February 2nd, 2021, 02:45 PM
Interestingly, the process of impeachment and trial began as a very unclear process to even the Framers. Both the Virginia and New Jersey Plans contained impeachment, but they differed. Over time, the framers settled on the possibility of impeaching and trying the president (not just lower officials), and other federal officials, but for quite some time it remained unclear exactly how to do it. One idea was to have a panel comprised of the Governors of the states decide on whether to remove the president from office. Another suggestion was to have the Senate decide the matter. Ultimately, Hamilton put forward the process we are more or less familiar with today, based on British legal thinking: that the House would impeach (the House being the "lower chamber" and the chamber of people) and that the Senate would try, with a super-majority needed to convict and Remove (the argument being that only the Senate had the aristocratic nature, the solemnity, and the legitimacy to actually pass on the question). The Chief Justice, likely having a legal background (though there is no "learned in the law" provision) could preside over the trial. At the time, the composition of the Senate was decided by state legislatures rather than the electorate directly.

The question of whether the trial can take place of a former President, now private citizen, remains subject to challenge. The framers debated the question of process over a sitting President, and at the time, it makes sense that such was their chief concern. In drafting a Constitution, one would generally focus more on the issue of how to impeach and potentially remove a sitting Chief Executive rather than the question of someone who has left office. They were very much close in time to the American Revolution and still very much concerned with the potential for the President to take on despotic measures.

TSherbs
February 2nd, 2021, 03:06 PM
Also interesting to me, although not directly about questioning the election outcome, Rep Matt Gaetz of Florida (who, lacking geographic sense, says that he supports "prairie populism") urged the crowd in Wyoming where he spoke earlier this week to bring the "battle" and "war" to Washington (as opposed to fighting "battles abroad") and then bring Washington "to its knees."

The inflammatory rhetoric of assault on Washington continues.

dneal
February 2nd, 2021, 03:18 PM
The question of whether the trial can take place of a former President, now private citizen, remains subject to challenge. The framers debated the question of process over a sitting President, and at the time, it makes sense that such was their chief concern. In drafting a Constitution, one would generally focus more on the issue of how to impeach and potentially remove a sitting Chief Executive rather than the question of someone who has left office. They were very much close in time to the American Revolution and still very much concerned with the potential for the President to take on despotic measures.

While the Senate is free to do whatever it wants (and it doesn't appear that there are enough votes to "impeach"), and Schumer can make claims of obscure legal theories; there's no way it stands any judicial scrutiny. I can link the Dershowitz "seminar" (as he calls it), but it's clear that the Constitution allows for the impeaching of a President, which Trump is not. It has now become a bill of attainder, which is expressly forbidden by the Constitution.

Apparently Trump's lawyers sent a letter to the Senate arguing that point.

Chuck Naill
February 2nd, 2021, 03:28 PM
Five people died.

dneal
February 2nd, 2021, 03:42 PM
Five people died.

Doesn’t change the law, but at least they can vote Democrat now.

fountainpenkid
February 2nd, 2021, 03:59 PM
I truly don't understand this "he can't convict after leaving office" thing. I think Rep. Raskin's argument is as logical as it gets--if we can't convict a president after they've left office, then they could *never* be held accountable for any actions taken in their final days in office, because they will have left the office. And there is precedent for doing it.

Chuck Naill
February 2nd, 2021, 04:05 PM
What would happen to me if my words resulted in five people's lives going away?

fountainpenkid
February 2nd, 2021, 04:19 PM
What would happen to me if my words resulted in five people's lives going away?

I think it's more than words--he never directly called for a violent storming of the capitol--it's a narrative he started which found support in a whole array of characters--some slimy, some shady, some cynical--who pushed it hard enough to project a false reality onto a disturbingly large subset of the public. I know the feeling of a stinging loss; I felt heartsick in 2016. In all honesty, I would have been easy prey for a fraud narrative like this one if it had been pushed on me. I suspect many currently smug liberals would have been too. Except in 2016, with the exception of some fringe figures, the election results, however horrifying, were accepted by the the leaders of the party. This is what happens when leadership becomes too obsessed with its own power.

TSherbs
February 2nd, 2021, 04:23 PM
I truly don't understand this "he can't convict after leaving office" thing. I think Rep. Raskin's argument is as logical as it gets--if we can't convict a president after they've left office, then they could *never* be held accountable for any actions taken in their final days of office, because they will have left the office. And there is precedent for doing it.

They can do it and are doing it. Whether it succeeds or not is a different question, and will be determined by a vote in the Senate. I don't consider it likely, but mostly because of the quite even split of the Senate, not because of the merits of the case.

TSherbs
February 2nd, 2021, 04:28 PM
... This is what happens when leadership becomes too obsessed with its own power.

Yup, especially when the leader of the party (incumbent) is an avid conspiracist and populist.

dneal
February 2nd, 2021, 05:31 PM
I truly don't understand this "he can't convict after leaving office" thing. I think Rep. Raskin's argument is as logical as it gets--if we can't convict a president after they've left office, then they could *never* be held accountable for any actions taken in their final days in office, because they will have left the office. And there is precedent for doing it.

Impeachment is a political process to remove an office holder. In the case of the President, it's specifically laid out in the Constitution. It's important for the Constitution to address the President specifically, because the entirety of the executive branch and its powers are derived from that office. Any executive branch official, be it a cabinet secretary or military officer, derives their powers from the office of the President.

Fearing the potential for abuse or some pseudo-monarchy, the framers balanced the executive power against the legislative. The legislature, with 2/3rds majority, can remove the executive (and prevent them from holding office again). That's the sole purpose of impeachment. Not sending someone to jail, not fining them, simply removing them. If the person you want to remove does not hold the office you want to remove them from, what are you doing? In the case of Trump, the Democrats want to prevent him from being eligible to run again. I don't know whether that's petty spite, or fear he could run and win again in 2024. I suspect the latter, although I really hate the thought of him running again (particularly at the age he'll be in 2024).

Your question goes to "being held accountable". What does that mean? Accountable for a crime? There's a process for that too. It involves a prosecutor and court with jurisdiction. Pick a hypothetical crime a President committed on their last day of office, and managed to avoid impeachment. Is it still a committed crime? Has the statute of limitations for that crime run out? Is there a prosecutor to press charges, and a court to hear a case? If so, then that's the appropriate avenue for "holding accountable".

Here's Dershowitz's explanation of impeachment of a private citizen. He's definitely a credible authority, and his integrity and motive is unimpeachable (heh, heh).


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BajEDUhDKQ4

dneal
February 2nd, 2021, 05:36 PM
What would happen to me if my words resulted in five people's lives going away?

You would probably be burned at the stake for witchcraft.

Put down the kool aid. Trump didn't incite a riot. It was already planned, per the FBI. You can't incite something somebody was already going to do. Also, it's some serious avoidance of context, twisting of words and assigning of intent to get to "he incited". Of course people still believe the "nice people" hoax, so why not the "incite" hoax.

Funny how that delusional thing applies to both sides.

fountainpenkid
February 2nd, 2021, 06:24 PM
What would happen to me if my words resulted in five people's lives going away?

You would probably be burned at the stake for witchcraft.

Put down the kool aid. Trump didn't incite a riot. It was already planned, per the FBI. You can't incite something somebody was already going to do. Also, it's some serious avoidance of context, twisting of words and assigning of intent to get to "he incited". Of course people still believe the "nice people" hoax, so why not the "incite" hoax.

Funny how that delusional thing applies to both sides.

Let's be clear: without the narrative Trump pushed, the false reality he projected (with the help of his party) onto people, this would not have happened. It does seem the majority of those who stormed the building were planning on doing so before his pathetic pep talk, but their plans originated, ultimately, from his reality-denial.

dneal
February 2nd, 2021, 06:40 PM
What would happen to me if my words resulted in five people's lives going away?

You would probably be burned at the stake for witchcraft.

Put down the kool aid. Trump didn't incite a riot. It was already planned, per the FBI. You can't incite something somebody was already going to do. Also, it's some serious avoidance of context, twisting of words and assigning of intent to get to "he incited". Of course people still believe the "nice people" hoax, so why not the "incite" hoax.

Funny how that delusional thing applies to both sides.

Let's be clear: without the narrative Trump pushed, the false reality he projected (with the help of his party) onto people, this would not have happened. It does seem the majority of those who stormed the building were planning on doing so before his pathetic pep talk, but their plans originated, ultimately, from his reality-denial.

Lets also be clear that the "no fraud" is simply another narrative, without which so many people wouldn't have been pissed off and this would not have happened. A fair examination of their claims should have been too easy. If there were no fraud, Trump's support dwindles. Instead, the left doubled down on the "delusional" narrative you see in this thread.

You can only ridicule half of the electorate for so long before they refuse to put up with it. Call 'em "deplorables", and you got Trump for it. Call 'em "delusional conspiracy theorists" and they showed up at the Capitol. The same people who were fine with "mostly peaceful protesting" deluded themselves that the other half of the country would agree with that nonsense. The left is every bit as much to blame in all this as Trump.

fountainpenkid
February 2nd, 2021, 06:41 PM
I truly don't understand this "he can't convict after leaving office" thing. I think Rep. Raskin's argument is as logical as it gets--if we can't convict a president after they've left office, then they could *never* be held accountable for any actions taken in their final days in office, because they will have left the office. And there is precedent for doing it.

Impeachment is a political process to remove an office holder. In the case of the President, it's specifically laid out in the Constitution. It's important for the Constitution to address the President specifically, because the entirety of the executive branch and its powers are derived from that office. Any executive branch official, be it a cabinet secretary or military officer, derives their powers from the office of the President.

Fearing the potential for abuse or some pseudo-monarchy, the framers balanced the executive power against the legislative. The legislature, with 2/3rds majority, can remove the executive (and prevent them from holding office again). That's the sole purpose of impeachment. Not sending someone to jail, not fining them, simply removing them. If the person you want to remove does not hold the office you want to remove them from, what are you doing? In the case of Trump, the Democrats want to prevent him from being eligible to run again. I don't know whether that's petty spite, or fear he could run and win again in 2024. I suspect the latter, although I really hate the thought of him running again (particularly at the age he'll be in 2024).

Your question goes to "being held accountable". What does that mean? Accountable for a crime? There's a process for that too. It involves a prosecutor and court with jurisdiction. Pick a hypothetical crime a President committed on their last day of office, and managed to avoid impeachment. Is it still a committed crime? Has the statute of limitations for that crime run out? Is there a prosecutor to press charges, and a court to hear a case? If so, then that's the appropriate avenue for "holding accountable".

Here's Dershowitz's explanation of impeachment of a private citizen. He's definitely a credible authority, and his integrity and motive is unimpeachable (heh, heh).


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BajEDUhDKQ4

Impeachment is not about criminality--Trump certainly did not commit a crime on the 6th. It is about violating (as Hamilton puts it iirc) violating the public trust. It is the only legal avenue available for those violations. Like any legal punishment, it does not lose all merit because the person is no longer in the position to continue the abuse.

dneal
February 2nd, 2021, 06:47 PM
Impeachment is not about criminality--Trump certainly did not commit a crime on the 6th. It is about violating (as Hamilton puts it iirc) violating the public trust. It is the only legal avenue available for those violations. Like any legal punishment, it does not lose all merit because the person is no longer in the position to continue the abuse.

Then why is the standard "high crimes and misdemeanors"? Why is the justification for impeachment "incitement", and not "violating the public trust"? Because one is a crime and the other isn't.

What is confusing about not being able to remove someone who can't be removed because they don't hold the office you want to remove them from? Did you bother to listen to Dershowitz's explanation?

Trump isn't President anymore. This need for vengeance is petty and unbecoming, further exacerbates the reason Democrats won't get "unity"; and demonstrates that these people shouldn't hold power.

fountainpenkid
February 2nd, 2021, 06:48 PM
What would happen to me if my words resulted in five people's lives going away?

You would probably be burned at the stake for witchcraft.

Put down the kool aid. Trump didn't incite a riot. It was already planned, per the FBI. You can't incite something somebody was already going to do. Also, it's some serious avoidance of context, twisting of words and assigning of intent to get to "he incited". Of course people still believe the "nice people" hoax, so why not the "incite" hoax.

Funny how that delusional thing applies to both sides.

Let's be clear: without the narrative Trump pushed, the false reality he projected (with the help of his party) onto people, this would not have happened. It does seem the majority of those who stormed the building were planning on doing so before his pathetic pep talk, but their plans originated, ultimately, from his reality-denial.

Lets also be clear that the "no fraud" is simply another narrative, without which so many people wouldn't have been pissed off and this would not have happened. A fair examination of their claims should have been too easy. If there were no fraud, Trump's support dwindles. Instead, the left doubled down on the "delusional" narrative you see in this thread.

You can only ridicule half of the electorate for so long before they refuse to put up with it. Call 'em "deplorables", and you got Trump for it. Call 'em "delusional conspiracy theorists" and they showed up at the Capitol. The same people who were fine with "mostly peaceful protesting" deluded themselves that the other half of the country would agree with that nonsense. The left is every bit as much to blame in all this as Trump.

I am vacating this thread.
This is too tiresome. "No fraud" (by which I meant simply that the actual outcome of the election was not a 'fraud') is most definitely NOT a narrative. It is a fact. An uncontested fact. A fact not contested by the Trump-appointed Attorney General, not by the Majority leader, not for a second by the Supreme Court, and most importantly, not by all of those Trump supporters responsible for certifying their election's results. Any assertion otherwise is highly deceptive and honestly, nihilistic.

dneal
February 2nd, 2021, 06:55 PM
No, it's not an uncontested fact. You're confusing that with your belief. You're presenting your limited "proof" and ignoring the other side's limited "proof"

God exists is an uncontested fact, says the Christian.
God does not exist is an uncontested fact, says the Athiest.
That guy is delusional, says each.

The left has overplayed the "fact checked", "debunked", "hur, dur science" and whatnot, and been caught lying about it too many times. 50% of the populace thinks elections aren't fair. 65% of the populace think the media can't be trusted.

Chuck Naill
February 2nd, 2021, 07:02 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sPxQEWk5ms

Chuck Naill
February 2nd, 2021, 07:08 PM
No, it's not an uncontested fact. You're confusing that with your belief. You're presenting your limited "proof" and ignoring the other side's limited "proof"

God exists is an uncontested fact, says the Christian.
God does not exist is an uncontested fact, says the Athiest.
That guy is delusional, says each.

The left has overplayed the "fact checked", "debunked", "hur, dur science" and whatnot, and been caught lying about it too many times. 50% of the populace thinks elections aren't fair. 65% of the populace think the media can't be trusted.

There has been a poponderance of information from many sources that says the election was won by Biden. Yes, one can contest anything including direct evidence. Contesting something does not mean there is evidence to the contrary.

dneal
February 2nd, 2021, 07:22 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sPxQEWk5ms

Petty, banal and useless. Here, spend some time listening to something insightful and productive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Hh3eW9b80Y


There has been a poponderance of information from many sources that says the election was won by Biden. Yes, one can contest anything including direct evidence. Contesting something does not mean there is evidence to the contrary.

The opposite is also true.

There has been a preponderance of information from many sources that says the election was stolen by Biden.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

TSherbs
February 2nd, 2021, 08:27 PM
I am vacating this thread.
This is too tiresome. "No fraud" (by which I meant simply that the actual outcome of the election was not a 'fraud') is most definitely NOT a narrative. It is a fact....

You've been balanced and reasonable. I don't blame you.

Chuck Naill
February 3rd, 2021, 04:57 AM
Petty, banal and useless. Here, spend some time listening to something insightful and productive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Hh3eW9b80Y


There has been a poponderance of information from many sources that says the election was won by Biden. Yes, one can contest anything including direct evidence. Contesting something does not mean there is evidence to the contrary.

The opposite is also true.

There has been a preponderance of information from many sources that says the election was stolen by Biden.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

I figured you'd appreciate the video....LOL!! It's true. It really happened.

dneal
February 3rd, 2021, 05:57 AM
John Anderson (former deputy Prime Minister of Australia) and Bret Weinstein recently had a conversation. I'd post the link, but no one will watch it. Instead, I'll paraphrase a portion of the conversation where they discussed the partisan debate over election fraud.


Conspiracy theories arise because traditional media has thrown away its trustworthiness, and there’s an information overload from the internet. Given that conspiracies do happen, how do you tell the difference between a plausible “theory” and an implausible one? How do we determine which conspiracies we need to take note of and be worried about and which we can consign to the rubbish bin?


There are several tools we need available to us, the first of which is that collusion is not uncommon and therefore the simple fact of wondering whether it has taken place is not evidence of a mental defect.

The second thing to realize is that when collusion happens, it automatically comes with an attempt to disguise itself and therefore the normal tools that we would use to detect what the nature of some pattern we are looking at is and what its cause might be; those tools are often not functional because those who have colluded will have organized evidence so that we will reach a wrong conclusion and fail to see their role. So in effect, "Occam’s Razor would work if we had all of the information" is gamed by those who would collude.

The most important tool at our disposal is the scientific method, and the recognition that the term “conspiracy theory” itself is a weapon used to dismiss those who wonder about the explanations for certain events. There is no reason that we should be using “conspiracy theory”, because the word “theory” means a hypothesis that has withstood test. It is not the notion that something may have taken place. The notion that something has taken place (if it is testable) is a hypothesis inherently. So I use the term “conspiracy hypothesis”. The tool kit that one uses to evaluate these different explanations is well understood to us.

To describe something as a conspiracy hypothesis is to invoke the standards by which something is to be judged, and it is also to say that the fact that one considers a given explanation does not rule out the consideration of others. A person can simultaneously entertain multiple hypotheses, and in fact that is what science invites us to do. All who are interested in looking at explanations for events - some of which are straightforward and some of which may be nefarious - should sign up for the scientific toolkit and that means you are obligated to its standards rather than leaping to the last page and assuming that you’ve diagnosed the problem and falsely granting the notion and the label “theory”.

None of that is difficult to a person who is not emotionally unbalanced due to an orange man tweeting mean things.

Ray-VIgo
February 3rd, 2021, 07:15 AM
I think the best arguments against the Senate being able to do anything are:
1. Lack of jurisdiction, both over on the defendant in personam and over the subject matter.
2. A hybrid violation of due process to the defendant under Amend. V and separation of powers under Art. III.
3. Bill of Attainder under Art. I, Sec. 9.

We have to think of it as a three-legged stool where the arguments support one another.

Where I think the argument of a Bill of Attainder gains its teeth is piggybacking it on an argument of a failure to observe the fact that as a private citizen, Trump is subject to the jurisdiction of the courts rather than the Senate. Nixon v. Administrator of General Services confirms the narrowness of Attainder, but perhaps it is still useful. Such that:

A. The Office of the President ends with the inauguration and oath of the successor. There is no power vested in a "former president".
B. With no such power being vested in a former President, the jurisdiction of the Senate over him no longer attaches. As the President no longer has the powers of Article II, the Legislature in balance no longer has any of the Article I powers over him.
C. There being no power under Articles I and II, necessarily jurisdiction over him attaches in Article III as it would any other private citizen - the power of the courts to adjudicate his case. This preserves the separation of powers and due process under Amend. V.
D. The Senate trial violates the three concepts at once.
E. A case can be made for Bill of Attainder, having established the courts are the correct venue under Arts. I, II, III, and Amend. V.

Thus the three legs of the stool as it were support one another. But no court will touch this probably as an appeal from a Senate trial. It's all academic, and the Senate wants no review.

If Trump has committed such grievous offense, then let him be indicted, tried, and convicted in the courts. But this won't happen, because the case against him is too weak. Only a political trial can be employed against him. I think, in the end, it's a deep miscalculation. Trump will use the defense as a platform to bolster his own cause. It's a sort of "feeding the troll" by arguing with him scenario. But his opponents cannot help themselves. They are controlled as much by him as Trump's diehards are.

TSherbs
February 3rd, 2021, 02:30 PM
This is as much about the next Trump as it is about this one. The point of this also is to show that an attack on the Capitol--or an equivalent--no matter when in a term, will result in arrests, indictments, and impeachments. Period. Yes, it is now the end of a term, but that is when elections always occur. So for an incumbent president to reject the results of a national election, to reject the results of certified state counts, to lie publicly and traffic publicly in disproven conspiracy theories, and to call people to Washington and to encourage them to march on the Capitol in terms (even vaguely) that suggest violence and invasion, and then hundreds of them do so, now means that you will get impeached even on your way out the door.

Sounds fair to me. The date(s) on which you committed these acts will not protect you from the political consequences (your party might protect you, but the date itself will not). This should happen to the next person and every subsequent person who commits these acts.

Ray-VIgo
February 3rd, 2021, 03:10 PM
I think the best arguments against the Senate being able to do anything are:
1. Lack of jurisdiction, both over on the defendant in personam and over the subject matter.
2. A hybrid violation of due process to the defendant under Amend. V and separation of powers under Art. III.
3. Bill of Attainder under Art. I, Sec. 9.

We have to think of it as a three-legged stool where the arguments support one another.

Where I think the argument of a Bill of Attainder gains its teeth is piggybacking it on an argument of a failure to observe the fact that as a private citizen, Trump is subject to the jurisdiction of the courts rather than the Senate. Nixon v. Administrator of General Services confirms the narrowness of Attainder, but perhaps it is still useful. Such that:

A. The Office of the President ends with the inauguration and oath of the successor. There is no power vested in a "former president".
B. With no such power being vested in a former President, the jurisdiction of the Senate over him no longer attaches. As the President no longer has the powers of Article II, the Legislature in balance no longer has any of the Article I powers over him.
C. There being no power under Articles I and II, necessarily jurisdiction over him attaches in Article III as it would any other private citizen - the power of the courts to adjudicate his case. This preserves the separation of powers and due process under Amend. V.
D. The Senate trial violates the three concepts at once.
E. A case can be made for Bill of Attainder, having established the courts are the correct venue under Arts. I, II, III, and Amend. V.

Thus the three legs of the stool as it were support one another. But no court will touch this probably as an appeal from a Senate trial. It's all academic, and the Senate wants no review.

If Trump has committed such grievous offense, then let him be indicted, tried, and convicted in the courts. But this won't happen, because the case against him is too weak. Only a political trial can be employed against him. I think, in the end, it's a deep miscalculation. Trump will use the defense as a platform to bolster his own cause. It's a sort of "feeding the troll" by arguing with him scenario. But his opponents cannot help themselves. They are controlled as much by him as Trump's diehards are.

I suppose the hardest element (and I've racked my brain over the correct procedural measure from the standpoint of the defense) to nail down is, what is the proper motion at hand. The quick grab is the Motion to Dismiss, and were the Chief Justice presiding, that would be the move. With Leahy presiding, I doubt you'll have your Motion granted. I suppose you make the motion to preserve it as an issue for an appeal.

And then what is your appeal anyway? Do you apply to an Article III federal court for an extraordinary or equitable remedy - Declaratory Judgment? Injunction? Hard stuff to get. Maybe the judge hears it, maybe not. And then maybe the judge just says it's a "political question" and non-justiciable. I think the defense has some persuasive points it can make, but it's a struggle to see how you would raise them and drive them to conclusion procedurally. And I'd say let the legal "dream team" think it up, but then again it was a "dream team" that was going to unleash the Kraken, and instead we got the irregular shuffle of a child's hermit crab.

Chuck Naill
February 3rd, 2021, 03:55 PM
I have considered that if this were the average American citizen, they would be charged with a crime that led to the death of at least five Ameicans. Forget whether he was in public office. He did something and said something that resulted in human death.

That he visualized he was this or that is not relavent since we do not convict folks based on their percepions. Did he:
"One is liable as an accomplice to the crime of another if he or she gave assistance or encouragement or failed to perform a legal duty to prevent it with the intent thereby to promote or facilitate commission of the crime."
https://www.bing.com/search?q=someone+charge+as+being+as+accomplice&FORM=AWRE

kazoolaw
February 4th, 2021, 05:10 AM
I have considered that if this were the average American citizen, they would be charged with a crime that led to the death of at least five Ameicans. Forget whether he was in public office. He did something and said something that resulted in human death.

That he visualized he was this or that is not relavent since we do not convict folks based on their percepions. Did he:
"One is liable as an accomplice to the crime of another if he or she gave assistance or encouragement or failed to perform a legal duty to prevent it with the intent thereby to promote or facilitate commission of the crime."
https://www.bing.com/search?q=someone+charge+as+being+as+accomplice&FORM=AWRE

Chuck, you do legal research on Bing at our own risk.

Certainly we convict or acquit folks on their perceptions: that is the issue of "intent" under the law.

The law also requires causation, not correlation. Summer sees the sale of ice cream cones and the incidents of armed robbery increase. There is a correlation between ice cream sales and armed robbery. There is no causation.

There is simply not enough time to dissect your completely inapposite quotation, both on the application of the law and the facts.

kazoolaw
February 4th, 2021, 05:13 AM
Sounds fair to me. The date(s) on which you committed these acts will not protect you from the political consequences (your party might protect you, but the date itself will not). This should happen to the next person and every subsequent person who commits these acts.

Former President Harry Truman was asked if thought Richard Nixon had read the Constitution. He replied that he didn't know, but was sure that if he had that Nixon didn't understand it.

You too TS.

Ray-VIgo
February 4th, 2021, 06:48 AM
The question of jurisdiction over Trump goes beyond politics, I think, and falls into the realm of what would conceptually be the "separation of powers". The power to adjudicate a case or controversy over a private citizen generally falls to the courts. The power to impeach a sitting President is with the House and the power to adjudicate that trial of a sitting President resides with the Senate.

What is effectively being sought in this case is the power to adjudicate the trial of a former president who was impeached on January 13, while he was still in office, but who then left office on January 20, and will be tried after he has left. So politically one might want or not want Trump tried, or one might want or not want to send a message to the "next Trump", speculative though he may be. But that question is a separate one from whether the power of the Senate to try a former President continues to exist after that person has left office and returned to the class of citizens subject to the judicial power rather than the Senatorial. Jurisdiction can generally be raised at any time in the context of a trial, and may be raised by the trier sua sponte. Jurisdiction in the Senate is a serious problem and likely was lost when Biden became President, Trump having become a private citizen again and become again subject to the power of the courts on the question.

If the case is so strong, the evidence so irrefutable, then indict him and try him in a court.

More's "The Devil and the Law" speech to Roper in "A Man for All Seasons" seems to apply here, I think.

welch
February 4th, 2021, 10:56 AM
The question of jurisdiction over Trump goes beyond politics, I think, and falls into the realm of what would conceptually be the "separation of powers". The power to adjudicate a case or controversy over a private citizen generally falls to the courts. The power to impeach a sitting President is with the House and the power to adjudicate that trial of a sitting President resides with the Senate.

What is effectively being sought in this case is the power to adjudicate the trial of a former president who was impeached on January 13, while he was still in office, but who then left office on January 20, and will be tried after he has left. So politically one might want or not want Trump tried, or one might want or not want to send a message to the "next Trump", speculative though he may be. But that question is a separate one from whether the power of the Senate to try a former President continues to exist after that person has left office and returned to the class of citizens subject to the judicial power rather than the Senatorial. Jurisdiction can generally be raised at any time in the context of a trial, and may be raised by the trier sua sponte. Jurisdiction in the Senate is a serious problem and likely was lost when Biden became President, Trump having become a private citizen again and become again subject to the power of the courts on the question.

If the case is so strong, the evidence so irrefutable, then indict him and try him in a court.

More's "The Devil and the Law" speech to Roper in "A Man for All Seasons" seems to apply here, I think.

It's pretty simple, Ray. The House impeached Trump when Trump was President. The Senate is obliged to try him. It is not like a Bill of Attainder. It is not a criminal trial, although Trump might, indeed, be tried in New York State courts for tax fraud. The penalty could be that Trump is barred from holding any office.

Ray-VIgo
February 4th, 2021, 11:59 AM
The question of jurisdiction over Trump goes beyond politics, I think, and falls into the realm of what would conceptually be the "separation of powers". The power to adjudicate a case or controversy over a private citizen generally falls to the courts. The power to impeach a sitting President is with the House and the power to adjudicate that trial of a sitting President resides with the Senate.

What is effectively being sought in this case is the power to adjudicate the trial of a former president who was impeached on January 13, while he was still in office, but who then left office on January 20, and will be tried after he has left. So politically one might want or not want Trump tried, or one might want or not want to send a message to the "next Trump", speculative though he may be. But that question is a separate one from whether the power of the Senate to try a former President continues to exist after that person has left office and returned to the class of citizens subject to the judicial power rather than the Senatorial. Jurisdiction can generally be raised at any time in the context of a trial, and may be raised by the trier sua sponte. Jurisdiction in the Senate is a serious problem and likely was lost when Biden became President, Trump having become a private citizen again and become again subject to the power of the courts on the question.

If the case is so strong, the evidence so irrefutable, then indict him and try him in a court.

More's "The Devil and the Law" speech to Roper in "A Man for All Seasons" seems to apply here, I think.

It's pretty simple, Ray. The House impeached Trump when Trump was President. The Senate is obliged to try him. It is not like a Bill of Attainder. It is not a criminal trial, although Trump might, indeed, be tried in New York State courts for tax fraud. The penalty could be that Trump is barred from holding any office.

Not especially simple, at all. We know from the text that "The President, Vice President, and all civil officers of the United States" are the subject officers. Article I, Section 3, Clause 6 assigns the Senate sole responsibility to try impeachments: "The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present." The primary source for precedent about whether discretion exists to decline trial, or to conduct a stub proceeding would be historical rather than judicial, as in Nixon v. U.S. (1993), impeachment proceedings face a high bar against appeal on grounds of justiciability. But in this instance, given Trump leaving office, the important wrinkle is added that the impeachment trial may collide with the right of due process, and the power of the judiciary to hear cases and controversies over private citizens.

welch
February 4th, 2021, 03:12 PM
Not especially simple, at all. We know from the text that "The President, Vice President, and all civil officers of the United States" are the subject officers. Article I, Section 3, Clause 6 assigns the Senate sole responsibility to try impeachments: "The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present." The primary source for precedent about whether discretion exists to decline trial, or to conduct a stub proceeding would be historical rather than judicial, as in Nixon v. U.S. (1993), impeachment proceedings face a high bar against appeal on grounds of justiciability. But in this instance, given Trump leaving office, the important wrinkle is added that the impeachment trial may collide with the right of due process, and the power of the judiciary to hear cases and controversies over private citizens.

I do not understand how Trump must be charged with a crime, rather than tried for impeachable things he did or failed to do as President. A precedent might be the impeachment trial of Secretary of War William W. Belknap in about 1876. Didn't Belknap resign just before the House impeached him? And wasn't he then tried in the Senate?

Ray-VIgo
February 4th, 2021, 08:54 PM
Not especially simple, at all. We know from the text that "The President, Vice President, and all civil officers of the United States" are the subject officers. Article I, Section 3, Clause 6 assigns the Senate sole responsibility to try impeachments: "The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present." The primary source for precedent about whether discretion exists to decline trial, or to conduct a stub proceeding would be historical rather than judicial, as in Nixon v. U.S. (1993), impeachment proceedings face a high bar against appeal on grounds of justiciability. But in this instance, given Trump leaving office, the important wrinkle is added that the impeachment trial may collide with the right of due process, and the power of the judiciary to hear cases and controversies over private citizens.

I do not understand how Trump must be charged with a crime, rather than tried for impeachable things he did or failed to do as President. A precedent might be the impeachment trial of Secretary of War William W. Belknap in about 1876. Didn't Belknap resign just before the House impeached him? And wasn't he then tried in the Senate?

The case of William Blount came to the opposite conclusion though. And the question was never fully brought to adjudication in Belknap's case anyway. Further it does not address the question of whether bifurcated punishment can be legally supported or whether the differing standards of proof for removal from office versus disqualification from future office render it such that the two punishments are truly independent. The Senate acquitted Belknap, so it never reached a reviewable posture in the form of a final sanction.

And then there is the question of whether a former President can be equated to a former "federal official" or not. If Trump is being tried as President, the Chief Justice would preside, but that's not happening here. So on the one hand the prosecution points to his position as President, while the presiding officer's status says he's not President, but is instead akin to a lesser federal official.

Even eminent scholars have mixed views on the issue based on circumstances. Such is the case with Jonathan Turley who once thought there might very well be jurisdiction for trial of a former official, but later claimed no such jurisdiction existed.

I have no clue what Trump will do. My inclination is that he will spout off about the trial. But it remains unclear whether he will actually appear to defend himself, or whether he will use the "empty table" to signal he contempt for the proceeding (and perhaps challenge it in court later?).

If prosecuted to the fullest by both sides, it strikes me as a case of first impression and not at all clear what the outcome will be. I do think the defense has some very good arguments, but it remains to be seen what they'll do, whether they follow-through, or whether anyone will even show up. There are only partial precedents for this, at best, and the arguments in a case of this type have never been fully vetted. It's a little familiar, but it's largely uncharted waters.

welch
May 23rd, 2021, 10:01 AM
Now, six months later, "Republicans" insist, on the head of Lynn Cheney, that one must

- believe that Trump won the 2020 election, probably by a landslide

- believe that nearly every election district conspired to change Trump votes to votes for President Biden

How much evidence would it take to convince "Republicans" that Biden won an honest election?

TSherbs
May 23rd, 2021, 05:45 PM
Now, six months later, "Republicans" insist, on the head of Lynn Cheney, that one must

- believe that Trump won the 2020 election, probably by a landslide

- believe that nearly every election district conspired to change Trump votes to votes for President Biden

How much evidence would it take to convince "Republicans" that Biden won an honest election?

Only the most delusional (and not the majority) of GOP members believe that Trump won.

Some also *allow* it to be *possible* because their desire to have won the 2020 election is so great and their disdain for DEMS is so great that they just can't psychologically bear to face the truth of the loss.

The rest who stay quiet or take a knee to Trump and this bullshit are just crass opportunists and cowardly seekers of power: they'll keep stringing the Trump base along for as long as it looks like it plays to their favor (both McConnell and Graham are in this category of opportunist sycophants).

TSherbs
June 23rd, 2021, 01:18 PM
GOP Michigan report on 2020 election in that state: no fraud, no tally inaccuracies of any consequence, Trump's accusations about the state and Detroit were "ludicrous" and "damaging" to trust:

https://www.misenategop.com/oversightcommitteereport/

I'll add that those Detroit (and Philly) accusations were also racist.

TSherbs
June 24th, 2021, 04:47 PM
Here's a GOP representative predicting more deadly violence as a result of ongoing election conspiracy lies: https://www.businessinsider.com/gop-congressman-says-people-will-die-false-election-fraud-claims-2021-6

TSherbs
June 27th, 2021, 09:32 AM
In Atlantic Magazine, Bill Barr is directly quoted as saying that Trump's election conspiracy claims were all "bullshit" -- the ballot dumps, the counting machines, all of it. And weasel McConnell kept asking Barr to contradict Trump cuz he himself could not, politically.

Spineless dweeb trying to push the giant asshole out front.

Nice, GOP.

Meanwhile, millions of dupes believe the "bullshit" and those bad actors drag the country down.

And some of you promulgated that same bullshit here for months. You're the minor assholes who did your part of spreading the feces.

TSherbs
June 27th, 2021, 10:05 AM
Here's a representative idiot from the Ohio rally yesterday (via Buzzfeed):

"I know he won,” Niner told BuzzFeed News, her oversized “TRUMP WON” shirt nearly reaching her knees. “There’s so much evidence out there it was stolen,” she said before admitting only one thing could convince her otherwise. “Jesus Christ would have to come down and tell me that Biden won before I would ever believe it.”

This is an example of a result of the morally craven manipulative disinformation campaign. Ignorant people are fed lies, and believe them, with zealous ardor.

Chuck Naill
June 30th, 2021, 06:19 AM
I've grown tired of discussing Trump except to respond to some nonense here suggesting Biden is a bad person. While he is not my favorite person, he does appear to have empathy or at least appear to have empathy. I cannot imagine how anyone with his life trageties would need to fake it.

From what I have read, Trumpians like what he says and that he never admits wrong. I guess they see something in him they want to see in themselves.

I suppose the need to disparage Biden is more from a need to neutralize anti-Trumpers. Who knows?? I've heard them say " no one is perfect". Well, that's obvious. We are not execting perfection, but we do expect people to tell the truth, have a smidgeon of kindness, and treat others as they want to be treated because those that don't often end up doing time.

dneal
June 30th, 2021, 07:58 AM
I've grown tired of discussing Trump except to respond to some nonense here suggesting Biden is a bad person. While he is not my favorite person, he does appear to have empathy or at least appear to have empathy. I cannot imagine how anyone with his life trageties would need to fake it.

From what I have read, Trumpians like what he says and that he never admits wrong. I guess they see something in him they want to see in themselves.

I suppose the need to disparage Biden is more from a need to neutralize anti-Trumpers. Who knows?? I've heard them say " no one is perfect". Well, that's obvious. We are not execting perfection, but we do expect people to tell the truth, have a smidgeon of kindness, and treat others as they want to be treated because those that don't often end up doing time.

You've grown so tired of discussing Trump that the first thing you start discussing is Trump. Not unexpected.

Trump is an obnoxious asshole. I agreed with a lot of his policies. I disagreed with some too. Make NATO countries pay their "contractual" share? I'm onboard. Stop Bill Gates from working with China on new-style nuclear power (like France has been building)? Stupid. It would have reduced China's pollution and made nuclear cheaper and more abundant - an actual "clean" energy that isn't dependent on fickle weather and produces enough electricity to actually be useful. I can list a lot more that I agreed and disagreed with. Contrary to your wild accusations, I'm about policies and not politicians or party.

Biden is a typical politician. Do you really think he intends to implement any of the initiatives the progressives want? Biden is the epitome of the status quo for the kleptocracy. The glimpses in the news of the money he's funneled to his son, brother, etc... isn't particularly unique. The Clintons made an art of it, and there are plenty of Republicans involved in the graft game too.

The problem with Biden is that he's not all there. It's painfully obvious. How many clips do you want to watch of him stumbling and mumbling? You know, the thing...

When you can't even admit the obvious, and as long as you view all those who disagree with your politics as "Trumpians", you simply demonstrate your bias and failure to reason. Replace "Trumpian" with "Blacks", and consider how objective you sound. Assigning motive and belief to half the country, lumping them all together and then labeling with a slur for convenience. Maybe it's not only them that have an issue with objectivity.

TSherbs
June 30th, 2021, 11:47 AM
So, how can Trump-believers be convinced that he lost an honest election? Those are your words, dneal, no one else's. No one claims that "half the country" is Trumpian, except you in your deflective aspersion. We all know that "Trump-believers" (again, your words) are a minority of the country. Each election has shown us so. In each election, more people voted for Trump's opponents than for him.

So, the question remains, what will it take to convince Trump's minority collection of "believers" that he lost an honest election? I say, nothing can convince them all, and it isn't worth the effort. But I do believe that every person or corporation who has suffered damages from the "big lie" should sue each of the lie promulgators to make them hurt and dissuade the next group of perfidious enemies of the will of the people.

dneal
June 30th, 2021, 03:47 PM
So, how can Trump-believers be convinced that he lost an honest election? Those are your words, dneal, no one else's.

No dipshit, it's literally the title of the thread. They're Welch's words, not mine. FFS, try to keep up.


So, the question remains, what will it take to convince Trump's minority collection of "believers" that he lost an honest election?

As has been answered many times, audits; which people strangely seemed opposed to. Here's where you're fucking hypocrites though. Is it ok for the IRS or NY AG to audit Trump's tax records? Audits are no big deal, right?

I'm ok with both, although the NY case sure looks like political payback to me. I'm also ok with legislatures ordering audits of their State's election.

--edit--

Oh, and spare me the indignation of "unbelievers". 8 fucking years of Bush we heard how Gore and Kerry really beat him. How many years did Hillary bemoan Russian Collusion? and the whole country was on about the popular vote... How many years did Mueller (another should be out-to-pasture bureaucrat), not to mention Clapper, Comey and Brennan promise us Trump stole the election?

The Dems are well past due for some bitching. Take your medicine.

TSherbs
June 30th, 2021, 04:38 PM
Bitching is fine. No one here minds that.

It's willful prevarication to undermine confidence in a cynical powerplay against the will of the people, that we mind. And everyone *should* mind that.

My only complaint here has been about the big lie, even after multiple audits have occurred. You know the endgame here, dneal. It's a grab for power, not an attempt at accuracy. You know that the results will not change in this election. This has not been about this election. And it is not about trying to make us *more* confident in our voting: Trump had never been motivated by clearer and more accurate counting. He has only attacked swing states where he lost. Every one of his claims about fraud has been shown to be false. Continuing audits do not erase the cumulative effect of the toxin of false claims. Your disingenuousness on this topic is as bad as Trump's. Obama, for example, is still tainted in the minds of some people by the Trumpian lie that he was not born in America. Evidence doesn't dissuade fools from ignorant acceptance of malicious rumor and conspiracy.

You lie when you say that more audits is the answer to Trumpian belief in falsehoods.

dneal
June 30th, 2021, 04:47 PM
The things that happened in the 4 big swing states were similar, and novel. That alone causes a reasonable raise of an eyebrow. There are reasonable people (even Democrats, apparently), that suspect something fishy went on. A real audit, regardless of the results, will assuage any concerns.

The true, die-hard Trumpian - say Mike Lindell - is always going to believe crazy shit. Both sides have their fringe. That's not who the audits are really for.

And of course it's all about power. It is the U.S. Presidency, after all; and all the power and money machinations that take place around it.

TSherbs
June 30th, 2021, 04:51 PM
Oh, and spare me the indignation of "unbelievers". 8 fucking years of Bush we heard how Gore and Kerry really beat him.

You'll never hear me say that. Bush won, fair and square. Gore conceded. No storming the capital.

My indignation is genuine, deep, and specific: Trump is lying in a concerted, willful attempt to subvert the will of the country in a free and fair election, the most accurate tabulation in modern history, even with record turnout.

I never said any such thing, not even close, after Bush won. Gore's concession was exactly the right thing to do at exactly the time he did it.

Trump, and his followers who aid and abet the lie, are pieces of shit deciding that their candidate winning is more important than accepting the result of a record turnout with record accuracy.

And that is ethically and morally craven.

TSherbs
June 30th, 2021, 05:02 PM
Here's another important difference: Gore wanted to slow the Florida vote counting down in order to make sure that all the ballots were counted.

Trump wanted to speed the counting up and have winners declared when he was leading the night of the election, even when he and everyone else with a brain knew that it would take many more hours (days) to process all the ballots. Trump's tweets and arguments on election night reveal his lack of primary interest in an accurate tabulation of the votes.

He even said before the election that he would accept the result only if he won.

He didn't, and he still hasn't.

TSherbs
June 30th, 2021, 05:06 PM
The truculent Trumpers have fucked this election thing up for decades, you assholes. It's on you, and every other ignoramus who can't keep his or her political psychology under some semblance of rational and moral control.

dneal
June 30th, 2021, 06:19 PM
The truculent Trumpers have fucked this election thing up for decades, you assholes. It's on you, and every other ignoramus who can't keep his or her political psychology under some semblance of rational and moral control.

The irony is delicious.

p.s.: "truculent Trumpers" have only been around since 2016. It's only 5 years later. Not even a decade (let alone plural).

TSherbs
June 30th, 2021, 07:37 PM
"for decades" means into the future, dodo

The assault on democracy and the idea that the people's vote counts more than any one team winning will take a long time to repair. Decades.

Even this stupid "audit" in Arizona, because chain of custody of machines has been broken, now means that Maricopa has to acquire new machines for the next election.

And the damage spreads. I wonder what is next.

TSherbs
June 30th, 2021, 07:55 PM
Bush beat Gore, Gore conceded (after delays in counting Florida votes).

Bush beat Kerry, Kerry conceded.

Obama beat McCain, McCain conceded.

Obama beat Romney, Romney conceded.

Trump beat Clinton, Clinton conceded.

Biden beat Trump, Trump and his allies initiated 70+ lawsuits in only the swing states that he lost, won none of them of any consequence, promulgated and perpetuated the big lie that the election was rigged and stolen, headlined a rally in DC and spurred the crowd on to fight the certification of the EC result (clear Biden win). The crowd assaulted the Capitol, assaulted police. More than 500 arrests have been made in consequence.

Who's the sorest loser in modern presidential history? Who has been most willing to abrogate the will of the people? Who has been a petty tyrant-wannabe? Who has purposely lied to the American people about the danger of a pandemic, which has now resulted in the death of 600,000+ Americans?

This fuckface has damaged America for decades to come.

TSherbs
June 30th, 2021, 08:13 PM
And, no. Reasonable people in the middle of the GOP are not who need convincing about this past election integrity. No reasonable person has any substantial doubts about the results in these states that the several state-run professional reviews could not answer to.

Reasonable people on this matter know the reality of this process: it was free and fair and very well run.

It's those people with other psychological and reasoning issues who can't accept the loss and who were vulnerable and manipulated by Trump and his cohort into believing a false narrative. Craven, power-hungry sycophants promulgating a lie to hold onto power at any cost, and the pliant common folk, tickled by the fantasies of conspiracy like addicts to their drugs, bought into it.

And some still do, cuz drug habits and fantasies are hard to break.

TSherbs
July 1st, 2021, 04:26 AM
Here is a reporter's look at the Trump believers and speakers at the recent Cleveland rally. And an encounter with Marjorie Taylor Green.

Decide for yourself how "middle" these ideas are.

POLITICO
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/06/29/trump-movement-new-darkness-future-496991

dneal
July 1st, 2021, 05:09 AM
Somebody’s triggered.

TSherbs
July 1st, 2021, 06:02 AM
Willful ignorance in adults is galling to me, especially when it spreads like disease and damages people.

TSherbs
July 1st, 2021, 01:36 PM
I am reminded of this poem of modernity:

The Second Coming
BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS


Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

TSherbs
July 2nd, 2021, 07:04 PM
A great article on the Michigan certification and committee review, and "the big lie."

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/06/michigan-republican-truth-election-fraud/619326/?utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

TSherbs
July 6th, 2021, 08:14 AM
Another white, mostly male, white supremacist group marching and chanting the lie of the steal.

Does their racism make them stupid, or the other way around?

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/masked-white-supremacists-run-angry-onlookers-philadelphia-police-say-n1273096

kazoolaw
July 8th, 2021, 05:51 AM
"Stop the Steal" said no Democrat ever?
https://hotair.com/allahpundit/2021/06/29/stop-the-steal-nyc-mayoral-frontrunner-hints-at-election-chicanery-as-lead-slips-during-ranked-choice-voting-count-n399649
Dem on Dem chicanery?

TSherbs
July 17th, 2021, 06:46 PM
Latest check on Trumpian lies:

https://apnews.com/article/technology-joe-biden-arizona-government-and-politics-ap-fact-check-0e7fad7e5bdf02d953c6b90a474267cc

Chuck Naill
July 18th, 2021, 06:12 AM
A new book regarding Trump's last days and a top US general's concern of a possible coup is not surprising, but concerning. I am curious if Trumpians have actually taken the time to consider who they are following?

The sadist part of the Trump cult is that unvaccinated people are getting sick, hospiticalized, and some dying. I am sure all are not necessarily Trumpians.

Last week I had to cut ties with a friend who was continually repeating Fox News and QAnon. He feeds himself daily on Fox and YouTube. He knows I am vaccinated, but continually sent information about why the vaccine is not good. I just cannot continue to listen and be nice. It really got old and I told him so.

kazoolaw
July 20th, 2021, 10:01 AM
Does "D" mean "Republican?"
https://twitter.com/i/status/1417095882907000836

TSherbs
July 21st, 2021, 08:09 AM
Another review by the AP of election fraud cases:
https://apnews.com/article/business-government-and-politics-arizona-election-2020-e6158cd1b0c6442716064e6791b4c6fc

TSherbs
August 1st, 2021, 03:15 AM
Latest update on the "mess" in Arizona.

https://apnews.com/article/arizona-election-2020-e31f6eb911adb01086281291ca9e6dcf

Can't wait for this to be released to the public. It's going to show just how civic-minded and interested-in-dispelling-mistrust these Repubs in Arizona are!

/sarcasm

Chuck Naill
August 1st, 2021, 08:14 AM
Perhaps the strategy is to trick the Trump supporter into believing he was cheated, keeping them on the Trumpian Hook. That Ron Wright's widow, endorsed by DT, lost to Ellzey might signal the GOP is moving back to a Reagan/Bush direction. I'd like to see a Cheney ticket down the road.

From an op-ed by David Brooks.

"As Jonathan Rauch brilliantly writes in his book “The Constitution of Knowledge,” the acquisition of this kind of knowledge is also a collective process. It’s not just a group of people commenting on each other’s internet posts. It’s a network of institutions — universities, courts, publishers, professional societies, media outlets — that have set up an interlocking set of procedures to hunt for error, weigh evidence and determine which propositions pass muster.

These are the same principles as those of the scientific method. An individual may be dumb, Rauch notes, but the whole network is brilliant, so long as everybody in it adheres to certain rules: No one gets the final say (every proposition might be wrong). No claim to personal authority (who you are doesn’t determine the truth of what you say, the evidence does). No retreat to safety (you can’t ban an idea just because it makes you feel unsafe)."

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/01/opinion/patriotism-misinformation.html?searchResultPosition=4

TSherbs
August 1st, 2021, 11:55 AM
Perhaps the strategy is to trick the Trump supporter into believing he was cheated, keeping them on the Trumpian Hook.

Yes.

For two reasons as I see it:

1) to keep the fundraising base energized and giving

2) to create continuing distrust in the election to the point to justify restrictions on the ease of access to voting in election time

TSherbs
August 1st, 2021, 04:57 PM
On the point I made just above:

From ABC News:

>>>The latest figures are a show of continued fundraising prowess from Trump, whose massive post-election fundraising success has come amid baseless fraud claims about the 2020 presidential election.

Since the election, Trump and his team have solicited hundreds of millions of dollars for an "Election Defense Fund" and seeking support to fight the 2020 results. But little of that has actually gone to such efforts so far, disclosure filings show.


The latest filings show that much of the amount raised by Trump's various committees in the first six months of this year have been saved in the bank, while much of the rest has been used for various fundraising and consulting expenses.<<<

Chuck Naill
August 1st, 2021, 05:04 PM
dneal didn't vote for Trump. We need to keep that at the front of anything that is added to this thread. Perhaps "no balls" is appropriate. Each can decide for themselves. I personally have no respect for a drama king who didn't vote.

TSherbs
August 1st, 2021, 05:21 PM
dneal didn't vote for Trump.

He has said that he is just trolling here for his jollies. Ignore him.





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TSherbs
August 3rd, 2021, 06:08 AM
From Yahoo News, today:

>>>Maricopa County officials previously authorized two election machine audits that found no irregularities in the county's 2020 election. There was also a recount of a sample of ballots that did not turn up any problems.

After courts rejected several lawsuits challenging the 2020 results in Arizona and other states Donald Trump lost, the former president and his allies have turned their attention to the GOP-led Arizona Senate audit in Maricopa County, touting it as an inspection that could support their claims of widespread fraud or irregularities.

Still, Fann has stressed the audit is not about overturning the 2020 election but rather making legislation to improve the operations and security of voting contests.<<<


Fann is dissembling, in part. This "audit" attempt is actually for both purposes: to disrupt the prior election result (a long shot, but Trump has voiced this purpose), and to cast doubts that fuel election restriction laws.

TSherbs
August 3rd, 2021, 05:45 PM
This Republican Arizona representative might want to be careful about slandering Dominion: she could end up added to their suit's list of defendants:


Wendy Rogers: I would like to know if we have enough solitary confinement cells in Arizona available for the entire Maricopa Board of Supervisors and the execs at the fraud machine company. We are going to need a lot.
6:40 PM · Aug 2, 2021·Twitter

EDIT: See post #236 below

Bold2013
August 3rd, 2021, 10:16 PM
It is becoming the perfect storm for the republicans to take back the legislative branch in the midterm election and Trump to regain the presidency in 2024.

TSherbs
August 4th, 2021, 05:13 AM
It is becoming the perfect storm for the republicans to take back the legislative branch in the midterm election and Trump to regain the presidency in 2024.

This is not certain at all. But it is the purpose of the recount, etc.

Chuck Naill
August 4th, 2021, 06:23 AM
I hope it is not certain. It is unfortunate, but for many it will take a second DT presidency to finally understand their support for him was a mistake.

TSherbs
August 8th, 2021, 03:18 PM
This Vox article is a lengthy summary of the Arizona procedures to this date, with many links to other documents: https://www.vox.com/22609910/maricopa-county-2020-election-audit-final-report-preview

TSherbs
August 10th, 2021, 07:41 AM
oh, and now Dominion has added OAN (One America News) to the defendant list of their civil lawsuits, this time to the tune of 1.6 billion dollars: https://www.businessinsider.com/dominion-sues-oan-one-america-news-election-conspiracy-theories-2021-3

Chuck Naill
August 11th, 2021, 02:54 PM
Radicalized Americans

TSherbs
August 13th, 2021, 10:54 AM
More fallout from people being sucked into the Big Lie:
https://www.npr.org/2021/08/12/1027225157/after-data-is-posted-on-conspiracy-website-colo-countys-voting-machines-are-bann?ft=nprml&f=1014

TSherbs
August 18th, 2021, 05:44 AM
Update on an arrest of a widely published marauder at the Capitol:
Business Insider:

https://www.businessinsider.com/bodybuilder-photographed-dragging-officer-during-capitol-riot-arrested-2021-8

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Chuck Naill
August 18th, 2021, 03:57 PM
Biden has blown it. There was no reason to proceed with Trump's agreement withn the Taliban sans the Afghanistan government. Not that a Biden and Trump debate can generate much finger pointing. However, I cannot imagine how Trump would have handled it better.

dneal
August 19th, 2021, 06:24 AM
Biden has blown it. There was no reason to proceed with Trump's agreement withn the Taliban sans the Afghanistan government. Not that a Biden and Trump debate can generate much finger pointing. However, I cannot imagine how Trump would have handled it better.

Generally I agree, but it needs its own thread. This one is about the election.

Chuck Naill
August 19th, 2021, 07:06 AM
Biden has blown it. There was no reason to proceed with Trump's agreement withn the Taliban sans the Afghanistan government. Not that a Biden and Trump debate can generate much finger pointing. However, I cannot imagine how Trump would have handled it better.

Generally I agree, but it needs its own thread. This one is about the election.

Sigh:focus:

TSherbs
August 20th, 2021, 06:55 PM
This is no surprise. I actually hadn't heard any accusations that Trump (or other functionary) had planned or coordinated Jan 6. But anyway, this news came out:

Business Insider: Trump not directly involved in organizing Capitol riot violence: report.

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-not-directly-involved-in-organizing-capitol-riot-violence-report-2021-8

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Chuck Naill
August 21st, 2021, 08:53 AM
Trump’s January 6 speech transcript.

https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-donald-trump-capitol-siege-media-e79eb5164613d6718e9f4502eb471f27

I don’t see how you can read this and not think Trump influenced the insurrection.

kazoolaw
August 21st, 2021, 10:49 AM
I don’t see how you can read this and not think Trump influenced the insurrection.

Read it with an open mind to start?

TSherbs
August 21st, 2021, 11:15 AM
Trump’s January 6 speech transcript.

https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-donald-trump-capitol-siege-media-e79eb5164613d6718e9f4502eb471f27

I don’t see how you can read this and not think Trump influenced the insurrection."Influenced" isn't what this new report is about. The report is about planning or coordination.

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Chuck Naill
August 21st, 2021, 12:37 PM
I don’t see how you can read this and not think Trump influenced the insurrection.

Read it with an open mind to start?

Have you read it? The insurrectionists were there and later claimed they were following Trump's orders. Were their minds closed?

Chuck Naill
August 21st, 2021, 12:40 PM
Trump’s January 6 speech transcript.

https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-donald-trump-capitol-siege-media-e79eb5164613d6718e9f4502eb471f27

I don’t see how you can read this and not think Trump influenced the insurrection."Influenced" isn't what this new report is about. The report is about planning or coordination.

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Sure, I get it, but we saw it coming or those of us staying up to date were seeing the clouds forming during the campaign events. Even some of the insurrectionists said they felt they were following Trump's orders.

Perhaps the insurrectionists should have been listening with an "open mind" and they would have not stormed the capital.

TSherbs
August 21st, 2021, 12:47 PM
Trump’s January 6 speech transcript.

https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-donald-trump-capitol-siege-media-e79eb5164613d6718e9f4502eb471f27

I don’t see how you can read this and not think Trump influenced the insurrection."Influenced" isn't what this new report is about. The report is about planning or coordination.

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Sure, I get it, but we saw it coming or those of us staying up to date were seeing the clouds forming during the campaign events. Even some of the insurrectionists said they felt they were following Trump's orders.

Perhaps the insurrectionists should have been listening with an "open mind" and they would have not stormed the capital.Yes. Trump influenced it, for sure.

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Chuck Naill
August 22nd, 2021, 06:29 AM
I think we need to discuss this idea of an "open mind". What does it mean to @kazoolaw to read with an open mind? If I read about Trump's words toward McCain, would I say something like, "well, he didn't really mean it", or "he was just joking"? Lets say Obama or Biden said it, would my open mind come to a different conclusion?

You see, I think @kazoolaw's comment was something easy to do and @dneal's "like" was the same. I am not singling them out except to provide and illustration of how confirmation bias can creep into our minds and cause us to believe something that we've not actually taken the time to research. I say this because had they actually read the transcript, both of them would be able to dismiss it with an "open mind" comment. This just shows we are trying to have conversations with people who are not do due diligence in vetting what they say they believe. It is much easier to yell "fake news" than actually read.