The enemys of democracy

[living sounds]

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/09/us/officer-crushed-capitol-riot-video/index.html

 

[living sounds]

Just in case someone missed it among the images of people in funny looking gear, what needs to be stressed is that at least some of the insurrectionsts who stormed the Capitol building were wearing clothing with Nazi propaganda and anti-semetic hate speech:

https://jewishchronicle.timesofisrael.com/neo-nazis-qanon-and-camp-auschwitz-symbols-on-display-at-capitol-riots/

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/08/world/europe/us-capitol-rampage-camp-auschwitz.html

Fashists and Neo-Nazis. I would be ashamed to "know these people".

 

[hodad]

So it seemed kind of ridiculous when Trump supplanted modestly competent conservatives in the DOD with unqualified, hyperpartisan sycophants in late November, when his term was almost over.  Maybe it was in preparation for Wednesday?
The Pentagon granted DC Mayor Muriel Bowser just 340 National Guardsmen.  A large number of these were nowhere near the rally site, and they were unarmed, without riot gear, and ordered to avoid contact with Trump supporters. 

Odds are, Mark Esper and James Anderson would have done more if they had still been there, or at least provided some pushback against Trump's idiocy.  But Trump installed loyal sycophants like Kash Patel and Anthony Tata to make sure that sort of thing didn't happen. 

I seriously doubt Trump had a solid plan when he installed his crew of sycophants at the Pentagon.  But I think he knew that whatever he did, he needed a bunch of spineless incompetent weasels who would follow his lead with minimal direction, and who were loyal enough to keep their bloody mouths shut. 

Yes, another impeachment really is necessary.

EDIT:  It's worth noting that a little less than a year ago, voices from the right were saying,  "Let the people decide in November," paying no heed to the fact that the man was being impeached for attempted election tampering.  Or maybe they knew full well, and they just pretended they thought the "people" should decide--maybe they didn't want to face the truth, maybe they didn't care, maybe they didn't want to admit error, maybe they didn't want to make the right choice, which also happened to be the hard choice.  Well, now, all those voices from the right  have been proven, empirically, demonstrably, unequivocally WRONG.  As if there was any doubt in the first place.  Will they stand up for what's right now?  Will they admit their error (or flat out bullsh!t, however you wish to see it) in the case of the first impeachment?  I won't hold my breath.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emmanuelfelton/black-capitol-police-racism-mob?bftwnews&utm_term=4ldqpgc&fbclid=IwAR0aCfXMjqm913fneSgDCrxCI5amKtAKIFOVmen1LhJgOI-3J0o3olIYBvE#4ldqpgc

 

[CJ]

lets say there were 1000 people inside the building.

that breaks down to 20 people per state. not a very big representation of the total population.

so you had a bunch of drunken meth head fringe group mutants break in. i have seen far worse riots at a soccer game.

"assault on democracy"  by who? the biggest losers in the US? i did not feel that democracy was really being threatened by those 1000 or so  cretins as they are no match for the total amount of law enforcement and military that we have in the US.

i am wondering what that crowd expected to accomplish. did they really think that the senate or the house would say, 'oh, there is a mean crowd who broke in, we should make rump the winner of the election...' i think the thugs realized the futility of the situation themselves, as once they got inside, they seemed to be milling around aimlessly. it was like "now what do we do? wait for the cops to arrest us i guess," not the the brightest bulbs in the chandelier that is for sure.

unfortunately for rump, he was responsible for the rally and he also delayed calling in the Natl Guard for 2 hours, that makes him an accessory to murder as far as i am concerned , but of course he will weasel out of it like he has been doing all his life.

if he is impeached, he will lose lifetime protection from the Secret Service, which would make it far easier for people who want to kill him to have access, so there is still hope!  ;D

looks like they arrested the guy in the ted nugent outfit. and yeah, where was ted when all this was going down? oh that right, he had a little meeting with the secret service after he threatened to kill Obama. been laying kind of low lately.

so if you voted for rump, you now have the blood of hundreds of thousands of covid victims on your hands due to the negligence of the dickhead in chief, as well as the riot victims, but since you were bad at character judgement, and perhaps did not research your candidate's history in a very thorough manner, i guess we can let you off with a warning; DONT EVER DO THIS AGAIN!!!

 

[hodad]

i am wondering what that crowd expected to accomplish. did they really think that the senate or the house would say, 'oh, there is a mean crowd who broke in, we should make rump the winner of the election...'

The whole of Congress and the VP were in that building.  The building had been breached before Congress was completely evacuated. If the rioters had been slightly more competent, things could have gotten very ugly.  Would it have changed the election?  Probably not.  But they could have done a lot more than kill a cop--which I guess is okay because the killers are "patriots," right?

 

[Script]

not the brightest bulbs in the chandelier that is for sure.

LOL. That's for sure indeed.

BTW, the Terminator has stepped up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3EZ2tVZ5MY

 

[CJ]

PGA just canceled the 2022 championship at a rump golf course.

 

[dmp]

Looking at the mob is missing the real story. The yahoos did something really dumb and a lot of them are going to go to jail, but they were just pawns in it. The real story is the failure of defense - Capital Police not being prepared - deliberately or not - and Capital Police participation  (letting rioters in, showing them unmarked offices of key Congresspersons) - and the several hour delay in any backup arriving. Not authorizing the National Guard.
If this had been any other terrorist group there would have been a tactical response with overwhelming force in a matter of minutes.
It is simply unbelievable that a group could take the US Capital by force with both houses of Congress and the VP in attendance.
Can it be explained with incompetence?

The bad faith arguments should just be ignored. No point in arguing with people on the internet.

 

[hodad]

Can it be explained with incompetence?

An article that talks to Capitol Police officers:
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emmanuelfelton/black-capitol-police-racism-mob

An interesting detail is that there were apparently LEOs in the mob who flashed their badges and tried to convince Capitol cops to let them through. 

 

[dmp]

I really like AOC for instance, I think she's awesome and the world could use a lot more of her.  But, a lot of people see her as a divisive force, so I would also caution her to rein in some of the passion because it is too easily picked on and misconstrued as extremism.

The right wing propoganda attacks are out of this world against AOC and some of the other progressive Democrats, no matter what they say. The disconnect between what they say and how the right wing portrays them is a big gap. Ironically, because they favor proposals that have a large amount of support by regular people. 
My question is why is it the left that should rein in the passion? The passion on the right is 10 times as high.
For some reason for the past decade it's become accepted for the right wing to be inflammatory, while the left is supposed to be civil. And I am not talking about yahoos on social media - I am talking about Congresspersons. The right wing representatives, particularly in primaries, have become very extreme. Maybe it is simply a difference in the base and what they will tolerate.

I swear if Teddy Roosevelt, Lincoln, etc... were politicians today they would be smeared just as viciously.

I also really support the progressive left and AOC, and see the alignment of their values with the progressive party of the 1920's that set the USA up for such a successful century.

 

[Ricardus]

Oopsie...

 

[hodad]

On the call were several officials from the D.C. government, as well as officials from the Pentagon, including Lt. Gen. Walter E. Piatt, director of the Army Staff. The D.C. contingent was flabbergasted to hear Piatt say that he could not recommend that his boss, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, approve the request.

“I don’t like the visual of the National Guard standing a police line with the Capitol in the background,” Piatt said, according to Sund and others on the call.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sund-riot-national-guard/2021/01/10/fc2ce7d4-5384-11eb-a817-e5e7f8a406d6_story.html

 

[living sounds]

I really like AOC for instance, I think she's awesome and the world could use a lot more of her.  But, a lot of people see her as a divisive force, so I would also caution her to rein in some of the passion because it is too easily picked on and misconstrued as extremism.

AOC is a harbinger of the demographicly fueled change that will grip the US in the coming decades. I have written before that the backwards thinking people will be dragged kicking and screaming into this new age of reason, progress and enlightenment, and we have seen plenty of kicking and screaming in the last weeks and months. It won't help them.

Don't accept their lopsided framing. The US has historically been a forward looking country and the age of regressive politics soon comes to an end. They know it and that's why they are acting up. And those privileged and wealthy egg them on for their own selfish reasons.

Unfortunately it looks like it will temporarily get uglier before it gets better. But change and progress have never been easy.

 

[dmp]

It's like if the defense man makes a bad play, if you constantly bash him the rest of the game, the negative energy flows down through the team and the team loses, even if the intention/passion to win the game is high. 

so in your team sports analogy you are talking about two teammates on the same team criticizing each other not criticizing the dirty play of the other team. Wouldn't that be like the centrist Dems criticizing AOC (which we've seen plenty of)? Not Democrats standing up to Republicans with the same passion that Republicans constantly spew out?

My question is why is one standard acceptable for Republicans, but not for Democrats? And why do Democrats continue to self-police after decades of this double standard and the other team continually playing dirty, and moving the country to the right?

 

[living sounds]

You can't force people...

It's just Democracy in action. Look at what Stacey Abrams did in Georgia.

The right has way too long been very sucessfull to paint over the rift that always existed between the grifting donor class that wants low taxes, subsidies for their extraction businesses, socialized risks and private gains vs. the various "regular" right wing people who want their religious delusions to be made law, want to push back against minorities and immigrants and express their resentments against the latter as well as the perceived intellectual, media and political establishment.

Long before social media existed deregulation of media markets allowed for the rise of talk radio, which stirred resentment and hate.

There are many legitimate grievances people have, but a lot of it is emotional and misguided by any objective measure.

Sounds harsh, but that's what it is.

 

[living sounds]

I understand that, but telling someone they are misguided doesn't work as far as I am concerned.
It is too easily refuted and doubles up on the insulting/emotional part of the equation.  Escalates things.

Sometimes it's okay to take off the blaster and the lightsaber, and enter the cave without our 'high brow' or perceived 'enlightenment.'  Maybe more people will take us seriously.

Gotta run. Enjoy the rest of your day bro.

I'm not telling that to them, I state it here to those who are perceptive to it.

The modern world is not made for people who think like that. We have sports and video games to act out the caveman instincts. I recklessly broke a bone last year mountainbiking myself.

 

[living sounds]

McCain worked with O'Bama, stood up for him like a friend would do in a tough moment.  I remember that.

He also held a deep and longstanding grudge against Obama after he lost the election.

But it's better to focus on what we have in common than what keeps us apart.

 

[dmp]

I've been surprised how a switch in my own attitude, even when I feel like I'm in the right, leads me to criticize less and it creates positive energy.  Why do we have to do that when others don't want to play along/by the same 'rules,' because it just feels right to me in this moment. 

Well I applaud that and I also have realized that negativity is self-defeating.

 

[living sounds]

It's nice when the lies no longer work:

“President Trump today privately — and falsely — blamed ‘Antifa people’ for storming the Capitol, even though clear video and documentary evidence exists showing the rioters were overwhelmingly Trump supporters, Axios reports.

In a tense, 30-minute-plus phone call this morning with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Trump trotted out the Antifa line.

McCarthy would have none of it, telling the president: “It’s not Antifa, it’s MAGA. I know. I was there.”

 

[lassoharp]

Many people have remarked how senseless the raid on the Capitol was in terms of achieving the assumed objective of somehow forcing them to hand the election over to DT. 

Very true but I don't think that's the reason why he chose to foment the mob.

What he has seemingly managed to do is put the US government in one hell of a rock in a hard place.

If they don't impeach him then they have set a new and disturbing precedent that effectively says "If you're POTUS and want to do as you please, no problem, just wait until there's "Only 13 days left" and then have at it - incite insurrection, commit treason, destroy the Capitol, terrorize elected leaders - no problem, you won't get impeached" (you can blame it on being "mentally unfit").    It also sends a message that we (USA) will tolerate such behavior unpunished . . . . .under certain circumstances, and therein lies the sucker punch.

Those certain circumstances would be, as has already been stated by those in opposition to impeachment, for cases where doing so might create more harm than good in the long run.  So, he has managed to create enough fear and dread to force this most uncomfortable, and outrageous situation.  This would be like the courts saying to someone like Charles Manson, "We're not going to punish you for your crimes because you have so much influence that it would cause more problems than prosecuting you would solve"  (so uh, have a happy mayhem and murder spree at your discretion).  And you can bet your last dime that his followers are watching the outcome of this with sharp eyes trained on the bottom line verdict where no impeachment sends the message that they were in the right as "the chosen ones".  (ie a victory) 

I'm not going to pretend to know who was who among that group that stormed into the Capitol because it is already clear that there were many different stripes there unified under a common cause.  DT loves chaos by his own admission, so the bickering over which groups were there and which weren't is playing right into that trap. Stay clear of that in order to remain objective.

From what I can see, this is all about the one thing DT has always been highly skilled at - gaining leverage over a situation.  If he is not impeached then we (assumedly) get less protests according to the reasoning of some, but he is free to run again in 2024.  If he is impeached then he is peculiarly free to pursue other goals and free from the obligations of mounting a 2024 campaign which his supporters would be expecting.  But, it's those other plans and goals he may have that are most worrisome at this point but that's another discussion topic.  A rejected ex-POTUS in exile could be a dangerous thing to the USA.