[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Aptorian, on 31 January 2021 - 05:08 PM, said:

I don't believe this circus is likely to lead to anything, I just want my fantasy of Trump being grilled for an entire day in front of cameras to come true. It'll be such a shit show.

I'd love it if they let Trump act as his own 'lawyer' and do the cross-examinations himself.

Might even have a heart attack or stroke and die on live TV.

#TrueRealityTelevision

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 31 January 2021 - 05:24 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'Trump Taught Teachers Conspiracy Theories. Now They're Teaching Them To Students.

Teachers who believe Trump's election fraud lies that brought a violent mob to the Capitol are passing on those conspiracy theories in the classroom — and on to the next generation of voters.

As he spoke to his students during a Zoom lesson earlier this month, the northern Virginia middle school social studies teacher called the attempted coup at the Capitol on Jan. 6 "a setup."

He would know, he said. He was there.

"That's what I witnessed. That's what I saw," teacher Benjamin Plummer can be heard saying in a video of the incident published by Fox 5 DC. "When I heard the media just blaming Trump supporters the whole time, I knew then that it was a setup."

Plummer defended the mob that marched to the Capitol as "incredibly peaceful" and "Christians," and instead told his young class at the diverse Fred M. Lynn Middle School that the summer's Black Lives Matter protesters were to blame for "destroying cities."

Plummer, who did not respond to a request for comment, was subsequently put on leave over his Zoom rant after a student recorded it and it was posted to Twitter. The Prince William County school district told local news outlets that while employees are permitted to "engage in political activity on their personal time," they are not to do so during work hours or using school resources.

[...]

Plummer is just one of several teachers who've faced consequences for their actions related to the insurrection. There's the high school history teacher in Wisconsin under investigation for telling his students he was going to DC to defend "election integrity." There's the Florida substitute dismissed for telling students falsely the rioters were antifa. A Pennsylvania social studies teacher was suspended pending an investigation for attending the Trump rally before the Capitol attack and saying on Facebook he was "doing [his] civic duty." And then there was the Cleveland school therapist who stormed the Capitol with a QAnon sign, resigned in a letter saying she was switching careers "to expose the global evil of human trafficking and pedophilia," and was then arrested by the FBI.

[...] The political atmosphere is so tense nationally that some teachers are even holding their tongues, or facing disciplinary consequences, as their conspiracy-minded colleagues poison the historical record. These educators, who like millions of other Americans wrongly believe the 2020 election was stolen, are not only responsible for teaching children what happened that day, they're helping to build the next generation of voters.

[...] Misled by former president Donald Trump's extensive lies about his defeat, about a third of Americans, and two-thirds of Republicans, do not trust the election results and believe there was widespread fraud, despite a total lack of evidence. More than a sixth believe in the mass delusion of QAnon, roughly the same amount who don't believe humans are causing climate change.

Teachers are naturally among them. Because of how they are scattered all across the US, educators can almost be viewed as something of a representative cross section of what the whole country believes, according to Meira Levinson, a Harvard University education professor and political philosopher. "Teachers are really evenly spread," said Levinson. "They basically mirror the beliefs — including the false beliefs — of Americans."

[...] A high school social studies teacher in Catoosa County, Georgia (a district near the Tennessee border that is represented in Congress by QAnon believer Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene), was this week forced to remove a post on the school’s online learning platform where he said there had been no evidence of voter fraud in the 2020 election.

[...] “A civil society has to respect facts and the truth, even when the truth turns out differently than what we wished for,” he wrote. “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but everyone is NOT entitled to their own FACTS.”
After parents complained, McMahan[...] was directed to take down the post. School officials said it was because McMahan had shared his “personal perspective” on “conspiracy theories, rumors and allegations that have not been litigated.”

But the school is wrong. There is, in fact, no evidence to support these election fraud claims. And they were, in fact, litigated; Trump filed more than 60 lawsuits in an attempt to prove the race was “stolen” from him — and he lost them all. McMahan was merely stating the truth.

There are no quick antidotes to a nation poisoned by conspiracy theories. Giving students the tools to discern facts and form their own opinion will mean expanding media literacy training and civic education curriculums. [...] it’s not just the students who will need these classes.
“People really need to jump on getting better professional development for faculty and staff so that they can better support students, [and] one really great place to start is with some digital literacy for our adults, as well as our students, so people know where misinformation is coming from, what it means, how to snuff it out, how to identify it,” [...] “We’re starting in a lot of circles to ask that of our students, but I haven’t seen anyone asking that of faculty and staff.”'

https://www.buzzfeed...YJnqRW1l1hJ8eKg

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 01 February 2021 - 05:45 PM

[Macros]

Here's the question.

Can the Reps keep the conspiracy and paranoia going long enough to capitalise on it and push a high voter turn out from the stop the stealers next time?

[Tiste Simeon]

Macros, on 01 February 2021 - 10:51 PM, said:

Here's the question.

Can the Reps keep the conspiracy and paranoia going long enough to capitalise on it and push a high voter turn out from the stop the stealers next time?

Their fake calls for unity will last - at the absolute most - until about a year before the midterms.
Then they'll double down on the natives nastiness to try and bring them back in.

This post has been edited by Tiste Simeon: 02 February 2021 - 09:21 AM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'As the Republican Party buckles under the weight of the reality-defying, logic-bending conspiracy theories being pushed by members of the party, Sen. Mitch McConnell at last weighed in Monday night to state the obvious: This is a problem. The biggest problem not named Trump, so far, is the past and present behavior of newly elected Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. There appears to be quite literally nothing so absurd that the Republican won't believe it—and share "it" on social media. On Monday, McConnell declared the "loony lies and conspiracy theories," which have come to define a new era of Republican politician in the Trump age, are a "cancer for the Republican Party and our country."

The Senate minority leader did not mention Greene by name in his statement condemning the fabulist thinking of a growing number of Republicans, but it was clearly directed at the Greene wing of the party. "Somebody who's suggested that perhaps no airplane hit the Pentagon on 9/11, that horrifying school shootings were pre-staged, and that the Clintons crashed JFK Jr.'s airplane is not living in reality," McConnell said.

[...] There have been calls from the more sane end of the GOP pool that Greene be stripped of her committee assignments. “The comments that are being put forward by Marjorie Taylor Greene are atrocious,” Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel told the New York Times. “They need to be condemned. They are violent, they are inaccurate—they are very, very dangerous.”

Greene, always thinking, offered her own zing-response to McConnell on Twitter. “The real cancer for the Republican Party is weak Republicans who only know how to lose gracefully,” she tweeted. “This is why we are losing our country.”'

https://slate.com/ne...ican-party.html

The tortoise shows a speck of back-bone... in a battle with the ouroboroi over their limbs.

'There's another way Greene is like Trump, right? While she has aggressively courted a rural base, she doesn't come from the same world as her constituents.

[...] This gets missed a lot in the national conversation: She's not some, like, backwoods redneck—people will put these Deliverance memes up when she speaks—she's not that type. She's from a very wealthy neighborhood in metro Atlanta. Her kids went to very expensive private schools. She comes from a very affluent background. Some of her critics want to paint her as some backwoods bumpkin, and that's just not who she is.

[...] She's in this very white district that's been hit really hard by COVID.

It's very white, very conservative, very rural with a mix of some exurbs. There's not a very dominant news outlet or newspaper that provides information, so a lot of the voters I talked to during my visits to the district told me that their primary sources of information were social media or very conservative outlets.

A couple of days ago, Marjorie Taylor Green held several town hall meetings for constituents. And over and over again, you heard this fantasy narrative playing out, because she sponsored some kind of push to impeach Joe Biden. She was the only sponsor period on this legislation that's going to go nowhere to impeach Joe Biden just as he took office. And yet, at these town hall meetings, her constituents are treating it seriously. They're asking serious questions about why is the mainstream media not paying attention? When is the hearing going to start? How soon is Joe Biden going to be out of office? Those kinds of questions about legislation that objectively is going nowhere—that not even Fox News is reporting as viable. But her constituents are getting the message from alternative news sources that this is somehow this legit push to remove Joe Biden from office.

[...] I went to some of these "Stop the Steal" rallies in Georgia [...] they also would talk about how frustrated they were because they wanted to vote, but they didn't know how to because they had been told by President Trump that vote by mail was fraudulent. But they had also been told by President Trump and his allies that there were problems with Georgia's electronic voting machines. So they were genuinely frustrated and conflicted.

[...]

How do you think her constituents are going to see all this?

Most of them, the people who supported her in November, are going to echo what she's been saying. They're going to echo the fact that this is another example of Republican Trump supporters being silenced. It's why she's wearing a censored mask. She will definitely be sending fundraising emails out about it. She'll probably raise another boatload of cash off this. She raised about $1.6 million in a few days in the run-up to the last big controversy. That's a lot of money. And she's got this national audience now. She has more than 300,000 followers on Twitter. That's a powerful megaphone to raise cash and to get your message out.'

https://slate.com/ne...an-they-do.html

Almost hope she'll be banned from Twitter and social media---but then she (and her followers) will move to more batshit pure echochambers (maybe even something new created in conjunction with Trump---some new grift...).

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 02 February 2021 - 07:49 PM

[Malankazooie]

Oh snap! QAnon kooky broad voted off her committee assignments. Man, just think if Trump still could be on Twitter.

[Macros]

The world is shitty enough as it is.

I was just informed that antifa is sponsored by the guy who makes riot gear.

I tried to explain that antifa is not a fucking organisation that is funded.
But nope, antifa is sponsored by riot gear makers, because rich gonna rich.

Which, I can kind of get, but it's that kind of shit spread logic that sets the narrative of antifa as a terrorist organisation

[Maark Abbott]

Macros, on 05 February 2021 - 12:11 AM, said:

The world is shitty enough as it is.

I was just informed that antifa is sponsored by the guy who makes riot gear.

I tried to explain that antifa is not a fucking organisation that is funded.
But nope, antifa is sponsored by riot gear makers, because rich gonna rich.

Which, I can kind of get, but it's that kind of shit spread logic that sets the narrative of antifa as a terrorist organisation

It's purposeful. In a world which is sliding rightward by the day and in some cases drawing alarming parallels towards 1930s style fascism, anything that stands in opposition must be denigrated and discredited as far as possible in the eyes of the common man. And then when even they can see where we've ended up, it's too late for them to do anything. I have zero doubts that such 'logic' is seeded by those in power.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'Nevada bill would allow tech companies to create governments

Planned legislation to establish new business areas in Nevada would allow technology companies to effectively form separate local governments.

[...]

The zones would permit companies with large areas of land to form governments carrying the same authority as counties, including the ability to impose taxes, form school districts and courts and provide government services.

Sisolak named Blockchains, LLC as a company that had committed to developing a "smart city" in an area east of Reno after the legislation has passed.

[...] would be limited to companies working in specific business areas including blockchain, autonomous technology, the Internet of Things, robotics, artificial intelligence, wireless, biometrics and renewable resource technology.

Zone requirements would include applicants owning at least 78 square miles (202 square kilometers) of undeveloped, uninhabited land within a single county but separate from any city, town or tax increment area. [...]

The zones would initially operate with the oversight of their location counties, but would eventually take over county duties and become independent governmental bodies.

The zones would have three-member supervisor boards with the same powers as county commissioners. The businesses would maintain significant control over board membership.'

https://apnews.com/a...jO_tnj4g7teozUs

I still wish scientists would conquer the world. Not sure I trust tech companies to reorganize society for the better... still might be better than democracy.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 05 February 2021 - 06:54 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'Republican Voters Want The GOP's Future To Look Trumpian

Republicans remain more likely to define themselves as Trump supporters than supporters of his party, a new HuffPost/YouGov poll finds.

[...]

Asked to choose between two options for their party's future, a 74% majority of Republican and Republican leaning-independent voters say Republican officials should follow Trump going forward, compared to 26% who want to see them go in a different direction. [Granted, some have left the Republican party because of Trump, but it's not clear whether they would classify themselves as "Republican leaning independent" voters for this poll.]

GOP voters no longer see Trump as the unambiguous head of the party, the poll finds. Instead, they're split, with 41% saying Trump is currently the leader of the Republican Party, 43% saying he isn't any longer, and the remainder unsure.

[...] Rank-and-file Republicans remain likelier to express allegiance to the former president than to the party as a whole. A 40% plurality of Republicans and Republican-leaning voters say they consider themselves mostly supporters of Trump, compared to 26% who say they're mostly supporters of the GOP and 23% who say they're equally supporters of both. By a 36-point margin, they say they'd likely side with Trump over their district's representative in Congress if the two were in disagreement.

[...] Just 14% of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters say they consider themselves mostly supporters of Biden, with 30% saying they mostly support the Democratic Party, and 46% that they equally support both.'

https://www.huffpost...5b6179453d6d5f9

Trump supporters seem less likely to respond to polls, so the actual pro-Trump numbers are probably higher....

'Trump Plotting Petty Revenge Tour Against Republicans Who Abandoned Him[...]

[...] Trump has been pretty quiet since he left office last month, aside from his absurd and pompous resignation from the Screen Actors Guild in which he lauded his work in Home Alone 2. But that doesn't mean he's not plotting away [...] Trump is planning to embark on a nationwide speaking tour specifically designed to drain support from Republicans who have backed his impeachment. [...] as well as any Republican senators who speak out against him at next week's trial. "I'm sure he wants to get out a roulette wheel with all their faces on it," one anonymous Republican Trump ally told Insider. However, Trump is apparently waiting for the right time. His ally explained: "Even he recognizes that we have Trump fatigue."'

https://www.thedaily...report?ref=home

'Both chambers of Congress have now passed a budget resolution, a key procedural step that sets up the ability for Democrats to pass President Joe Biden's sweeping $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief package without the threat of a filibuster from Republicans who oppose it.

The Senate passed the budget resolution early Friday morning 51-50 on a party line vote after Vice President Kamala Harris showed up at the Capitol to break the tie.'

https://www.cnn.com/...lief/index.html

Party-line vote... does not bode well for the future, especially if the filibuster isn't abolished. Oh well, at least the Blue Dog (conservative) Democrats are being cooperative... for now.

'What Did the Senate's All-Night Parade of Budget Votes Mean?

Nothing, mostly.

[...] The "vote-a-rama" process was open to any and all amendments, and of the 889(!) that were offered, 40 received roll-call votes. In a chamber that moves at the brisk pace of an embedded boulder, that's enough for a 15-hour day.

The Senate is a confounding, ancient place that draws its strength from confusing the public. Judging by the social media clamor during certain votes Thursday night, the Senate drew a lot of strength from its all-nighter. But there are only two important takeaways from the process: (1) Passing the budget was little more than a procedural step to unlock the reconciliation process, which will allow Senate Democrats to pass a COVID relief bill without fear of a filibuster, and (2) the amendments that made their way into the resolution were essentially messaging votes, and will have no binding effect on what can and can't be included in the COVID relief bill.

There was, for example, a bipartisan amendment brokered between centrist Democrats and Republicans saying that the next round of direct relief checks shouldn't go to "upper-income taxpayers." It passed 99 to 1, but its effect on who's eligible for the final COVID relief legislation is nothing; it didn't even bother to define what "upper-income" meant. The best way to think of these amendments is that the Senate was being asked, casually, for its take on various issues. It wasn't making law.

So why did they even bother voting on all of these amendments? The Republican minority took it as a rare opportunity to force votes on Democrats, and get them on the record, on difficult issues. [...]

Indiana Sen. Todd Young, for example, called a vote on forbidding undocumented immigrants from receiving direct relief checks. It passed, 58 to 42, with 8 mostly middle-of-the-road or vulnerable Democrats joining Republicans. Montana Sen. Steve Daines called one on "improvement of relations between the United States and Canada with regard to the Keystone XL Pipeline." In other words, the vote was, is the Keystone XL Pipeline good or bad? It passed 52 to 48 with Sens. Joe Manchin and Jon Tester joining the Republicans. A similar one on fracking passed as well.

[...] If there was any use to the amendment process, beyond Republicans trolling Democrats to create talking points for the 2022 campaign, it was to give hints about where the politics are on various issues. Democrats, for example, might ultimately pare back the direct relief checks in the bill—not the $1,400 top amount, which President Biden has been insistent on keeping, but the thresholds at which they phase out.

[...] Senate Democrats have zero margin: They will need 50 out of 50 Democrats—Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin—to agree on a COVID relief bill. They also will have to contend with the "Byrd Rule," a statute which constrains what can and can't be passed through reconciliation.'

https://slate.com/ne...ote-a-rama.html

Ugh.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 05 February 2021 - 09:08 PM

[Tsundoku]

A nice summary:

https://www.news.com...5d404a65f1948e9

Donald Trump’s 77 day campaign to subvert presidential election
In the weeks between the presidential election and the US riots, Donald Trump ‘risked disorder, chaos and violence’ in his bid to ‘subvert American democracy’.

Natalie Brown

FEBRUARY 7, 20216:35PM

NEWS.COM.AU2:32
Donald Trump isn't going anywhere, impeachment or not

Enabled by prominent Republicans and motivated by his most devout followers, Donald Trump spent the 77 days between November’s presidential election and the deadly Capitol insurrection on January 6 peddling a lie about voter fraud invented to help him subvert American democracy.

A lengthy report by The New York Times this week retold the events of the weeks between the two milestones of the 74-year-old’s administration, describing how he “waged an extralegal campaign that convinced tens of millions of Americans the election had been stolen and made the deadly January 6 assault on the Capitol almost inevitable”.

While we may not have been able to “foresee” the specific events that occurred at the Capitol, we could – and did – foresee that Mr Trump’s rhetoric and behaviour was a red flag, Dr William Clapton, a senior lecturer in international relations at UNSW, told news.com.au.

Even before November 4 – when, in the early hours of the morning, Mr Trump called for “all voting to stop” in what he deemed “a fraud on the American public” – he and his officials were preparing to lay the “first stone of his post-election lie”.

“Trump’s attacks on mail-in ballots was, for some, a deliberate strategy,” Dr Clapton said.

“He and his officials knew that the COVID-19 pandemic would prompt many to vote by mail, and that these voters would predominantly vote Democrat. They knew that Republicans would turn out in greater numbers on election day … When the mail-in ballots were counted, they knew they could probably overwhelmingly favour Biden and the Democrats.

“And this was his opportunity to claim fraud. Trump and his supporters repeatedly questioned how so many votes for Biden could ‘magically appear’.

“From this perspective, this makes Trump and his supporters actions even more terrible and indefensible, in my view.”

Within 10 days of November 3, Mr Trump’s election lawyers knew, according to The Times, that there was no reality to the narrative their leader was promoting in his comments and on Twitter.

Supposedly “dead voters” were turning up alive. A suitcase of what Republicans claimed was filled with “illegal ballots” turned out to be camera equipment.

“Mr Trump did not, could not, win the election, not by ‘a lot’ or even a little,” the Times’ report said. “His presidency would soon be over.”

And yet, the lie prevailed.

“Whether Trump’s lawyers would have let him make claims about the election results, I am not sure they could have stopped him even if they wanted to,” Dr Clapton said, adding there’d been reports of “major schisms” among Mr Trump’s legal team after the election.

“On one side were those pushing a strategy that engaged in serious attempts to appeal against specific aspects of the electoral process in some states.

“On the other side was Rudy Giuliani and others who wanted to push the narrative that the election was stolen, and engage in spurious and unfounded lawsuits based on this. The Giuliani camp won out.”

As for key Republican officials – including then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell – “I am not sure if they saw it going that far, but if they didn’t, they should have”, Dr Clapton said.

Mr Trump’s greatest enablers in the aftermath of his election loss, motivated by “ambition, fear or a misplaced belief that he would not go too far”.

“They must have known they were playing with fire, that there were elements among Trump supporters who had the intent and capability to engage in violent acts in response to the lies that Trump and Republicans repeatedly spread about the election,” Dr Clapton said of Mr Trump’s team, Republican supporters in Congress and media allies.

The day after the Electoral College certified the votes as expected in December, Mr McConnell “moved to bring the curtain down”, telling Mr Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows he would acknowledge Joe Biden as president-elect on the Senate floor that afternoon.

Still, Mr Trump refused to concede. “This fake election can no longer stand,” he wrote on Twitter. “Get moving Republicans.”

We all know what happened next.

In hindsight, both The Times report and Dr Clapton concluded that the events of January 6 didn’t come out of nowhere.

Much of last year, Dr Clapton said, was spent by a president who “repeatedly and consistently attacking and undermining the integrity of the US elections well before the elections were held”.

“At best, Trump, his team, his Republican supporters in congress … and his media allies … were grossly negligent. They engaged in conduct that posed an unacceptable risk of violence and endangered US national security,” he said.

“At worst, they deliberately and cynically lied and manipulated Trump supporters in an attempt to further their own political ambitions. They deliberately tried to overturn and steal a legitimate election, ironically and hypocritically by using the false pretence of an attempt by the Democrats to steal the election.

“Either way, judging by the conduct of Trump and many Republican members of Congress in the aftermath of the riots at the Capitol, they seem not to care at all about the lives lost or the serious damage done to US democracy.”

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'2019 video shows Rep. Greene telling people to flood the Capitol'

https://www.cnn.com/...ol-ebof-vpx.cnn




(clip starts 32 seconds in)

[Malankazooie]

Caught a little bit of the opening arguments of this second impeachment (damn, that is a weird one to say).

I don't get some of the tangents these legal reps / attorneys go off on in some of these statements. I don't see much in the way of correlation to what was clearly on display Jan. 6 for most common sense, discerning observers. I dunno, guess I could never be a lawyer.

[Garak]

A lawyer's job is to get his client off the charge. If that means giving you a headache as you try to follow his BS? Sure, why not. And with Trump, BS is all they have.

[Aptorian]

I think the question we should all be asking ourselves is what about Hillary's E-mails?

[Morgoth]

Aptorian, on 09 February 2021 - 08:49 PM, said:

I think the question we should all be asking ourselves is what about Hillary's E-mails?

It all comes down to the unanswered questions relating to Benghazi.

[Macros]

Covefefe anyone?

[Malankazooie]

Damn guys. That unheard before police communication right after Trump's speech finished is pretty damning evidence that those fuckers were incited into action. S M damn H.

[Malankazooie]

Did anyone catch that bit about turning on the gas? What was that referring to? I think it was during the Eric Swalwell evidence presentation.

Also, Trump admin folks, prior to the Jan. 6 "Stop the Steal" rally, helped secure permits closer to the capital that were previously denied? Is that true?

[worry]

I believe that refers to The Oathkeepers (that organized paramilitary force who were there) -- they were being contacted by off-site people via FB who were telling them where congresspeople were and to lock them in and gas them:

Quote

“All members are in the tunnels under Capitol,” read a Facebook message sent to Caldwell, identified by authorities as holding a leadership role in the organization. “Seal them in turn on gas.”