USA Politics (redux)

[T. D.]

Glad that they have caught some of the people involved in it; keep at it!

PD

Hate to be overly cynical, but keep watching carefully for whatever "punishment" is levied on these offenders.
I expect a lot of fines and wrist slaps. Maybe one or two will get token jail time.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Hate to be overly cynical, but keep watching carefully for whatever "punishment" is levied on these offenders.
I expect a lot of fines and wrist slaps. Maybe one or two will get token jail time.

I've also been pondering that (what the punishment/s will be).

[T. D.]

From CNBC:

Live updates: Trump did not check on Pence during U.S. Capitol siege and they haven't spoken since


President Donald Trump has not called Vice President Mike Pence since the deadly U.S. Capitol riots last week, a source familiar with the matter told NBC News.

As the pro-Trump mob was attacking Congress last Wednesday, Pence had to be evacuated to a secure location in the Capitol. During the attack, Trump did not check on Pence's safety, two sources familiar with matter told NBC News.

Some Pro-Trump rioters were calling for Pence to be hanged. Trump still has not condemned the threats of violence against Pence, but the White House has issued a statement on Saturday.

"We strongly condemn all calls to violence, including those against any member of this administration," White House spokesman Judd Deere said.

[SimonNZ]

Hate to be overly cynical, but keep watching carefully for whatever "punishment" is levied on these offenders.
I expect a lot of fines and wrist slaps. Maybe one or two will get token jail time.

Is it even possible that Trump would pardon them as a final "fuck you"?

[Mirror Image]

From CNBC:

Live updates: Trump did not check on Pence during U.S. Capitol siege and they haven't spoken since


President Donald Trump has not called Vice President Mike Pence since the deadly U.S. Capitol riots last week, a source familiar with the matter told NBC News.

As the pro-Trump mob was attacking Congress last Wednesday, Pence had to be evacuated to a secure location in the Capitol. During the attack, Trump did not check on Pence's safety, two sources familiar with matter told NBC News.

Some Pro-Trump rioters were calling for Pence to be hanged. Trump still has not condemned the threats of violence against Pence, but the White House has issued a statement on Saturday.

"We strongly condemn all calls to violence, including those against any member of this administration," White House spokesman Judd Deere said.

Of course, Trump wasn't going to bother checking in on Pence. He probably feels, especially now, that Pence is one reason he's not going in for a second-term. As much as I dislike the Republican ideology, Pence seemed like a decent person or as decent as a Republican can be. I liked how he stuck it to Trump by capping off the Biden victory and refusing to pay lip-service to a man who has done nothing but destroy our democracy piece by piece.

[T. D.]

Is it even possible that Trump would pardon them as a final "fuck you"?

I could try to analyze that "six ways from Sunday", but truth is that I have no f**g idea. I unfortunately have extensive experience with crazy people (mentally ill relatives), and hypothetical analysis is useless if the subject doesn't follow your conventions of logic.

Cheeto Mussolini (extremely grudgingly) made statements that the violators should be punished, but what does that mean?

[Herman]

It means nothing.

The only reason why I doubt Trump will pardon these looters etc is that they're just little people.

He doesn't care about them. There's suckers born every day.

[T. D.]

Well said.

[T. D.]

Kick-ass NYT article by a historian of fascism.
[I read Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism in 2015.]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/09/magazine/trump-coup.html

Post-truth is pre-fascism, and Trump has been our post-truth president. When we give up on truth, we concede power to those with the wealth and charisma to create spectacle in its place. Without agreement about some basic facts, citizens cannot form the civil society that would allow them to defend themselves. If we lose the institutions that produce facts that are pertinent to us, then we tend to wallow in attractive abstractions and fictions. Truth defends itself particularly poorly when there is not very much of it around, and the era of Trump — like the era of Vladimir Putin in Russia — is one of the decline of local news. Social media is no substitute: It supercharges the mental habits by which we seek emotional stimulation and comfort, which means losing the distinction between what feels true and what actually is true.

Post-truth wears away the rule of law and invites a regime of myth. These last four years, scholars have discussed the legitimacy and value of invoking fascism in reference to Trumpian propaganda. One comfortable position has been to label any such effort as a direct comparison and then to treat such comparisons as taboo. More productively, the philosopher Jason Stanley has treated fascism as a phenomenon, as a series of patterns that can be observed not only in interwar Europe but beyond it.

My own view is that greater knowledge of the past, fascist or otherwise, allows us to notice and conceptualize elements of the present that we might otherwise disregard and to think more broadly about future possibilities. It was clear to me in October that Trump's behavior presaged a coup, and I said so in print; this is not because the present repeats the past, but because the past enlightens the present.

[drogulus]

     Trump can't lawfully be denied access to the nuclear codes while he is President. It would be divisive to do something about that.

     The US flag at the Capitol is at half staff honoring the slain police officer. The WH flag is not. The officer was on the wrong side.

     

     The rope isn't long enough to break a Vice Presidential neck.

[Christabel]

     Trump can't lawfully be denied access to the nuclear codes while he is President. It would be divisive to do something about that.

     The US flag at the Capitol is at half staff honoring the slain police officer. The WH flag is not. The officer was on the wrong side.

     

     The rope isn't long enough to break a Vice Presidential neck.

You were for violence with BLM (shh, I heard you say, not a word) and now you're for your own special kind of violence via the noose.  You've got the politics you deserve and we in other countries enjoy that rich irony.

[Karl Henning]

Cheeto Mussolini (extremely grudgingly) made statements that the violators should be punished, but what does that mean?

I've heard this aptly dismissed as a "Disney animatronic speech."

[drogulus]

     Trumpists wouldn't be so churlish as to deny Trump credit for inspiring the insurrection. They recognize he is their leader and that the hostage video he released claiming he opposed violence macht nichts.

You were for violence with BLM (shh, I heard you say, not a word) and now you're for your own special kind of violence via the noose.  You've got the politics you deserve and we in other countries enjoy that rich irony.

     I support BLM protest, but I think that violence in a good cause is still violence and should be punished by the law.

     I don't support the Trumpist mob that proclaimed they wanted to hang Pence and built that scaffold.

     

[Karl Henning]

     Trumpists wouldn't be so churlish as to deny Trump credit for inspiring the insurrection. They recognize he is their leader and that the hostage video he released claiming he opposed violence macht nichts.

     I support BLM protest, but I think that violence in a good cause is still violence and should be punished by the law.

     I don't support the Trumpist mob that proclaimed they wanted to hang Pence and built that scaffold.

One doesn't expect a troll to have any regard, let alone use for, the facts.

[T. D.]

Arnold Schwarzenegger (!) posted an eloquent video on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1348249481284874240

[drogulus]

     Capitol siege was planned online. Trump supporters now planning the next one.

The renewed calls to action in recent days have bristled with violent talk and vows to bring guns to Washington in defiance of the city's strict weapons laws. A new analysis of such posts by Alethea Group, an organization combating disinformation that draws its name from the Greek word for "truth," found abundant evidence of threatening plans on a range of platforms large and small.

The aggressive and often hateful chatter has appeared on both mainstream sites such as Twitter and Facebook and niche conservative sites such as TheDonald.win and Parler. The specified locations include the U.S. Capitol and the Mall in Washington, the Utah Capitol in Salt Lake City, and locations in Pittsburgh and Columbus, Ohio. Some events, including an "Armed March on All State Capitals," include localized events in all 50 states.

"REFUSE TO BE SILENCED," said one online post cited by Alethea Group, calling for an "ARMED MARCH ON CAPITOL HILL & ALL STATE CAPITOLS" for Jan. 17, the last Sunday of Trump's polarizing presidency. Another post called for action at "DC & All State Capitols" and was signed by "common folk who are tired of being tread upon" declares: "We were warned!"

Arnold Schwarzenegger (!) posted an eloquent video on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1348249481284874240

     What does Arnold know about Nazis? He's an immigrant from Austria.

     I'd like to get a straight answer to why genuine "OK to call them" fascists and neo-Nazis support Trump. Why is Trump "one of us" for them but not "one of them" for the rest of us?

[greg]

I whole-heartedly supported the prosecution of Kyle Rittenhouse, who killed people, while you were busy finding excuses for his shooting people  -  maybe the people he killed had been previously convicted, and in your version of the USA you can kill anyone with a traffic ticket if you're having a bad day.

Lol, nice misrepresentation of everything.
Self-defense is not making up excuses. I was always against him going out there and defending businesses, that should always be handled by the cops.
But if someone has a gun and someone else is chasing that person, trying to attack them, they have a right to self-defense- doesn't matter who is carrying the gun, they can be Antifa, right-wing people, doesn't matter.

That's the difference- I'm able to think with nuance because I actually put moral values higher than left/right team sports. But your type of thinking is putting team sports above moral values, while pretending that is higher moral values.

The point of my original post was that it's funny how much selective outrage there is-
extreme left-wing people doing something very bad: "oh, but it's mostly peaceful protests, nothing to see here"
extreme right-wing people doing something very bad: "lock them all up!"

You can get lost in the reasons and justifications, but at the end of the day, that's the basic idea, and all that really matters for that observation.

I can throw around the word "tribalism"  some more, but it will be denied, of course

You really should keep on psychoanalysing yourself on topics noone else contributes to. Much better use of your time.

Maybe you should give it a shot since the lack of self-awareness and questioning your own beliefs is obvious.

[Herman]

Unbelievable. Kid is at it again.

[T. D.]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-10/best-outcome-is-for-trump-to-resign-gop-senator-toomey-says

By Ros Krasny
January 10, 2021, 9:18 AM EST Updated on January 10, 2021, 1:28 PM EST
Toomey calls resignation 'best thing' instead of impeachment
Lawmakers debate various censures on Trump after Capitol riot

A former Republican ally of Donald Trump said the president "spiraled down into a kind of madness" after losing the election, and that the best option for the U.S. is for him "to resign and go away as soon as possible."

"It does not look as though there is the will or the consensus to exercise the 25th Amendment option. And I don't think there's time to do an impeachment," Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "The best thing would be a resignation."

Toomey said Trump, through his "outrageous behavior in the post-election period," culminating in his role in Wednesday's violent assault on the U.S. Capitol, isn't a viable candidate for office "ever again."

[Herman]

We've never heard much about Pence's sense of humor (other than calling his wife 'mother'), but it would be a great prank if Trump was persuaded to resign and then Pence would refuse to pardon him.

That would be a hoot.