When contacted by press, YouTube admirably reversed bans and content removals involving a Canadian broadcaster. But the episode reveals the limits of algorithmic censorship
The video of that late night host calling Ivanka Trump "cunt" is still allowed. Or Stephen Colbert calling Trump Putin's Cock Holster. Or the thousands of videos of the russian collusion nonsense. Or the russian bounty nonsense.
Some of the brightest minds and smartest people go to work for companies like Facebook, YouTube, Google etc which spend every minute of their existence to figure out how to place an ad in front of our eyes for 1 more second.
That's how you know that some of the dumbest smart people end up controlling your speech too.
Same thing on Wall St. Did you read Antonio García Martínez book? There were times I got angry at his descriptions of FB and then I calmed myself with the fact that it is a confession. Very interesting book, especially the afterword to the 2nd edition.
I remember when someone programmed a bot to observe internet comments and respond like a “human” based on what it read/absorbed and with 36 hours it turned into a racist troll! It makes sense that an algorithm programmed by Alphabet/YouTube types would reflect their political nitwittery in it’s decisions.
STX... You realize Dennis Prager is as much a grifter as the Evangelicals pushing Trump down the throat of their followers. RIght? Prager U = Trum U aka Grifter U
That's irrelevant. Everyone's a grifter on both sides. What we are talking about here is that Prager U routinely gets censored for milquetoast stuff while corporate media gets to lie about everything.
None sense. The platform with his name on it funded by a billionaire pushing one thing and one thing only, lower taxes to the rich. The way they do it is to focus conservative voters on identity politics rather than economic policy.
The people on his platform are Grifters. They get paid by the click to push none sense meant to distract conservative voters away from the policy that Lobbyists are getting passed that has for 40yrs shifted GDP from the middle class and poor to the WEALTHY. (Trumps tax cut is the perfect example. Bailing out Banks is another one and the recent stimulus sending mostly going to large companies is another one, min wage, health care etc...)
His platform is to focus you on Woke Professors at Ivy League schools and Tranny's so you ignore how you are getting screwed by the Rich.
CNN - None sense. You could care less about censorship. Who are you kidding. You act as if it is only happening from the left when the FACT is that it happens from both the left and right and to the left and right?
What did Trump do to prevent censorship of Liberals points of view? You dont know or are because you only see censorship as bad of it happens to the right.
Censorship, blacklisting and persecution of dissenters is the biggest issue we face right now. It literally strikes at the foundations of our Democracy. It's shocking that the LEFT is willing to turn a blind eye to this out of disdain for Trump Supporters and any journalist capable of nuance. I think this extended to people like Alex Jones, who should not have been deplatformed for political beliefs, despite being fairly annoying.
My friend the LEFT - allowing for the modification of the definition of LEFT that Scott called out - is not just willing to turn a blind eye. They're the ones who are demanding that censorship, blacklisting, and persecution.
Indeed. Just one recent example: the entire DP leadership - as well as "thoughtful" hangers on like the Atlantic etc - all cheered on the complete, thorough & total elimination of Parler from the internet. There is no doubt that these last few years the Left, led by the DP, as Mr Taibbi has pointed out, is the greatest threat to freedom of speech.
ART- Matt has done an outstanding job of pointing out how the left is reducing freedom of speech. And in the process built a large audience of right wing fans.
If you have read his books he is equally harsh on the things the RIGHT has done regarding censorship and if you read his recent book Hate INC he interviews Noam Chomsky at the end and Chomsky clearly shows how the RIGHT is the far bigger threat to Censorship.
Think you missed something there: I agreed that Mr Taibbi has pointed out how most recently the Left, led by the DP, has been the greater threat to freedom of speech THESE LAST FEW YEARS. At no point did I attempt to exonerate the Right, which of course over different periods in years gone by has also been in favour of censorship in various areas of public life and threatened freedom of speech in the US. But we are talking about the very recent past .. and NOW! And what has been happening in the US, most especially this past year, is outrageous. I think it notable that Mr Taibbi, himself a man of the Left - but a man with principles and probity - has found it necessary to speak out. Likewise that other decent people "on the Left" - like Brett Weinstein and Glenn Greenwald (to pick out the first names which come to mind) - have been so disgusted by the actions of the broad Left that they too have felt the need to speak out. Most noteworthy too has been the manner in which these people from the Left have been smeared and vilified and instantly branded as "right wing" and "Trump-supporting", not only by the far left but also by many DP supporters.
As for your statement about Chomsky showing "how the Right is a far bigger threat to Censorship", I am afraid this is nonsense; or perhaps merely wishful thinking! (Incidentally, I presume you mean threat to freedom of speech; if the left or right were a "threat" to censorship that would be a good thing :-) ) The drive to censorship has nothing to do with "left" or right persuasion: the Soviet Union, the Japanese Empire, Communist China, Cuba, Nazi Germany, Venzuela, Franco's Spain, North Korea etc. etc. prove the fallacy of that assumption. The simple fact is that as soon as any political movement becomes ideological it attracts adherents who convince themselves that they are right about everything; and that anyone who disagrees with them is wrong and needs to be silenced. It is the mentality of the religious fundamentalist. Reason is thrown to the winds and political repression with varying degrees of violence follows. Arch thugs like Lenin, Hitler, Stalin and Mao are the finest examples of this trend of course. Incidentally, as pointed out in an earlier Taibbi post, I wouldn't put too much store by Chomsky in the area of censorship. A single example of his limited intellect & power of judgment is that for years he was a huge fan of Hugo Chávez: a man who once decreed that all TV stations broadcast his interminable speeches daily. I understand that between 15% and 20% of the total population of Venzuela has now left the wreck of a country Chávez and his followers bequeathed to them.
Art - you are funny. You wax on eloquently about how in your view in the past few years the left has been the far larger threat to freedom of speech / censorship than the right and go on to compare the lefts actions to everyone from Lenin and Hitler to religious fundamentalists.
Your comparison is flawed intellectually as evidenced by the FACT that the regimes you note shut down opposition press and murmured dissidents. Rupert Murdoch and Ben Shapiro are not preaching thier vile lies frightened Hillary is going to order them shot as the exit the building
So we now see that hyperbole is your flavor of communications. Not rational evidence based thinking.
So it is not surprise to hear you "cancel" Chomsky based on nothing more than his early support of Chaves, who advocated to end the oligarchy of Venezuelan oil money only to fall to the same corruption (all oppose by Chomsky) that any dictator succombs to.
I think it is safe to say that Matt's opposition to censorship is clear eyed and see's it on the left and the right and also see's clearly those that are opposed to it as evidenced in his strong support for the failed candicy of Nina Turner. He uses this platform to rope in closed minded right wing mostly Trump supporters like you with justified attacks on the Left. I applaud him for it as his attacks are all warrented.
But you my friend just proved you are a close minded, poorly informed partisan hack who see's with his feelings and thinks with his emotions. Right?
Chomsky, Matt and myself all see all sides of these things not just a partisan side.
Which stubbornness echoes his support for Pol Pot, where he (Chomky) very nearly fell into the "if facts disagree with my beliefs, they must be dismissed as propaganda" trap.
Again, a discussion completely derailed by people using "simplified" terminology.
In this case, "the right". When Piketty uses it, he means the evil, shadowy forces of power and wealth, funding grifters to indoctrinate ignorant rubes into believing things that are beneficial to their continued hold on that power and wealth.
When most of us use "the right", we mean ordinary citizens who feel they do not need to be highly educated to know they bear no racial animus, or to determine the biological sex of 98% of their fellow citizens* and who agree with the principle that the most productive should get the greater reward. Also, the people who view the fact that "bonds of family may interfere with loyalty to the state" (or "the cause") as a feature, not a bug.
Pretty small definitional overlap there, for the purposes of discussion or persuasion.
*-to be expressed, suppressed or satisfied howeverthefuck they want, no homophobe here, though that term (homophobe) is yet another that's been ginned-up as a tool for discussion avoidance.
RTF - Who are you talking about? Biden appointed Tim Wu and Lina Khan and they know more about what these companies are doing to censor than you and they are absolutely on the left.
Who to Trump, the right wing lunatic, put in power that did anything about these platforms? Name her? you cant. Sorry your claim is laughable
LOL you think Biden or democrats want Big Tech to not censor their opposition? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA You must still be waiting for that $2000 cheque or the $15 minimum wage or the medicare for all too....
CNN - I see that Biden actually hired the most well respected critics of big tech into his administration. Trump hired a bunch of industry hacks.
I have no idea what Wu and Khan will accomplish, they are going to be fighting the larges donors to politicians in DC.
Elizabeth Warren was appointed by Obama to fight the banks and they crushed her and got her thrown out. The banks got Katie porter thrown off of the finance committee after she chewed up their CEO's in public.
All i know is Democrats put heavy hitters out there to fight for consumers against these powerful entities. Republicans hire lobbyists like Mik Mulvaney and Ajit Pai to push the interests of big corporations over consumers.
No, the Democrats did not give enough support to people like Warren when she founded the consumer protection agency and they may not give Wu and Khan the support they need. But i do know that the MORE people we vote into office that think like Warren and Sanders and Porter and many others the more Support the Dems can give these people in fighting big business.
Let me know when the GOP start fighting big business because under Trump and Bush they did NOTHING to help consumers and far more than corrupt leaders like Pelosi and Schumer to help business. And Pelosi and Schumer are total corporate shills.
At least i know the battle and who we are fighting. You don't.
Anyone who imagines there is currently a single amerikan pol of true leftish bent in either the house of reps or the senate is a moronic pawn of amerikan indoctrination.
Calling the dims leftish is the equivalent of describing Robespierre as a monarchist.
I hold that big tech is overtly pushing the edicts of amerikan media that were oncemuch less obvious though they were practised.
I reckon this goes back to what Jays says alludes to in the Taibbi interview, that apart from shitty education, amerikans are frequently denied access to primary sources, that particular second-hand commentaries on historical events are permitted but access to the untainted, uninterpreted view of historical events us outright verboten.
Deb - It is 2021 not 1794 and the US is not a monarchy it is a representative democracy so a Robespierreian leader is not likely to appear in either the Republican or Democratic party, nor is one needed. In the 200yr history of this country th Rich and Powerful have many times purchased the government to subvert capitalism in favor of oligarchy. OUr system is set up to address such things if and only if American votes can UNITE to fight back.
Media and politicians that focus little on policy and strongly on why HATING the other side is all that matters (these people and media are on the left and right) are serving the overlords that want Oligarchy.
There have always been political leaders that are truly fighting for everyday Americans. But with out compromise they will never gain power.
Please name one Republican member of congress or the Senate that is FIGHTING for the economic well being of the POOR and MIDDLE CLASS and what policy they are fighting for to help the poor and middle class economically?
If you can't, and you can't then it will be clear where the few elected leaders are that are fighting for the economic well being of the poor and middle class and I can assure you that YOU PERSONALLY HATE them because of their identity politics. Right? If so, you are being played by the media. You know that right?
Jeez louise you make so many unfounded accusations about what values you believe I hold simply because you're so caught up in amerikan politics you cannot see the wood for the trees. The 1st, that my allusion comparing dims to true leftists was the same as an idiot describing Robespierre as a monarchist appears to have been understood by most, that they were equally blatant false suppositions, but you not only fail to comprehend this simple metaphor you go on in a straight from the primary school civics textbook spiel on amerika's alleged system of checks and balances, as if the innate corruption of amerikan politics which has existed since the days of Washington and Jefferson did not exist.
Every bill passed by either house since day 1 of 'the republic' has been the result of applied corruption yet amerikans are seemingly unable to see this because they lap up such nonsense.
There are no 'political leaders that are truly fighting for everyday Americans.' in either the dims or the rethugs. The so-called progressives such as wasshername Cortez are poseurs who claim to be socialists yet have backed iniquities such as the Cares act, folded when minimum wage time got a little warm & ran a million miles from forcing a vote on universal healthcare by leaning on Mrs Dim Corruption, Nancy Pelosi. Cortez & co wrap themselves in pseudo leftist rhetoric because the dims see it as the only way of retaining young people and poor people (usually both). They never ever act on these ideals cos they know that any excuse will do when dealing with the brainwashed.
I have witnessed and fought against the iniquities caused by political corruption aroundthis old rock we share for most of my life, fighting for the rights of usually poor, indigenous people who find themselves driven off their traditional lands & murdered by agents of the cruel & greedy amerikan empire. I know exactly how the pols at the center of that bloodthirsty machine work and any analysis of what these pols do rather than their mealy-mouthed speeches, reveals them to be 100% deceitful self-serving pigs.
Spend less time trying to hunt down the non-existent virtues of your 'team' and more effort analysing the cruelty of the bosses of the dim party you support and you might actually learn something, especially since you no longer even have to leave amerika to find egregious examples.
Otherwise you will remain a poorly educated victim of indoctrination.
Deb - We are in violent agreement that every bill passed since the founding of the Republic has been "the result" of applied corruption.
Given that fact, even with said corruption, the US Government enacted laws and leadership that produced the largest and wealthiest middle class in the history of the planet. Though not the first it eventually enabled male and female suffrage as well as ending slavery, improving civil rights and for a long period of time, though fading lately had a justice system that was the envy of most of the world.
Perfect no. First in everything no. Lacking corruption no. But over indexed to the bad side of any of these, NO also.
The system we have is one that has produced much good and much evil. Of that there is no doubt.
That said, given our system you are living in a fantasy if you expect "leftist" politicians to get policy passed by pushing a unyielding line on leftist policy. Ask Dennis Kucinich where that got him.
The systems yields to power. Always has always will.
And the leftists you seem to dislike for yielding to the realities needed to acquire the power needed to make change are acting in the time honored manner of elected officials in the history of the USA that got shit done. Rather than gazing at their navels refusing to yield to reality they cut deal. (Lincoln to TR to FDR to LBJ to Reagan all cut deals to get what they needed done to hold on to power)
Do you think FDR gave a shit about poor old people when he got social security passed? Hell no, he probably never even knew much less cared about a poor old person in his privileged self absorbed life. Do you think LBJ was any less a stone cold racist than DJT? Hell no, but he fought hard to get the civil rights bill passed.
They all took action for the age old reason any good ever happens in a Democracy similar to the USA, voters organized and demanded it or the leadership would lose power.
What is different today than back then? Let me help you. NOTHING.
Spare me your navel gazing self righteous indignation at leaders that have already done more to help poor and working class Americans in the past decade (Warren, Sanders, Porter, AOC etc...) than any candidate you have ever voted for.
If you want change stop manufacturing excuses for doing nothing and get out there and organize and learn how POWER works and where it comes from. Corporations certainly have and they are organized as shit making sure leaders give them what they want.
White racists were every bit as organized in the 50's agains MLK and companies were more organized than today at fighting unions in the early 20th Century and yet the both lost.
You are not going to tell me that the fight for Universal Health Care or a Living Wages for all Americans in 2021 is a more difficult fight against more POWER than what MLK faced in the 60's and Unions in the first half of the 20th century. Give me a break.
Stop complaining and start taking action, starting with understanding HOW POWER WORKS and WHERE IT COMES FROM
?? It's in the post right above his. Repeatedly. And that's who he was asking. Neither your education or your opinion of his education seems relevant to that simple inquiry.
The irony (and there's so much of it!) is that many/most of such people don't even know who Robespierre was or that they're following in his footsteps to the point of unwittingly making of him their de facto "patron saint."
Certainly consistent with what Debsisdead describes above regarding Americans and "shitty education", about which the writer is incontrovertibly correct.
Todd - The Right is pushing censorship just as much as the left.
The FACT that you can't name any people that Trump brought in much less policy he got passed to reduce censorship proves you are INGORANCE on the issue.
Tim Wu and Lina Khan are more qualified to fight censorship than anyone Trump brought in and that is why Trump accomplished NOTHING to reduce it. Trump supports censorship just not against him, and you are the same. RIGH?
Trol... Put it this way, they both have history's of fighting these large platform companies and influencing power and thought against them. That is far more than anyone Obama or Trump ever handed power to.
We will see how they do, they are going against the wealthiest companies on the planet.
Tell me this, are the more likely to succeed if voters sneer and them and look for excuses not to support them or are they more likely to care if voters CONSUME MEDIA that reports on what is going on and demand action?
My sense is you will ignore them and read listen to Ben Shapiro tell you why you should hate them. Right?
WRONG. I’m not a big Trump fan. I’m just sick of leftist jackasses with Trump Derangement Syndrome constantly using attacks on him as a diversion from the point of discussion. I actually hope that Lina Khan breaks up Big Tech.
Tell me what Tim Wu and Lina Khan are doing to prevent said censorship.
Because I most recently heard of the White House providing "suggestions" to the tech platforms as to who might be good candidates for suppression. Maybe they weren't part of that, but I also didn't hear any outrage from them.
The Biden admin seems pretty clearly to be using those tech platforms to circumvent the First Amendment. Which is as clever as it is evil.
I really enjoy the way that wrongly informed ill-educated - through no fault of their own I must add, critics of my posts, always prove my point of view with their uninformed, always irrational replies, full of name calling ad hominems but light on logic.
However I am sure that their time would be more wisely spent educating themselves by searching out the primary sources of events which they have thus far only learned about via Tucker Carlson's or Rachel Maddow's paid deceits.
RTJ - Give me a break. The RIGHT turned a blind eye while Bush and Cheney lied through their teeth to get us into a war.
Both sides turn a blind eye when the other-side is censured.
And you are one of them. People of PRINCIPLE on censorship would see that the RIGHT is as guilty as the LEFT. You don't appear to be one of those people
I'm a single, no kids, pretty low-income, working class peasant. Lately i've been sort of toting things up over the last decade or two, and realizing that the Republicans, from W thru Trump, have actually been better for me financially than the Dems.
I didn't say "the economy". I said better for me as a low income person.
What's "the economy"? GDP? The Dow? Gains in GDP or the market all go to those at the top of the scale, increasing inequality.
You know what helps low-income people? Doubling the standard deduction, like Trump did in '17.
At the beginning of the pandemic, it was "quiet rooms", "i like to fire people", "low income people don't pay taxes" asset stripper Mitt Romney whose idea it was to get cash out to people ASAP. And Steve Mnuchin, who got it out fast. Nancy didn't want to do it. It was the Repubs who wanted the topoff to unemployment. Was also Mittens who wanted to give essential workers a $20/hr top off.
Last August when the $600 / wk topoff ended, Repubs tried to make various deals with Pelosi, who turned them all down. They wanted to pass a skinny bill, that would have at least given people a $300 / wk topoff. This deeply stupid woman (and the Senate) rejected it because they couldn't get the full what of the bill that they wanted. And tried to gaslight the desperate unemployed that nothing was better than $300. But at least Donald Trump got us $1800 from FEMA. Sure, the Dems extended the unemployment and added a $300 topoff in January when Joe got elected. Was too late for me and a lot of other people, mine expired in early Dec.
Those D House Reps that lost their seats last November? They were the centrists begging Pelosi to pass a skinny bill for their desperate constituents.
I should add that the dumbass Pelosi is doing it again with the infrastructure bill. The Senate passed a bipartisan bill, but the House fucked off on vacation, and Nancy won't bring it up for a vote unless the big bill passes first.
You'd think that these idiots would have learned from the failure of Obama's stimulus bill. They watered down the construction jobs for "human infrastructure" jobs. What that got them in my state (before my time of residence here) was Scott Brown in the Senate. The D House Rep (Mike Capuano) who was running against Coakley for the seat was shaken by the rage he found in the rural heart of the state, when none of the stimulus money made it there for jobs. He famously went back to the Dems and said "you're fucked". If the Dems were smart, which they're quite obviously not, they'd get that first bill out and passed and get the jobs going.
Also from last year, what low income people saw was the House fuck off on vacation and leave us hanging. It was like, oh, they can call the House back in session to pass a post office bill, but they can't be bothered to get any relief to their desperate constituents? And yet the PO bill was presumably so we could vote for them? That didn't quite work out the way they had planned it.
If you saved a significant amount of money because of the Trump tax cut, you're again in the minority. Remember when Paul Ryan celebrated the amount of money the Trump tax cut saved members of the working class? Remember what that amount was? It was a whopping $1.50 per week. And that's a man who designed the Trump cut and was trying to make it look as good as humanly possible.
I said the standard deduction, which is actually a bfd. Low income people generally don't itemize deductions. The difference on being taxed on a difference of $6500 less in income is significant. Ryan may have been including middle class working class people with families and mortgages who itemize.
FOR. WHOM.? You average in all the millions and billions hoovered up by fund managers, CEOs, Big Tech, MIC, Walmart and Amazon, you may well have a statistical case. Buy the guy SAID "From my point of view as a sub-middle class individual citizen, it looks like".
Are you dismissing his lived experience?? Denying his truth? You are literally ERASING HIM!! REEEE!! Violence!!
Oh no! American millennial SJW gibberish! This must be total kryptonite for someone like me, if I were the person you imagine me to be! Unfortunately, I'm in no way, shape or form that person. I'm not American, not a millennial and not a SJW. Nice try though.
Spending? No, you obviously haven’t read the article.
“ In general, since President Dwight D. Eisenhower took office in 1953, the economy — as measured by gross domestic product, unemployment, inflation and recessions — has typically performed better with a Democrat in the White House. GDP growth has been significantly higher; inflation — a measure of the change in prices — has been lower; and unemployment has tended to fall.”
So, to put a tiny bit of analysis to the cheerleading...given the lag time in governmental policies and actions affecting the economy, Democrats preside over economies that were influenced by their Republican predecessors, and Republicans over economies effected by the policies of the prior Democratic administrations, which policies, it should be noted, often result in replacing the Democrat with a Republican.
This appears to be a very simplistic number crunch (a single "crunch" at that). If you're not sure how this works, wait till the Biden admin starts floating excuses for the economy..."This is the result of the disastrous (corrupt, authoritarian, short-sighted, racist...just choose at random) policies of the TRUMP administration."
I predict that before the end of the month, multiple legacy media outlets will be reporting how "well-placed sources" have explained how the bad economic reports (Inflation, gas prices) are the result of Trumponomics or some shit.
First, you are the one introducing the concept of "shock". There is none in
my comment.
Second, the most hilarious arrogance in the world cannot compare to the act
of telling someone that you do not know, and will never meet, what they do or do not know, based upon a brief statement. About anything. You can tell me what you *assume, but please don't bother assuming to tell me what I know.
*Fairly annoying ? ;-D That observation, Sir, demonstrates more patience and milk of human kindness for whackery than Mother Teresa herself ever knew ! ;-D
I do, however, support the right of any fool to spew their logorrhea under the rights accorded them under the First Amendment. People such as myself (at least for now)
Pesce - Non sense. Low wages are causing Americans to live in utter poverty. And that has been happening for 40yrs now.
The US has had censorship issues since the beginning of the Republic. Censorship is ALWAYS a problem. But if you think Censorship of the RIGHT is the biggest problem while 70% of Americans are living pay check to pay check because of POLICY people like Obama and Trump pushed on America then you are clearly being manipulated by the media into IGNORING our biggest problems.
Yes, I think freedom is more primary to American life than wages rising. And FREEDOM is entirely integral to allowing Americans to succeed. You say censorship like it's nothing. Which just shows how blind people are. Without dissent there is no democracy.
You do not believe that the ability to freely speak and associate and begin endeavors with government restraint is a driver of innovation and the economy?
I believe that it should be true. But "should be true" and "is true" are two different things. Has the US ever been both free and prosperous at the same time? For example - the years 1945-1965 were the most prosperous years in modern American history. But they were at the same time the least free, not the most free. So what's going on here?
The McCarthy Era, was certainly a low point. But I don't think you can say that the Kennedy and early Johnson years were bad economically. In fact, I think the whole of US History, until Globalization undermined our economy and has put extreme downward pressure on wages and also pulled capital out of the country, was pretty much an upward progression both for freedom and for wages.
As someone from the Republican Right, my fear is that the Establishment Democrats and their allies in the media and big tech will misinterpret my side's arguments. You will get pols like Schumer and Pelosi making straw man arguments about what the GOP stands for, then say that any effort to correct these arguments are lies and must be censored.
I think Paul Jay's arguments are nonsense; but he should be allowed to present them. My fear is that Jay will be allowed to present his arguments; but someone who argues that Trump's statements were not incitement to riot will be blocked. The ONLY version of this story that we will be allowed to hear is the one that wants to paint Trump and his allies as dangerous threats that must be silenced.
This will be great for the security state. How best to insure that their budgets are increased and the amount of resources allocated to them are increased: by making Americans feel that they are under threat. What better threat then to have 70 million of us declared a danger to America.
"You will get pols like Schumer and Pelosi making straw man arguments about what the GOP stands for..."
Don't feel special. First of all, the Dems don't even know what they stand for. And they (and the GOP, to be fair) seem to think that folks like me, and Independent Bernie economic progressive, somehow want to defund the police and abolish ICE instead of just wanting some healthcare for all, affordable housing and a living wage.
You mean we think that people in your camp believe what many of them very openly declare that they believe?
Next thing you know we'll be telling you that your complete refusal to do anything less than give such people your full support constitutes tacit approval for their radicalism!
People in my camp? Yes, there is some overlap between some economic progressives, the defund / abolish crew, and the wokies. And absolutely between the wokies and the establishment Dems. Ever heard Bernie express support for abolish / defund? I haven't. Never heard him wade into the CRT cesspool either.
Bernie regularly engages in identity politics which is basically CRT. He even called Orange Man a xenophobe and said he wouldn't have shutdown travel from China. He said: "I wouldn't have closed the air traveling with China if I was a president. Trump is racist xenophobic."
Bernie also supports the AOC/Cori Bush squad who regularly exploit identity politics / defund the police nonsense while giving themselves more police funding. So claiming he doesn't wade into CRT is false.
One of the best things against Bernie Sanders is that he used to complain about illegal immigration being "right wing proposals". Until 2016. We all know what changed in 2016 when Orange Man announced his run. Bernie used to hate illegal immigration, called it a “right wing proposal” “using a dollar or two wages to drive down wages of Americans”. And then he did a flip calling Orange Man a racist and xenophobic etc and became open border advocate. Just listen to his own words in this VOX interview and tell me how what he used to say was any different from Orange Man and how he's now done a full 180:
Bernie Sanders attacked the socialist Liberty Union Party in 1981 for accommodating the 351 Jamaican immigrants in his state's apple orchards: "With the Vermont unemployment rate one of the highest in the nation, I could never support importing foreign workers when our own people are out of work." ... "It sounds like she wants to bring slavery back to Vermont." said Sanders, who was collecting unemployment insurance at the time. For socialist Sanders, then 33, the situation supported his contention that businesses were yet again selling out U.S. residents in favor of cheap labor.
Even in 2007, he said:
“If poverty is increasing and if wages are going down, I don’t know why we need millions of people to be coming into this country as guest workers who will work for lower wages than American workers and drive wages down even lower than they are right now,” Sanders said. ” … On one hand, you have large multinationals trying to shut down plants in America, move to China, and on the other hand, you have the service industry bringing in low-wage workers from abroad. The result is the same: Middle class gets shrunken, and wages go down.”
"I think as you've heard today, sanctions against employers who employ illegal immigrants is virtually nonexistent. Our border is very porous," Sanders said during a press conference at the time. “And I think at a time when the middle class is shrinking, the last thing we need is to bring over in a period of years, millions of people into this country who are prepared to lower wages for American workers." "I think from a moral responsibility, we've got to work with the rest of the industrialized world to address the problems of international poverty," he said in a 2015 interview. "But you don't do that by making people in this country even poorer." In both cases, Sanders defended his vote by suggesting that the guest worker provisions in the bill were “akin to slavery,” a notable shift from how Sanders talked about immigrant labor before his presidential bids.
Again in 2013:
"I'll tell you look what my concern is the provisions dealing with the guest worker programs. Real unemployment in America counting those people have given up looking for work and are working part-time when they want to work full-time in order is close to 14 percent. It's higher for young people it is higher for people of color. You have in this bill guest worker programs that will bring in hundreds of thousands of entry-level workers. You know on television you hear these guys talk about all PhDs are coming into this country....hundreds of thousands of entry-level workers to work in kitchens waiters waitresses lifeguards ski resort workers. Is it really true that we can't find American workers to do those jobs? Frankly I don't believe it.
Given the magnitude of the problem it doesn't go anywhere near far enough so the nation we have got to ask ourselves do we really need when you go to ghettos in this country when you go to inner cities you have thirty forty percent unemployment do we really need hundreds of thousands of workers entry-level workers from around the country coming in competing against these kids? I think not."
Even the leftist washington post admits: "For years, Bernie Sanders warned that increased immigration would lower the wages of U.S. workers. Now he barely mentions it.":
But when Trump ran in 2015, he switched and became radical open border. He says "Illegal immigrants are "entitled" to the same government benefits as citizens":
This flip flopping and pie in the sky promises are quite natural for Bernie Sanders. Mr $15 an hour Bernie Sanders refused to pay his staff $15 because his campaign couldn't afford to. He has been a Vermont senator for 30+ years! The min wage in Vermont is still $10.
Bernie's hotel demands from his “Senator Comfort Memo”: King-size beds and 60-degree rooms. He flies on private jets and has a memo detailing minimum requirements of the private jet. He used to complain about millionaires and billionaires. Until 2 years ago when he became a millionaire. Then only the billionaires were the problem for him. You can verify this by going through his twitter history. The "millionaires and billionaires" change to "billionaires" only. He released his tax returns couple years ago. For someone complaining so much about poor people suffering, he barely paid anything in charity from his multi millions. For someone who's so anti-pharma, Bernie still gladly took $1.3 million from Pharma. Orange Man got $2.5 million and Biden took $8.5 million:
Bernie, "mr. anti-big-pharma" took $1,301,155 from Big Pharma in 2020. He was also the number 1 recipient in the senate for pharma manufacturing in 2020 by getting $416,066, Ossoff, Jon was second with $302,137, Elizabeth Warren got $291,168. Thom Tillis was 4th got $270,270 and Mitch McConnell was 5th at $265,980:
Why would pharma manufacturing give the most money to Bernie and other democrats and more than Mitch and Lindsey Graham? Kindness of their heart?
Bernie endorsed Biden after getting fucked in his ass twice by the DNC. He couldn't grow up a spine to call out Biden's and his son's obvious corruption, instead he called him a good friend and respectable man. You think such a spineless man could stand up to foreign nations?
Unlike Bernie who rolled over at the very first sight, Orange Man at least put up a fight and won the nomination. Imagine Bernie rolling over like that to foreign nations. He got "cheated" out twice from the nomination and he rolled over without a fight - maybe because this was the plan all along for Democrats to use him to get the left to vote for Biden. Then he refused to look at the "cheating" allegations from Orange Man. He called Biden his friend and respectable man. Didn't even have the balls of calling out his obvious selling out to China and his son using his office for profit. Now he's going on CNN making excuses on why they couldn't get $15 minimum wage, why $2000 has still not gone out, why $1400 is more than enough instead of the $2000 they promised, why medicare for all is now too hard to achieve. And his supporters thought Bernie would care about them LMFAO. When his supporters couldn't wake up to how big of a pathetic cuck Bernie was when he gave up his mic to the 2 BLM activists at his own rally, how he did a full 180 flip on illegal immigration when Orange Man ran, then nothing will wake them up.
I am surprised it took this long for people to see through AOC and Bernie. Bernie was always in on it with the establishment dems from the beginning. I was mostly politically uneducated till 2015 but even then I was able to see through Bernie sanders fraud when he did a complete 180 flip on his stance on illegal immigration. Bernie is there to tell you nice things to get votes for Democrats. He was never there to win. Bernie tells people pie in the sky dreams to siphon votes to the Democrats. That's it.
CRT and identity politics aren't quite the same thing, at all.
Bernie absolutely used to be against illegal immigration and did basically a 180 in '16. When congress was trying to pass the immigration bill under Obama, Sanders called it a massive grab for cheap labor.
I absolutely think that he fucked up by not running as the Indy that he is.
I got $2000, it was split between $600 after New Years, and then $1400 later after the legislation passed. If not for Bernie and Josh Hawley, we wouldn't have even gotten that if left to the rest of them. I'll take it.
Bernie didn't siphon my vote from the Dems. No one owns or is entitled to any votes whatsoever. Back in '12 i voted for Gary J. I wrote in Bernie in '16. That vote was under no circumstances ever going to Trump or Clinton. If there was no Bernie, i probably would have gone for the Libertarians again.
Now we'll see if he can pull this off. (I'm not totally in support of it.)
Not voting for Trump or Clinton is an honorable exercise of the franchise.
As for Bernie's border switcheroo, I prefer Ed Abbey's, from his solicited-but-rejected NYT editorial, wherein he said the best thing we could do for the environment of his beloved Southwest desert country was build a 30-foot high steel wall, "And when our compatriots from Mexico seek asylum from their corrupt government, give them a rifle and some extra magazines and turn them around. They will know what to do."
"there is some overlap between some economic progressives, the defund / abolish crew, and the wokies. And absolutely between the wokies and the establishment Dems"
I would argue that the Establishment Dems have gone all in on Wokeness because it's a convenient deflection from actual economic issues. "Watch that squirrel!"
I don't think the Dems realize just how many people are put off by the wokeness. In their own party even, basic rank and file centrist and working class Democrats. And now that it's getting into the schools and starts to affect them and their families - it's going to be an interesting midterm election.
Perhaps not. But they "know," "stand for" and agree on this much: get Trump, before any others, whatever the costs to the law, principle, our electoral rules or democratic heritage (such as it is), just "get Trump"--lie, cheat, and steal to do it.
"Don't feel 'special'"?!?
The point is rather that Sanders proved unable to effectively counter the misrepresentation of his positions. That's a fatal failing in _ANY_ open, democratic electoral system because it's a given that one's opponents--especially if one is honest--shall defame and misrepresent you.
Trump, one of the most savagely defamed political figures in U.S. history, still won two presidential election and should, today, be in office, except for the blatant electoral fraud that is finally becoming apparent even to many of his former detractors.
Clearly, whether one likes or agrees with Trump the man or the office-holder is beside the point. If he gets the most votes in a fair, open contest under the rules as all parties understood them---not under a criminal conspiracy to thwart his election through ballot fraud--then one is obliged to respect that electoral outcome---or be exposed as an enemy of democratic processes per se.
Sanders' supporters certainly feel "special": specially disgruntled, specially entitled, specially hurt that their candidate, in two efforts (the 2016 and 2020 primaries), in failed to defeat what were thought by many (and, in the first case, thought _especially_ by his own partisans) to be two of the worst candidates for the office of president of the United States in the history of the nation, Hillary Clinton in the first case and Joe Biden in the second.
LOL! Here's "special" for you:
(quote)
... "on July 25, during which he gave Clinton his full support. Some of his supporters attempted to protest Clinton's nomination and booed when Sanders called for party unity. He responded, "Our job is to do two things: to defeat Donald Trump and to elect Hillary Clinton … It is easy to boo, but it is harder to look your kids in the face if we are living under a Trump presidency." ... (Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders#Primary_loss_and_endorsement_of_Hillary_Clinton)
(end quote)
(quote)
" (CNN) Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden for president, pledging to help him defeat President Donald Trump in the general election as the two agreed to launch a series of task forces to work jointly on policy matters.
" 'We need you in the White House. I will do all that I can to see that that happens, Joe,' Sanders said to Biden during a livestream broadcast by Biden's campaign on his website and on social media.
"The endorsement of Biden by his leading Democratic rival marks a key moment for Democrats as the party seeks to unify and turn its focus toward a November match-up with President Donald Trump.
"Sanders' quick endorsement of Biden in mid-April, just five days after he suspended his campaign, was a stark contrast to the 2016 Democratic race, when Sanders continued to battle Hillary Clinton into June and waited until July to endorse her.
"This time, the former vice president and the Vermont senator sought to immediately address the distrust some of Sanders' supporters have for Biden after a primary campaign in which the two repeatedly clashed on issues like foreign policy and health care.
" 'I think that your endorsement means a great deal,' Biden said. 'It means a great deal to me. I think people are going to be surprised that we are apart on some issues but we're awfully close on a whole bunch of others.'"...
(end quote)
We now have the living proof (which only the most obtuse required) of Biden's incompetence: noticed how Afghanistan took Biden only 8 months to lose to the Taliban? 20 years and a Trillion (est. ) U.S. $ spent: down the spout. Never mind, we have a "nice guy" once more in the White House. That Biden was a fucking fool and a push-over wasn't for a moment lost on them. Nor did the teeming North-bound Central and South Americans eager to take their places as the newest illegal immigrants to the U.S.. massed at the Mexican border, fail to notice.
First of all, I think you need to relax. You're way overthinking my comment, which was me cracking a joke. And was not intended as a bid for being the winner in the victim Olympics. With a serious undertone, and aimed at the Dems, not Trump supporters.
The point being that the Dems have no business whatsoever dissing any voters. If for no other reason, the simple one is that they need the votes. For those of us who supported Bernie, they expected and felt entitled to our votes. For Trump supporters, they need those votes in swing districts. And trashing the voters is absolutely not the way to get them. Considering they lost centrist House seats in swing districts, you'd think they would have learned a lesson. I'm not rating their odds, either in the midterms or in '24.
I always love it (sarc.) when in a forum such as this a reader tells me I "need to relax" or that I'm "overthinking" his or her point.
You were (merely) cracking a joke? Try labeling them for your reader's benefit.
I "overthought" your point?
I thought I'd understood it rather clearly. Your words in answer to this, from "Hugh Fifth of Five", (which you directly cited),
(quote)
Hugh 5th of 5
Aug 11
"As someone from the Republican Right, my fear is that the Establishment Democrats and their allies in the media and big tech will misinterpret my side's arguments. You will get pols like Schumer and Pelosi making straw man arguments about what the GOP stands for, then say that any effort to correct these arguments are lies and must be censored." ...
(end quote)
were, hardly surprisingly, also, in so many words, "relax". That seems to be your boiler-plate retort--(when you have nothing better?)
I misread, "overthought", these, your words,
"Don't feel special"
?
I gather that was to say, in effect, "Take a number, pal."--or, in other words, "Yes, you and millions of others". You don't so much dispute Hugh Fifth of Five as advise him not to take it so hard; apparently because you think that the hordes of company ought to give him some sort of comfort.
And, there, you "underthink" _my_ point: Hugh's candidate (and mine) _won_ the fucking White House--and lost that to a criminal conspiracy which was mounted against him to thwart his deserved re-election.
None of _that_ happened to any candidate _you_ supported, as far as I can tell. In this light, then, I think that there's nothing about your comments, from which you now sheepishly run with the claim that you were "joking", which you can (honestly) show I actually misread or misconstrued.
No, the trouble here is that I got exactly what you meant the _first_ time. And it was cheap and undeserved--toward Hugh Fifth of Five and everyone else like him, myself included.
"Dissing" voters is poor practice? Coming from you, that's another "joke".
Know it or not, you "dissed" Hugh. And that's not just my "overthinking" it.
Nope, i'm not sheepish about it at all. But i will consider adding sarcasm tags in the future.
As for your candidate winning and losing to a criminal conspiracy - well, we're not going to find any middle ground on that one, so i'll just leave you with your belief on that one.
I'm sorry but I don't know why either of you two chaps, who strike me as being reasonably sensible, would waste time debating over whether any of the performing puppets currently winning nomination by rethugs and/or dims should be seriously considered as potential leaders of your nation.
The selected nominees for either 'team' are told what talking points must be exploited & which ones must be ignored regardless of the actual truth of any issue.
It appears to me, an outsider forced to pay attention to amerikan politics given the penchant for senior amerikan politicians to stick their noses into everyone else's business, that under the too hastily devised amerikan constitution, citizens are only offered a choice between the despicable Tweedledee or the equally worthless and deceitful Tweedledum.
Blind Freddie can see that neither offers the slightest chance for caring/sharing members of such a conglomeration to eat or otherwise gain the opportunity to win the 'place of power' which they and their families have been convinced they require.
Yes, leave me with what you dismiss as "(my) belief on that one" and I'll leave you with President Joe Biden's pathetic appeal to the Taliban to please don't hurt us (the U.S. embassy in Kabul.)
"U.S. Asks Taliban to Spare Its Embassy in Coming Fight for Kabul"
"noticed how Afghanistan took Biden only 8 months to lose to the Taliban?"
The US has been losing to the Taliban for 20 years. This one ain't on Biden; he wanted us to get out when he was still VP. Barack rolled over for the generals, as always (Trump did too).
Riddle me this; why is it important for the US to occupy Afghanistan? What justifies the expenditure of money and American lives (to say nothing of Afghan lives; they will be expended whether or not we are there) over the course of two decades?
I think it's on Biden. Not on getting out (which i'm in full agreement with), but for quite obviously doing it without a workable plan. Seems to me that it was more important to be symbolic about it (ie getting out by Sept 11), then by having a realistic and workable plan to execute. Which would have included getting the Afghans who helped us all of these years out first, and for planing for the inevitablity of the Taliban moving in quickly to fill the gaps.
Both Greenwald and Turley, both civil liberties lawyers, said that Trump's speech was legal; he didn't actually tell them to go storm the Capitol, and may have been pretty surprised when they did. As were they. When I read the key passages, i thought that, yes, he was inciting something, but apparently he had good legal advice. Of course, his job leading a rally is to get everybody revved up; whether that's '"incitement" is in the eye of the beholder.
Other than the speech not inciting violence (It's like saying "While Fighting the Virus, We Must Fight for Our Rights." or "We Can't Stop Fighting for Our Democracy - The Atlantic" - these don't mean fighting as in violence).
Plus speeches like Maxine Watters' "Maxine Waters encourages supporters to harass Trump administration officials" or during the Chauvin trial "Waters calls for protesters to 'get more confrontational' if no guilty verdict is reached in Derek Chauvin trial" are a lot more "incitement".
And why were the anti-kavanaugh protestors who stormed the capitol and senate chambers all encouraged by Democrats - Pelosi, AOC etc treated differently as compared to the Trump supporters:
Anyone remember when Rand Paul was swarmed by people demanding he say Breonna Taylor’s name after he wrote the Justice for Breonna Taylor Act?
Or the riots last year encouraged and bailed out by Kamala?
Other than all this, the bigger fact which no one seems to mention is that Trump's speech could not have caused the capitol riot because the capitol was stormed before Trump was even done speaking 40 minutes away from the capitol.
I watched it all go down live. Trump was speaking till 1:11PM and on stage till 1:15PM. Capitol was breached at 12:40PM according to WaPo (anti trump source). It is nearly 1.5mi from the Ellipse to the Capitol, which is at least 40-45 min walk with crowd-related delays, that would put the first people from Trump’s speech at Capitol Hill no earlier than 1:56pm – a full hour and sixteen minutes after troublemakers arrived.
And while the Washington Post clumsily attempts to blame President Trump for the violence...their own article admits the first wave of protesters arrived at the Capitol about 12:40pm.
Anyone who claimed his speech was inciting anything at the Capitol is hiding the truth that the Capitol was breached 45 minutes before Trump's speech ended and 40 minute walk away.
Even Twitter performed all sorts of mental gymnastics to claim Trump incited violence even though they couldn't pin point a single place where he did.
Trump could not have been *that surprised that his mob went down there, the man *literally told the mob "You need to fight like hell ..." and later, "I'll be right there with you." Then the consistent coward, (pleading "Bone Spurs" ? ;-D ) turned tail and went back to the White house to watch the whole thing on TV.
Quickly then, the GOQ goes into the childish defense mode right up there with the classic of childish defense mode: "The dog ate my homework", and busts out with:
"y'all didn't *really see what was being clearly broadcast all over the world. It didn't happen, y'all. You were just havin' an acid flash back."
Know what ? The arguably best version of the movie "Gaslight", the Charles Boyer/Ingrid Bergman version, came out in 1944. The youngsters in elite colleges today *are given school credit for sitting around watching "The Honeymooners". Maybe we need to improve their taste in classic movies.
Judging from many entries on this queue, apparently some commenters on the Right have either never *seen "Gaslight", and are thus *themselves victims of the propaganda technique simply repeating what they have heard, and what they want
to believe; or they are busting their humps in a conscious effort to "Gaslight" others.
Attempting to convince the viewing world that they did not *SEE what was being clearly broadcast is just a lame stab out of some class called "Gaslighting 101".
If anybody *does hope to convince others that they didn't see what they *saw, put a little love behind the lies. Put some effort into it ! Get *good at what you are attempting to accomplish. So far, even Goebbels is embarrassed.
Without question, Jackie was a *master, and a great nostalgic kick from my childhood. He, Art Carney, and Audrey Meadows had perfect comic timing.
The show was great, but the show was *entertainment. Entertainment more than has a place in the human experience, but NOT when one is paying Harvard tuition for watching it, and receiving Harvard Credits that are "equal" to Harvard Credits, in, say quantum physics.
This practice also seriously dumbs-down U.S. Students relative to students from the rest of the globe. Watching B&W TV is what college students used to do while they were *skipping the serious classes that either they, or their parents were paying for.
The problem is when he saw what was happening - he reportedly enjoyed it immensely - if it was not what he at least hoped would happen - he could well have called for it to stop immediately ....
You clearly didn't do any research beyond what the media told you.
I watched it all go down live. Trump was speaking till 1:11PM and on stage till 1:15PM (watch the timestamp in videos yourself). Capitol was breached at 12:40PM according to WaPo (anti trump source). It is nearly 1.5mi from the Ellipse to the Capitol, which is at least 40-45 min walk with crowd-related delays, that would put the first people from Trump’s speech at Capitol Hill no earlier than 1:56pm – a full hour and sixteen minutes after troublemakers arrived.
And while the Washington Post clumsily attempts to blame President Trump for the violence...their own article admits the first wave of protesters arrived at the Capitol about 12:40pm.
Anyone who claimed his speech was inciting anything at the Capitol is hiding the truth that the Capitol was breached 45 minutes before Trump's speech ended and 40 minute walk away.
These are easily verifiable facts.
Milley enjoys yelling about "white rage" in front of congress.
His other generals like lying to the President about the troop numbers in Syria.
Others enjoy making up the russian bounty hoax to prevent pulling out of Afghanistan.
And you want us to believe whatever they are selling?
And you have yet to answer why Twitter, YouTube etc had to take down his video telling people to go home? It seems like you want to engage in partisan hackery instead of look for the truth.
Oh, give me a break - "Stop the Steal! - so how to do that, at that time, in that place - keep the electoral votes from being certified - this is not rocket science ....
If you think "Stop the Steal!" somehow means inciting violence, then you must think "We Can't Stop Fighting for Our Democracy - The Atlantic" must be inciting a war....
That day, Ted Cruz was proposing a 10 day delay in certifying the electoral votes so an audit could be performed in those 10 days. Seems like such basic things are rocket science for you?
While others interpret "Stop the Steal" as either intentionally cynical, or full-stop stupid, given the fact that here *was never any "Steal" to stop.
Not one scintilla of evidence that there might have been.
When sixty judges, many of them Republican, in every State the Trump team was attempting to Gaslight, throw those frivolous lawsuit straight to the street, it might be time to take a "hint" regarding the value of said suits to begin with.
p.s., And when Republican apologists quote articles from 79 right wing propaganda rags and foolishly consider that tp be "proof", of anything, they have clearly just lapped up a ladle-full of their own kool aid.
When concerns are expressed regarding abuse of the newly-implemented mail-in ballot and ballot harvesting procedures, I would be much more reassured by any response other than
All lawsuits were dismissed for “lack of standing” and other excuses without any of them allowing to present evidence or perform signature matching etc. Meanwhile you idiots spent 40 million on Russian collusion hoax and then the Russian bounty hoax.
Governor Newsom recall had a 20% signature match dismissal whereas the actual presidential election gets less than 1% in all states and even less than 2016 despite signature matching is supposed to be higher for more mail in ballots.
Before the election nytimes and Washington post were talking about how the 20 bell weather counties all favoured Biden win and trump losing and yet after elections when trump won 19 out of 20 of those bell weathers, the same media claims bell weathers don’t mean anything.
Stop being a partisan hack for a second and think logically how any of this makes any sense.
It's such a snooze, this whole who's worse: Trump or Sanders; McConnel or Pelosi; Stalin or Hitler. Don't y'all get bored with the lack of new information uncovered in these arguments? Or is not about accumulating information and just about scoring points like in a public school debating society or cricket match?
The whole thing puts me *heavily in mind of Plato's "Cave Allegory" contained in his work "The Republic." Plato describes society as being in the bottom of a cave, seated chained in a circle with their backs facing the center of the cave. In that center is a large fire. Between that fire and the chained society are unseen, and unnamed beings who use forms to project shadows on the wall past the society. Chained as society is, with their backs to the center, all they see their entire lives are the shadows being cast upon the wall in front of them. So, society competes (being human) on the progression of the shadows, betting on which (of a limited number) of the shadows will be coming up next. For their entire lives .... they bicker about shadows being produced by the controllers in the center. But Society thinks that the shadows are all there *IS in life, and they therefore make no attempt to seek for truth *beyond the "Shadow World", or the "Shadow Game". The shadow world is Plato's stand-in for the world of 3-D reality. The rest of the allegory goes on to illustrate what it means to finally break away, beyond that limitation.
Sometimes this queue (which is actually the most intellectual comment queue I have come across, because I am quite social media "shy" [averse]), reminds me for all the world of Plato's "Shadow Game". Plato wrote that 2,400 years ago. Society has not changed one scintilla since. Better technology, different clothes, but still stuck playing by the rules of the "Shadow Game". Breaking those chains, and escaping the Shadow World is the goal Plato proposed for his students. Even Plato understands that very few will succeed.
The Republican Right is a very small group if you exclude all the blow hards that claim to be conservative, but are actually just self serving assholes.
Most Americans belong to the authoritarian party. They call themselves Left or Right, but it only takes me about 2 questions to identify which opposition they want censored and locked in cages.
As a lifelong leftist -- whatever that is supposed to mean any more (people who are willing to work should be able to earn a living wage?) I am sympathetic to this viewpoint.
“Jay similarly believed Trump’s speech was perhaps designed to incite a destabilizing moment during which acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller could declare martial law. The fear …..”.
Jay “believed” a speech was “perhaps designed…. ? Perhaps, perhaps not? Perhaps Jay’s a twit, perhaps he isn’t! 50/50.
Are we supposed to take him seriously? If so, to what end? Perhaps we will never know …..; perhaps.
I take him seriously. He's done a tons of great stuff.
Do you know the piece? I've listened to it twice. Once when it was new and the other time a couple of weeks ago. Jay's interpretation of Trump's behavior is worth considering. Who knows what any of Trump's actual intentions are? (Assuming there's enough coherence to his intentions to talk about meaningfully about them.) I think Jay's idea fits as well as any other.
I'm actually anti-conspiracy theory on the merits. It's too easy to make one up. My wife is really into them, though. But she also believes in homeopathy and Reiki. I think it's a brain chemistry thing.
Homeopathy *does work. Developed by German Science. So I would give the wife some "room" on that. Reiki is as valuable as any back massage (which is considerable), but, in my own experience, I would not look for it to counter any malady that is resistant to going away on its own.
I got level 1 certified as a sop to her. The whole energy chakra thing kind of was a snooze for me. I couldn't get how if energy is being transmitted somehow, why it is we can't detect it materially.
That said, cats really hate it when you do Reiki on them, so that was a counterpoint for me. I mean, why would they care if something wasn't happening?
I can't really ridicule as it's "a back rub in a pleasant environment".
So, something nice in a pleasant environment. It's like the opposite of golf then, which is a pleasant environment ruined by an impossible and humiliating activity.
Conspiracies have existed, I'm sure you agree. In the cases for which we have incomplete information, we can only theorize. This is not in itself a bad idea. The definition of a good conspiracy theory, to me, is one that perfectly fills the gaps in the information in a way that satisfies my dispositions. Are you sure you don't employ this kind of thinking? Do people exist that are above all that?
If I can't find a plausible explanation that has some basis, I presume I don't know the answer. I'm willing to theorize, but always in the sure knowledge that I don't know and what i'm theorizing about is probably a crock of shit.
This is the first I’ve heard of him. Personally I don’t find Trump’s intentions to be any more or less coherent/incoherent than BO, GW or any other politician’s intentions; they all want to get reelected.
Of course, what could have some bearing on that is I don’t have an out of control hatred for any of them. Might it be you and your ilk hold Trump to a different standard?
Many questioning the subject of the articles intentions do the exact same thing about the vaccines ruralbob. I don’t care about trump whether people get vaccinated, but I do care about cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias and that seems to be a big problem with a lot of people.
Perhaps it wasn’t intentional, perhaps it was, but it’s interesting you didn’t address the suggestion you hold Trump to a different standard from say BO and other Presidents.
As for question about your ilk, I defer to the accurate assessment provided by ruralbob.
I added nothing to your statement about previous presidents and other pols. What's interesting that you infer from that?
My caveat about interpreting Trump's specific intents emphasizes the speculative nature of this part of Jay's story, as it does to any such interpreter. Maybe that's what ruralbob was driving at too.
In that regard perhaps you have me at a disadvantage since I am not into this guy’s topics. I think what caught my attention was Matt’s apparent elevating him to the level of someone who is being oppressed as they attempt to convey facts. Perhaps it might have been what appears, from my limited vantage, to be his scatter-shot approach to fabricate a story line and YouTube got confused.
I joke about the word ilk. And again, I don’t care who the president is. I care more about who’s on my school board, my mayor and city council and so forth and so on. President is pretty much a figurehead and a lightening rod for conflict. I’ve never expected much out of any president
Who are you saying had uncontrollable hatred of trump? Tom? It doesn’t seem that way. You know there’s a whole shitload of people who understand that a republic is based on more than just one person, right? Not every single person who didn’t vote for trump hates him
I didn’t name anyone, but a noticeable portion of people who post here sure give the appearance of being driven by an out of control hatred for Trump. Without knowing anything about Tom, other than his statement about Trump’s coherence, perhaps it is easy to conclude Tom falls into that category.
As for having said hatred, that’s cool, it’s cool as long as one acknowledges it. It’s those who possess it yet try to pass themselves off as reasoned thinkers of the day, who induce out of control laughter, as opposed to out of control hate.
Personally I consider the past several presidents to be revolting trash, but their significance to my daily life is nil, thus perhaps they are not worth the time and trouble to hate.
There plenty of decent reasons for persons of some intelligence to have good faith err...'reservations' about Trump. (including me)
Pretty easy to tell them from the real TDS sufferers, who credit the man with simultaneously being unable to post a intelligent tweet and creating the dangerous philosophical credo of "Trumpism" lol.
Doesn't matter: He should be free to speak his mind and report what he wants to, even on a so-called "private platform" that makes a killing on selling people's information publicly by data mining every keystroke, photo, linked friend, private message, etc.
It'll never happen before the end of it all though, so don't hold your breath.
I agree with you on that. The problem is that we seem to be willing to give the luxury of free speech to our opponents but our opponents don't want to give us the same luxury. And this luxury is supposed to be a fundamental liberty.
I agree completely. I would never propose squelching his, or anyone’s voice, even though I personally may see nothing worth noting from his/their efforts. Perhaps ….. ⛳️
What Jay doesn't mention is that the fear he was victim to, and that much of Washington was victim to that week, the fear of a military coup, CAUSED Jan. 6.
The people responsible for the decision to not have the National Guard deployed, the Sgts at Arms of both the House and Senate (and Miller himself, incidentially) testified before congress that the reason they did not deploy the National Guard was to avoid the optics that Trump would attempt a military coup. And no National Guard meant the Capitol Police were overrun. TDS FTW, once again!
Fake fear, no less. They'd talked themselves into a tizzy over nothing and reaped the whirlwind.
Besides which, they deserved every iota of the election fraud thing. 4 years of bullshit collusion claims, one good turn deserves another. This election fraud thing is going to last a lot longer than 4 years, though. All the Jan 6 whining in the world won't make the doubt go away - the more it is censored and the debate is put off, the more the doubt grows.
At first I thought Russiagate was just desserts for birtherism, as turnabout is fair play, but the emergence of blatantly illegal intelligence community and law enforcement activity changed that.
I still can't believe they just all freaking wiped or dumped their phones and got away with that. There's so much, but that just gets me. Professionals who know exactly what they are doing colluding to destroy evidence and getting away with it scot free.
This is a version of how Weimar went south. More and more extralegal stuff "temporarily" in use just to stabilize things, from a certain party's vantage point. Then people later took that as a precedent to do more extralegal stuff until that was all that was left.
Sort of. But also a totally different situation because it's possible in a representative system to not have a coalition government, and Germany had a legal provision to name a chancellor. The extralegal action by the brownshirts pushed hard enough for the legal step of naming Hitler chancellor, and then from that step came a woeful set of legal and extralegal steps.
Just saying that the main "crisis" there was not being able to form a government for a long time, which is irrelevant here, and we don't have any similar step to naming a Chancellor that is even possible. So we do have some protection from those circumstances.
I was referring to the rule by decree by Ebert in the early 1920s, which was hit upon by a series of governments to justify their extralegal rule at times. The problems in Weimar didn't start with Brownshirts, they just ended up as the inadvertent beneficiaries of mistakes made at the start.
Standard military ops ! Raid the village, poison the water well with dead animals.
Correct you are. This will last a LONG time, and that is partly why it was undertaken to begin with. This is too well planned, and too long range even to be blamed on Trump, personally.
Now wouldn't that be simple. But no, I don't know what happened in the election. That's humility and integrity right there. The thing that the media and apparently you don't have. What I do have is lots of schadenfreude.
You see, the only thing that would defuse this thing would be a pants down audit of the whole process. The one thing that won't be done. So it's going to keep festering - past the midterms, past 2024. The media and you can say it's a lie all you want - it just feeds into the impression of dishonesty created by the unwillingness to audit. This is politics 101, folks. The silencing of Trump fits right in with this.
Just enjoying the spectacle of people hoist on their own petard. A real Pyrrhic victory, 2020 was.
"You see, the only thing that would defuse this thing would be a pants down audit of the whole process."
You have to be exceptionally naive to think that an audit would somehow help. First of all, what would that even look like? Elections are run on the state level. So an audit of all 50 states? Or just the ones Trump lost? Or just the ones he lost and then complained about? Secondly, why would an audit convince anyone to change their minds? If the audit will discover that there was no election fraud, why would the people who believe that there was suddenly think otherwise? They'll just assume that the audit was just as rigged as the election. And you're forgetting that there's a huge audit happening in Arizona, with the results scheduled to come out any day now. Will the results change anyone's mind, no matter what they're going to be? Of course not.
"Just enjoying the spectacle of people hoist on their own petard. A real Pyrrhic victory, 2020 was."
So just like any election in the history of elections? Remember 2016, and how the Republicans won both the Presidency and the House and the Senate? Remember how during the next 2 years Trump pushed the Democrats so far to the left that in the 2018 they elected AOC and Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib? And still managed to recapture the House, and two years later the Presidency and the Senate? So was 2016 just another Pyrrhic for the Republicans then?
Yeah, audit all 50 states, make it contingent on federal money. It's how they do everything on the federal level.
As for my naivete or not, if you don't do it, my scenario stands. I'm not saying it'd convince everyone, but it'll make cranks out of those who still talk about it. As for whether it would be complete or conclusive, almost assuredly not, but the appearance is better than saying no, that's the Politics 101 part. Remember Nixon...the crime is in the cover-up.
As it stands now, the same lying liars who brought us Russian Collusion are the ones that are saying that the election fraud is a lie. That's not going to fly.
As for electoral failures on the Republican side, Trump was unpopular with suburbia because of how he talked. You saw a realignment based on that. If you look at the 2016 results, 2018 is unremarkable along with the average 27 seat loss in a midterm over the last century. Yes, average. Though it's thrown off a bit by some very big years like 1938, 1958, 1974, 1994, 2010. Trump lost 41. His loss was less than Ike's, Johnson's, Ford's, Clinton's, Obama's, and FDR himself.
We can expect a significant realignment in 2022 as well.
"to avoid the optics that Trump would attempt a military coup."
Really ? And while worrying about "saving face" countless people *could literally have been dying inside ? THAT sounds like a weak-kneed "the dog ate my homework" level cop-out than *any kind of "tight combat readiness strategy". This clearly did *not result as the result of a "comedy of errors" - it was planned. Poorly planned, granted, but no "accident" nonetheless.
Take seriously...like people screaming that the sky is falling and a global cabal of-insert nefarious institutions, people here- are knowingly pushing a vaccine that...idk is going to destroy the world...etc etc? And CIC you ask to what end?? I’ve asked that on several comments sections on recent articles on Covid and vaccines. I get pretty muddled answers...follow the money, they hate us, etc. etc. You are making the exact same argument that I and others make when asking about “to what end”? About claims about vaccines. What do you think the subject of this article has to gain by the content he put out about trump? Please explain it to me. Maybe putting together a historical record? IDK. But clearly Trump is not going to be president...so I don’t think Jay has anything to gain. I don’t know
It's a futile attempt to avoid the illegitimacy of the current government. Futile, I say, because sniping at one or the other candidates isn't going to settle the legitimacy question. With the Democrats putting their fingers in their ears and saying "HR 1, HR 1" and the Republicans in their usual supine position, don't expect a solution anytime soon. An actual statesman would be nice right about now.
Absolutely correct, yes. Sniping at the individual candidates is like walking up to a cauldron of boiling water, and trying to push all of the *bubbles down.
Perhaps I’m wrong, after all, it’s bound to happen eventually 🍺, but maybe you think you get muddled answers because your question are a bit muddled. That is if they resemble this particular post.
Am I correct in concluding you are of the opinion the government bureaucrats, the Biden administration and Big Phrama, who claim all is well with the vaccines, are accurately telling the facts?
That, of course, would imply, perhaps, you conclude anyone who disagrees with the afore mentioned cabal, errr I mean concerned benefactors, are little more than narrow-minded conspiracy theorist?
As far as Biden and big pharma goes...I don’t know...but by observation (personal, albeit) I see the vaccine working. I’m not sure anyone ever claimed vaccines are perfect. There’s been somewhere around billion doses worldwide ...super low adverse reactions (seeing thousands of adverse reactions/deaths is awful), but when you divide those thousands or whatever by a billion, or say, just America’s dosages adverse reactions are infinitesimal. I guess I subscribe to Occam’s razor...a vaccine or therapy or whatever people want to call it was developed to counter a virus. It was done in good faith and it is working. It has harmed some people, but, again, this has happened with every vaccine. People generally do the right thing. Think of all the people who were involved in the production of vaccines. Do you think that they would knowingly contribute harm to potentially billions of people? Or submit to doing it out of fear of the cabal or benefactors 😎 I just can’t see that.
"...I see the vaccine working..." Really? You SEE it working? Personally?
You invoke--saying you subscribe to--Occam's razor. Very well. I suppose you're also familiar, then, with the phrase "Post hoc. ergo propter hoc" to describe the logical fallacy in which you're wallowing here.
I hear people assure me with no less confidence than yours that they "See Jesus working." What do you say to such people?
Superstitions come in all kinds of colors and flavors.
Consider: might not the marked fall off in infections, hospitalizations and deaths due to this virus not be just as plausibly accounted for by the simple fact that it has already killed millions around the world?--those, by chance, (never mind their demographic profile) ipso facto, "most vulnerable"?
What, if anything, do you do with this? I? It gives me pause.
Maybe it ought to give you pause. There's another latin phrase, this one taught early in medical school: "Primum non nocere." it means that, where one lacks genuine understanding based on empirically-based knowledge, not hopes or guess-work, one refrains rather than leaps ahead.
Where Covid vaccines are concerned, the health-care profession forgot its creeds and leapt.
I hear people assure me with no less confidence than yours that they "See Jesus working." What do you say to such people?
I'd say show me some evidence. If 90% of people in hell (in the hospital or dying) were unbaptized it might give me pause. There is documentation that the vast majority of people in ICU's and hospitals have not been vaccinated. This is not superstition. It's causal evidence. I just don't see how you can deny that.
Therefore, I have extrapolated that the vaccines most likely work...again...Occam's Razor..simplest explanation...a lot simpler than:
YOU:
"might not the marked fall off in infections, hospitalizations and deaths due to this virus not be just as plausibly accounted for by the simple fact that it has already killed millions around the world?--those, by chance, (never mind their demographic profile) ipso facto, "most vulnerable"?
Everything can be classified as a fallacy. I'm sure there's a latin phrase for that. It's lazy. I coached LD debate for several years. Arguing logical fallacies exist everywhere is lazy. I really encouraged my kids not to use fallacies. Throwing out "you just stated a fallacy therefore, I win the argument" shuts down any debate.
Maybe it ought to give you pause. There's another latin phrase, this one taught early in medical school: "Primum non nocere." it means that, where one lacks genuine understanding based on empirically-based knowledge, not hopes or guess-work, one refrains rather than leaps ahead.
YOU:
"Show me some empirical evidence that illustrates that vaccines are not working. If you deny that people suffering in hospitals and dying are mostly unvaccinated...then I don't know how to respond to you. I hesitate to use empirical "evidence" because anyone on the internet can pull anything out of their ass to back up their claims. I am willing to use data on unvaccinated persons being hospitalized and dying at a greater rate than the vaccinated because that's pretty clear. But you have true knowledge and I'm a rube."
"it means that, where one lacks genuine understanding based on empirically-based knowledge, not hopes or guess-work, one refrains rather than leaps ahead."
What about deductive reasoning? Hume's example was something along the lines of " I see the sun rise every morning..therefore, it's logical that it will rise again tomorrow. Deductive reasoning is an accepted logical tool, is it not?
YOU:
Where Covid vaccines are concerned, the health-care profession forgot its creeds and leapt.
The "YOU" preceding this ---> "Show me some empirical evidence that illustrates that vaccines are not working." is, I presume, your comment. It is certainly not mine. (Which illustrates that you're sloppy and lazy.)
So, I understand you're challenging _me_ with: "Show me some empirical evidence that illustrates that vaccines are not working."
That's YOUR burden to show. Ethically, morally, medically, ALL the onus is on those who assert that some given therapy is BOTH necessary AND EFFECTIVE.
You manifestly suck at reasoning, at logic, and, I daresay, at teaching debate. I pity your students and, as I gather, you no longer teach, there's at least that for which their successors may be grateful. But this episode is quite illustrative of how we've come to this sorry pass in contemporary politics.
Are we all supposed to know what "LD debate" means?
A "Google" search suggests as a possibility, "Lincoln-Douglas debate(s)" but you didn't bother with either the hyphen or the plural form. Maybe you taught your students about only one of the series? LOL! As I say, your manifest sloppy laziness speaks volumes.
Or perhaps, in your case, "LD" refers to "learning disabled." You seem to be that as well as "T(eaching)D".
I think that’s a fair question. The way I separate the two is in early 2020 we had a presidential race and seemingly out of nowhere covid appeared. We have no idea what President Trump was being told by the supposed smartest people in the room. As far as I can tell President Trump, an outsider in DC, was trying to make the best decisions he could, given what he was being told.
18 months later we can look back and say he should have done this/that. But since I wasn’t privy to inside events I cut him some slack.
On the other hand, Biden and the Obama circus is well established in DC, and as far as I can tell, only a person who is financially profiting from current events, or a fool, believes any of them!
Oh please - ha wasn't listening to the "smartest people in the room" - look before Covid appeared he figured he was on his way to being re-elected - "look at the stock market!" Rats, this damn disease (which according to Woodward's interview he knew it was a bitch) - was flailing - Look, it is no worse than the flu! It will be gone in a couple of months! He scoffed at masks (did one or 2 photo ops with one on for a short while) had rallies and get togethers with no "social distancing" or masks, mocked folks who wore them - when the "smartest people in the room" were pushing both social distancing and masks - and then when he got it, got in a helicopter to an army hospital - got the whole medicine cabinet thrown at him, was a lot sicker than he let on - and then when he gets out, does the balcony scene - saying Look, I'm fine, it's no big deal. His hail Mary pass was Operation Warp Speed, which i give him credit for, but then accuses the FDA of holding up approval for a vaccine that was put out there in record time, until after the election.
So he should be praised as being an "outsider"? Really, it's OK to f... up if one is an "outsider"? And why throw tons of money to 2 companies for an "experimental vaccine" when there were other more traditional platforms that could be developed? How much was Big Phrma contributing to his campaign, i wonder ....
And when he himself got the vaccine, did he say Look I got it, I'm fine, you should get it too! No, because by that time, it wasn't going to help him stay in office - so he didn't give a shit, and still doesn't You can get it if you like - Really? Is that what the smartest people in the room are saying or has he moved to a different room ..
Some months before the end of his term India and S Africa applied to the WTO for IP waivers for the vaccine so other countries could make it without paying Pfizer, Moderna through the nose - Trump didn't support that (neither did Biden for months until it was clear that Germany and others opposed it - basically covering his ass with Big Phrma, so he can look good with the public, but it won't put a dent in his campaign contributions ...
Look, i think BOTH of them are schmucks when it comes to this stuff (and a lot of other stuff, too). This continually giving "the benefit of the doubt" to either of them, by whomever, does us all, IMO, a big disservice and i don't think is intellectually honest ...
Bless you for being a good hearted soul - but I think your "empathy" with the Trumpster is misplaced ....
As far as I know, as with you, out of the 20 or so people I have been told received the jab, none have had serious issues other than severe headaches for a day or two. But we are 8 months into it. From what I hear, it is possible as time passes more issues will arise from the mRNA, spike proteins etc…. . Is it true? I have no idea.
Throughout recent history there have been a number of powerful people who have wanted to eliminate a large number of people in one fell swoop. Do you think people like that have been eliminated?
I don’t trust government, bureaucrats, Big Pharma or Big Tech, so I keep a wary eye on them and go about my business. That’s one of the great aspects of being an insignificant speck on this beautiful planet!
No kudos to YouTube for responding to queries only when they come from a high-profile journalist. That's a sign of their corruption and the corruption of our elected officials for allowing them to become so powerful.
Here is the algorithm. Is the information put out by our friends? Yes...It's OK regardless of content. No....even though it is exactly what our friends claim it must be banned. And by friends we mean people or groups that when we lobby they gives us what we want, or we sure did enjoy the cocktail party the other night. Wasn't it fun disparaging all those deplorables. Fuck Google and YouTube. There are alternatives. Brave and Odysee.
Don't be a racist bigot. The systemically oppressed Obamas were just hosting a small sophisticated unmasked party of over 500 celebrities at their systemically oppressed $15 million mansion along the beach which is supposed to be under water because of all the climate change and rising sea water.
John Kerry, US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate Change, who owns beach front property (rising sea levels????), flew in his private jet (CO2 emissions????) to attend systemically oppressed Obama's birthday party at his $15 million beach front property (rising sea levels????).
Marie Antoinette was actually responding to an artificially imposed bread quota put in place by the French government to raise prices. If you got to the braisserie too late and the day’s quota of bread was already sold, you had to buy cake instead.
2 --DNC oligarchs (Biden, Pelosi, Schumer) are even WORSE (censorship, they concocted Russia-gate hoax, torture of Julian Assange, Daniel Hale’s persecution for Obama’s drone crimes, $16B Haiti-corruption under Hillary/Obama – Biden-family corruption pales in comparison)
The ONLY solution – vote THIRD party – now and forever. ALWAYS vote – but VOTE for a Third (or fourth, fifth..) party – at ALL levels, especially at LOCAL levels (vote OUT each and every incumbent).
“If you always vote for the lesser of two evils, you will always have evil, and you will always have less.” [Ralph Nader].
Only ACTION: Sustained organized mass civil disobedience - not distractions like DNC-controlled hollering and tweeting....
I wonder about the wisdom of the whole content moderation thing. Terrorist beheadings and kiddie porn, sure. Block 'em. No problem. But I'm not sure Youtube is actually changing minds for the better by silencing political views it disapproves of, especially if they're widely held. Doesn't matter if they're right or wrong, true or not. The very fact of these large, powerful, well resourced institutions presuming to decide on "truth" and what we're allowed to hear, consider, think about or believe just amplifies the rampant distrust and conspiracy mongering. It convinces nobody. It just produces backlash.
It's highly cynical, actually. The logic is that if they stupids don't see the things that Youtube's masters don't like, they'll forget about that stuff.
And no, it doesn't work, at least the way they want it to. It further radicalizes people.
So I think it will stop! Because of many of the protestations of posters on this site, and I truly appreciate that. I’m not sure a total free market exists, but if enough people raise a stink...things will change in relation to content moderation
I’m glad someone mentioned “terrorist beheadings”. Imagine for a minute that YouTube allowed that and, to generate some revenue, put ads up between victims. Disgusting, right? Now, go to YouTube and search “AC-130 gunship”. You’ll be treated to gun camera footage of human beings being slaughtered like fish in a barrel. It’s mesmerizing until you remember it’s not some video game. While being declared “enemies” of the USA, making them “fair game”, the victims are still someone’s son, father, or husband. And YouTube throws up ads. YouTube’s supposed “standards” are disgusting.
Bu,bu,but - they're the "bad guys", right? and I am sure AI has no problem with killing the "bad guys" - after all it deals with the data fed to it ....
I think it's less a wisdom an more a natural logic. The internet monopolies are trying to defend their business. In a simplistic model they are trying to balance two goals. One we can understand as the PR goal of being allowed to maintain their legally tenuous monopoly privileges, the loss of which has a $ value they can estimate. The other is ad revenue minus operating cost.
The PR part could be pretty complicated but so far these firms seem to be simply following the preferences of lamestream news media. Youtube in particular has explicitly stated that's how they do it.
So it doesn't make any sense as an editorial policy serving a social good and any coherent of "wisdom" you may discern, if any, has to be an emergent property.
Yes, so far both the Lamestream and the New Secular Moralists (of all stripes, including MT/TK) have made hay by pointing at these patterns and declaring validation or shenanigans resp. but this could easily change.
Honestly, I know it is popular with the social media set to toss around insurrection, coup, and rebellion. But, nothing of the sort was planned, organized or acted upon. Milley is a delicate flower - and partisan. Those how opposed Trump - and many of the top brass did - came up with all kinds of loose talk claiming a coup was in process. Trump felt the election was stolen; and then felt he could capitalize on this when the facts did not fully back him up.
But in their defense, the Trump campaign filed dozens of cases and not one, not one, was heard on the merits. All were tossed out for standing, lack of claim, and other procedural matters. What is a shame is we know there was some election ‘irregularities’ and we know there is little cooperation to get to the bottom of these. This legitimizes Trump’s claims - as does Facebook when is censors Trump or election discussion.
I have lived through an insurrection. Insurrectionists bring guns, tanks, and rocket launchers. They are organized and generally funded. Our insurrectionists were a bad version of Animal House. Rowdy, loud, and lost.
Milley and the silly social media set need to stop pretending the Republic almost fell and face facts. This was a temper tantrum.
The best description for January 6th was a "riot."
The Florida Recount, Brooks Brothers Riot, and SCOTUS decision in 2000 smells a more like a coup to me. Had the unfortunate characteristic of being successful too.
2000 was definitely a soft coup. Sandra Day O'Connor, from my home town, is alleged to have confided in her hubby the night before the SCOTUS decision that she was going to find against Gore no matter what evidence was presented.
Lost track of all the Trump election suits. You mention that not a single one was heard on the merits. Is there a link to an aggregation of the evidence that should have been allowed, but wasn't? Obviously this involves numerous cases with multiple allegations, but it'd be nice if someone put them all in one place so that skeptics and believers alike could see for themselves.
Copy pasting an old comment. This is not specific to you, it's just relevant to your question.
Democrats spent over 40 million and 3 years chasing some russian collusion, then inventing russian bounty hoaxes but somehow any audit or signature matching is not allowed in 2020. Pathetic hypocrisy.
Democrats being against voter id clearly tells me they enjoy cheating. It's like opposing ID for buying cigarettes or booze and then claiming no underage kid ever bought a cigarette or booze. Monmouth University released a poll on early voting and voter ID. The poll found the majority of Americans support voter ID, and more minorities support voter ID than white people. Question 31 on page 7: 84% of minorities. & 77% of white people support voter ID. Yet Democrats keep claiming voter id is somehow racist:
I can present hundreds of examples but I don't think it's worth it because nobody's mind will change. I like how everyone agrees Bernie got cheated out twice, DNC using the IOWA "app" to cheat again and somehow the general election was perfectly cool. I will give a few examples for the audience here:
I am sure these types of vote counts where a candidate make vertical jumps in multiple states after vote counting has stopped and at 4am when Republican observers have been sent home is totally cool:
I am sure the 6000 votes which was exposed to have been switched from Trump to Biden in Antrim County and similarly in GA - all mistakes in one direction - was totally cool:
The typical excuses I hear when I point out how Biden won as "the most popular president with 12 million more votes than Obama" and yet couldn't get 10 people at his rallies is "Because Biden voters believe in science and didn't want to go out during a pandemic" to which I reply with "Then why did his YouTube videos and live streams also not get any views and got ratioed to the point where YouTube has to actively remove dislikes?
130 Thousand dislikes were removed in a 24hr period! And this is for the most popular US President of all time!
Another response is "Trump's personality cost him the election" to which I reply with "Trump has a in party approval of 95% - highest EVER" and Republicans gained tons of house seats and even state house and senate seats. So somehow people were voting for republicans but not for Trump despite him having 95% approval? It's the opposite - people voted for Republican house and senate BECAUSE Trump asked them too. It's been shown time and time again that the constituents like Trump, they hate the establishment RINOs. Hence the 95% approval in his party.
Usually first-time mail voters ~3X more likely to spoil ballot. In GA 2016 whopping 6.4% failed, 2020 just 0.2%. In PA, rate 0.03% in 2020 vs ~1% in 2016. Nevada from 1.60% in 2016 to ~0.75% this year. N.C. rate ~2.7% in 2016 to 0.8%. Totally cool.
Biden somehow gets 12 million more votes but only in VERY select few cities - enough to push him over in the entire state. And somehow ends up losing house seats, state house, senate seats. And Trump - who's the first Republican to make major gains in blacks and hispanics, his party makes major gains everywhere from house seats to state senate races loses.
Bellwether Counties Went Overwhelmingly for Trump in 2020. All but one of the 19 bellwethers picked President Donald Trump by a margin of some 16 points on average. They all accurately picked the president since 1980. Before the elections, here's NYTimes claiming:
> "The 10 Bellwether Counties That Show How Trump Is in Serious Trouble. Each one is in a battleground state. Votes from people there will matter a lot — and offer Joe Biden several paths to victory. Conversely, Mr. Trump would likely need to win at least eight of those 10 states for a second term. A look at these bellwethers — all either tossups or leaning toward Mr. Biden — makes clear that Mr. Trump is in serious trouble." NYTimes was claiming Biden will easily win thw bell weathers too.
Once the elections were over and all but one bell weather county that had chosen every presidential winner since 1980 went for President Trump in 2020, suddenly "bellwether counties are not a good way of indicating". HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAAHAA whatever doesn't fit the narrative suddenly becomes unreliable.
I am sure those perfectly coordinated stopping of counting in the 6 states on election night was totally cool.
I am sure the GA "pipe burst" which was widely claimed as the reason for stopping counting at 10:30PM in Fulton and used to send observers home - and then for the black chick and her daughter to pull out a box with ballots and re-scan the same ballots 4 times all on video was all just totally cool. And guess what - that pipe burst story also turned out to be completely false - in fact it didn't even happen that day - it happened the day prior and has nothing to stop counting as exposed by the the FOIA requests:
> Fulton County Elections head Richard Barron said Wednesday that the pipe dumped a lot of water, soaking the carpeting and hampering work. “It looked really like there was rain coming out of the ceiling and the entire carpeting was just covered in water,” he said. “There was no way to go in there and perform work.”
In the hearings, the state officials claimed it was a toilet leak which happened at 6am and was fixed by 8am - not at night.
All so well coordinated. Yet these people can't keep their story straight.
I am sure covering up the voting counts with boards in Detroit is totally cool.
I am sure Democrats and RINO republicans absolutely refusing to do a REAL SIGNATURE MATCH audit before certifying must be because everything was cool.
CA Governor recall petition had a signature unmatched of 20%. But for the general election, it's somehow less than 1% everywhere. Totally cool.
I am sure judge dismissing cases claiming Republicans being blocked and put over 20 feet away from counting was totally okay because they were still in same building is totally cool.
42,000 people in Nevada voted more than once, 1,500 dead, 19,000 didn't live in Nevada, 8,000 voted from a non-existent address, 15,000 registered to a commercial address and 4,000 non-citizens.
Please explain why at least 10315 dead voters, 8718 died before they voted, 66,247 underage, 2560 felons, 5300 voting in multiple states, 15700 out of state voters, 40279 voting in wrong county etc in Georgia alone.
I am sure the 3000 signed affidavits under penalty of perjury were all lying. If they were all lying, then why have none of the affidavit signers been prosecuted for lying (the DOJ is clearly very pro prosecuting Trump supporters).
Florida fixed their shit and ran one of the smoothest elections despite having more population than NY and twice the population of GA. Florida was able to finish their election counting within 2 hours of poll closures. GA and NY and other states with less population took weeks....
The best is this 2016 BBC article "Vote rigging: How to spot the tell-tale signs". The 2020 US election passes every sign from this article. But it's totally cool. Nothing to see here, move along:
In key swing states this year, mail-in ballot rejections plummeted from 2016 rates. Rates are below historical average and significantly less than most recent presidential election - despite having massive mail in voting:
All this doesn't even cover the unconstitutional voting law changes and mass mail-in voting using out dated voter rolls without voter ID. Or the censorship aspect.
The unconstitutional voting law changes alone should have changed the elections.
Using factcheck as your source is like using cnn as a source for russiagate nonsense. Same factcheck site which claimed lab leak was a conspiracy theory and got me banned from social media.
No, because that's just one of the sites hosting that particular document. It was commissioned by Antrim County election officials and Factcheck just happened to be the first place I found the actual PDF.
It gets into the alleged 6000 vote change and I believe fully addresses the issue.
The 6000 vote change was not just "alleged". It happened. The media reported this when this happened in November. Later on in December, they started purposefully conflating it with other stuff.
The article which you cited does this very same conflation.
This happened by November 6th. This was a historically red county which they claimed had turned blue. So Republicans called it out and then it turned out 6000 votes for Trump were given to Biden instead. They claim that the 6000 vote switch was a mistake by clerk.....how convenient. Mistakes always favoured Biden....
The 12 vote thing your link conflates is a separate thing which happened in December which was AFTER an audit. So 6000 first, then 12. Your link doesn't mention the 6000 "mistake". That's how we know that they are biased.
Of all those, I'm most familiar with the Antirim County "conspiracy", "forensic" examination and the rest. The company that allegedly produced the forensic report has refused every interview requested that I'm aware of, including right-leaning outlets. As far as I've been able to read, there isn't anything in the way of **technical** details as to what exactly the alleged issue(s) with the Dominion software is.
Antirim County was not a conspiracy theory. Even left leaning sources admitted that 6000 votes were switched from trump to Biden. Somehow all mistakes went in Biden’s favour and these are only the ones which we know about.
Please tell me how before the elections, nytimes and Washington post claimed all bell weather counties favored Biden but after elections, trump won 19 of the 20 bell weather counties and the same media claims bell weather counties don’t mean anything??? Please explain this to me.
Btw I am not talking about the Sidney Powell and Lin Wood nonsense. Those people did more damage by chasing every red herring instead of going for the real issues.
Also, by the way, "Allied Securities Operation Group" (a frequent consultant to the Trump Organization) is often alleged to be associated with MIT and government science and aeronautics agencies. I have found zero evidence for this claim, and it comes off as a falsified appeal to authority argument as an attempt to debunk Ryan Macias' analysis of the ASOG audit. For another non Factcheck.com article....
The reliably Republican county has been the center of controversy in the weeks since the election after initial results posted in the early morning hours of Nov. 4 showed Biden ahead of Trump by thousands of votes. Election officials later determined a clerk's failure to properly update software had resulted in transposed results and Trump actually won the county by more than 3,700 votes.
lol. So you admit 6000 votes were given from Trump to Biden by """"mistake"""". This was just one of them which got caught and called out because it was so obvious.
How come mistakes always helped Biden? Just like how social media always seems to censor mostly the right wingers?
Why did Trump win 19/20 bell weathers which media was claiming were all going for Biden before elections and after elections suddenly don't matter?
The actual LEFT doesn't want censorship, because they understand that it applies to different political dissidents over time. The Democratic party, which isn't LEFT, wants it because its a convenient way to shut down their political opponents (i.e. people who love Trump) at the moment.
I think it's dishonest to say that the Trump movement is not dangerous, but censorship is strategically the wrong move, as it has the exact opposite effect it intends to, and it gives them a gift to feel persecuted (i.e. Marjorie Taylor Greene wearing a mask that says "censored" on it)
Perhaps it’s because trump supporters are rightfully upset with institutions that have failed them. But are only presented with a demagogue like tromp because he was the only one (in rhetoric at least) that talked openly about institutions failing. Bernie Sanders has a similar message but has actual policy ideas that most people who voted for Trump would actually appreciate and benefit from. Thus the schism in American politics. The Democratic Party does everything it can to make Bernie sanders and his surrogates fail. We are only presented with a terrible version of the Democratic Party. You might disagree with this. But this is my assessment.
One of the best things against Bernie Sanders is that he used to complain about illegal immigration being "right wing proposals". Until 2016. We all know what changed in 2016 when Orange Man announced his run. Bernie used to hate illegal immigration, called it a “right wing proposal” “using a dollar or two wages to drive down wages of Americans”. And then he did a flip calling Orange Man a racist and xenophobic etc and became open border advocate. Just listen to his own words in this VOX interview and tell me how what he used to say was any different from Orange Man and how he's now done a full 180:
Bernie Sanders attacked the socialist Liberty Union Party in 1981 for accommodating the 351 Jamaican immigrants in his state's apple orchards: "With the Vermont unemployment rate one of the highest in the nation, I could never support importing foreign workers when our own people are out of work." ... "It sounds like she wants to bring slavery back to Vermont." said Sanders, who was collecting unemployment insurance at the time. For socialist Sanders, then 33, the situation supported his contention that businesses were yet again selling out U.S. residents in favor of cheap labor.
Even in 2007, he said:
“If poverty is increasing and if wages are going down, I don’t know why we need millions of people to be coming into this country as guest workers who will work for lower wages than American workers and drive wages down even lower than they are right now,” Sanders said. ” … On one hand, you have large multinationals trying to shut down plants in America, move to China, and on the other hand, you have the service industry bringing in low-wage workers from abroad. The result is the same: Middle class gets shrunken, and wages go down.”
"I think as you've heard today, sanctions against employers who employ illegal immigrants is virtually nonexistent. Our border is very porous," Sanders said during a press conference at the time. “And I think at a time when the middle class is shrinking, the last thing we need is to bring over in a period of years, millions of people into this country who are prepared to lower wages for American workers." "I think from a moral responsibility, we've got to work with the rest of the industrialized world to address the problems of international poverty," he said in a 2015 interview. "But you don't do that by making people in this country even poorer." In both cases, Sanders defended his vote by suggesting that the guest worker provisions in the bill were “akin to slavery,” a notable shift from how Sanders talked about immigrant labor before his presidential bids.
Again in 2013:
"I'll tell you look what my concern is the provisions dealing with the guest worker programs. Real unemployment in America counting those people have given up looking for work and are working part-time when they want to work full-time in order is close to 14 percent. It's higher for young people it is higher for people of color. You have in this bill guest worker programs that will bring in hundreds of thousands of entry-level workers. You know on television you hear these guys talk about all PhDs are coming into this country....hundreds of thousands of entry-level workers to work in kitchens waiters waitresses lifeguards ski resort workers. Is it really true that we can't find American workers to do those jobs? Frankly I don't believe it.
Given the magnitude of the problem it doesn't go anywhere near far enough so the nation we have got to ask ourselves do we really need when you go to ghettos in this country when you go to inner cities you have thirty forty percent unemployment do we really need hundreds of thousands of workers entry-level workers from around the country coming in competing against these kids? I think not."
Even the leftist washington post admits: "For years, Bernie Sanders warned that increased immigration would lower the wages of U.S. workers. Now he barely mentions it.":
But when Trump ran in 2015, he switched and became radical open border. He says "Illegal immigrants are "entitled" to the same government benefits as citizens":
This flip flopping and pie in the sky promises are quite natural for Bernie Sanders. Mr $15 an hour Bernie Sanders refused to pay his staff $15 because his campaign couldn't afford to. He has been a Vermont senator for 30+ years! The min wage in Vermont is still $10.
Bernie's hotel demands from his “Senator Comfort Memo”: King-size beds and 60-degree rooms. He flies on private jets and has a memo detailing minimum requirements of the private jet. He used to complain about millionaires and billionaires. Until 2 years ago when he became a millionaire. Then only the billionaires were the problem for him. You can verify this by going through his twitter history. The "millionaires and billionaires" change to "billionaires" only. He released his tax returns couple years ago. For someone complaining so much about poor people suffering, he barely paid anything in charity from his multi millions. For someone who's so anti-pharma, Bernie still gladly took $1.3 million from Pharma. Orange Man got $2.5 million and Biden took $8.5 million:
Bernie, "mr. anti-big-pharma" took $1,301,155 from Big Pharma in 2020. He was also the number 1 recipient in the senate for pharma manufacturing in 2020 by getting $416,066, Ossoff, Jon was second with $302,137, Elizabeth Warren got $291,168. Thom Tillis was 4th got $270,270 and Mitch McConnell was 5th at $265,980:
Why would pharma manufacturing give the most money to Bernie and other democrats and more than Mitch and Lindsey Graham? Kindness of their heart?
Bernie regularly engages in identity politics which is basically CRT. He even called Orange Man a xenophobe and said he wouldn't have shutdown travel from China. He said: "I wouldn't have closed the air traveling with China if I was a president. Trump is racist xenophobic."
Bernie also supports the AOC/Cori Bush squad who regularly exploit identity politics / defund the police nonsense while giving themselves more police funding. So claiming he doesn't wade into CRT is false.
Bernie endorsed Biden after getting fucked in his ass twice by the DNC. He couldn't grow up a spine to call out Biden's and his son's obvious corruption, instead he called him a good friend and respectable man. You think such a spineless man could stand up to foreign nations?
Unlike Bernie who rolled over at the very first sight, Orange Man at least put up a fight and won the nomination. Imagine Bernie rolling over like that to foreign nations. He got "cheated" out twice from the nomination and he rolled over without a fight - maybe because this was the plan all along for Democrats to use him to get the left to vote for Biden. Then he refused to look at the "cheating" allegations from Orange Man. Everyone agrees Bernie got cheated out twice, DNC using the IOWA "app" to cheat again and somehow the general election was perfectly okay.
He called Biden his friend and respectable man. Didn't even have the balls of calling out his obvious selling out to China and his son using his office for profit. Now he's going on CNN making excuses on why they couldn't get $15 minimum wage, why $2000 has still not gone out, why $1400 is more than enough instead of the $2000 they promised, why medicare for all is now too hard to achieve. And his supporters thought Bernie would care about them LMFAO. When his supporters couldn't wake up to how big of a pathetic cuck Bernie was when he gave up his mic to the 2 BLM activists at his own rally, how he did a full 180 flip on illegal immigration when Orange Man ran, then nothing will wake them up.
I am surprised it took this long for people to see through AOC and Bernie. Bernie was always in on it with the establishment dems from the beginning. I was mostly politically uneducated till 2015 but even then I was able to see through Bernie sanders fraud when he did a complete 180 flip on his stance on illegal immigration. Bernie is there to tell you nice things to get votes for Democrats. He was never there to win. Bernie tells people pie in the sky dreams to siphon votes to the Democrats. That's it.
Trump and his supporters are in fact fiscally liberal and socially conservative. So you're actually half-correct. On fiscal matters, they really are left-wing.
Hawley, a Trump Republican, recently teamed up with Bernie Sanders, who is as left as Democrats get. What does that say about Hawley? That's right - that on fiscal policy he's to the left of most Democrats.
By making these big tech companies common carriers.
SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas opined couple months ago discussing big tech censorship quite extensively. The case was regarding whether Trump was allowed to block people on Twitter and it being a 1st amendment violation. While the case was declared moot as Trump left office, Justice Clarence Thomas took the opportunity to discuss censorship. How politicians aren't allowed to block users on big tech but big tech is able to block and ban politicians and government employees and how this creates a weird power dynamic.
> "But whatever may be said of other industries, there is clear historical precedent for regulating transportation and communications networks in a similar manner as traditional common carriers. Candeub 398–405. Telegraphs, for example, because they “resemble[d] railroad companies and other common carriers,” were “bound to serve all customers alike, without discrimination." ... "Internet platforms of course have their own First Amendment interests, but regulations that might affect speech are valid if they would have been permissible at the time of the founding. See United States v. Stevens, 559 U. S. 460, 468 (2010). The long history in this country and in England of restricting the exclusion right of common carriers and places of public accommodation may save similar regulations today from triggering heightened scrutiny—especially where a restriction would not prohibit the company from speaking or force the company to endorse the speech." ... "The similarities between some digital platforms and common carriers or places of public accommodation may give legislators strong arguments for similarly regulating digital platforms. [I]t stands to reason that if Congress may demand that telephone companies operate as common carriers, it can ask the same of ”digital platforms." ... "For example, although a “private entity is not ordinarily constrained by the First Amendment,” Halleck, 587 U. S., at ___, ___ (slip op., at 6, 9), it is if the government coerces or induces it to take action the government itself would not be permitted to do, such as censor expression of a lawful viewpoint. Ibid. Consider government threats. “People do not lightly disregard public officers’ thinly veiled threats to institute criminal proceedings against them if they do not come around.” Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan, 372 U. S. 58, 68 (1963). The government cannot accomplish through threats of adverse government action what the Constitution prohibits it from doing directly. See ibid.; Blum v. Yaretsky, 457 U. S. 991, 1004–1005 (1982). Under this doctrine, plaintiffs might have colorable claims against a digital plat- form if it took adverse action against them in response to government threats. The Second Circuit feared that then-President Trump cut off speech by using the features that Twitter made available to him. But if the aim is to ensure that speech is not smothered, then the more glaring concern must perforce be the dominant digital platforms themselves."
> "As Twitter made clear, the right to cut off speech lies most powerfully in the hands of private digital platforms. The extent to which that power matters for purposes of the First Amendment and the extent to which that power could lawfully be modified raise interesting and important questions. This petition, unfortunately, affords us no opportunity to confront them."
The last 2 points are important as Justice Thomas is basically saying "give us a case which brings up these two questions and then we will have a deep look."
One can even cite Amazon's recent censorship of SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas's own documentary as well as Eli Steele’s documentary as examples:
to Twitter, which after all is headquartered in CA. Under Pruneyard, the owner of a public shopping mall could not exclude students engaged in political activities. An argument could be made that social media sites, like shopping centers in 1979, are places "to which the public is invited [and] can provide an essential and invaluable forum for exercising [speech and petition] rights." So, the infringement of free speech by social media would seem to be unconstitutional (at least in CA)."
Thomas compares Twitter to common carriers:
Thomas suggested that the case could fall under two other doctrines. The first was the doctrine of common carriers, in which private entities in the transportation and communication sectors are tightly tied to “public concerns.” Governments had, for example, required telegraph companies to serve all customers. Second, governments might restrict a company’s right to exclude individuals from public accommodations.
In exploring these analogies, Thomas noted that companies were not typically treated as speakers for “information that they merely distribute.” He focused on the manner in which digital platforms “have dominant market share” in a business that “may have substantial barriers to entry.” This gives such companies as Facebook and Google “enormous control over speech.”
Acknowledging alternate modes of communicating, Thomas likened such alternatives to having to swim over a river rather than take a bridge, or having to hike, rather than travel by car, over the Oregon Trail. Arguing that such analogies supported the 2nd Circuit’s “intuition” that Trump’s Twitter was a public forum, he noted that nothing in the record “evaluates Twitter’s market power” and no one had identified any current regulation “that restricts Twitter from removing an account that would otherwise be a ‘government-controlled space.’” Moreover, courts had split as to “whether federal accommodations laws apply to anything other than ‘physical’ locations.”
Thomas pointed out in his concurring opinion in Biden v. Knight that, like Twitter, Facebook, and Google, trains and communication networks are privately owned yet the law obligates them to serve everyone. Justice Thomas went on to note that Congress has granted social media platforms immunity from certain types of lawsuits but that it “has not imposed corresponding responsibilities, like nondiscrimination.”
I'd really like to know...that was the first time I've ever watched that clip of Trump and other Republicans....how the hell is that inciting violence? What does "peaceful and patriotic" mean to you? I'd never approve of what happened, but is this inciting violence? Honestly, when you have a sitting Congresswoman telling anybody who will listen to confront conservatives while they're at dinner, how is this WORSE? You may not agree that the election was stolen and I'm sure there's a strong debate to be had, but inciting violence? When? Did he say "Storm the Capitol!!!!!!"..? Did he say "Take back the White House by force with all of your one guns!!!!" Seriously, how could anybody misinterpret "peacefully and patriotically?"
When you say, and I do get your point, that you never approved of what happened, from what I remember seeing was, as they “stormed” the Capitol, they did so in a mannerly fashion, staying within the ropes.
The entire issue shows what a bunch of panty waste populate this country, especially in the media and government. It’s a tool to keep the lemmings in line; after all, each step brings them closer to the precipice.
That leaves me with a question, where do I get a link that I can post, to what I remember? The reason that’s what I remember could stem from my lack of concern related to the event.
I wasn’t freaking out when the union members took over the Wisconsin capitol in Madison a few years ago, were you? That said, other than the children with cameras and microphones in the media screaming rape, and scum like AOC thinking the entire event was an attempt to rape her; who cares? As a matter of fact, the entire thing reminds me of some B movie from years ago where the psycho-chick is in a daze, mumbling about how they are all after her, lusting for her; a perfect picture of the squid..
Why is this a big deal? Because it is yet another attempt by the immature scum in DC trying to eliminate what they perceive to be the Trump Threat; aka, a threat to their power.
(Coming soon will be video of people storming the Capitol as they waved Russian flags, chanting “Trump/Putin 2024”!)
And let’s not ignore the Useful Idiots who bend over backwards to accommodate the DC elite. It is yet another attempt by the immature scum in DC trying to eliminate what they perceive to be the Trump Threat; aka, a threat to their addiction to power.
I sadly close by saying I have several family member who are part of that game.
Trump's speech did not constitute legal incitement, which is why he hasn't been indicted for that crime. I strongly doubt that he had advance knowledge of the plans to invade the Capitol or that he conspired with any of the rioters to do so.
What Trump did do, in my humble opinion, is wage a campaign of lies about the election in order to bring public pressure from GOP voters to bear on GOP Senators and Congressmen to vote to reject Biden electors under the Electoral Count Act of 1887, 3 U.S.C. sec. 3, and throw the election into the House of Representatives. Does that constitute a coup attempt? It clearly would if he was conspiring with the rioters to use force to compel Congress to act. But absent such conspiracy to use force, it's unlikely that he broke the laws against insurrection and seditious conspiracy. To be sure, Trump violated the foundational norm of democracy, respecting the results of an election, and if he succeeded, historians would probably call that a successful coup, but the water is muddy, which is why Attorney General Garland won't go there.
Much like Stacy Abrams and Hilary Clinton respected those norms?
Give me a fucking break. There are massive questions about that election in at least a third of voters' minds. And if Trump did think there were shenanigans in the vote, he, as someone sworn to defend the constitution, which voting rights are a strong portion thereof, is duty-bound to bring that to the attention of congress.
Norms are what we do, but they should be thrown in the wastebasket of eternity when they are being used to screw over parts of the country. Remember, it was a norm to beat your wife at one point.
Hi there Doug. Just following up to see if you had any thoughts on Conservative Contrarian's question about Hillary Clinton's or Al Gore's claims of election fraud.
Cognitive dissonance can be painful, eh? I wouldn't think too much about that question either, if I were you.
May I take your comment as agreement with my assessment that Trump deliberately lied about election fraud? You point, I take it, is that his lies were no big deal because Mrs. Clinton and Gore also lied about election fraud.
The bigger Democratic lie in my opinion was the claim that Trump was a Russian intelligence asset, a traitor, who stole the 2016 election in a conspiracy with Putin. The Democrats pushed that lie, which originated in a fabrication financed by Hillary Clinton, for three years, trying to force Trump from office. That was outrageous, in my personal opinion. The Democrats' pushing of that lie was one of the reasons I voted for Trump in the last election.
What do I do now? I can't vote for the Democrats, who have never apologized for the Russia hoax, and whose economic polices are disastrous. I can't vote for Trump, who is still insisting that the election was fraudulent and who tried to overturn the election via his campaign of lies. I'm back to where I was in 2016, when I didn't cast a vote for president.
What are your sources that cause you to conclude there was no election fraud? After all, we can only agree Trump lied about it if we have all facts in front of us, correct?
Both Greenwald and Turley, who should know, have said that Trump's speech wasn't LEGALLY incitement. I'll take their word for it. My take was that it was certainly inciting something, but carefully hedged to stay within the law. Apparently he speaks more carefully than it appears, and had decent lawyers.
Maybe you notice that up above I wrote, "Trump's speech did not constitute legal incitement." Of course, that's just the start, not the end, of the inquiry.
When I noticed this starting to happen more, I was initially hopeful that it would spur people to using decentralized platforms for social media and content. This has only barely happened, though. Right now all I actually expect people to do is to bifurcate into two spheres of centralized social media and content platforms.
Good lord, Paul Jay is such a mini-me fascist. Just parse this statement to see how his mind REALLY works: "I’m not in favor of the algorithms at all. Period. So let’s start with that. The whole idea of censorship through algorithm is BS." Oh, so you're saying if content was monitored and censored by humans (who support MY position) it's okay. Which is why Paul Jay reveals himself to be a closet fascist, because the correct answer is the 'whole idea of censorship is BS.' No sympathy for this dude.
Who the fuck made Google, Youtube, Twitter and FaceBook of all things the arbiter of truth and the ministry of what is and what is not to be discussed regarding elections, candidates, why the weather if foul this week or anything else?
Answer:
They did.
That they even say they "allow" discussions about this or that tells you everything you need to know. They're self-appointed Goebbels.
When you sit and think about the fact that the federal government, (or more specifically,) persons who were either elected or appointed politically are tugging their sleeves and requesting more censorship and nudging discourse in a particular direction, you have what amounts to the government chilling the 1st amendment through private business.
I may remind you all at this time that it's fucking illegal.
I guess we just add it to the pile of other illegal shit they do all day, every day, and the war crimes, pollution, failure to serve their constituencies and refusing to honor their crummy oaths and be done with it.
I'm not really sure what solution or solutions you're suggesting here. High government regulation of tech companies? Breaking them up to neutralize their monopolies? Designating them as common carriers? Maybe even nationalizing them? Not only are all those left-wing solutions, but they will also enable the government more control of tech companies. Which means that whichever party is in power will be in a position to weaponize them against the other party. So how is that better than the current situation?
Paul Jay is not a voice Google et al really want to censor in the first place. His views are milquetoast "left" just the kind of stuff they love. Obviously the algorithm picked it up and was adjusted to accept him. He opposed Force the Vote for example definitely not progressive, if there is such a thing in the US.
The correct answer is to stop using these obviously corrupt social media networks. Sure it'll suck at first, but you will be a much better person for it.
"Our Community Guidelines apply equally to everyone, regardless of whether they’re a small news channel or a larger media outlet."
Can we take a moment to reflect on what a load of insulting, gaslighting feces that statement is?
The video of that late night host calling Ivanka Trump "cunt" is still allowed. Or Stephen Colbert calling Trump Putin's Cock Holster. Or the thousands of videos of the russian collusion nonsense. Or the russian bounty nonsense.
Or the claim that the GA election law does anything like what they say it does. I saw one MSM story that was honest. One.
The people against "misinformation" are the biggest source of misinformation.
They're just mad that people are believing the wrong set of lies.
The word is used to cast FUD on something but it's really just a passive-aggressive way to insult whoever said or wrote the thing.
"Thought terminating cliche"
Complete and utter bullshit
Now ponder the ratio pf Alphabet, Google and Youtube staff that believe it.
Some of the brightest minds and smartest people go to work for companies like Facebook, YouTube, Google etc which spend every minute of their existence to figure out how to place an ad in front of our eyes for 1 more second.
That's how you know that some of the dumbest smart people end up controlling your speech too.
Same thing on Wall St. Did you read Antonio García Martínez book? There were times I got angry at his descriptions of FB and then I calmed myself with the fact that it is a confession. Very interesting book, especially the afterword to the 2nd edition.
Bright minds and smart people tend to get credit for their god-given gifts rather than the consequences of how they use them. https://thebaffler.com/salvos/outsmarted-perlstein
... or the reasons they use them. Obama, anyone?
I remember when someone programmed a bot to observe internet comments and respond like a “human” based on what it read/absorbed and with 36 hours it turned into a racist troll! It makes sense that an algorithm programmed by Alphabet/YouTube types would reflect their political nitwittery in it’s decisions.
It was Microsoft’s Tay bot:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft-twitter-bot-idUSKCN0WQ2LA
Because it’s very easy to troll these stupid AI
Yeah, that was deliberate fuckery. It was scientific only if you substitute "lulz" for "data".
I don't mind being lied to but I hate my limited intelligence being insulted.
Dennis Prager calls bs on that one.
STX... You realize Dennis Prager is as much a grifter as the Evangelicals pushing Trump down the throat of their followers. RIght? Prager U = Trum U aka Grifter U
That's irrelevant. Everyone's a grifter on both sides. What we are talking about here is that Prager U routinely gets censored for milquetoast stuff while corporate media gets to lie about everything.
Dennis Prager is a mild mannered Jewish conservative who is about as much of a grifter as Mister Rogers or Ned Flanders.
None sense. The platform with his name on it funded by a billionaire pushing one thing and one thing only, lower taxes to the rich. The way they do it is to focus conservative voters on identity politics rather than economic policy.
The people on his platform are Grifters. They get paid by the click to push none sense meant to distract conservative voters away from the policy that Lobbyists are getting passed that has for 40yrs shifted GDP from the middle class and poor to the WEALTHY. (Trumps tax cut is the perfect example. Bailing out Banks is another one and the recent stimulus sending mostly going to large companies is another one, min wage, health care etc...)
His platform is to focus you on Woke Professors at Ivy League schools and Tranny's so you ignore how you are getting screwed by the Rich.
We are talking about censorship buddy…nothing to do with whatever you are talking about
CNN - None sense. You could care less about censorship. Who are you kidding. You act as if it is only happening from the left when the FACT is that it happens from both the left and right and to the left and right?
What did Trump do to prevent censorship of Liberals points of view? You dont know or are because you only see censorship as bad of it happens to the right.
Feel free to call bs on this one yourself. It would mean more to me. Honestly.
Censorship, blacklisting and persecution of dissenters is the biggest issue we face right now. It literally strikes at the foundations of our Democracy. It's shocking that the LEFT is willing to turn a blind eye to this out of disdain for Trump Supporters and any journalist capable of nuance. I think this extended to people like Alex Jones, who should not have been deplatformed for political beliefs, despite being fairly annoying.
My friend the LEFT - allowing for the modification of the definition of LEFT that Scott called out - is not just willing to turn a blind eye. They're the ones who are demanding that censorship, blacklisting, and persecution.
Indeed. Just one recent example: the entire DP leadership - as well as "thoughtful" hangers on like the Atlantic etc - all cheered on the complete, thorough & total elimination of Parler from the internet. There is no doubt that these last few years the Left, led by the DP, as Mr Taibbi has pointed out, is the greatest threat to freedom of speech.
ART- Matt has done an outstanding job of pointing out how the left is reducing freedom of speech. And in the process built a large audience of right wing fans.
If you have read his books he is equally harsh on the things the RIGHT has done regarding censorship and if you read his recent book Hate INC he interviews Noam Chomsky at the end and Chomsky clearly shows how the RIGHT is the far bigger threat to Censorship.
So what are you talking about
Think you missed something there: I agreed that Mr Taibbi has pointed out how most recently the Left, led by the DP, has been the greater threat to freedom of speech THESE LAST FEW YEARS. At no point did I attempt to exonerate the Right, which of course over different periods in years gone by has also been in favour of censorship in various areas of public life and threatened freedom of speech in the US. But we are talking about the very recent past .. and NOW! And what has been happening in the US, most especially this past year, is outrageous. I think it notable that Mr Taibbi, himself a man of the Left - but a man with principles and probity - has found it necessary to speak out. Likewise that other decent people "on the Left" - like Brett Weinstein and Glenn Greenwald (to pick out the first names which come to mind) - have been so disgusted by the actions of the broad Left that they too have felt the need to speak out. Most noteworthy too has been the manner in which these people from the Left have been smeared and vilified and instantly branded as "right wing" and "Trump-supporting", not only by the far left but also by many DP supporters.
As for your statement about Chomsky showing "how the Right is a far bigger threat to Censorship", I am afraid this is nonsense; or perhaps merely wishful thinking! (Incidentally, I presume you mean threat to freedom of speech; if the left or right were a "threat" to censorship that would be a good thing :-) ) The drive to censorship has nothing to do with "left" or right persuasion: the Soviet Union, the Japanese Empire, Communist China, Cuba, Nazi Germany, Venzuela, Franco's Spain, North Korea etc. etc. prove the fallacy of that assumption. The simple fact is that as soon as any political movement becomes ideological it attracts adherents who convince themselves that they are right about everything; and that anyone who disagrees with them is wrong and needs to be silenced. It is the mentality of the religious fundamentalist. Reason is thrown to the winds and political repression with varying degrees of violence follows. Arch thugs like Lenin, Hitler, Stalin and Mao are the finest examples of this trend of course. Incidentally, as pointed out in an earlier Taibbi post, I wouldn't put too much store by Chomsky in the area of censorship. A single example of his limited intellect & power of judgment is that for years he was a huge fan of Hugo Chávez: a man who once decreed that all TV stations broadcast his interminable speeches daily. I understand that between 15% and 20% of the total population of Venzuela has now left the wreck of a country Chávez and his followers bequeathed to them.
Art - you are funny. You wax on eloquently about how in your view in the past few years the left has been the far larger threat to freedom of speech / censorship than the right and go on to compare the lefts actions to everyone from Lenin and Hitler to religious fundamentalists.
Your comparison is flawed intellectually as evidenced by the FACT that the regimes you note shut down opposition press and murmured dissidents. Rupert Murdoch and Ben Shapiro are not preaching thier vile lies frightened Hillary is going to order them shot as the exit the building
So we now see that hyperbole is your flavor of communications. Not rational evidence based thinking.
So it is not surprise to hear you "cancel" Chomsky based on nothing more than his early support of Chaves, who advocated to end the oligarchy of Venezuelan oil money only to fall to the same corruption (all oppose by Chomsky) that any dictator succombs to.
I think it is safe to say that Matt's opposition to censorship is clear eyed and see's it on the left and the right and also see's clearly those that are opposed to it as evidenced in his strong support for the failed candicy of Nina Turner. He uses this platform to rope in closed minded right wing mostly Trump supporters like you with justified attacks on the Left. I applaud him for it as his attacks are all warrented.
But you my friend just proved you are a close minded, poorly informed partisan hack who see's with his feelings and thinks with his emotions. Right?
Chomsky, Matt and myself all see all sides of these things not just a partisan side.
Which stubbornness echoes his support for Pol Pot, where he (Chomky) very nearly fell into the "if facts disagree with my beliefs, they must be dismissed as propaganda" trap.
Again, a discussion completely derailed by people using "simplified" terminology.
In this case, "the right". When Piketty uses it, he means the evil, shadowy forces of power and wealth, funding grifters to indoctrinate ignorant rubes into believing things that are beneficial to their continued hold on that power and wealth.
When most of us use "the right", we mean ordinary citizens who feel they do not need to be highly educated to know they bear no racial animus, or to determine the biological sex of 98% of their fellow citizens* and who agree with the principle that the most productive should get the greater reward. Also, the people who view the fact that "bonds of family may interfere with loyalty to the state" (or "the cause") as a feature, not a bug.
Pretty small definitional overlap there, for the purposes of discussion or persuasion.
*-to be expressed, suppressed or satisfied howeverthefuck they want, no homophobe here, though that term (homophobe) is yet another that's been ginned-up as a tool for discussion avoidance.
RTF - Who are you talking about? Biden appointed Tim Wu and Lina Khan and they know more about what these companies are doing to censor than you and they are absolutely on the left.
Who to Trump, the right wing lunatic, put in power that did anything about these platforms? Name her? you cant. Sorry your claim is laughable
LOL you think Biden or democrats want Big Tech to not censor their opposition? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA You must still be waiting for that $2000 cheque or the $15 minimum wage or the medicare for all too....
CNN - I see that Biden actually hired the most well respected critics of big tech into his administration. Trump hired a bunch of industry hacks.
I have no idea what Wu and Khan will accomplish, they are going to be fighting the larges donors to politicians in DC.
Elizabeth Warren was appointed by Obama to fight the banks and they crushed her and got her thrown out. The banks got Katie porter thrown off of the finance committee after she chewed up their CEO's in public.
All i know is Democrats put heavy hitters out there to fight for consumers against these powerful entities. Republicans hire lobbyists like Mik Mulvaney and Ajit Pai to push the interests of big corporations over consumers.
No, the Democrats did not give enough support to people like Warren when she founded the consumer protection agency and they may not give Wu and Khan the support they need. But i do know that the MORE people we vote into office that think like Warren and Sanders and Porter and many others the more Support the Dems can give these people in fighting big business.
Let me know when the GOP start fighting big business because under Trump and Bush they did NOTHING to help consumers and far more than corrupt leaders like Pelosi and Schumer to help business. And Pelosi and Schumer are total corporate shills.
At least i know the battle and who we are fighting. You don't.
Anyone who imagines there is currently a single amerikan pol of true leftish bent in either the house of reps or the senate is a moronic pawn of amerikan indoctrination.
Calling the dims leftish is the equivalent of describing Robespierre as a monarchist.
I hold that big tech is overtly pushing the edicts of amerikan media that were oncemuch less obvious though they were practised.
I reckon this goes back to what Jays says alludes to in the Taibbi interview, that apart from shitty education, amerikans are frequently denied access to primary sources, that particular second-hand commentaries on historical events are permitted but access to the untainted, uninterpreted view of historical events us outright verboten.
Deb - It is 2021 not 1794 and the US is not a monarchy it is a representative democracy so a Robespierreian leader is not likely to appear in either the Republican or Democratic party, nor is one needed. In the 200yr history of this country th Rich and Powerful have many times purchased the government to subvert capitalism in favor of oligarchy. OUr system is set up to address such things if and only if American votes can UNITE to fight back.
Media and politicians that focus little on policy and strongly on why HATING the other side is all that matters (these people and media are on the left and right) are serving the overlords that want Oligarchy.
There have always been political leaders that are truly fighting for everyday Americans. But with out compromise they will never gain power.
Please name one Republican member of congress or the Senate that is FIGHTING for the economic well being of the POOR and MIDDLE CLASS and what policy they are fighting for to help the poor and middle class economically?
If you can't, and you can't then it will be clear where the few elected leaders are that are fighting for the economic well being of the poor and middle class and I can assure you that YOU PERSONALLY HATE them because of their identity politics. Right? If so, you are being played by the media. You know that right?
Jeez louise you make so many unfounded accusations about what values you believe I hold simply because you're so caught up in amerikan politics you cannot see the wood for the trees. The 1st, that my allusion comparing dims to true leftists was the same as an idiot describing Robespierre as a monarchist appears to have been understood by most, that they were equally blatant false suppositions, but you not only fail to comprehend this simple metaphor you go on in a straight from the primary school civics textbook spiel on amerika's alleged system of checks and balances, as if the innate corruption of amerikan politics which has existed since the days of Washington and Jefferson did not exist.
Every bill passed by either house since day 1 of 'the republic' has been the result of applied corruption yet amerikans are seemingly unable to see this because they lap up such nonsense.
There are no 'political leaders that are truly fighting for everyday Americans.' in either the dims or the rethugs. The so-called progressives such as wasshername Cortez are poseurs who claim to be socialists yet have backed iniquities such as the Cares act, folded when minimum wage time got a little warm & ran a million miles from forcing a vote on universal healthcare by leaning on Mrs Dim Corruption, Nancy Pelosi. Cortez & co wrap themselves in pseudo leftist rhetoric because the dims see it as the only way of retaining young people and poor people (usually both). They never ever act on these ideals cos they know that any excuse will do when dealing with the brainwashed.
I have witnessed and fought against the iniquities caused by political corruption aroundthis old rock we share for most of my life, fighting for the rights of usually poor, indigenous people who find themselves driven off their traditional lands & murdered by agents of the cruel & greedy amerikan empire. I know exactly how the pols at the center of that bloodthirsty machine work and any analysis of what these pols do rather than their mealy-mouthed speeches, reveals them to be 100% deceitful self-serving pigs.
Spend less time trying to hunt down the non-existent virtues of your 'team' and more effort analysing the cruelty of the bosses of the dim party you support and you might actually learn something, especially since you no longer even have to leave amerika to find egregious examples.
Otherwise you will remain a poorly educated victim of indoctrination.
Deb - We are in violent agreement that every bill passed since the founding of the Republic has been "the result" of applied corruption.
Given that fact, even with said corruption, the US Government enacted laws and leadership that produced the largest and wealthiest middle class in the history of the planet. Though not the first it eventually enabled male and female suffrage as well as ending slavery, improving civil rights and for a long period of time, though fading lately had a justice system that was the envy of most of the world.
Perfect no. First in everything no. Lacking corruption no. But over indexed to the bad side of any of these, NO also.
The system we have is one that has produced much good and much evil. Of that there is no doubt.
That said, given our system you are living in a fantasy if you expect "leftist" politicians to get policy passed by pushing a unyielding line on leftist policy. Ask Dennis Kucinich where that got him.
The systems yields to power. Always has always will.
And the leftists you seem to dislike for yielding to the realities needed to acquire the power needed to make change are acting in the time honored manner of elected officials in the history of the USA that got shit done. Rather than gazing at their navels refusing to yield to reality they cut deal. (Lincoln to TR to FDR to LBJ to Reagan all cut deals to get what they needed done to hold on to power)
Do you think FDR gave a shit about poor old people when he got social security passed? Hell no, he probably never even knew much less cared about a poor old person in his privileged self absorbed life. Do you think LBJ was any less a stone cold racist than DJT? Hell no, but he fought hard to get the civil rights bill passed.
They all took action for the age old reason any good ever happens in a Democracy similar to the USA, voters organized and demanded it or the leadership would lose power.
What is different today than back then? Let me help you. NOTHING.
Spare me your navel gazing self righteous indignation at leaders that have already done more to help poor and working class Americans in the past decade (Warren, Sanders, Porter, AOC etc...) than any candidate you have ever voted for.
If you want change stop manufacturing excuses for doing nothing and get out there and organize and learn how POWER works and where it comes from. Corporations certainly have and they are organized as shit making sure leaders give them what they want.
White racists were every bit as organized in the 50's agains MLK and companies were more organized than today at fighting unions in the early 20th Century and yet the both lost.
You are not going to tell me that the fight for Universal Health Care or a Living Wages for all Americans in 2021 is a more difficult fight against more POWER than what MLK faced in the 60's and Unions in the first half of the 20th century. Give me a break.
Stop complaining and start taking action, starting with understanding HOW POWER WORKS and WHERE IT COMES FROM
.... Lead, Follow or Get out of the Way...
What's an amerikan?
Either i didn't learn the word from my shitty education, or maybe it's your shitty education that told you that it was one?
?? It's in the post right above his. Repeatedly. And that's who he was asking. Neither your education or your opinion of his education seems relevant to that simple inquiry.
Readersaurus
2 min ago
The irony (and there's so much of it!) is that many/most of such people don't even know who Robespierre was or that they're following in his footsteps to the point of unwittingly making of him their de facto "patron saint."
@Readersaurus
Certainly consistent with what Debsisdead describes above regarding Americans and "shitty education", about which the writer is incontrovertibly correct.
Fair enough about American public schools and about Robespierre (the populist, real estate developer and reality show host, right? Am I following?).
Let's not discard the fact, while taking the victory laps, that the French aristocracy weren't exactly "the good guys" in that little dustup.
What does your TDS-driven whataboutism have to do with his point that it is primarily the New Left that is driving the censorship?
Todd - The Right is pushing censorship just as much as the left.
The FACT that you can't name any people that Trump brought in much less policy he got passed to reduce censorship proves you are INGORANCE on the issue.
Tim Wu and Lina Khan are more qualified to fight censorship than anyone Trump brought in and that is why Trump accomplished NOTHING to reduce it. Trump supports censorship just not against him, and you are the same. RIGH?
"IGNORANT" not "IGNORANCE"
Or "...prove your" not "proves you are"
Again, what have Tim Wu and Lina Khan actually DONE to reduce censorship?
Trol... Put it this way, they both have history's of fighting these large platform companies and influencing power and thought against them. That is far more than anyone Obama or Trump ever handed power to.
We will see how they do, they are going against the wealthiest companies on the planet.
Tell me this, are the more likely to succeed if voters sneer and them and look for excuses not to support them or are they more likely to care if voters CONSUME MEDIA that reports on what is going on and demand action?
My sense is you will ignore them and read listen to Ben Shapiro tell you why you should hate them. Right?
WRONG. I’m not a big Trump fan. I’m just sick of leftist jackasses with Trump Derangement Syndrome constantly using attacks on him as a diversion from the point of discussion. I actually hope that Lina Khan breaks up Big Tech.
Tell me what Tim Wu and Lina Khan are doing to prevent said censorship.
Because I most recently heard of the White House providing "suggestions" to the tech platforms as to who might be good candidates for suppression. Maybe they weren't part of that, but I also didn't hear any outrage from them.
The Biden admin seems pretty clearly to be using those tech platforms to circumvent the First Amendment. Which is as clever as it is evil.
Sorry, your claim is laughable.
See Scott above, as i mentioned.
https://www.thewrap.com/youtube-must-censor-misleading-election-videos-senate-democrats-say/
https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebooks-lab-leak-about-face-11622154198
e.pierce - You have been reduced to name calling. Very telling about your intellectual makeup wouldn't you agree?
I really enjoy the way that wrongly informed ill-educated - through no fault of their own I must add, critics of my posts, always prove my point of view with their uninformed, always irrational replies, full of name calling ad hominems but light on logic.
However I am sure that their time would be more wisely spent educating themselves by searching out the primary sources of events which they have thus far only learned about via Tucker Carlson's or Rachel Maddow's paid deceits.
That's right, like the "anti-fascists" they are.
RTJ - Give me a break. The RIGHT turned a blind eye while Bush and Cheney lied through their teeth to get us into a war.
Both sides turn a blind eye when the other-side is censured.
And you are one of them. People of PRINCIPLE on censorship would see that the RIGHT is as guilty as the LEFT. You don't appear to be one of those people
"The Left" isn't at fault here: it's THE RIGHT.
You know, the war-for-profit cunts you always thought were just in the Republitard party?
Nah, kid.
They're all over everything and the ack of leadership for actual working class and fair-minded people is galling.
I'm a single, no kids, pretty low-income, working class peasant. Lately i've been sort of toting things up over the last decade or two, and realizing that the Republicans, from W thru Trump, have actually been better for me financially than the Dems.
You seem to be in the minority. The economy performs better under Democrat presidents than under Republican ones.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-economy-and-the-stock-market-tends-to-do-better-under-democrats-11611158787
I didn't say "the economy". I said better for me as a low income person.
What's "the economy"? GDP? The Dow? Gains in GDP or the market all go to those at the top of the scale, increasing inequality.
You know what helps low-income people? Doubling the standard deduction, like Trump did in '17.
At the beginning of the pandemic, it was "quiet rooms", "i like to fire people", "low income people don't pay taxes" asset stripper Mitt Romney whose idea it was to get cash out to people ASAP. And Steve Mnuchin, who got it out fast. Nancy didn't want to do it. It was the Repubs who wanted the topoff to unemployment. Was also Mittens who wanted to give essential workers a $20/hr top off.
Last August when the $600 / wk topoff ended, Repubs tried to make various deals with Pelosi, who turned them all down. They wanted to pass a skinny bill, that would have at least given people a $300 / wk topoff. This deeply stupid woman (and the Senate) rejected it because they couldn't get the full what of the bill that they wanted. And tried to gaslight the desperate unemployed that nothing was better than $300. But at least Donald Trump got us $1800 from FEMA. Sure, the Dems extended the unemployment and added a $300 topoff in January when Joe got elected. Was too late for me and a lot of other people, mine expired in early Dec.
Those D House Reps that lost their seats last November? They were the centrists begging Pelosi to pass a skinny bill for their desperate constituents.
I should add that the dumbass Pelosi is doing it again with the infrastructure bill. The Senate passed a bipartisan bill, but the House fucked off on vacation, and Nancy won't bring it up for a vote unless the big bill passes first.
You'd think that these idiots would have learned from the failure of Obama's stimulus bill. They watered down the construction jobs for "human infrastructure" jobs. What that got them in my state (before my time of residence here) was Scott Brown in the Senate. The D House Rep (Mike Capuano) who was running against Coakley for the seat was shaken by the rage he found in the rural heart of the state, when none of the stimulus money made it there for jobs. He famously went back to the Dems and said "you're fucked". If the Dems were smart, which they're quite obviously not, they'd get that first bill out and passed and get the jobs going.
Also from last year, what low income people saw was the House fuck off on vacation and leave us hanging. It was like, oh, they can call the House back in session to pass a post office bill, but they can't be bothered to get any relief to their desperate constituents? And yet the PO bill was presumably so we could vote for them? That didn't quite work out the way they had planned it.
“Infrastructure” bill lmfao
Needless to say, Brown was succeeded by Elizabeth Warren. Capuano was succeeded by Ayanna Pressley - a progressive and a member of The Squad.
If you saved a significant amount of money because of the Trump tax cut, you're again in the minority. Remember when Paul Ryan celebrated the amount of money the Trump tax cut saved members of the working class? Remember what that amount was? It was a whopping $1.50 per week. And that's a man who designed the Trump cut and was trying to make it look as good as humanly possible.
I said the standard deduction, which is actually a bfd. Low income people generally don't itemize deductions. The difference on being taxed on a difference of $6500 less in income is significant. Ryan may have been including middle class working class people with families and mortgages who itemize.
FOR. WHOM.? You average in all the millions and billions hoovered up by fund managers, CEOs, Big Tech, MIC, Walmart and Amazon, you may well have a statistical case. Buy the guy SAID "From my point of view as a sub-middle class individual citizen, it looks like".
Are you dismissing his lived experience?? Denying his truth? You are literally ERASING HIM!! REEEE!! Violence!!
*i'm a girl*
Oh no! American millennial SJW gibberish! This must be total kryptonite for someone like me, if I were the person you imagine me to be! Unfortunately, I'm in no way, shape or form that person. I'm not American, not a millennial and not a SJW. Nice try though.
A measure that is simply a sum of spending is larger under the spending party than under the non-spending party?
How shocking!
Spending? No, you obviously haven’t read the article.
“ In general, since President Dwight D. Eisenhower took office in 1953, the economy — as measured by gross domestic product, unemployment, inflation and recessions — has typically performed better with a Democrat in the White House. GDP growth has been significantly higher; inflation — a measure of the change in prices — has been lower; and unemployment has tended to fall.”
So, to put a tiny bit of analysis to the cheerleading...given the lag time in governmental policies and actions affecting the economy, Democrats preside over economies that were influenced by their Republican predecessors, and Republicans over economies effected by the policies of the prior Democratic administrations, which policies, it should be noted, often result in replacing the Democrat with a Republican.
This appears to be a very simplistic number crunch (a single "crunch" at that). If you're not sure how this works, wait till the Biden admin starts floating excuses for the economy..."This is the result of the disastrous (corrupt, authoritarian, short-sighted, racist...just choose at random) policies of the TRUMP administration."
I predict that before the end of the month, multiple legacy media outlets will be reporting how "well-placed sources" have explained how the bad economic reports (Inflation, gas prices) are the result of Trumponomics or some shit.
If this shocks you, you do t understand the left.
@Sevender,
First, you are the one introducing the concept of "shock". There is none in
my comment.
Second, the most hilarious arrogance in the world cannot compare to the act
of telling someone that you do not know, and will never meet, what they do or do not know, based upon a brief statement. About anything. You can tell me what you *assume, but please don't bother assuming to tell me what I know.
@Steve Pesce
*Fairly annoying ? ;-D That observation, Sir, demonstrates more patience and milk of human kindness for whackery than Mother Teresa herself ever knew ! ;-D
I do, however, support the right of any fool to spew their logorrhea under the rights accorded them under the First Amendment. People such as myself (at least for now)
are always free to change the freakin' channel.
Pesce - Non sense. Low wages are causing Americans to live in utter poverty. And that has been happening for 40yrs now.
The US has had censorship issues since the beginning of the Republic. Censorship is ALWAYS a problem. But if you think Censorship of the RIGHT is the biggest problem while 70% of Americans are living pay check to pay check because of POLICY people like Obama and Trump pushed on America then you are clearly being manipulated by the media into IGNORING our biggest problems.
Yes, I think freedom is more primary to American life than wages rising. And FREEDOM is entirely integral to allowing Americans to succeed. You say censorship like it's nothing. Which just shows how blind people are. Without dissent there is no democracy.
"And FREEDOM is entirely integral to allowing Americans to succeed."
Has this ever been historically true? Which periods in American history are you basing this argument on?
You do not believe that the ability to freely speak and associate and begin endeavors with government restraint is a driver of innovation and the economy?
I believe that it should be true. But "should be true" and "is true" are two different things. Has the US ever been both free and prosperous at the same time? For example - the years 1945-1965 were the most prosperous years in modern American history. But they were at the same time the least free, not the most free. So what's going on here?
The McCarthy Era, was certainly a low point. But I don't think you can say that the Kennedy and early Johnson years were bad economically. In fact, I think the whole of US History, until Globalization undermined our economy and has put extreme downward pressure on wages and also pulled capital out of the country, was pretty much an upward progression both for freedom and for wages.
Sooo...are the millions crossing our borders seeking the non-existent freedom or the non-existent prosperity??
As someone from the Republican Right, my fear is that the Establishment Democrats and their allies in the media and big tech will misinterpret my side's arguments. You will get pols like Schumer and Pelosi making straw man arguments about what the GOP stands for, then say that any effort to correct these arguments are lies and must be censored.
I think Paul Jay's arguments are nonsense; but he should be allowed to present them. My fear is that Jay will be allowed to present his arguments; but someone who argues that Trump's statements were not incitement to riot will be blocked. The ONLY version of this story that we will be allowed to hear is the one that wants to paint Trump and his allies as dangerous threats that must be silenced.
This will be great for the security state. How best to insure that their budgets are increased and the amount of resources allocated to them are increased: by making Americans feel that they are under threat. What better threat then to have 70 million of us declared a danger to America.
"You will get pols like Schumer and Pelosi making straw man arguments about what the GOP stands for..."
Don't feel special. First of all, the Dems don't even know what they stand for. And they (and the GOP, to be fair) seem to think that folks like me, and Independent Bernie economic progressive, somehow want to defund the police and abolish ICE instead of just wanting some healthcare for all, affordable housing and a living wage.
You mean we think that people in your camp believe what many of them very openly declare that they believe?
Next thing you know we'll be telling you that your complete refusal to do anything less than give such people your full support constitutes tacit approval for their radicalism!
People in my camp? Yes, there is some overlap between some economic progressives, the defund / abolish crew, and the wokies. And absolutely between the wokies and the establishment Dems. Ever heard Bernie express support for abolish / defund? I haven't. Never heard him wade into the CRT cesspool either.
He was also mad against open borders, on behalf of "the working people of the country", which was one of his policy positions I very much agreed with.
Me too.
For anyone who hasn't already read it...
https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2018/11/the-left-case-against-open-borders/
P.S. Angela Nagle has a Substack.
Bernie regularly engages in identity politics which is basically CRT. He even called Orange Man a xenophobe and said he wouldn't have shutdown travel from China. He said: "I wouldn't have closed the air traveling with China if I was a president. Trump is racist xenophobic."
Bernie also supports the AOC/Cori Bush squad who regularly exploit identity politics / defund the police nonsense while giving themselves more police funding. So claiming he doesn't wade into CRT is false.
One of the best things against Bernie Sanders is that he used to complain about illegal immigration being "right wing proposals". Until 2016. We all know what changed in 2016 when Orange Man announced his run. Bernie used to hate illegal immigration, called it a “right wing proposal” “using a dollar or two wages to drive down wages of Americans”. And then he did a flip calling Orange Man a racist and xenophobic etc and became open border advocate. Just listen to his own words in this VOX interview and tell me how what he used to say was any different from Orange Man and how he's now done a full 180:
https://youtu.be/vf-k6qOfXz0
Bernie Sanders attacked the socialist Liberty Union Party in 1981 for accommodating the 351 Jamaican immigrants in his state's apple orchards: "With the Vermont unemployment rate one of the highest in the nation, I could never support importing foreign workers when our own people are out of work." ... "It sounds like she wants to bring slavery back to Vermont." said Sanders, who was collecting unemployment insurance at the time. For socialist Sanders, then 33, the situation supported his contention that businesses were yet again selling out U.S. residents in favor of cheap labor.
Even in 2007, he said:
“If poverty is increasing and if wages are going down, I don’t know why we need millions of people to be coming into this country as guest workers who will work for lower wages than American workers and drive wages down even lower than they are right now,” Sanders said. ” … On one hand, you have large multinationals trying to shut down plants in America, move to China, and on the other hand, you have the service industry bringing in low-wage workers from abroad. The result is the same: Middle class gets shrunken, and wages go down.”
"I think as you've heard today, sanctions against employers who employ illegal immigrants is virtually nonexistent. Our border is very porous," Sanders said during a press conference at the time. “And I think at a time when the middle class is shrinking, the last thing we need is to bring over in a period of years, millions of people into this country who are prepared to lower wages for American workers." "I think from a moral responsibility, we've got to work with the rest of the industrialized world to address the problems of international poverty," he said in a 2015 interview. "But you don't do that by making people in this country even poorer." In both cases, Sanders defended his vote by suggesting that the guest worker provisions in the bill were “akin to slavery,” a notable shift from how Sanders talked about immigrant labor before his presidential bids.
Again in 2013:
"I'll tell you look what my concern is the provisions dealing with the guest worker programs. Real unemployment in America counting those people have given up looking for work and are working part-time when they want to work full-time in order is close to 14 percent. It's higher for young people it is higher for people of color. You have in this bill guest worker programs that will bring in hundreds of thousands of entry-level workers. You know on television you hear these guys talk about all PhDs are coming into this country....hundreds of thousands of entry-level workers to work in kitchens waiters waitresses lifeguards ski resort workers. Is it really true that we can't find American workers to do those jobs? Frankly I don't believe it.
Given the magnitude of the problem it doesn't go anywhere near far enough so the nation we have got to ask ourselves do we really need when you go to ghettos in this country when you go to inner cities you have thirty forty percent unemployment do we really need hundreds of thousands of workers entry-level workers from around the country coming in competing against these kids? I think not."
Even the leftist washington post admits: "For years, Bernie Sanders warned that increased immigration would lower the wages of U.S. workers. Now he barely mentions it.":
https://archive.is/Ek7Xa
But when Trump ran in 2015, he switched and became radical open border. He says "Illegal immigrants are "entitled" to the same government benefits as citizens":
https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1231347412356210688
During the DNC debates, all Democrats including Bernie raised their hands that Illegal Immigrants Should Get Health Care Coverage.
Here's more:
https://youtu.be/TtMqldNYloY
This video perfect describes how fake fact checkers keep making excuses for Democrats:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4SkGOCkhEs
This flip flopping and pie in the sky promises are quite natural for Bernie Sanders. Mr $15 an hour Bernie Sanders refused to pay his staff $15 because his campaign couldn't afford to. He has been a Vermont senator for 30+ years! The min wage in Vermont is still $10.
Bernie's hotel demands from his “Senator Comfort Memo”: King-size beds and 60-degree rooms. He flies on private jets and has a memo detailing minimum requirements of the private jet. He used to complain about millionaires and billionaires. Until 2 years ago when he became a millionaire. Then only the billionaires were the problem for him. You can verify this by going through his twitter history. The "millionaires and billionaires" change to "billionaires" only. He released his tax returns couple years ago. For someone complaining so much about poor people suffering, he barely paid anything in charity from his multi millions. For someone who's so anti-pharma, Bernie still gladly took $1.3 million from Pharma. Orange Man got $2.5 million and Biden took $8.5 million:
https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/recips.php?cycle=2020&ind=h04
Bernie, "mr. anti-big-pharma" took $1,301,155 from Big Pharma in 2020. He was also the number 1 recipient in the senate for pharma manufacturing in 2020 by getting $416,066, Ossoff, Jon was second with $302,137, Elizabeth Warren got $291,168. Thom Tillis was 4th got $270,270 and Mitch McConnell was 5th at $265,980:
https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/recips.php?ind=H4300&cycle=2020&recipdetail=S&Mem=Y&sortorder=U
Why would pharma manufacturing give the most money to Bernie and other democrats and more than Mitch and Lindsey Graham? Kindness of their heart?
Bernie endorsed Biden after getting fucked in his ass twice by the DNC. He couldn't grow up a spine to call out Biden's and his son's obvious corruption, instead he called him a good friend and respectable man. You think such a spineless man could stand up to foreign nations?
Unlike Bernie who rolled over at the very first sight, Orange Man at least put up a fight and won the nomination. Imagine Bernie rolling over like that to foreign nations. He got "cheated" out twice from the nomination and he rolled over without a fight - maybe because this was the plan all along for Democrats to use him to get the left to vote for Biden. Then he refused to look at the "cheating" allegations from Orange Man. He called Biden his friend and respectable man. Didn't even have the balls of calling out his obvious selling out to China and his son using his office for profit. Now he's going on CNN making excuses on why they couldn't get $15 minimum wage, why $2000 has still not gone out, why $1400 is more than enough instead of the $2000 they promised, why medicare for all is now too hard to achieve. And his supporters thought Bernie would care about them LMFAO. When his supporters couldn't wake up to how big of a pathetic cuck Bernie was when he gave up his mic to the 2 BLM activists at his own rally, how he did a full 180 flip on illegal immigration when Orange Man ran, then nothing will wake them up.
I am surprised it took this long for people to see through AOC and Bernie. Bernie was always in on it with the establishment dems from the beginning. I was mostly politically uneducated till 2015 but even then I was able to see through Bernie sanders fraud when he did a complete 180 flip on his stance on illegal immigration. Bernie is there to tell you nice things to get votes for Democrats. He was never there to win. Bernie tells people pie in the sky dreams to siphon votes to the Democrats. That's it.
CRT and identity politics aren't quite the same thing, at all.
Bernie absolutely used to be against illegal immigration and did basically a 180 in '16. When congress was trying to pass the immigration bill under Obama, Sanders called it a massive grab for cheap labor.
I absolutely think that he fucked up by not running as the Indy that he is.
I got $2000, it was split between $600 after New Years, and then $1400 later after the legislation passed. If not for Bernie and Josh Hawley, we wouldn't have even gotten that if left to the rest of them. I'll take it.
Bernie didn't siphon my vote from the Dems. No one owns or is entitled to any votes whatsoever. Back in '12 i voted for Gary J. I wrote in Bernie in '16. That vote was under no circumstances ever going to Trump or Clinton. If there was no Bernie, i probably would have gone for the Libertarians again.
Now we'll see if he can pull this off. (I'm not totally in support of it.)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bernie-sanders-budget-reconciliation/2021/08/12/ea94eb70-fab9-11eb-8a67-f14cd1d28e47_story.html
Not voting for Trump or Clinton is an honorable exercise of the franchise.
As for Bernie's border switcheroo, I prefer Ed Abbey's, from his solicited-but-rejected NYT editorial, wherein he said the best thing we could do for the environment of his beloved Southwest desert country was build a 30-foot high steel wall, "And when our compatriots from Mexico seek asylum from their corrupt government, give them a rifle and some extra magazines and turn them around. They will know what to do."
Love Abbey.
"there is some overlap between some economic progressives, the defund / abolish crew, and the wokies. And absolutely between the wokies and the establishment Dems"
I would argue that the Establishment Dems have gone all in on Wokeness because it's a convenient deflection from actual economic issues. "Watch that squirrel!"
I don't think the Dems realize just how many people are put off by the wokeness. In their own party even, basic rank and file centrist and working class Democrats. And now that it's getting into the schools and starts to affect them and their families - it's going to be an interesting midterm election.
Absolutely.
"Dems don't even know what they stand for..."
Perhaps not. But they "know," "stand for" and agree on this much: get Trump, before any others, whatever the costs to the law, principle, our electoral rules or democratic heritage (such as it is), just "get Trump"--lie, cheat, and steal to do it.
"Don't feel 'special'"?!?
The point is rather that Sanders proved unable to effectively counter the misrepresentation of his positions. That's a fatal failing in _ANY_ open, democratic electoral system because it's a given that one's opponents--especially if one is honest--shall defame and misrepresent you.
Trump, one of the most savagely defamed political figures in U.S. history, still won two presidential election and should, today, be in office, except for the blatant electoral fraud that is finally becoming apparent even to many of his former detractors.
Clearly, whether one likes or agrees with Trump the man or the office-holder is beside the point. If he gets the most votes in a fair, open contest under the rules as all parties understood them---not under a criminal conspiracy to thwart his election through ballot fraud--then one is obliged to respect that electoral outcome---or be exposed as an enemy of democratic processes per se.
Sanders' supporters certainly feel "special": specially disgruntled, specially entitled, specially hurt that their candidate, in two efforts (the 2016 and 2020 primaries), in failed to defeat what were thought by many (and, in the first case, thought _especially_ by his own partisans) to be two of the worst candidates for the office of president of the United States in the history of the nation, Hillary Clinton in the first case and Joe Biden in the second.
LOL! Here's "special" for you:
(quote)
... "on July 25, during which he gave Clinton his full support. Some of his supporters attempted to protest Clinton's nomination and booed when Sanders called for party unity. He responded, "Our job is to do two things: to defeat Donald Trump and to elect Hillary Clinton … It is easy to boo, but it is harder to look your kids in the face if we are living under a Trump presidency." ... (Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders#Primary_loss_and_endorsement_of_Hillary_Clinton)
(end quote)
(quote)
" (CNN) Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden for president, pledging to help him defeat President Donald Trump in the general election as the two agreed to launch a series of task forces to work jointly on policy matters.
" 'We need you in the White House. I will do all that I can to see that that happens, Joe,' Sanders said to Biden during a livestream broadcast by Biden's campaign on his website and on social media.
"The endorsement of Biden by his leading Democratic rival marks a key moment for Democrats as the party seeks to unify and turn its focus toward a November match-up with President Donald Trump.
"Sanders' quick endorsement of Biden in mid-April, just five days after he suspended his campaign, was a stark contrast to the 2016 Democratic race, when Sanders continued to battle Hillary Clinton into June and waited until July to endorse her.
"This time, the former vice president and the Vermont senator sought to immediately address the distrust some of Sanders' supporters have for Biden after a primary campaign in which the two repeatedly clashed on issues like foreign policy and health care.
" 'I think that your endorsement means a great deal,' Biden said. 'It means a great deal to me. I think people are going to be surprised that we are apart on some issues but we're awfully close on a whole bunch of others.'"...
(end quote)
We now have the living proof (which only the most obtuse required) of Biden's incompetence: noticed how Afghanistan took Biden only 8 months to lose to the Taliban? 20 years and a Trillion (est. ) U.S. $ spent: down the spout. Never mind, we have a "nice guy" once more in the White House. That Biden was a fucking fool and a push-over wasn't for a moment lost on them. Nor did the teeming North-bound Central and South Americans eager to take their places as the newest illegal immigrants to the U.S.. massed at the Mexican border, fail to notice.
Yeah, baby! Ain't _that_ "special"?!?!
First of all, I think you need to relax. You're way overthinking my comment, which was me cracking a joke. And was not intended as a bid for being the winner in the victim Olympics. With a serious undertone, and aimed at the Dems, not Trump supporters.
The point being that the Dems have no business whatsoever dissing any voters. If for no other reason, the simple one is that they need the votes. For those of us who supported Bernie, they expected and felt entitled to our votes. For Trump supporters, they need those votes in swing districts. And trashing the voters is absolutely not the way to get them. Considering they lost centrist House seats in swing districts, you'd think they would have learned a lesson. I'm not rating their odds, either in the midterms or in '24.
I always love it (sarc.) when in a forum such as this a reader tells me I "need to relax" or that I'm "overthinking" his or her point.
You were (merely) cracking a joke? Try labeling them for your reader's benefit.
I "overthought" your point?
I thought I'd understood it rather clearly. Your words in answer to this, from "Hugh Fifth of Five", (which you directly cited),
(quote)
Hugh 5th of 5
Aug 11
"As someone from the Republican Right, my fear is that the Establishment Democrats and their allies in the media and big tech will misinterpret my side's arguments. You will get pols like Schumer and Pelosi making straw man arguments about what the GOP stands for, then say that any effort to correct these arguments are lies and must be censored." ...
(end quote)
were, hardly surprisingly, also, in so many words, "relax". That seems to be your boiler-plate retort--(when you have nothing better?)
I misread, "overthought", these, your words,
"Don't feel special"
?
I gather that was to say, in effect, "Take a number, pal."--or, in other words, "Yes, you and millions of others". You don't so much dispute Hugh Fifth of Five as advise him not to take it so hard; apparently because you think that the hordes of company ought to give him some sort of comfort.
And, there, you "underthink" _my_ point: Hugh's candidate (and mine) _won_ the fucking White House--and lost that to a criminal conspiracy which was mounted against him to thwart his deserved re-election.
None of _that_ happened to any candidate _you_ supported, as far as I can tell. In this light, then, I think that there's nothing about your comments, from which you now sheepishly run with the claim that you were "joking", which you can (honestly) show I actually misread or misconstrued.
No, the trouble here is that I got exactly what you meant the _first_ time. And it was cheap and undeserved--toward Hugh Fifth of Five and everyone else like him, myself included.
"Dissing" voters is poor practice? Coming from you, that's another "joke".
Know it or not, you "dissed" Hugh. And that's not just my "overthinking" it.
Nope, i'm not sheepish about it at all. But i will consider adding sarcasm tags in the future.
As for your candidate winning and losing to a criminal conspiracy - well, we're not going to find any middle ground on that one, so i'll just leave you with your belief on that one.
I'm sorry but I don't know why either of you two chaps, who strike me as being reasonably sensible, would waste time debating over whether any of the performing puppets currently winning nomination by rethugs and/or dims should be seriously considered as potential leaders of your nation.
The selected nominees for either 'team' are told what talking points must be exploited & which ones must be ignored regardless of the actual truth of any issue.
It appears to me, an outsider forced to pay attention to amerikan politics given the penchant for senior amerikan politicians to stick their noses into everyone else's business, that under the too hastily devised amerikan constitution, citizens are only offered a choice between the despicable Tweedledee or the equally worthless and deceitful Tweedledum.
Blind Freddie can see that neither offers the slightest chance for caring/sharing members of such a conglomeration to eat or otherwise gain the opportunity to win the 'place of power' which they and their families have been convinced they require.
Yes, leave me with what you dismiss as "(my) belief on that one" and I'll leave you with President Joe Biden's pathetic appeal to the Taliban to please don't hurt us (the U.S. embassy in Kabul.)
"U.S. Asks Taliban to Spare Its Embassy in Coming Fight for Kabul"
(New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/12/us/politics/taliban-afghanistan-us-embassy.html?referringSource=articleShare
In other words, "Please don't hurt us!"
Enjoy the electoral defeat-by-cheat of Trump in 2020. You and others like you earned and deserve all its consequences.
"noticed how Afghanistan took Biden only 8 months to lose to the Taliban?"
The US has been losing to the Taliban for 20 years. This one ain't on Biden; he wanted us to get out when he was still VP. Barack rolled over for the generals, as always (Trump did too).
Riddle me this; why is it important for the US to occupy Afghanistan? What justifies the expenditure of money and American lives (to say nothing of Afghan lives; they will be expended whether or not we are there) over the course of two decades?
I think it's on Biden. Not on getting out (which i'm in full agreement with), but for quite obviously doing it without a workable plan. Seems to me that it was more important to be symbolic about it (ie getting out by Sept 11), then by having a realistic and workable plan to execute. Which would have included getting the Afghans who helped us all of these years out first, and for planing for the inevitablity of the Taliban moving in quickly to fill the gaps.
Both Greenwald and Turley, both civil liberties lawyers, said that Trump's speech was legal; he didn't actually tell them to go storm the Capitol, and may have been pretty surprised when they did. As were they. When I read the key passages, i thought that, yes, he was inciting something, but apparently he had good legal advice. Of course, his job leading a rally is to get everybody revved up; whether that's '"incitement" is in the eye of the beholder.
Other than the speech not inciting violence (It's like saying "While Fighting the Virus, We Must Fight for Our Rights." or "We Can't Stop Fighting for Our Democracy - The Atlantic" - these don't mean fighting as in violence).
Plus speeches like Maxine Watters' "Maxine Waters encourages supporters to harass Trump administration officials" or during the Chauvin trial "Waters calls for protesters to 'get more confrontational' if no guilty verdict is reached in Derek Chauvin trial" are a lot more "incitement".
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/25/politics/maxine-waters-trump-officials/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/19/politics/maxine-waters-derek-chauvin-trial/index.html
And why were the anti-kavanaugh protestors who stormed the capitol and senate chambers all encouraged by Democrats - Pelosi, AOC etc treated differently as compared to the Trump supporters:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=kavanaugh+protests+capitol&t=h_&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images
Anyone remember when Rand Paul was swarmed by people demanding he say Breonna Taylor’s name after he wrote the Justice for Breonna Taylor Act?
Or the riots last year encouraged and bailed out by Kamala?
Other than all this, the bigger fact which no one seems to mention is that Trump's speech could not have caused the capitol riot because the capitol was stormed before Trump was even done speaking 40 minutes away from the capitol.
I watched it all go down live. Trump was speaking till 1:11PM and on stage till 1:15PM. Capitol was breached at 12:40PM according to WaPo (anti trump source). It is nearly 1.5mi from the Ellipse to the Capitol, which is at least 40-45 min walk with crowd-related delays, that would put the first people from Trump’s speech at Capitol Hill no earlier than 1:56pm – a full hour and sixteen minutes after troublemakers arrived.
And while the Washington Post clumsily attempts to blame President Trump for the violence...their own article admits the first wave of protesters arrived at the Capitol about 12:40pm.
Anyone who claimed his speech was inciting anything at the Capitol is hiding the truth that the Capitol was breached 45 minutes before Trump's speech ended and 40 minute walk away.
Even Twitter performed all sorts of mental gymnastics to claim Trump incited violence even though they couldn't pin point a single place where he did.
Nice summary!
@Oregoncharles
Trump could not have been *that surprised that his mob went down there, the man *literally told the mob "You need to fight like hell ..." and later, "I'll be right there with you." Then the consistent coward, (pleading "Bone Spurs" ? ;-D ) turned tail and went back to the White house to watch the whole thing on TV.
Quickly then, the GOQ goes into the childish defense mode right up there with the classic of childish defense mode: "The dog ate my homework", and busts out with:
"y'all didn't *really see what was being clearly broadcast all over the world. It didn't happen, y'all. You were just havin' an acid flash back."
Know what ? The arguably best version of the movie "Gaslight", the Charles Boyer/Ingrid Bergman version, came out in 1944. The youngsters in elite colleges today *are given school credit for sitting around watching "The Honeymooners". Maybe we need to improve their taste in classic movies.
Judging from many entries on this queue, apparently some commenters on the Right have either never *seen "Gaslight", and are thus *themselves victims of the propaganda technique simply repeating what they have heard, and what they want
to believe; or they are busting their humps in a conscious effort to "Gaslight" others.
Attempting to convince the viewing world that they did not *SEE what was being clearly broadcast is just a lame stab out of some class called "Gaslighting 101".
If anybody *does hope to convince others that they didn't see what they *saw, put a little love behind the lies. Put some effort into it ! Get *good at what you are attempting to accomplish. So far, even Goebbels is embarrassed.
"While Fighting the Virus, We Must Fight for Our Rights."
"We Can't Stop Fighting for Our Democracy - The Atlantic"
“Fight for democracy - Hillary Clinton”
Are these all inciting violence Atma? You talking about gaslighting is the funniest shit.
@CNN
I had no doubt that it would go over your head, Slick. Need I remind you
that your comments to me are not welcomed ? I told so awhile ago.
Not knowing what "To the moon, Alice" means or "Hey Ralphie boy!!" has some cultural value at least.
Jackie Gleason was a pretty talented dude.
@HBI
Without question, Jackie was a *master, and a great nostalgic kick from my childhood. He, Art Carney, and Audrey Meadows had perfect comic timing.
The show was great, but the show was *entertainment. Entertainment more than has a place in the human experience, but NOT when one is paying Harvard tuition for watching it, and receiving Harvard Credits that are "equal" to Harvard Credits, in, say quantum physics.
This practice also seriously dumbs-down U.S. Students relative to students from the rest of the globe. Watching B&W TV is what college students used to do while they were *skipping the serious classes that either they, or their parents were paying for.
The problem is when he saw what was happening - he reportedly enjoyed it immensely - if it was not what he at least hoped would happen - he could well have called for it to stop immediately ....
Really? He put up a video which Twitter conveniently took down where he was literally telling people to go home.
It's like destroying the evidence and then claiming there's no evidence.
And how long after it all began did he do that - and what about folks who were with him said he was excited about what he was seeing on TV
You clearly didn't do any research beyond what the media told you.
I watched it all go down live. Trump was speaking till 1:11PM and on stage till 1:15PM (watch the timestamp in videos yourself). Capitol was breached at 12:40PM according to WaPo (anti trump source). It is nearly 1.5mi from the Ellipse to the Capitol, which is at least 40-45 min walk with crowd-related delays, that would put the first people from Trump’s speech at Capitol Hill no earlier than 1:56pm – a full hour and sixteen minutes after troublemakers arrived.
And while the Washington Post clumsily attempts to blame President Trump for the violence...their own article admits the first wave of protesters arrived at the Capitol about 12:40pm.
Anyone who claimed his speech was inciting anything at the Capitol is hiding the truth that the Capitol was breached 45 minutes before Trump's speech ended and 40 minute walk away.
These are easily verifiable facts.
Milley enjoys yelling about "white rage" in front of congress.
His other generals like lying to the President about the troop numbers in Syria.
Others enjoy making up the russian bounty hoax to prevent pulling out of Afghanistan.
And you want us to believe whatever they are selling?
And you have yet to answer why Twitter, YouTube etc had to take down his video telling people to go home? It seems like you want to engage in partisan hackery instead of look for the truth.
By left's own standards:
"While Fighting the Virus, We Must Fight for Our Rights."
or
"We Can't Stop Fighting for Our Democracy - The Atlantic"
are all incitements of violence.
But standards don't apply to the "DNC left".
Trigger warning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfwhI5N95y8
Where's Grisha.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBShN8qT4lk
or
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4Hb-XJWnsk
Sometimes I have to eat, sleep, water plants, and clean out kitty litter boxes.
This Public Enemy/Herb Alpert mashup by Evolution Control Committee is one of my favorite things of all time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMAfKo65nng
Looks like YouTube is hosting incitement to violence!!!
Well, if you want to rat out Hillary, i'm ok with that. But don't rat out the Beasties or PE!
gah. I was warned.
Oh, give me a break - "Stop the Steal! - so how to do that, at that time, in that place - keep the electoral votes from being certified - this is not rocket science ....
If you think "Stop the Steal!" somehow means inciting violence, then you must think "We Can't Stop Fighting for Our Democracy - The Atlantic" must be inciting a war....
That day, Ted Cruz was proposing a 10 day delay in certifying the electoral votes so an audit could be performed in those 10 days. Seems like such basic things are rocket science for you?
What's impressive is that people manage to interpret "Stop the Steal!" as "I want to overthrow the US government!"
@JDFree
While others interpret "Stop the Steal" as either intentionally cynical, or full-stop stupid, given the fact that here *was never any "Steal" to stop.
Not one scintilla of evidence that there might have been.
When sixty judges, many of them Republican, in every State the Trump team was attempting to Gaslight, throw those frivolous lawsuit straight to the street, it might be time to take a "hint" regarding the value of said suits to begin with.
@JDFree
p.s., And when Republican apologists quote articles from 79 right wing propaganda rags and foolishly consider that tp be "proof", of anything, they have clearly just lapped up a ladle-full of their own kool aid.
When concerns are expressed regarding abuse of the newly-implemented mail-in ballot and ballot harvesting procedures, I would be much more reassured by any response other than
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPZtX9rDzGY
All lawsuits were dismissed for “lack of standing” and other excuses without any of them allowing to present evidence or perform signature matching etc. Meanwhile you idiots spent 40 million on Russian collusion hoax and then the Russian bounty hoax.
Governor Newsom recall had a 20% signature match dismissal whereas the actual presidential election gets less than 1% in all states and even less than 2016 despite signature matching is supposed to be higher for more mail in ballots.
Before the election nytimes and Washington post were talking about how the 20 bell weather counties all favoured Biden win and trump losing and yet after elections when trump won 19 out of 20 of those bell weathers, the same media claims bell weathers don’t mean anything.
Stop being a partisan hack for a second and think logically how any of this makes any sense.
Why is that impressive?
It's such a snooze, this whole who's worse: Trump or Sanders; McConnel or Pelosi; Stalin or Hitler. Don't y'all get bored with the lack of new information uncovered in these arguments? Or is not about accumulating information and just about scoring points like in a public school debating society or cricket match?
@Tom Worster
The whole thing puts me *heavily in mind of Plato's "Cave Allegory" contained in his work "The Republic." Plato describes society as being in the bottom of a cave, seated chained in a circle with their backs facing the center of the cave. In that center is a large fire. Between that fire and the chained society are unseen, and unnamed beings who use forms to project shadows on the wall past the society. Chained as society is, with their backs to the center, all they see their entire lives are the shadows being cast upon the wall in front of them. So, society competes (being human) on the progression of the shadows, betting on which (of a limited number) of the shadows will be coming up next. For their entire lives .... they bicker about shadows being produced by the controllers in the center. But Society thinks that the shadows are all there *IS in life, and they therefore make no attempt to seek for truth *beyond the "Shadow World", or the "Shadow Game". The shadow world is Plato's stand-in for the world of 3-D reality. The rest of the allegory goes on to illustrate what it means to finally break away, beyond that limitation.
Sometimes this queue (which is actually the most intellectual comment queue I have come across, because I am quite social media "shy" [averse]), reminds me for all the world of Plato's "Shadow Game". Plato wrote that 2,400 years ago. Society has not changed one scintilla since. Better technology, different clothes, but still stuck playing by the rules of the "Shadow Game". Breaking those chains, and escaping the Shadow World is the goal Plato proposed for his students. Even Plato understands that very few will succeed.
You're being told to shut up.
It's a very ineffective strategy. Four boxes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPZtX9rDzGY
The Republican Right is a very small group if you exclude all the blow hards that claim to be conservative, but are actually just self serving assholes.
Most Americans belong to the authoritarian party. They call themselves Left or Right, but it only takes me about 2 questions to identify which opposition they want censored and locked in cages.
As a lifelong leftist -- whatever that is supposed to mean any more (people who are willing to work should be able to earn a living wage?) I am sympathetic to this viewpoint.
Exactly what they are doing. Sickens me
This is pitiful:
“Jay similarly believed Trump’s speech was perhaps designed to incite a destabilizing moment during which acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller could declare martial law. The fear …..”.
Jay “believed” a speech was “perhaps designed…. ? Perhaps, perhaps not? Perhaps Jay’s a twit, perhaps he isn’t! 50/50.
Are we supposed to take him seriously? If so, to what end? Perhaps we will never know …..; perhaps.
Agreed. Total idiot but let him spew his nonsense
I take him seriously. He's done a tons of great stuff.
Do you know the piece? I've listened to it twice. Once when it was new and the other time a couple of weeks ago. Jay's interpretation of Trump's behavior is worth considering. Who knows what any of Trump's actual intentions are? (Assuming there's enough coherence to his intentions to talk about meaningfully about them.) I think Jay's idea fits as well as any other.
Nope. I dont
I love a good conspiracy theory and this one is unusually good.
I'm actually anti-conspiracy theory on the merits. It's too easy to make one up. My wife is really into them, though. But she also believes in homeopathy and Reiki. I think it's a brain chemistry thing.
I can tell from your comments that you suffer from the affliction of rationality and linear thinking.
@Substack Commenter 34
I agree that he *does ! Pity is, that what he has is such a *vanishingly rare disease ! ;-D
@HBI
Homeopathy *does work. Developed by German Science. So I would give the wife some "room" on that. Reiki is as valuable as any back massage (which is considerable), but, in my own experience, I would not look for it to counter any malady that is resistant to going away on its own.
I got level 1 certified as a sop to her. The whole energy chakra thing kind of was a snooze for me. I couldn't get how if energy is being transmitted somehow, why it is we can't detect it materially.
That said, cats really hate it when you do Reiki on them, so that was a counterpoint for me. I mean, why would they care if something wasn't happening?
It's new! It's novel! It's...EASTERN uwu.
I can't really ridicule as it's "a back rub in a pleasant environment".
So, something nice in a pleasant environment. It's like the opposite of golf then, which is a pleasant environment ruined by an impossible and humiliating activity.
Conspiracies have existed, I'm sure you agree. In the cases for which we have incomplete information, we can only theorize. This is not in itself a bad idea. The definition of a good conspiracy theory, to me, is one that perfectly fills the gaps in the information in a way that satisfies my dispositions. Are you sure you don't employ this kind of thinking? Do people exist that are above all that?
If I can't find a plausible explanation that has some basis, I presume I don't know the answer. I'm willing to theorize, but always in the sure knowledge that I don't know and what i'm theorizing about is probably a crock of shit.
This is the first I’ve heard of him. Personally I don’t find Trump’s intentions to be any more or less coherent/incoherent than BO, GW or any other politician’s intentions; they all want to get reelected.
Of course, what could have some bearing on that is I don’t have an out of control hatred for any of them. Might it be you and your ilk hold Trump to a different standard?
My ilk? Please elaborate.
People who say things like, "Assuming there's enough coherence to [Trump's] intentions to talk about meaningfully about them."
The same caveat applies to interpreting Biden's intentions.
Many questioning the subject of the articles intentions do the exact same thing about the vaccines ruralbob. I don’t care about trump whether people get vaccinated, but I do care about cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias and that seems to be a big problem with a lot of people.
Perhaps it wasn’t intentional, perhaps it was, but it’s interesting you didn’t address the suggestion you hold Trump to a different standard from say BO and other Presidents.
As for question about your ilk, I defer to the accurate assessment provided by ruralbob.
I added nothing to your statement about previous presidents and other pols. What's interesting that you infer from that?
My caveat about interpreting Trump's specific intents emphasizes the speculative nature of this part of Jay's story, as it does to any such interpreter. Maybe that's what ruralbob was driving at too.
In that regard perhaps you have me at a disadvantage since I am not into this guy’s topics. I think what caught my attention was Matt’s apparent elevating him to the level of someone who is being oppressed as they attempt to convey facts. Perhaps it might have been what appears, from my limited vantage, to be his scatter-shot approach to fabricate a story line and YouTube got confused.
I joke about the word ilk. And again, I don’t care who the president is. I care more about who’s on my school board, my mayor and city council and so forth and so on. President is pretty much a figurehead and a lightening rod for conflict. I’ve never expected much out of any president
One might spell ilk, pie; if ya get my meaning. 👁
Getting tired of ilk man
Yeah, people of your ilk always are...
(full disclosure: I've always wanted an ilk, never had one. *sigh*)
I do enjoy ilk and cookies though...it’s funny..always knew what ilk was...but it’s become one of the go to insults(?) for the last few years 😎
Who are you saying had uncontrollable hatred of trump? Tom? It doesn’t seem that way. You know there’s a whole shitload of people who understand that a republic is based on more than just one person, right? Not every single person who didn’t vote for trump hates him
I didn’t name anyone, but a noticeable portion of people who post here sure give the appearance of being driven by an out of control hatred for Trump. Without knowing anything about Tom, other than his statement about Trump’s coherence, perhaps it is easy to conclude Tom falls into that category.
As for having said hatred, that’s cool, it’s cool as long as one acknowledges it. It’s those who possess it yet try to pass themselves off as reasoned thinkers of the day, who induce out of control laughter, as opposed to out of control hate.
Personally I consider the past several presidents to be revolting trash, but their significance to my daily life is nil, thus perhaps they are not worth the time and trouble to hate.
There plenty of decent reasons for persons of some intelligence to have good faith err...'reservations' about Trump. (including me)
Pretty easy to tell them from the real TDS sufferers, who credit the man with simultaneously being unable to post a intelligent tweet and creating the dangerous philosophical credo of "Trumpism" lol.
Yeah they’re definitely not worth it..life’s too short
@Conservative Contrarian
"Hate" is *such a broad brush with which to paint.
Intellectual *contempt and cultivated *distain will
often enough fully suffice. ;-D
Doesn't matter: He should be free to speak his mind and report what he wants to, even on a so-called "private platform" that makes a killing on selling people's information publicly by data mining every keystroke, photo, linked friend, private message, etc.
It'll never happen before the end of it all though, so don't hold your breath.
I agree with you on that. The problem is that we seem to be willing to give the luxury of free speech to our opponents but our opponents don't want to give us the same luxury. And this luxury is supposed to be a fundamental liberty.
I agree completely. I would never propose squelching his, or anyone’s voice, even though I personally may see nothing worth noting from his/their efforts. Perhaps ….. ⛳️
He's probably an asshat, but why was an asshat censored on every platform of note? That is the issue, not the quality of the content.
They misidentified him as a Trump supporter. They are buffoons
Perhaps Youtube was confused
They need to be dinged for everything until they are labeled a common carrier.
Never gonna happen as long as the current politicians have their seats.
Then I guess their media people and lobbyists are going to be very busy.
What Jay doesn't mention is that the fear he was victim to, and that much of Washington was victim to that week, the fear of a military coup, CAUSED Jan. 6.
The people responsible for the decision to not have the National Guard deployed, the Sgts at Arms of both the House and Senate (and Miller himself, incidentially) testified before congress that the reason they did not deploy the National Guard was to avoid the optics that Trump would attempt a military coup. And no National Guard meant the Capitol Police were overrun. TDS FTW, once again!
Fake fear, no less. They'd talked themselves into a tizzy over nothing and reaped the whirlwind.
Besides which, they deserved every iota of the election fraud thing. 4 years of bullshit collusion claims, one good turn deserves another. This election fraud thing is going to last a lot longer than 4 years, though. All the Jan 6 whining in the world won't make the doubt go away - the more it is censored and the debate is put off, the more the doubt grows.
At first I thought Russiagate was just desserts for birtherism, as turnabout is fair play, but the emergence of blatantly illegal intelligence community and law enforcement activity changed that.
I still can't believe they just all freaking wiped or dumped their phones and got away with that. There's so much, but that just gets me. Professionals who know exactly what they are doing colluding to destroy evidence and getting away with it scot free.
@Substack Commenter 34
Fully agreed, and easily seen.
This is a version of how Weimar went south. More and more extralegal stuff "temporarily" in use just to stabilize things, from a certain party's vantage point. Then people later took that as a precedent to do more extralegal stuff until that was all that was left.
Sort of. But also a totally different situation because it's possible in a representative system to not have a coalition government, and Germany had a legal provision to name a chancellor. The extralegal action by the brownshirts pushed hard enough for the legal step of naming Hitler chancellor, and then from that step came a woeful set of legal and extralegal steps.
Just saying that the main "crisis" there was not being able to form a government for a long time, which is irrelevant here, and we don't have any similar step to naming a Chancellor that is even possible. So we do have some protection from those circumstances.
I was referring to the rule by decree by Ebert in the early 1920s, which was hit upon by a series of governments to justify their extralegal rule at times. The problems in Weimar didn't start with Brownshirts, they just ended up as the inadvertent beneficiaries of mistakes made at the start.
@HBI
Standard military ops ! Raid the village, poison the water well with dead animals.
Correct you are. This will last a LONG time, and that is partly why it was undertaken to begin with. This is too well planned, and too long range even to be blamed on Trump, personally.
So you freely admit that the "election fraud thing" is made up? And it's just petty retribution for Russiagate? Cool.
Now wouldn't that be simple. But no, I don't know what happened in the election. That's humility and integrity right there. The thing that the media and apparently you don't have. What I do have is lots of schadenfreude.
You see, the only thing that would defuse this thing would be a pants down audit of the whole process. The one thing that won't be done. So it's going to keep festering - past the midterms, past 2024. The media and you can say it's a lie all you want - it just feeds into the impression of dishonesty created by the unwillingness to audit. This is politics 101, folks. The silencing of Trump fits right in with this.
Just enjoying the spectacle of people hoist on their own petard. A real Pyrrhic victory, 2020 was.
"You see, the only thing that would defuse this thing would be a pants down audit of the whole process."
You have to be exceptionally naive to think that an audit would somehow help. First of all, what would that even look like? Elections are run on the state level. So an audit of all 50 states? Or just the ones Trump lost? Or just the ones he lost and then complained about? Secondly, why would an audit convince anyone to change their minds? If the audit will discover that there was no election fraud, why would the people who believe that there was suddenly think otherwise? They'll just assume that the audit was just as rigged as the election. And you're forgetting that there's a huge audit happening in Arizona, with the results scheduled to come out any day now. Will the results change anyone's mind, no matter what they're going to be? Of course not.
"Just enjoying the spectacle of people hoist on their own petard. A real Pyrrhic victory, 2020 was."
So just like any election in the history of elections? Remember 2016, and how the Republicans won both the Presidency and the House and the Senate? Remember how during the next 2 years Trump pushed the Democrats so far to the left that in the 2018 they elected AOC and Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib? And still managed to recapture the House, and two years later the Presidency and the Senate? So was 2016 just another Pyrrhic for the Republicans then?
Yeah, audit all 50 states, make it contingent on federal money. It's how they do everything on the federal level.
As for my naivete or not, if you don't do it, my scenario stands. I'm not saying it'd convince everyone, but it'll make cranks out of those who still talk about it. As for whether it would be complete or conclusive, almost assuredly not, but the appearance is better than saying no, that's the Politics 101 part. Remember Nixon...the crime is in the cover-up.
As it stands now, the same lying liars who brought us Russian Collusion are the ones that are saying that the election fraud is a lie. That's not going to fly.
As for electoral failures on the Republican side, Trump was unpopular with suburbia because of how he talked. You saw a realignment based on that. If you look at the 2016 results, 2018 is unremarkable along with the average 27 seat loss in a midterm over the last century. Yes, average. Though it's thrown off a bit by some very big years like 1938, 1958, 1974, 1994, 2010. Trump lost 41. His loss was less than Ike's, Johnson's, Ford's, Clinton's, Obama's, and FDR himself.
We can expect a significant realignment in 2022 as well.
@Substack Commenter 34
"to avoid the optics that Trump would attempt a military coup."
Really ? And while worrying about "saving face" countless people *could literally have been dying inside ? THAT sounds like a weak-kneed "the dog ate my homework" level cop-out than *any kind of "tight combat readiness strategy". This clearly did *not result as the result of a "comedy of errors" - it was planned. Poorly planned, granted, but no "accident" nonetheless.
@Substack Commenter 34
Well analyzed, aptly put ! Kudos
Take seriously...like people screaming that the sky is falling and a global cabal of-insert nefarious institutions, people here- are knowingly pushing a vaccine that...idk is going to destroy the world...etc etc? And CIC you ask to what end?? I’ve asked that on several comments sections on recent articles on Covid and vaccines. I get pretty muddled answers...follow the money, they hate us, etc. etc. You are making the exact same argument that I and others make when asking about “to what end”? About claims about vaccines. What do you think the subject of this article has to gain by the content he put out about trump? Please explain it to me. Maybe putting together a historical record? IDK. But clearly Trump is not going to be president...so I don’t think Jay has anything to gain. I don’t know
It's a futile attempt to avoid the illegitimacy of the current government. Futile, I say, because sniping at one or the other candidates isn't going to settle the legitimacy question. With the Democrats putting their fingers in their ears and saying "HR 1, HR 1" and the Republicans in their usual supine position, don't expect a solution anytime soon. An actual statesman would be nice right about now.
@HBI
Absolutely correct, yes. Sniping at the individual candidates is like walking up to a cauldron of boiling water, and trying to push all of the *bubbles down.
" ... clearly Trump is not going to be president ..." Don't bet on it ...
I mean this term
Perhaps I’m wrong, after all, it’s bound to happen eventually 🍺, but maybe you think you get muddled answers because your question are a bit muddled. That is if they resemble this particular post.
Am I correct in concluding you are of the opinion the government bureaucrats, the Biden administration and Big Phrama, who claim all is well with the vaccines, are accurately telling the facts?
That, of course, would imply, perhaps, you conclude anyone who disagrees with the afore mentioned cabal, errr I mean concerned benefactors, are little more than narrow-minded conspiracy theorist?
As far as Biden and big pharma goes...I don’t know...but by observation (personal, albeit) I see the vaccine working. I’m not sure anyone ever claimed vaccines are perfect. There’s been somewhere around billion doses worldwide ...super low adverse reactions (seeing thousands of adverse reactions/deaths is awful), but when you divide those thousands or whatever by a billion, or say, just America’s dosages adverse reactions are infinitesimal. I guess I subscribe to Occam’s razor...a vaccine or therapy or whatever people want to call it was developed to counter a virus. It was done in good faith and it is working. It has harmed some people, but, again, this has happened with every vaccine. People generally do the right thing. Think of all the people who were involved in the production of vaccines. Do you think that they would knowingly contribute harm to potentially billions of people? Or submit to doing it out of fear of the cabal or benefactors 😎 I just can’t see that.
"...I see the vaccine working..." Really? You SEE it working? Personally?
You invoke--saying you subscribe to--Occam's razor. Very well. I suppose you're also familiar, then, with the phrase "Post hoc. ergo propter hoc" to describe the logical fallacy in which you're wallowing here.
I hear people assure me with no less confidence than yours that they "See Jesus working." What do you say to such people?
Superstitions come in all kinds of colors and flavors.
Consider: might not the marked fall off in infections, hospitalizations and deaths due to this virus not be just as plausibly accounted for by the simple fact that it has already killed millions around the world?--those, by chance, (never mind their demographic profile) ipso facto, "most vulnerable"?
What, if anything, do you do with this? I? It gives me pause.
Maybe it ought to give you pause. There's another latin phrase, this one taught early in medical school: "Primum non nocere." it means that, where one lacks genuine understanding based on empirically-based knowledge, not hopes or guess-work, one refrains rather than leaps ahead.
Where Covid vaccines are concerned, the health-care profession forgot its creeds and leapt.
Or inductive reasoning 😎I’m a brainiac
YOU:
I hear people assure me with no less confidence than yours that they "See Jesus working." What do you say to such people?
I'd say show me some evidence. If 90% of people in hell (in the hospital or dying) were unbaptized it might give me pause. There is documentation that the vast majority of people in ICU's and hospitals have not been vaccinated. This is not superstition. It's causal evidence. I just don't see how you can deny that.
Therefore, I have extrapolated that the vaccines most likely work...again...Occam's Razor..simplest explanation...a lot simpler than:
YOU:
"might not the marked fall off in infections, hospitalizations and deaths due to this virus not be just as plausibly accounted for by the simple fact that it has already killed millions around the world?--those, by chance, (never mind their demographic profile) ipso facto, "most vulnerable"?
Everything can be classified as a fallacy. I'm sure there's a latin phrase for that. It's lazy. I coached LD debate for several years. Arguing logical fallacies exist everywhere is lazy. I really encouraged my kids not to use fallacies. Throwing out "you just stated a fallacy therefore, I win the argument" shuts down any debate.
Maybe it ought to give you pause. There's another latin phrase, this one taught early in medical school: "Primum non nocere." it means that, where one lacks genuine understanding based on empirically-based knowledge, not hopes or guess-work, one refrains rather than leaps ahead.
YOU:
"Show me some empirical evidence that illustrates that vaccines are not working. If you deny that people suffering in hospitals and dying are mostly unvaccinated...then I don't know how to respond to you. I hesitate to use empirical "evidence" because anyone on the internet can pull anything out of their ass to back up their claims. I am willing to use data on unvaccinated persons being hospitalized and dying at a greater rate than the vaccinated because that's pretty clear. But you have true knowledge and I'm a rube."
"it means that, where one lacks genuine understanding based on empirically-based knowledge, not hopes or guess-work, one refrains rather than leaps ahead."
What about deductive reasoning? Hume's example was something along the lines of " I see the sun rise every morning..therefore, it's logical that it will rise again tomorrow. Deductive reasoning is an accepted logical tool, is it not?
YOU:
Where Covid vaccines are concerned, the health-care profession forgot its creeds and leapt.
Any empirical evidence for your certainty?
The "YOU" preceding this ---> "Show me some empirical evidence that illustrates that vaccines are not working." is, I presume, your comment. It is certainly not mine. (Which illustrates that you're sloppy and lazy.)
So, I understand you're challenging _me_ with: "Show me some empirical evidence that illustrates that vaccines are not working."
That's YOUR burden to show. Ethically, morally, medically, ALL the onus is on those who assert that some given therapy is BOTH necessary AND EFFECTIVE.
You manifestly suck at reasoning, at logic, and, I daresay, at teaching debate. I pity your students and, as I gather, you no longer teach, there's at least that for which their successors may be grateful. But this episode is quite illustrative of how we've come to this sorry pass in contemporary politics.
" I coached LD debate for several years."
Are we all supposed to know what "LD debate" means?
A "Google" search suggests as a possibility, "Lincoln-Douglas debate(s)" but you didn't bother with either the hyphen or the plural form. Maybe you taught your students about only one of the series? LOL! As I say, your manifest sloppy laziness speaks volumes.
Or perhaps, in your case, "LD" refers to "learning disabled." You seem to be that as well as "T(eaching)D".
I’m not asking this to argue, I’m asking because this is interesting. How do you cull your sources?
This is interesting:
“I hear people assure me with no less confidence than yours that they "See Jesus working." What do you say to such people?”
Since you asked, have you ever said to them, “Really? Tell me what you saw.”?
Readersaurus
20 min ago
Of course it's been done. Famous examples of the responses to such questions include, for example,
"From only two fishes he fed thousands."
"As we watched, terrified inside the boat, our Lord put out his hand and, speaking, calmed the waters."
Biden and Big Phrma, Trump and Big Phrma - what's the difference ...
I think that’s a fair question. The way I separate the two is in early 2020 we had a presidential race and seemingly out of nowhere covid appeared. We have no idea what President Trump was being told by the supposed smartest people in the room. As far as I can tell President Trump, an outsider in DC, was trying to make the best decisions he could, given what he was being told.
18 months later we can look back and say he should have done this/that. But since I wasn’t privy to inside events I cut him some slack.
On the other hand, Biden and the Obama circus is well established in DC, and as far as I can tell, only a person who is financially profiting from current events, or a fool, believes any of them!
Oh please - ha wasn't listening to the "smartest people in the room" - look before Covid appeared he figured he was on his way to being re-elected - "look at the stock market!" Rats, this damn disease (which according to Woodward's interview he knew it was a bitch) - was flailing - Look, it is no worse than the flu! It will be gone in a couple of months! He scoffed at masks (did one or 2 photo ops with one on for a short while) had rallies and get togethers with no "social distancing" or masks, mocked folks who wore them - when the "smartest people in the room" were pushing both social distancing and masks - and then when he got it, got in a helicopter to an army hospital - got the whole medicine cabinet thrown at him, was a lot sicker than he let on - and then when he gets out, does the balcony scene - saying Look, I'm fine, it's no big deal. His hail Mary pass was Operation Warp Speed, which i give him credit for, but then accuses the FDA of holding up approval for a vaccine that was put out there in record time, until after the election.
So he should be praised as being an "outsider"? Really, it's OK to f... up if one is an "outsider"? And why throw tons of money to 2 companies for an "experimental vaccine" when there were other more traditional platforms that could be developed? How much was Big Phrma contributing to his campaign, i wonder ....
And when he himself got the vaccine, did he say Look I got it, I'm fine, you should get it too! No, because by that time, it wasn't going to help him stay in office - so he didn't give a shit, and still doesn't You can get it if you like - Really? Is that what the smartest people in the room are saying or has he moved to a different room ..
Some months before the end of his term India and S Africa applied to the WTO for IP waivers for the vaccine so other countries could make it without paying Pfizer, Moderna through the nose - Trump didn't support that (neither did Biden for months until it was clear that Germany and others opposed it - basically covering his ass with Big Phrma, so he can look good with the public, but it won't put a dent in his campaign contributions ...
Look, i think BOTH of them are schmucks when it comes to this stuff (and a lot of other stuff, too). This continually giving "the benefit of the doubt" to either of them, by whomever, does us all, IMO, a big disservice and i don't think is intellectually honest ...
Bless you for being a good hearted soul - but I think your "empathy" with the Trumpster is misplaced ....
Interesting, I was responding and for some reason my three paragraphs literally disappeared. I’ll try again:
As far as I know, as with you, out of the 20 or so people I have been told received the jab, none have had serious issues other than severe headaches for a day or two. But we are 8 months into it. From what I hear, it is possible as time passes more issues will arise from the mRNA, spike proteins etc…. . Is it true? I have no idea.
Throughout recent history there have been a number of powerful people who have wanted to eliminate a large number of people in one fell swoop. Do you think people like that have been eliminated?
I don’t trust government, bureaucrats, Big Pharma or Big Tech, so I keep a wary eye on them and go about my business. That’s one of the great aspects of being an insignificant speck on this beautiful planet!
The greatest worry is perhaps Antibody-Dependent Enhancement. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32920233/
No kudos to YouTube for responding to queries only when they come from a high-profile journalist. That's a sign of their corruption and the corruption of our elected officials for allowing them to become so powerful.
They only responded because this guy's viewpoint was aligned with YouTube's narrative.
That may have been why they acted in his favor, but it's not why they assigned a human being to look into it.
Here is the algorithm. Is the information put out by our friends? Yes...It's OK regardless of content. No....even though it is exactly what our friends claim it must be banned. And by friends we mean people or groups that when we lobby they gives us what we want, or we sure did enjoy the cocktail party the other night. Wasn't it fun disparaging all those deplorables. Fuck Google and YouTube. There are alternatives. Brave and Odysee.
"Let them eat cake." -some cunt at a swanky NYC cocktail party last week.
Some sophisticated and vaccinated cunts at a swanky party on the Vinyard last weekend.
Don't be a racist bigot. The systemically oppressed Obamas were just hosting a small sophisticated unmasked party of over 500 celebrities at their systemically oppressed $15 million mansion along the beach which is supposed to be under water because of all the climate change and rising sea water.
John Kerry, US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate Change, who owns beach front property (rising sea levels????), flew in his private jet (CO2 emissions????) to attend systemically oppressed Obama's birthday party at his $15 million beach front property (rising sea levels????).
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9869959/John-Legend-Chrissy-Teigen-Dwyane-Wade-arrive-Marthas-Vineyard-Obamas-birthday-bash.html
You just need to get sophisticated to be immune to covid.
Well, that's me told.
*hangs head*
https://babylonbee.com/news/obama-birthday-party-guests-play-light-hearted-game-of-pin-the-drone-on-the-middle-eastern-country
The Bee is THE BEST
Marie Antoinette was actually responding to an artificially imposed bread quota put in place by the French government to raise prices. If you got to the braisserie too late and the day’s quota of bread was already sold, you had to buy cake instead.
Your sentiment is spot on though!
Brioche. Not cake.
Why is "cunt" in every other comment you make? So disgusting!
I have it on very good authority that cunts are not disgusting.
Well put!!
1 Trump and GOP are truly HORRIBLE.
2 --DNC oligarchs (Biden, Pelosi, Schumer) are even WORSE (censorship, they concocted Russia-gate hoax, torture of Julian Assange, Daniel Hale’s persecution for Obama’s drone crimes, $16B Haiti-corruption under Hillary/Obama – Biden-family corruption pales in comparison)
The ONLY solution – vote THIRD party – now and forever. ALWAYS vote – but VOTE for a Third (or fourth, fifth..) party – at ALL levels, especially at LOCAL levels (vote OUT each and every incumbent).
“If you always vote for the lesser of two evils, you will always have evil, and you will always have less.” [Ralph Nader].
Only ACTION: Sustained organized mass civil disobedience - not distractions like DNC-controlled hollering and tweeting....
I've got a different idea.
What is it? Don't leave us in suspense ;-))
I wonder about the wisdom of the whole content moderation thing. Terrorist beheadings and kiddie porn, sure. Block 'em. No problem. But I'm not sure Youtube is actually changing minds for the better by silencing political views it disapproves of, especially if they're widely held. Doesn't matter if they're right or wrong, true or not. The very fact of these large, powerful, well resourced institutions presuming to decide on "truth" and what we're allowed to hear, consider, think about or believe just amplifies the rampant distrust and conspiracy mongering. It convinces nobody. It just produces backlash.
It's highly cynical, actually. The logic is that if they stupids don't see the things that Youtube's masters don't like, they'll forget about that stuff.
And no, it doesn't work, at least the way they want it to. It further radicalizes people.
Sure does. I get angrier every day.
So I think it will stop! Because of many of the protestations of posters on this site, and I truly appreciate that. I’m not sure a total free market exists, but if enough people raise a stink...things will change in relation to content moderation
Don't hold your breath ....
It came on pretty quick, it might go out much the same. But I suspect cynicism is warranted
I’m glad someone mentioned “terrorist beheadings”. Imagine for a minute that YouTube allowed that and, to generate some revenue, put ads up between victims. Disgusting, right? Now, go to YouTube and search “AC-130 gunship”. You’ll be treated to gun camera footage of human beings being slaughtered like fish in a barrel. It’s mesmerizing until you remember it’s not some video game. While being declared “enemies” of the USA, making them “fair game”, the victims are still someone’s son, father, or husband. And YouTube throws up ads. YouTube’s supposed “standards” are disgusting.
Bu,bu,but - they're the "bad guys", right? and I am sure AI has no problem with killing the "bad guys" - after all it deals with the data fed to it ....
I think it's less a wisdom an more a natural logic. The internet monopolies are trying to defend their business. In a simplistic model they are trying to balance two goals. One we can understand as the PR goal of being allowed to maintain their legally tenuous monopoly privileges, the loss of which has a $ value they can estimate. The other is ad revenue minus operating cost.
The PR part could be pretty complicated but so far these firms seem to be simply following the preferences of lamestream news media. Youtube in particular has explicitly stated that's how they do it.
So it doesn't make any sense as an editorial policy serving a social good and any coherent of "wisdom" you may discern, if any, has to be an emergent property.
And those "emergent properties" are very valuable pieces of "real" estate ...
Yes, so far both the Lamestream and the New Secular Moralists (of all stripes, including MT/TK) have made hay by pointing at these patterns and declaring validation or shenanigans resp. but this could easily change.
Honestly, I know it is popular with the social media set to toss around insurrection, coup, and rebellion. But, nothing of the sort was planned, organized or acted upon. Milley is a delicate flower - and partisan. Those how opposed Trump - and many of the top brass did - came up with all kinds of loose talk claiming a coup was in process. Trump felt the election was stolen; and then felt he could capitalize on this when the facts did not fully back him up.
But in their defense, the Trump campaign filed dozens of cases and not one, not one, was heard on the merits. All were tossed out for standing, lack of claim, and other procedural matters. What is a shame is we know there was some election ‘irregularities’ and we know there is little cooperation to get to the bottom of these. This legitimizes Trump’s claims - as does Facebook when is censors Trump or election discussion.
I have lived through an insurrection. Insurrectionists bring guns, tanks, and rocket launchers. They are organized and generally funded. Our insurrectionists were a bad version of Animal House. Rowdy, loud, and lost.
Milley and the silly social media set need to stop pretending the Republic almost fell and face facts. This was a temper tantrum.
The best description for January 6th was a "riot."
The Florida Recount, Brooks Brothers Riot, and SCOTUS decision in 2000 smells a more like a coup to me. Had the unfortunate characteristic of being successful too.
2000 was definitely a soft coup. Sandra Day O'Connor, from my home town, is alleged to have confided in her hubby the night before the SCOTUS decision that she was going to find against Gore no matter what evidence was presented.
It was so obvious we don't need that testimony. "There's not enough time to do a fair recount, so we have to quit with our guy ahead" Not enough time.
That said, if an NFL team has to whine about the referees, they actually just needed to play better so the refs didn't matter in the first place.
Milley enjoys yelling about "white rage" in front of congress.
His other generals like lying to the President about the troop numbers in Syria.
Others enjoy making up the russian bounty hoax to prevent pulling out of Afghanistan.
And we are supposed to believe whatever they are selling.
Lost track of all the Trump election suits. You mention that not a single one was heard on the merits. Is there a link to an aggregation of the evidence that should have been allowed, but wasn't? Obviously this involves numerous cases with multiple allegations, but it'd be nice if someone put them all in one place so that skeptics and believers alike could see for themselves.
Copy pasting an old comment. This is not specific to you, it's just relevant to your question.
Democrats spent over 40 million and 3 years chasing some russian collusion, then inventing russian bounty hoaxes but somehow any audit or signature matching is not allowed in 2020. Pathetic hypocrisy.
Democrats being against voter id clearly tells me they enjoy cheating. It's like opposing ID for buying cigarettes or booze and then claiming no underage kid ever bought a cigarette or booze. Monmouth University released a poll on early voting and voter ID. The poll found the majority of Americans support voter ID, and more minorities support voter ID than white people. Question 31 on page 7: 84% of minorities. & 77% of white people support voter ID. Yet Democrats keep claiming voter id is somehow racist:
https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/documents/monmouthpoll_us_062121.pdf/
I can present hundreds of examples but I don't think it's worth it because nobody's mind will change. I like how everyone agrees Bernie got cheated out twice, DNC using the IOWA "app" to cheat again and somehow the general election was perfectly cool. I will give a few examples for the audience here:
I am sure these types of vote counts where a candidate make vertical jumps in multiple states after vote counting has stopped and at 4am when Republican observers have been sent home is totally cool:
https://archive.vn/Lqji8/a840d17932a735d5648722b6907eec28b4ce75bb.webp
Wisconsin:
https://archive.vn/Lqji8/8992469bd89042e7d89485ebbd3a104a59f37be2.webp
I am sure the 6000 votes which was exposed to have been switched from Trump to Biden in Antrim County and similarly in GA - all mistakes in one direction - was totally cool:
https://www.westernjournal.com/michigan-recount-confirms-trump-won-county-went-biden/
The typical excuses I hear when I point out how Biden won as "the most popular president with 12 million more votes than Obama" and yet couldn't get 10 people at his rallies is "Because Biden voters believe in science and didn't want to go out during a pandemic" to which I reply with "Then why did his YouTube videos and live streams also not get any views and got ratioed to the point where YouTube has to actively remove dislikes?
White House Youtube Dislike Manipulation:
https://phzoe.com/2021/01/27/white-house-youtube-dislike-manipulation/
Someone built a tracker for the likes/dislikes on Biden's White House:
https://81m.org
https://rumble.com/vdcuql-130k-dislikes-removed-from-white-house-youtube-channel-in-24-hours.html
130 Thousand dislikes were removed in a 24hr period! And this is for the most popular US President of all time!
Another response is "Trump's personality cost him the election" to which I reply with "Trump has a in party approval of 95% - highest EVER" and Republicans gained tons of house seats and even state house and senate seats. So somehow people were voting for republicans but not for Trump despite him having 95% approval? It's the opposite - people voted for Republican house and senate BECAUSE Trump asked them too. It's been shown time and time again that the constituents like Trump, they hate the establishment RINOs. Hence the 95% approval in his party.
Usually first-time mail voters ~3X more likely to spoil ballot. In GA 2016 whopping 6.4% failed, 2020 just 0.2%. In PA, rate 0.03% in 2020 vs ~1% in 2016. Nevada from 1.60% in 2016 to ~0.75% this year. N.C. rate ~2.7% in 2016 to 0.8%. Totally cool.
Biden somehow gets 12 million more votes but only in VERY select few cities - enough to push him over in the entire state. And somehow ends up losing house seats, state house, senate seats. And Trump - who's the first Republican to make major gains in blacks and hispanics, his party makes major gains everywhere from house seats to state senate races loses.
Bellwether Counties Went Overwhelmingly for Trump in 2020. All but one of the 19 bellwethers picked President Donald Trump by a margin of some 16 points on average. They all accurately picked the president since 1980. Before the elections, here's NYTimes claiming:
> "The 10 Bellwether Counties That Show How Trump Is in Serious Trouble. Each one is in a battleground state. Votes from people there will matter a lot — and offer Joe Biden several paths to victory. Conversely, Mr. Trump would likely need to win at least eight of those 10 states for a second term. A look at these bellwethers — all either tossups or leaning toward Mr. Biden — makes clear that Mr. Trump is in serious trouble." NYTimes was claiming Biden will easily win thw bell weathers too.
https://archive.ph/Ezn1d
Once the elections were over and all but one bell weather county that had chosen every presidential winner since 1980 went for President Trump in 2020, suddenly "bellwether counties are not a good way of indicating". HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAAHAA whatever doesn't fit the narrative suddenly becomes unreliable.
I am sure those perfectly coordinated stopping of counting in the 6 states on election night was totally cool.
I am sure the GA "pipe burst" which was widely claimed as the reason for stopping counting at 10:30PM in Fulton and used to send observers home - and then for the black chick and her daughter to pull out a box with ballots and re-scan the same ballots 4 times all on video was all just totally cool. And guess what - that pipe burst story also turned out to be completely false - in fact it didn't even happen that day - it happened the day prior and has nothing to stop counting as exposed by the the FOIA requests:
https://archive.is/2Ara4
https://archive.is/5Liz7
https://archive.vn/m56Gv
https://archive.is/G7KOu
> Fulton County Elections head Richard Barron said Wednesday that the pipe dumped a lot of water, soaking the carpeting and hampering work. “It looked really like there was rain coming out of the ceiling and the entire carpeting was just covered in water,” he said. “There was no way to go in there and perform work.”
In the hearings, the state officials claimed it was a toilet leak which happened at 6am and was fixed by 8am - not at night.
All so well coordinated. Yet these people can't keep their story straight.
I am sure covering up the voting counts with boards in Detroit is totally cool.
I am sure Democrats and RINO republicans absolutely refusing to do a REAL SIGNATURE MATCH audit before certifying must be because everything was cool.
CA Governor recall petition had a signature unmatched of 20%. But for the general election, it's somehow less than 1% everywhere. Totally cool.
I am sure judge dismissing cases claiming Republicans being blocked and put over 20 feet away from counting was totally okay because they were still in same building is totally cool.
42,000 people in Nevada voted more than once, 1,500 dead, 19,000 didn't live in Nevada, 8,000 voted from a non-existent address, 15,000 registered to a commercial address and 4,000 non-citizens.
Please explain why at least 10315 dead voters, 8718 died before they voted, 66,247 underage, 2560 felons, 5300 voting in multiple states, 15700 out of state voters, 40279 voting in wrong county etc in Georgia alone.
I am sure the 3000 signed affidavits under penalty of perjury were all lying. If they were all lying, then why have none of the affidavit signers been prosecuted for lying (the DOJ is clearly very pro prosecuting Trump supporters).
Florida fixed their shit and ran one of the smoothest elections despite having more population than NY and twice the population of GA. Florida was able to finish their election counting within 2 hours of poll closures. GA and NY and other states with less population took weeks....
The best is this 2016 BBC article "Vote rigging: How to spot the tell-tale signs". The 2020 US election passes every sign from this article. But it's totally cool. Nothing to see here, move along:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-37243190
In key swing states this year, mail-in ballot rejections plummeted from 2016 rates. Rates are below historical average and significantly less than most recent presidential election - despite having massive mail in voting:
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/key-swing-states-year-mail-ballot-rejections-plummeted-2016-rates
Largest data breach in the history of America, Largest censorship of half the population's voice. Also most secure election ever! - CISA dot gov
> SolarWinds hack was 'largest and most sophisticated attack' ever: Microsoft president
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cyber-solarwinds-microsoft-idUSKBN2AF03R
> What you need to know about the biggest hack of the US government in years
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/dec/15/orion-hack-solar-winds-explained-us-treasury-commerce-department
> The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history.
https://www.cisa.gov/news/2020/11/12/joint-statement-elections-infrastructure-government-coordinating-council-election
All this doesn't even cover the unconstitutional voting law changes and mass mail-in voting using out dated voter rolls without voter ID. Or the censorship aspect.
The unconstitutional voting law changes alone should have changed the elections.
Here's a "technical" rebuttal to the Allied Security Group's "forensic" report.
https://cdn.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/Rebuttal_ASOG-Antrim_Report.pdf
Using factcheck as your source is like using cnn as a source for russiagate nonsense. Same factcheck site which claimed lab leak was a conspiracy theory and got me banned from social media.
I was also thinking of this. https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/12/17/antrim-county-audit-shows-12-vote-gain-trump/3938988001/
No, because that's just one of the sites hosting that particular document. It was commissioned by Antrim County election officials and Factcheck just happened to be the first place I found the actual PDF.
It gets into the alleged 6000 vote change and I believe fully addresses the issue.
The 6000 vote change was not just "alleged". It happened. The media reported this when this happened in November. Later on in December, they started purposefully conflating it with other stuff.
The article which you cited does this very same conflation.
Look here from November:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/software-glitch-in-michigan-sent-6-000-trump-votes-to-biden/ar-BB1aMk7c
This happened by November 6th. This was a historically red county which they claimed had turned blue. So Republicans called it out and then it turned out 6000 votes for Trump were given to Biden instead. They claim that the 6000 vote switch was a mistake by clerk.....how convenient. Mistakes always favoured Biden....
The 12 vote thing your link conflates is a separate thing which happened in December which was AFTER an audit. So 6000 first, then 12. Your link doesn't mention the 6000 "mistake". That's how we know that they are biased.
Of all those, I'm most familiar with the Antirim County "conspiracy", "forensic" examination and the rest. The company that allegedly produced the forensic report has refused every interview requested that I'm aware of, including right-leaning outlets. As far as I've been able to read, there isn't anything in the way of **technical** details as to what exactly the alleged issue(s) with the Dominion software is.
Antirim County was not a conspiracy theory. Even left leaning sources admitted that 6000 votes were switched from trump to Biden. Somehow all mistakes went in Biden’s favour and these are only the ones which we know about.
Please tell me how before the elections, nytimes and Washington post claimed all bell weather counties favored Biden but after elections, trump won 19 of the 20 bell weather counties and the same media claims bell weather counties don’t mean anything??? Please explain this to me.
Btw I am not talking about the Sidney Powell and Lin Wood nonsense. Those people did more damage by chasing every red herring instead of going for the real issues.
Also, by the way, "Allied Securities Operation Group" (a frequent consultant to the Trump Organization) is often alleged to be associated with MIT and government science and aeronautics agencies. I have found zero evidence for this claim, and it comes off as a falsified appeal to authority argument as an attempt to debunk Ryan Macias' analysis of the ASOG audit. For another non Factcheck.com article....
https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/12/15/trump-fact-check-defect-voting-machines-michigan/3902951001/
Is there any further updated information on Antrim? If not, I think it's been put to bed.
Trump won Antrim County.
The reliably Republican county has been the center of controversy in the weeks since the election after initial results posted in the early morning hours of Nov. 4 showed Biden ahead of Trump by thousands of votes. Election officials later determined a clerk's failure to properly update software had resulted in transposed results and Trump actually won the county by more than 3,700 votes.
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/12/17/antrim-county-audit-shows-12-vote-gain-trump/3938988001/
There was no conspiracy.
lol. So you admit 6000 votes were given from Trump to Biden by """"mistake"""". This was just one of them which got caught and called out because it was so obvious.
How come mistakes always helped Biden? Just like how social media always seems to censor mostly the right wingers?
Why did Trump win 19/20 bell weathers which media was claiming were all going for Biden before elections and after elections suddenly don't matter?
http://wiseenergy.org/Energy/Election/2020_Election_Cases.htm
It does look like at least some of them were given dispositions based on their merit.
Thanks, that's what I was looking for.
The LEFT and corporate media along with big tech are modern-day book burners. It’s sad - how does it get fixed Matt?
The actual LEFT doesn't want censorship, because they understand that it applies to different political dissidents over time. The Democratic party, which isn't LEFT, wants it because its a convenient way to shut down their political opponents (i.e. people who love Trump) at the moment.
I think it's dishonest to say that the Trump movement is not dangerous, but censorship is strategically the wrong move, as it has the exact opposite effect it intends to, and it gives them a gift to feel persecuted (i.e. Marjorie Taylor Greene wearing a mask that says "censored" on it)
No true leftist. Lmao.
Could you offer up an estimate of how many American citizens are on the "Left"?
As I often hear it described by the "No True Leftist" crowd, it can't be more than a few dozen.
The Democrats epitomize Left. Left is collectivism, of which identity politics is a subset, and intolerance is a defining trait.
The problem will not be solved as long as people keep carrying water for what is wrong.
Comments like these always engage in the No true Scotsman fallacy. By your logic, it would seem like Trump and his supporters are all LEFT wing?
Perhaps it’s because trump supporters are rightfully upset with institutions that have failed them. But are only presented with a demagogue like tromp because he was the only one (in rhetoric at least) that talked openly about institutions failing. Bernie Sanders has a similar message but has actual policy ideas that most people who voted for Trump would actually appreciate and benefit from. Thus the schism in American politics. The Democratic Party does everything it can to make Bernie sanders and his surrogates fail. We are only presented with a terrible version of the Democratic Party. You might disagree with this. But this is my assessment.
One of the best things against Bernie Sanders is that he used to complain about illegal immigration being "right wing proposals". Until 2016. We all know what changed in 2016 when Orange Man announced his run. Bernie used to hate illegal immigration, called it a “right wing proposal” “using a dollar or two wages to drive down wages of Americans”. And then he did a flip calling Orange Man a racist and xenophobic etc and became open border advocate. Just listen to his own words in this VOX interview and tell me how what he used to say was any different from Orange Man and how he's now done a full 180:
https://youtu.be/vf-k6qOfXz0
Bernie Sanders attacked the socialist Liberty Union Party in 1981 for accommodating the 351 Jamaican immigrants in his state's apple orchards: "With the Vermont unemployment rate one of the highest in the nation, I could never support importing foreign workers when our own people are out of work." ... "It sounds like she wants to bring slavery back to Vermont." said Sanders, who was collecting unemployment insurance at the time. For socialist Sanders, then 33, the situation supported his contention that businesses were yet again selling out U.S. residents in favor of cheap labor.
Even in 2007, he said:
“If poverty is increasing and if wages are going down, I don’t know why we need millions of people to be coming into this country as guest workers who will work for lower wages than American workers and drive wages down even lower than they are right now,” Sanders said. ” … On one hand, you have large multinationals trying to shut down plants in America, move to China, and on the other hand, you have the service industry bringing in low-wage workers from abroad. The result is the same: Middle class gets shrunken, and wages go down.”
"I think as you've heard today, sanctions against employers who employ illegal immigrants is virtually nonexistent. Our border is very porous," Sanders said during a press conference at the time. “And I think at a time when the middle class is shrinking, the last thing we need is to bring over in a period of years, millions of people into this country who are prepared to lower wages for American workers." "I think from a moral responsibility, we've got to work with the rest of the industrialized world to address the problems of international poverty," he said in a 2015 interview. "But you don't do that by making people in this country even poorer." In both cases, Sanders defended his vote by suggesting that the guest worker provisions in the bill were “akin to slavery,” a notable shift from how Sanders talked about immigrant labor before his presidential bids.
Again in 2013:
"I'll tell you look what my concern is the provisions dealing with the guest worker programs. Real unemployment in America counting those people have given up looking for work and are working part-time when they want to work full-time in order is close to 14 percent. It's higher for young people it is higher for people of color. You have in this bill guest worker programs that will bring in hundreds of thousands of entry-level workers. You know on television you hear these guys talk about all PhDs are coming into this country....hundreds of thousands of entry-level workers to work in kitchens waiters waitresses lifeguards ski resort workers. Is it really true that we can't find American workers to do those jobs? Frankly I don't believe it.
Given the magnitude of the problem it doesn't go anywhere near far enough so the nation we have got to ask ourselves do we really need when you go to ghettos in this country when you go to inner cities you have thirty forty percent unemployment do we really need hundreds of thousands of workers entry-level workers from around the country coming in competing against these kids? I think not."
Even the leftist washington post admits: "For years, Bernie Sanders warned that increased immigration would lower the wages of U.S. workers. Now he barely mentions it.":
https://archive.is/Ek7Xa
But when Trump ran in 2015, he switched and became radical open border. He says "Illegal immigrants are "entitled" to the same government benefits as citizens":
https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1231347412356210688
During the DNC debates, all Democrats including Bernie raised their hands that Illegal Immigrants Should Get Health Care Coverage.
Here's more:
https://youtu.be/TtMqldNYloY
This video perfect describes how fake fact checkers keep making excuses for Democrats:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4SkGOCkhEs
This flip flopping and pie in the sky promises are quite natural for Bernie Sanders. Mr $15 an hour Bernie Sanders refused to pay his staff $15 because his campaign couldn't afford to. He has been a Vermont senator for 30+ years! The min wage in Vermont is still $10.
Bernie's hotel demands from his “Senator Comfort Memo”: King-size beds and 60-degree rooms. He flies on private jets and has a memo detailing minimum requirements of the private jet. He used to complain about millionaires and billionaires. Until 2 years ago when he became a millionaire. Then only the billionaires were the problem for him. You can verify this by going through his twitter history. The "millionaires and billionaires" change to "billionaires" only. He released his tax returns couple years ago. For someone complaining so much about poor people suffering, he barely paid anything in charity from his multi millions. For someone who's so anti-pharma, Bernie still gladly took $1.3 million from Pharma. Orange Man got $2.5 million and Biden took $8.5 million:
https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/recips.php?cycle=2020&ind=h04
Bernie, "mr. anti-big-pharma" took $1,301,155 from Big Pharma in 2020. He was also the number 1 recipient in the senate for pharma manufacturing in 2020 by getting $416,066, Ossoff, Jon was second with $302,137, Elizabeth Warren got $291,168. Thom Tillis was 4th got $270,270 and Mitch McConnell was 5th at $265,980:
https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/recips.php?ind=H4300&cycle=2020&recipdetail=S&Mem=Y&sortorder=U
Why would pharma manufacturing give the most money to Bernie and other democrats and more than Mitch and Lindsey Graham? Kindness of their heart?
Bernie regularly engages in identity politics which is basically CRT. He even called Orange Man a xenophobe and said he wouldn't have shutdown travel from China. He said: "I wouldn't have closed the air traveling with China if I was a president. Trump is racist xenophobic."
Bernie also supports the AOC/Cori Bush squad who regularly exploit identity politics / defund the police nonsense while giving themselves more police funding. So claiming he doesn't wade into CRT is false.
Bernie endorsed Biden after getting fucked in his ass twice by the DNC. He couldn't grow up a spine to call out Biden's and his son's obvious corruption, instead he called him a good friend and respectable man. You think such a spineless man could stand up to foreign nations?
Unlike Bernie who rolled over at the very first sight, Orange Man at least put up a fight and won the nomination. Imagine Bernie rolling over like that to foreign nations. He got "cheated" out twice from the nomination and he rolled over without a fight - maybe because this was the plan all along for Democrats to use him to get the left to vote for Biden. Then he refused to look at the "cheating" allegations from Orange Man. Everyone agrees Bernie got cheated out twice, DNC using the IOWA "app" to cheat again and somehow the general election was perfectly okay.
He called Biden his friend and respectable man. Didn't even have the balls of calling out his obvious selling out to China and his son using his office for profit. Now he's going on CNN making excuses on why they couldn't get $15 minimum wage, why $2000 has still not gone out, why $1400 is more than enough instead of the $2000 they promised, why medicare for all is now too hard to achieve. And his supporters thought Bernie would care about them LMFAO. When his supporters couldn't wake up to how big of a pathetic cuck Bernie was when he gave up his mic to the 2 BLM activists at his own rally, how he did a full 180 flip on illegal immigration when Orange Man ran, then nothing will wake them up.
I am surprised it took this long for people to see through AOC and Bernie. Bernie was always in on it with the establishment dems from the beginning. I was mostly politically uneducated till 2015 but even then I was able to see through Bernie sanders fraud when he did a complete 180 flip on his stance on illegal immigration. Bernie is there to tell you nice things to get votes for Democrats. He was never there to win. Bernie tells people pie in the sky dreams to siphon votes to the Democrats. That's it.
Trump and his supporters are in fact fiscally liberal and socially conservative. So you're actually half-correct. On fiscal matters, they really are left-wing.
They are left of past Republicans, but not nearly so Left as Democrats.
Hawley, a Trump Republican, recently teamed up with Bernie Sanders, who is as left as Democrats get. What does that say about Hawley? That's right - that on fiscal policy he's to the left of most Democrats.
@Robert Nottoli
Primo Comment ! Very astute.
By making these big tech companies common carriers.
SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas opined couple months ago discussing big tech censorship quite extensively. The case was regarding whether Trump was allowed to block people on Twitter and it being a 1st amendment violation. While the case was declared moot as Trump left office, Justice Clarence Thomas took the opportunity to discuss censorship. How politicians aren't allowed to block users on big tech but big tech is able to block and ban politicians and government employees and how this creates a weird power dynamic.
I would highly recommend reading his opinion:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/20-197_5ie6.pdf
Here's a few excerpts:
> "But whatever may be said of other industries, there is clear historical precedent for regulating transportation and communications networks in a similar manner as traditional common carriers. Candeub 398–405. Telegraphs, for example, because they “resemble[d] railroad companies and other common carriers,” were “bound to serve all customers alike, without discrimination." ... "Internet platforms of course have their own First Amendment interests, but regulations that might affect speech are valid if they would have been permissible at the time of the founding. See United States v. Stevens, 559 U. S. 460, 468 (2010). The long history in this country and in England of restricting the exclusion right of common carriers and places of public accommodation may save similar regulations today from triggering heightened scrutiny—especially where a restriction would not prohibit the company from speaking or force the company to endorse the speech." ... "The similarities between some digital platforms and common carriers or places of public accommodation may give legislators strong arguments for similarly regulating digital platforms. [I]t stands to reason that if Congress may demand that telephone companies operate as common carriers, it can ask the same of ”digital platforms." ... "For example, although a “private entity is not ordinarily constrained by the First Amendment,” Halleck, 587 U. S., at ___, ___ (slip op., at 6, 9), it is if the government coerces or induces it to take action the government itself would not be permitted to do, such as censor expression of a lawful viewpoint. Ibid. Consider government threats. “People do not lightly disregard public officers’ thinly veiled threats to institute criminal proceedings against them if they do not come around.” Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan, 372 U. S. 58, 68 (1963). The government cannot accomplish through threats of adverse government action what the Constitution prohibits it from doing directly. See ibid.; Blum v. Yaretsky, 457 U. S. 991, 1004–1005 (1982). Under this doctrine, plaintiffs might have colorable claims against a digital plat- form if it took adverse action against them in response to government threats. The Second Circuit feared that then-President Trump cut off speech by using the features that Twitter made available to him. But if the aim is to ensure that speech is not smothered, then the more glaring concern must perforce be the dominant digital platforms themselves."
> "As Twitter made clear, the right to cut off speech lies most powerfully in the hands of private digital platforms. The extent to which that power matters for purposes of the First Amendment and the extent to which that power could lawfully be modified raise interesting and important questions. This petition, unfortunately, affords us no opportunity to confront them."
The last 2 points are important as Justice Thomas is basically saying "give us a case which brings up these two questions and then we will have a deep look."
One can even cite Amazon's recent censorship of SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas's own documentary as well as Eli Steele’s documentary as examples:
https://archive.is/aNv3B
I also suggest reading and consider the application of Robins v. Pruneyard Shopping Center (1979) 23 Cal.3d 899
https://law.justia.com/cases/california/supreme-court/3d/23/899.html
to Twitter, which after all is headquartered in CA. Under Pruneyard, the owner of a public shopping mall could not exclude students engaged in political activities. An argument could be made that social media sites, like shopping centers in 1979, are places "to which the public is invited [and] can provide an essential and invaluable forum for exercising [speech and petition] rights." So, the infringement of free speech by social media would seem to be unconstitutional (at least in CA)."
Thomas compares Twitter to common carriers:
Thomas suggested that the case could fall under two other doctrines. The first was the doctrine of common carriers, in which private entities in the transportation and communication sectors are tightly tied to “public concerns.” Governments had, for example, required telegraph companies to serve all customers. Second, governments might restrict a company’s right to exclude individuals from public accommodations.
In exploring these analogies, Thomas noted that companies were not typically treated as speakers for “information that they merely distribute.” He focused on the manner in which digital platforms “have dominant market share” in a business that “may have substantial barriers to entry.” This gives such companies as Facebook and Google “enormous control over speech.”
Acknowledging alternate modes of communicating, Thomas likened such alternatives to having to swim over a river rather than take a bridge, or having to hike, rather than travel by car, over the Oregon Trail. Arguing that such analogies supported the 2nd Circuit’s “intuition” that Trump’s Twitter was a public forum, he noted that nothing in the record “evaluates Twitter’s market power” and no one had identified any current regulation “that restricts Twitter from removing an account that would otherwise be a ‘government-controlled space.’” Moreover, courts had split as to “whether federal accommodations laws apply to anything other than ‘physical’ locations.”
Thomas pointed out in his concurring opinion in Biden v. Knight that, like Twitter, Facebook, and Google, trains and communication networks are privately owned yet the law obligates them to serve everyone. Justice Thomas went on to note that Congress has granted social media platforms immunity from certain types of lawsuits but that it “has not imposed corresponding responsibilities, like nondiscrimination.”
https://spectator.org/big-tech-lose-censorship-wars/
It doesn't/ It's all designed to bring about a cataclysmic and seemingly grassroots "change" we can all believe in.
You know, the hard part of their little coup.
I'd really like to know...that was the first time I've ever watched that clip of Trump and other Republicans....how the hell is that inciting violence? What does "peaceful and patriotic" mean to you? I'd never approve of what happened, but is this inciting violence? Honestly, when you have a sitting Congresswoman telling anybody who will listen to confront conservatives while they're at dinner, how is this WORSE? You may not agree that the election was stolen and I'm sure there's a strong debate to be had, but inciting violence? When? Did he say "Storm the Capitol!!!!!!"..? Did he say "Take back the White House by force with all of your one guns!!!!" Seriously, how could anybody misinterpret "peacefully and patriotically?"
When you say, and I do get your point, that you never approved of what happened, from what I remember seeing was, as they “stormed” the Capitol, they did so in a mannerly fashion, staying within the ropes.
The entire issue shows what a bunch of panty waste populate this country, especially in the media and government. It’s a tool to keep the lemmings in line; after all, each step brings them closer to the precipice.
There have been countless left-wing "protests" at the Capitol over the years that were more lawless than January 6, including several bombings.
"mannerly fashion" --Huh. That's not what I saw: https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1926748740000/.
That leaves me with a question, where do I get a link that I can post, to what I remember? The reason that’s what I remember could stem from my lack of concern related to the event.
I wasn’t freaking out when the union members took over the Wisconsin capitol in Madison a few years ago, were you? That said, other than the children with cameras and microphones in the media screaming rape, and scum like AOC thinking the entire event was an attempt to rape her; who cares? As a matter of fact, the entire thing reminds me of some B movie from years ago where the psycho-chick is in a daze, mumbling about how they are all after her, lusting for her; a perfect picture of the squid..
Why is this a big deal? Because it is yet another attempt by the immature scum in DC trying to eliminate what they perceive to be the Trump Threat; aka, a threat to their power.
(Coming soon will be video of people storming the Capitol as they waved Russian flags, chanting “Trump/Putin 2024”!)
And let’s not ignore the Useful Idiots who bend over backwards to accommodate the DC elite. It is yet another attempt by the immature scum in DC trying to eliminate what they perceive to be the Trump Threat; aka, a threat to their addiction to power.
I sadly close by saying I have several family member who are part of that game.
Trump's speech did not constitute legal incitement, which is why he hasn't been indicted for that crime. I strongly doubt that he had advance knowledge of the plans to invade the Capitol or that he conspired with any of the rioters to do so.
What Trump did do, in my humble opinion, is wage a campaign of lies about the election in order to bring public pressure from GOP voters to bear on GOP Senators and Congressmen to vote to reject Biden electors under the Electoral Count Act of 1887, 3 U.S.C. sec. 3, and throw the election into the House of Representatives. Does that constitute a coup attempt? It clearly would if he was conspiring with the rioters to use force to compel Congress to act. But absent such conspiracy to use force, it's unlikely that he broke the laws against insurrection and seditious conspiracy. To be sure, Trump violated the foundational norm of democracy, respecting the results of an election, and if he succeeded, historians would probably call that a successful coup, but the water is muddy, which is why Attorney General Garland won't go there.
Much like Stacy Abrams and Hilary Clinton respected those norms?
Give me a fucking break. There are massive questions about that election in at least a third of voters' minds. And if Trump did think there were shenanigans in the vote, he, as someone sworn to defend the constitution, which voting rights are a strong portion thereof, is duty-bound to bring that to the attention of congress.
Norms are what we do, but they should be thrown in the wastebasket of eternity when they are being used to screw over parts of the country. Remember, it was a norm to beat your wife at one point.
If you are saying that Trump is as dishonest as Stacy Abrams and Hillary Clinton, I'd have to agree with you.
I am saying that throwing up claims to norms that are routinely broken by the other team is disingenuous horseshit.
But you knew that.
" To be sure, Trump violated the foundational norm of democracy, ..."
LOL! That's what Vlad Putin says about his opponents--before having them poisoned.
Is Hillary equally guilty for claiming Trump stole 2016? How about Gore related to 2000?
See my response to Jonathan above.
Hi there Doug. Just following up to see if you had any thoughts on Conservative Contrarian's question about Hillary Clinton's or Al Gore's claims of election fraud.
Cognitive dissonance can be painful, eh? I wouldn't think too much about that question either, if I were you.
May I take your comment as agreement with my assessment that Trump deliberately lied about election fraud? You point, I take it, is that his lies were no big deal because Mrs. Clinton and Gore also lied about election fraud.
The bigger Democratic lie in my opinion was the claim that Trump was a Russian intelligence asset, a traitor, who stole the 2016 election in a conspiracy with Putin. The Democrats pushed that lie, which originated in a fabrication financed by Hillary Clinton, for three years, trying to force Trump from office. That was outrageous, in my personal opinion. The Democrats' pushing of that lie was one of the reasons I voted for Trump in the last election.
What do I do now? I can't vote for the Democrats, who have never apologized for the Russia hoax, and whose economic polices are disastrous. I can't vote for Trump, who is still insisting that the election was fraudulent and who tried to overturn the election via his campaign of lies. I'm back to where I was in 2016, when I didn't cast a vote for president.
>>>May I take your comment as agreement with my assessment that Trump deliberately lied about election fraud?>>>
No, because I do not know that Trump lied about that.
>>>What do I do now?>>>
Sadly, the best answer I can offer is to enjoy the ride until it breaks down completely.
What are your sources that cause you to conclude there was no election fraud? After all, we can only agree Trump lied about it if we have all facts in front of us, correct?
Both Greenwald and Turley, who should know, have said that Trump's speech wasn't LEGALLY incitement. I'll take their word for it. My take was that it was certainly inciting something, but carefully hedged to stay within the law. Apparently he speaks more carefully than it appears, and had decent lawyers.
Maybe you notice that up above I wrote, "Trump's speech did not constitute legal incitement." Of course, that's just the start, not the end, of the inquiry.
When I noticed this starting to happen more, I was initially hopeful that it would spur people to using decentralized platforms for social media and content. This has only barely happened, though. Right now all I actually expect people to do is to bifurcate into two spheres of centralized social media and content platforms.
Well, when the alternative platforms are all smeared as white supremacist havens and deplatformed, what can you do?
Good lord, Paul Jay is such a mini-me fascist. Just parse this statement to see how his mind REALLY works: "I’m not in favor of the algorithms at all. Period. So let’s start with that. The whole idea of censorship through algorithm is BS." Oh, so you're saying if content was monitored and censored by humans (who support MY position) it's okay. Which is why Paul Jay reveals himself to be a closet fascist, because the correct answer is the 'whole idea of censorship is BS.' No sympathy for this dude.
"No sympathy for this dude." Hear, hear!
Rhetorical question:
Who the fuck made Google, Youtube, Twitter and FaceBook of all things the arbiter of truth and the ministry of what is and what is not to be discussed regarding elections, candidates, why the weather if foul this week or anything else?
Answer:
They did.
That they even say they "allow" discussions about this or that tells you everything you need to know. They're self-appointed Goebbels.
When you sit and think about the fact that the federal government, (or more specifically,) persons who were either elected or appointed politically are tugging their sleeves and requesting more censorship and nudging discourse in a particular direction, you have what amounts to the government chilling the 1st amendment through private business.
I may remind you all at this time that it's fucking illegal.
I guess we just add it to the pile of other illegal shit they do all day, every day, and the war crimes, pollution, failure to serve their constituencies and refusing to honor their crummy oaths and be done with it.
SSDD really.
I'm not really sure what solution or solutions you're suggesting here. High government regulation of tech companies? Breaking them up to neutralize their monopolies? Designating them as common carriers? Maybe even nationalizing them? Not only are all those left-wing solutions, but they will also enable the government more control of tech companies. Which means that whichever party is in power will be in a position to weaponize them against the other party. So how is that better than the current situation?
Paul Jay is not a voice Google et al really want to censor in the first place. His views are milquetoast "left" just the kind of stuff they love. Obviously the algorithm picked it up and was adjusted to accept him. He opposed Force the Vote for example definitely not progressive, if there is such a thing in the US.
The correct answer is to stop using these obviously corrupt social media networks. Sure it'll suck at first, but you will be a much better person for it.