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It's been one heck of a week:
Against the backdrop of record-setting numbers of COVID-19 deaths and infections in the US and around the world, there was turmoil in Washington, DC. As court cases surrounding the presidential election were filed and dismissed, a close race in Georgia was coming down to the wire and with it control of the US Senate. While the US Congress was completing the Electoral College tally and certification, a mob formed outside — and eventually broke into — the US Capitol. This resulted in a 4-hour lock-down. Eventually, the intrusion was repelled, and the Electoral College count was completed: Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was confirmed as the 46th president of the United States of America.
Conspiracy theories have flourished. Propaganda has streamed forth across multiple platforms. Tempers have flared.
And SoylentNews has been there for you. And have you ever spoken up! Two of the most-commented stories in the site's nearly seven-year history were posted in just the past week!
Insomuch as the activities in the US Capitol were far from the US' most shining moments, neither were things all unicorns and rainbows on SoylentNews. Tempers flared. People were attacked and called names. I even accidentally deleted a story and the 17 comments attached to it! [NB: Problem addressed: the delete button no longer appears by default for our editors.]
IRC (Internet Relay Chat):
Even our IRC service was not free from controversy. We had a spate of nick (nickname) impersonations. Going forward, IRC users are free to use whatever nick they like with the following caveats:
- Prefix / suffix of a nick is fine for practical purposes (e.g. ${nick}_laptop)
- Impersonation or misrepresentation will not be tolerated
- The use of another user's website nick or derivative thereof on IRC will be subject to sanctions up to and including perma ban.
Further, we understand conversations can easily ramble from subject to subject, but there are separate channels for different topics. (Use the /list comand to see what is available.) As #soylent is the default landing channel, we want to keep the discussions there civil. Name calling and personal attacks are grounds for a timeout. I have had discussions with deucalion (the site's CEO and also IRC-maintainer) about these activities.
NOTE: we are NOT going to sit there watching every discussion, poised to take action. But, if such activity is seen by staff on IRC, they are free to take such actions as they deem necessary.
Aspirations:
As I approach posting my 10,000th story(!) to SoylentNews, I think back to when it all started. How a group of people got together. They shared freely of their expertise, of their free time, and of their hard-earned funds. They tried to create a place free from corporate overlords where people could engage in discussions that focused primarily on technology, but with a dabbling in other areas and current events.
SoylentNews provides a forum for discussion. It also provides tools so the community can express themselves in the comments and moderate those comments, as well.
This got me to thinking. What are our aspirations today? What are our guiding principles? I will list some of my guiding principles, and I encourage the community to share what guides them in the comments.
- "Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong." --H. L. Mencken (cite)
- "People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do." -- Isaac Asimov (cite)
- "If you speak when angry, you'll make the best speech you'll ever regret." -- Groucho Marx (cite)
- "Say what you mean, mean what you say, but don't say it mean."
- "Don't get furious, get curious" -- Miley Cyrus (cite)
- "Humiliation is when someone points out my shortcomings. Humility is when I confess them myself."
- "I need not participate in every fight I am invited to."
- The most difficult behaviors to observe in another person are the ones I dislike in my own.
- "You have not converted a man because you have silenced him." -- John, Lord Morley (cite)
How about you? What sayings guide your aspirations?
Thank You!
Lastly, I thank all of you for supporting me as Editor-in-Chief. I have no formal background in writing or management. I've made mistakes, but I've tried to own up to them as they happened. I strive to be fair, impartial, and open-minded. Under the watchful gaze of the community, I have grown. It is my hope that I may continue to earn your respect and continue in service for many years to come.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by martyb on Monday January 11 2021, @03:43PM (48 children)
Actions have consequences. Act like a jerk and expect to be treated that way. There's no guarantee that behaving politely will get the same kind of response. But, acting like a jerk will certainly invite a response in kind.
So, Don't be a jerk.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @03:54PM (31 children)
This sounds like the BS calls for Healing and Compromise that always come when a Democrat President gets elected. Yeah, after the fox just ate 1/2 the chickens.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @04:26PM (24 children)
What's the alternative? Four years of #resist (oh, I suppose not if they all get pushed off Twitter) and right wingers doing everything in their power to interrupt, interfere with and generally trip up the Biden presidency? What if Biden manages to get another gun ban going, and large parts of the country simply follow the example of Virginia, and declare themselves second amendment sanctuary zones and cease, and interrupt all firearms investigations? What if they do similar things to COVID responses? What if they start aggressively pursuing immigrants? What if they start enforcing their own freedom-of-speech standards (most states have them) and actually suing universities for biased treatment of professors and students? You might say that this is overblown and theoretical, but remember that the house tilted less democrat despite a friendly electoral map, and that's the part of the legislature that actually tracks with sub-state divisions.
Trust me, healing and compromise is a way better way to go. I'm not expecting it, but it would be the better way.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @04:44PM (3 children)
"He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." -- Thomas Paine
Everyone celebrating the purges of today... your turn will come.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Monday January 11 2021, @07:32PM (2 children)
If you don't want to be purged, it's pretty simple: don't take part in a violent uprising that results in multiple deaths, including one police officer that was viciously beaten to death with a fire extinguisher.
I have zero sympathy.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @07:43PM
Yeah I am 100% ok with purging violent seditious assholes from private platforms. Plenty of rightwing nutjobs still on every platform, color me unconcerned.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @08:54PM
ohh nooo, not a pig! how will i sleep tonight? dumb bitch.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday January 11 2021, @07:25PM (17 children)
but remember that the house tilted less democrat despite a friendly electoral map, and that's the part of the legislature that actually tracks with sub-state divisions.
Yes and no. Yes, House races are not whole-state, but rather "Congressional districts", however those districts have been gerrymandered to a ridiculous degree over a years by the GOP which gives them an advantage in the House (though not quite enough to actually get control lately). Notice that, by comparison, the GOP just lost control of the Senate, and one big change was that Georgia shifted to blue.
But even so, it is true that there are major portions of states (such as Virginia which you cited) where the politics of the rural areas are very different from the urban areas, so it would be very challenging to enforce some laws (like gun bans) without any local support. They'd probably have to resort to sending State Police around to all the rural counties to enforce things, and then if they encounter serious resistance the governor would have to mobilize the National Guard. I can see this kind of thing happening because of the growing polarization.
I'm starting to think one answer to help alleviate the tension, and turn the country towards the center (away from the far-right GOP) would be to force Florida (and probably South Carolina too) to leave the union. They'd probably be happy to get independence, at least until their economy craters, and this would remove a bunch of GOP voters and two states that don't contribute much to the economy. Millions of Trump fans would probably even relocate to their new Trumpistan nation, further moving politics to a sane place here in the remaining 48 (+DC) states. Then we need to Build The Wall to keep FloridaMan from escaping. In a way, I'm slightly annoyed that GA had to turn blue, because I'd like the new country to be contiguous, and it'd be nice to rid ourselves of Alabama and Misssissippi too (probably the two biggest drains on the economy), but Georgia ruins that idea.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @08:29PM (5 children)
Go look at the gerrymandered districts in Maryland. Tell me how exactly the republicans are at fault?
5 out of 8 districts are insane:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryland%27s_congressional_districts [wikipedia.org]
Whoever is not guilty should throw the first stone. Pull the plank from your own eye before commenting on the sliver in your neighbor's eye. People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Get your own shit in order before you go blaming others. Etc.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by pTamok on Monday January 11 2021, @09:09PM (1 child)
It would be nice if someone could come up with an understandable rules-based/automated fair system that generated the boundaries. The problem would be getting bipartisan agreement to use it and stick with it.
One simple rule would be to favour solutions that minimised the total perimeter of the boundaries within a state. Similarly, while minimising total perimeter, boundaries should, as far as possible, run along the lines of local maxima of altitude (watersheds/drainage divides), and of course, each enclosed area should contain the same number of electors.
As it is, in England* there is the independent boundary commission [independent.gov.uk] which determines constituency boundaries. Perhaps the USA could steal the intellectual property and use that.
There's a boundary commission for each nation of the UK [wikipedia.org], making four in total.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @12:35PM
Gerrymandering is not a nationwide problem, it's much worse in certain states than others, because each state uses different rules.
https://ballotpedia.org/State-by-state_redistricting_procedures [ballotpedia.org] shows 35/50 states have districts set by the state legislature. I expect we'll see more move to independent commissions in the coming years.
(Score: 5, Informative) by FatPhil on Tuesday January 12 2021, @10:28AM
Everyone with a brain and who can understand counting knows that across the whole USA, gerrymandering massively favours the Republicans. The existance of one blue state with ludicrous gerrymanding in no way invalidates that claim.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by SpockLogic on Tuesday January 12 2021, @01:08PM (1 child)
Gerrymandering is wrong whichever side does it. Period.
Politicians must not be allowed to pick their voters, they cannot be trusted, voters must pick their politicians.
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @01:57PM
What if voters pick republicans?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @09:21PM (8 children)
Let California secede, repatriate conservatives to other states, then see how california does on its own.
I keep hearing conservatives in California, and even non-conservatives from other states bashing on us for all our nutty environmental protections, labor laws, hollywood bullshit, etc. Why don't we find out whether California needs the Union more, or if the Union needs California. If any other states or regions want to redistrict or secede, let them, but California is the one state that could be largely self-sufficient given, say, 10 years to decouple infrastructure from adjoining states. This would of course require four major shifts in state policy: nationalizing PG&E and refurbishing *ALL* power and gas infrastructure, installing state-wide battery backed load balancing systems, going pro-nuclear for baseline power (renewables may handle most in time, but batteries AND nuke would be required to really 'go green' in the short term.), and lastly: major coast-wide desalinization efforts. This last one would require pumping water inland to help replenish the water table, reduce excessive well demand, and slowly reduce drought and desertification state-wide, even if the weather patterns no longer support it. If California can do all that, it will be much stronger as an independent entity than it ever has been as a US state, with the added bonus of not being detracted on and sabotaged from both without and within.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday January 11 2021, @10:52PM (2 children)
If California decided to leave (and let's assume for argument the rest of the country was amenable a voluntary dissolution, which is probably a bad assumption given the way things went the last time some states tried to secede, and the precedent that set), I suspect several adjoining states would want to leave with them, particularly OR and WA. NV and AZ might want to go too.
The reality is that CA has either the 6th or 8th largest economy (forget which) *in the world*, all by itself. It's unlikely it would do poorly on its own, just because of that. Almost all the tech companies are headquartered there, and tech is the one thing really keeping the American economy afloat these days, and which actually brings in lots of money from exports. The other thing bringing in lots of money from exports is Hollywood, which is also in CA. Anyway, there's significant tech presence in OR and WA too, and their policies aren't that different from CA's, so I could see the 3 of them all leaving together. Some adjoining states might want to join them if they figure out they'd be better off hitching their wagon to CA's economy rather than the moribund economy that the rest of the nation would have without the west-coast states.
The southeast and central states are really the ones dragging things down, both culturally and economically. They do produce a lot of agricultural products, but so do Mexico and Brazil, and their economies are nothing to be proud of either.
However, due to high costs in CA (esp. labor costs in the Bay Area), a lot of tech stuff has spread around the country more, so a separation like this could be very problematic for tech companies that now find themselves to be international companies. Really big ones like the FAANG companies are already used to having offices in different countries so it might not be a big deal for them, but for smaller ones it might. Austin, DC, some cities in FL, SLC, PHX, Boston, and others (and of course Portland and Seattle but let's assume they join CA) have significant tech presence in them now. Tossing out AL and MS wouldn't affect that part of the economy at all, however, since they have zero presence in those states; FL would affect it, but probably not so much.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @04:36AM (1 child)
I propose the US keeps it's Pacific ports in the NW, and sets up a trail of tears for all the Californians who came up here and wrecked the place.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @04:38AM
Said too little -- this presupposes CA becoming its own country. There would be no objection -- there would be widespread support likely -- in the states the CA infection has spread too.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 12 2021, @12:49PM (4 children)
"If". That would require leadership that can find its ass, using both hands. This sounds like the Brexit argument again - with a government even less competent than the UK.
(Score: 2) by Nobuddy on Tuesday January 12 2021, @02:47PM (3 children)
Seeing as they are one of the only states with a balanced budget and paying down their debt- they will manage. Especially since they get back $1 for every $2 they pay in to the fed. Without the drain on their economy that the red states represent, all that extra cash will just make it work even better.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @03:17PM
That used to be true but isn't really true anymore.
California no longer pays more to Washington than it gets back, study finds
https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/California-no-longer-pays-more-to-Washington-than-15243861.php [sfchronicle.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 12 2021, @06:57PM (1 child)
I doubt the first order spending is that one sided. And keep in mind the hidden second order effects. Most IT, for example, bought with federal funds anywhere in the US, will involve California firms. A lot of other states' money gets redirected to a few states because that's where certain basic services concentrate.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 13 2021, @02:59AM
California is not the worst (Illinois has that title), but they are pretty weak financially. And we're seeing some business drain now as businesses move to more business-friendly places like Texas.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday January 11 2021, @09:54PM (1 child)
OTOH, a lot of the shift was that people just couldn't stand Trump. Well, I have sympathy for that, but I'm a small government person who's to the left of the Democratic party, so you can guess how well represented I feel.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @03:27PM
I'm actually a small government person except for when it comes to issues of environmental protection.
In fact, given just how big the U.S. is, I would be in favor of each state almost being its own country and the U.S. federal government being ran more like the EU. Each state can have its own FDA, FCC, etc... if they want and they can enter into agreements. Europe may be considered too large for the E.U. to micromanage every country just like the U.S. might be considered too large for the federal government to micromanage every state.
The only exception I would make is that of environmental protection. One country should not get to externalize the cost of their internal prosperity onto the wider environment.
A possible second exception might be pandemics? It's possible that the policy decisions of one country could affect surrounding countries.
I can't really think of other ones. There are airplane flight path rules but that can be negotiated with the larger governing body (ie: like with the E.U.). Over the air broadcasting might be another one where one state can't be allowed to blast airwaves into an adjacent state and jam their ability to use the airwaves near the borders? Plus GPS and some other minor things as well shouldn't be interfered with maybe.
But with the exception of some possible minor edge cases I do believe in a weak federal government and stronger state governments. I don't believe we should have such a strong FDA across the entire U.S., I think individual states should have much more leeway in terms of regulating drugs.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @03:23AM (1 child)
These are people who believe that the world is literally 6,000 years old, that women are their husband's property, and their holy book commands them to enslave Africans and murder Jews, LGBT people, any other "non-white" people. COVID is a hoax, the election was stolen, on and on and on.
What do you propose? A 3/5ths compromise?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 12 2021, @10:47PM
Ignore them. They're not that numerous.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Tork on Monday January 11 2021, @05:53PM (5 children)
So? Your 'team' behaved badly. You can cry about censorship. You can bleat endlessly about how unfair and unequal it is. You can even bang your drums over being oppressed and rail on how unfair it all is. The thing is, though... people died. Guess what? That ALSO is a right being violated and that gets to be assessed when you idiots start hurting people.
Your best options are to own your actions or disavow the behaviour tainting the reputation of your 'team'.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 3, Insightful) by EEMac on Monday January 11 2021, @11:17PM (3 children)
I agree, it's a tragedy that the officer died. I don't enough information to judge about the protester who was shot.
But there have been lots of other protest-related police deaths [thefederalist.com] over the last year. The media quite pointedly ignored them. Now they cry crocodile tears over this one. We're not buying it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @12:04AM
(Score: 3, Interesting) by helel on Tuesday January 12 2021, @04:05AM (1 child)
Yes, we're well aware the boogaloo bois [theintercept.com] have had a busy year.
So, let's look at the list you link, shall we. Up first we have Officer Shay Mikalonis shot in the back. Who shot him? Why it's one Edgar Samaniego [ktnv.com] who was threatening protesters when his gun accidentally went off twice and hit Officer Mikalonis. Looks like this violence was committed by someone threatening and/or attacking the protesters.
Then there's the Las Vegas courthouse shooting [wikipedia.org]. This one isn't aiming at BLM protesters, at least, but then it's not related to BLM in any way. It's just an angry old man who's social security benefits were reduced.
We got four cops being fired at, one hit. I didn't find articles concerning a suspect but these kinds of ambushes are consistent with boogaloo tactics [airforcetimes.com].
David Dorn was killed by Stephan Cannon [wikipedia.org] in a pawnshop robbery. I couldn't find anything linking Cannon to the BLM protests, but at this point in the list why would we? We've got police shot by anti-protesters, police shot by lone wolf attackers, and then police injured in a completely ordinary hit-and-run [nypost.com].
And the list just keeps going. Checking all these takes time but I think it's safe to assume they'd put their best material up top so "shot by man trying to shoot protesters" is probably the best link they have between the unfortunate attacks on these police and the BLM protests.
"The Media" a) has reported on these cases, hence why I was able to find them and b) they're mostly just not that interesting. Tragedies like these happen every day. It's sad but true. The reason officer Brian Sicknick gets so much more attention is that he was killed in an attempted coup. That's a hell of a lot more exciting that one of the six hundred thousand [reifflawfirm.com] hit and runs every year, even if it was a cop that got hit.
(Score: 2) by EEMac on Tuesday January 12 2021, @08:21PM
It's certainly possible that deaths at BLM protests are the fault of boogaloo boys. It's also possible that deaths at the capitol uprising are the fault of antifa.
We could quibble more, but I don't think we'll get much further. That said, you did good research Have an upvote.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Tuesday January 12 2021, @07:43PM
> You can cry about censorship.
That sounds like a slippery slope down CCP lane. I used to be proud that the US is a place where I can call Trump an idiot, but we're quickly heading towards saying good things about the soon-to-be-ex president getting censored which is a hop and a step away from splashing ink on dear Biden^]^HXi's poster getting you disappeared.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @04:00PM (5 children)
If you are in favor of justice you will upvote this comment.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @06:02PM (3 children)
None here favors justice?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @07:20AM
Nope, none. We just like shitposting about it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @12:50PM (1 child)
The very concept of justice is a poison that has rotted public consciousness for millennia.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 13 2021, @02:39AM
Repeal the Code of Hammurabi!
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday January 11 2021, @10:02PM
Justice, unfortunately, is quite difficult to define, unless you accept a legalistic definition which will always favor the rich and powerful.
So, yes, there should be consequences. But what consequences? Currently everyone who has been identified as being there has been placed on a no-fly list without notice or ability to appeal ("I was actually visiting my aunt in Fresno, California at the time"). Is that justice? No, but it is practical. There have been talks of organizing follow on assaults. Definitely some innocents will be wrongly "convicted". But what *should* be done? How do you protect the other innocents that will be at the places they're preparing to assault? If the assaults are called off because they couldn't assemble people, you'll never be able to prove that the actions were correct. If they aren't you didn't act assertively enough. But maybe they wouldn't have happened anyway? You'll never know, and you injured innocent parties.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ikanreed on Monday January 11 2021, @04:43PM (2 children)
Unfortunately, as much as that sentiment helps us justify treating assholes like the assholes they are, it's not really true.
A lot of people are assholes and get away with it because power dynamics are natively kinda fucky. Donald Trump was an entitled, self-assured, dimwitted asshole his whole damn life, and he got made president because some people wanted an asshole to be an asshole to the people they blamed their problems on. It's not just politics, you see families turn on abuse victims because they outed someone who abused them, executives get promoted because the way they sabotaged others made themselves look good.
What goes around only really comes around if you get behind and push.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday January 11 2021, @10:05PM (1 child)
What better course of action than "Don't be a jerk" would you propose for a general recommendation though?
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @10:35PM
"Don't allow jerks to get away with it."
(Score: 2, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Monday January 11 2021, @04:57PM (2 children)
Is it being a "jerk" when you cave in the face of a police officer for protecting our Congress?
(Score: 5, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Monday January 11 2021, @05:38PM
The FBI has opened a murder probe into the death of Capitol Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick, who was hit in the head with a fire extinguisher. [denverpost.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @10:42PM
No, it's being brave.
#fuck12
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Monday January 11 2021, @05:16PM (1 child)
So I've thought about what might be termed the Wheaton-Crowley Rule: "Don't be a dick shall be the whole of the law."
Trouble is, who decides what counts as being a dick? It seems easy, but it really isn't.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Socrastotle on Monday January 11 2021, @05:51PM
This becomes an even bigger problem when we claim offenses with no tangible damage - hurt feelings, feeling unsafe, or whatever else. When we accept intangible offenses as offenses then there will never be peace, because people will never always agree on things. And that lack of agreement is invariably going to result in somebody claiming intangible damage.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @05:25PM (1 child)
That's right, months of riots and fuckery by the Left have brought us this. Expect more inkind acts!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @06:27PM
Sounds like someone doesn't understand the concept of personal responsibility.
FBI might want to check your location on 1-6-21
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday January 11 2021, @03:57PM (2 children)
*Maintain course and speed*
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @05:28PM (1 child)
Not sure who you're quoting there. Would that be the RNC or the captain of the Titanic?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Gaaark on Monday January 11 2021, @08:00PM
Ron Jeremy maybe? ;)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: -1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @04:02PM (6 children)
I think Discord is better. I don't have to directly reveal my IP address and hostmask yet Discord still has robust impersonation tamper resistance (it's far from perfect and it does get spammed but still).
(Score: 3, Touché) by Freeman on Monday January 11 2021, @04:06PM (1 child)
You're still revealing your IP to Discord. It's just that Discord has a nice juicy central repository to target as opposed to an IRC server that's hosted by a small site.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Monday January 11 2021, @06:00PM
"You're still revealing your IP to Discord."
To be fair, unless you are talking to people who work for discord, it is usually a distant and disinterested 3rd party to the conversation at hand.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @07:44PM (2 children)
Centralized, proprietary garbage is not better than IRC, regardless of what shiny features is may have. If you're so worried about revealing your IP, there are much better ways to handle that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @08:57PM
no shit... fucking windows users....
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday January 11 2021, @10:11PM
Whether it's better or not depends on your use case. I understand that Discord is popular among gamers, so if that's who you want to talk to it's the better choice. IRC is more popular among techies (or was...I've never used either, preferring e-mail).
But if IRC does the job, and your target audience likes it, then obsolete is irrelevant. And there are various ways to hide your IP with various levels of inconvenience and success.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @11:03PM
Last time I tried to use Discord, they wanted my phone number. No fucking thanks.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday January 11 2021, @04:02PM (119 children)
Because they don't like the outcome of a democratically held election!
I thought that Democracy was that the people voted, and then that was the outcome. They seemed to like how it worked four years ago. Plenty of people were disappointed with the outcome four years ago, but did not go trying to overthrow the government in a murderous rampage.
It is about time that major social media platforms realized the damage they are allowing to happen by their inaction and begin taking some action to police their content.
I eagerly await following the litigation of Dominion Voting Systems vs Sidney Powell [courtlistener.com] for $1.3 Billion. Hopefully the successful outcome of this litigation is then used as evidence in other litigation by Dominion against other so-called "news" outlets that brazenly repeated these baseless lies. This partially addresses all of the false claims without a shred of evidence that the election was stolen. Even Republicans said this was the most secure election in history. It certainly was the most scrutinized. Republican judges, including some appointed by Trump, and Republican legislators and other officials have maintained that no major irregularities have occurred in this election. Every election has some minor irregularities, and it is good for those to come to light to help future elections.
If these fascists don't like the outcome of Democracy, they they should go back to where they came from and leave our country alone.
It was not the intent of our founding fathers for traitors to overthrow the government because they didn't like the outcome of democracy. They gave us the power of the ballot to vote. If you don't win, then maybe your actual message or candidate is the real crux of your problem. Voting is the mechanism they gave us to control our government.
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(Score: 2, Insightful) by Freeman on Monday January 11 2021, @04:08PM (31 children)
The founding fathers realized their error by amendment #2, because their intention was to make the Government afraid of it's people. Not the other way around.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Monday January 11 2021, @04:26PM
Right, and all that other stuff in the Constitution about the will of the voters and electing our leaders is just bullshit.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday January 11 2021, @05:56PM (26 children)
The way you mean that is just plain wrong.
The government (eg, elected officials) should be afraid of the voters in the next election. That also means voters should actually get out and vote. Fortunately we've seen more women and non whites vote this time than ever, and they seem to have gotten the message that they need to vote.
As for making the government afraid of armed uprising, I don't think they meant that. The government has you outgunned.
The last two elections it was the MAJORITY (of human beings) that voted against Trump. Four years ago, Trump won due to how the electoral college works. This time he did not. That and only that is the entire reason for this armed uprising. It has nothing to do with making the government afraid. That is just trying to change the subject. The real subject here is that a minority of crazy people cannot accept the will of the majority.
If Trump had won this time (the electoral college, even while losing the popular vote), I suspect that just like four years ago, the Democrats would have accepted the outcome of how our peaceful democratic system of government works.
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(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @06:53PM (5 children)
No, the way he means it is *exactly* as the founding fathers intended. This [monticello.org] is a quote from Thomas Jefferson. I assume you know, but if for some reason you do not, he is the man who literally wrote our constitution. The length is necessary for I find quotations without context to often be subject to misinterpretation. Jefferson makes his views impeccably clear here:
Jefferson specifically references and condones rebellions driven by what he felt was ignorance. Because he felt it was important that government is constantly reminded that they are there only by the grace of the citizenry they 'rule'. In this case he's referencing Shay's Rebellion [wikipedia.org]. Shay's rebellion was when a ragtag group of about 4,000 people ran around attacking courthouses and various government properties to interfere with the normal operations. They were upset by the state's tax and banking policies (resulting numerous foreclosures on farms) and demanded change. This culminated in them aiming to attack a federal armory, seize the weapons, and overthrow the government. They met with an organized private militia. After taking a single shot of grapeshot, the rebels scattered and were eventually fully routed and dispersed.
(Score: 4, Informative) by DannyB on Monday January 11 2021, @07:13PM (2 children)
So that was a state tax, not a federal tax?
Regardless (or is it "irregardless" on SN?), taxes are something that politicians do. You do have the power to vote them out. Or not have voted them in. Generally, politicians are heavily questioned about their policies long before the election,
This is as it should be.
From what I read:
If you don't like the government: VOTE!
If you don't like the outcome of the election: Try convincing people to your point of view. Debate.
If your point of view is that everyone should live in a lawless anarchy, then try moving somewhere and forming such a government. I recently saw video about how parts of Antarctica are still unclaimed.
In redneckistan the highest form of intellectual debate is a gun. Some here now advocate for congress members to have guns in the chambers of congress in case -- OMG -- Pelosi says WORDS!
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(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday January 11 2021, @11:26PM
Guns are an overkill, but don't dismiss the (good or bad) power of words [aljazeera.com].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @04:37PM
I'm glad you at least acknowledge that there should be a dramatic difference in the way we treat words versus actions. That's atypical for many people, such as you, now a today. So I applaud you.
However, the reason for the firearm is obviously not to protect against words. Were this a genuine purposeful, organized, and violent coup attempt, the lives of the congress-people could have genuinely been jeopardized. Arming yourself means that even in a scenario like this you will never be helpless. You might imagine they'd have their guards to protect them but see, for instance, the attempted mass homicide [wikipedia.org] of congresspeople at the congressional baseball game. The only thing that saved their lives in that case was the fact that the shooter couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. Were he a capable marksman, he easily could have killed a dozen or more congresspeople.
See, for contrast, the 2016 BLM shooter [wikipedia.org]. He was a veteran and skilled shooter. And at a BLM protest with a very heavy police presence he was able to kill 5 police officers and wound 9 others. And the only reason those numbers are as "low" as they are is because the people he was shooting at were also armed. If it were him at the congressional mass shooting, the body count would have easily been in the dozens.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @07:30PM (1 child)
No, he wasn't. Jefferson was the primary writer of the Declaration of Independence. James Madison was the one who wrote the "Virginia Plan" proposal that became the first draft of the Constitution (the Convention further modified many things before compromising on the final version submitted to the states for ratification). Jefferson was serving as Minister to France, and was therefore in Paris, during the Constitutional Convention debates. Jefferson's contribution was limited to various letters he sent to members of the Convention with his opinions, that's all.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Nobuddy on Tuesday January 12 2021, @02:56PM
Careful. Using facts and reality on a trumptard will trigger a fight or flight response. It is something new and scary to them.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @09:01PM
"As for making the government afraid of armed uprising, I don't think they meant that. The government has you outgunned."
i knew you were dumb as hell. thanks for showing everybody just how dumb you really are. of course that's what the founding fathers meant you dumb twat. that's what the second is for.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Monday January 11 2021, @10:27PM (15 children)
Read Thomas Jefferson "The tree of liberty must be refreshed..." https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/105.html [loc.gov]
That's a poor argument for a modern society, however. That was for a society where most people were relatively independent farmers, and able to survive for months without supplies from outside. Modern cities have, perhaps, a two days supply of food on hand. They depend on piped water from governmentally controlled sources. Etc. And then most of the population (definitely the farmers) was skilled with a rifle. They hunted for game to supplement their larders. Now it's a minority, and most of that minority doesn't have access to artillery or a tank.
This is a real problem for modern US civilization. It, together with the closing of the frontier, has enabled the government to increasingly encroach on traditional rights of the citizenry. (This hasn't all been bad. I wouldn't prefer to live in a place where dueling was popular.) And appeals to the US Constitution are increasingly unreasonable. Most of the government is, and has been for at least a century, unconstitutional under any reasonable reading of the words. But the words interpreted literally would not yield a functional government with a dense population, and fast transport and rapid communication. Look at what just the speeding up of communication by things like Facebook has done. Things that worked well a decade ago now only react after everything is over. Consider Tiktok and Trump's Arizona rally.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday January 11 2021, @10:42PM (13 children)
Okay. Interesting.
All that said, what this is about is not about government encroaching upon someone's rights (which they might be doing elsewhere). What we're talking about here is that people cannot accept the outcome of a peaceful election.
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(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @11:19PM (12 children)
The chant wasn't "our guy didn't win" it was "stop the steal". These people truly believed that the outcome was fraudulent, and were trying to protect democracy. They were patriots, but they were ignorant. As Jefferson said of such people:
How do you know the election was legitimate anyway? You surely didn't count all the votes yourself, so it can only be because you were told it was legitimate by people you trust. Just the same as they were told it was fraudulent.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @11:54PM
You assholes called for Kapernick's head and cheered on peaceful protesters getting assaulted because you considered them all rioters. Now you want to excuse people that committed felonies because you feel they are just misguided? Absolute bullshit from yet another traitor to democracy. Hipe they arrest your ass too.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Nobuddy on Tuesday January 12 2021, @02:58PM (9 children)
there was no steal. over 60 cases were filed with the courts by the trump team. ALL were laughed out of court as absurd and unfounded.
Ask yourself why nobody challenged the Republican WINS in those states. It was all on the same ballots. why are THOSE perfectly fine but the presidential election is fraudulent? When they are all on the same fucking ballot?
Goddamn, you are some dim motherfuckers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @05:05PM (8 children)
You just inadvertently referenced one the abnormalities about this election. It was *not* the same ballots. Here [politico.com] are Georgia's election results.
House: 2,490,396 red + 2,393,089 blue = 4,883,485 votes
Senate: 2,462,617 red + 2,374,519 blue = 4,837,136 votes
President: 2,461,854 red + 2,473,633 blue = 4,935,487 votes
One of the allegations that was never able to be presented in court is election observers claiming that large packages of perfectly straight mail-in ballots (e.g. no signs of folding/wear and tear as is normal for the mail in process) that all seemed perfectly cleanly filled out (compared to normal ballots) and all with no votes present except a single vote for Biden. The reported numbers (which the observer would not have been privy to when making such claims) seem to provide evidence that there were certainly large number of ballots that had no votes except a single vote for Biden. And that is *extremely* irregular.
And the reason the cases were dismissed was not because they were unfounded, but because the courts claimed Trump had no standing. Standing does not take into consideration evidence and is based solely on a determination on whether an act caused harm to you. You can't e.g. sue Joe for breaking his contract with Bob, if you're not Bob or another party that can somehow show direct harm. The courts claimed that the President in a national election, where without alleged irregularities would likely have won, has no standing to sue the states for conducting their elections in such a way as to enable such irregularities. If you can drop the Trump stuff, that should deeply bother you. Because this means that the courts have effectively said that *nobody* has standing to sue states for election misconduct.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Tuesday January 12 2021, @07:13PM (2 children)
If anyone in a state thinks the election was handled badly, is it not for them to sue or work through other political means so that the issues can be fixed, now, or for the next election? Or go to the supreme court?
The Constitution does make us a collection of states, and in voting, the electors are chosen by states according to those states' laws, and there are means to change (or challen) those, right? So, the indended process of our democratic republic is still working, given those things, right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 13 2021, @03:11PM (1 child)
The only way you're going to enact change against people who are knowingly (as opposed to inadvertently) engaging in bad behavior is through the courts. But the courts (including state courts) continue to reject all lawsuits based on a lack of standing.
As an aside this is also similar to how the NSA is able to get away with what is likely numerous violations of the 4th amendment. In order to sue the NSA you need to prove standing which entails showing you were harmed by their domestic surveillance network. But since you cannot even [legally] show that domestic surveillance network even exists, it's impossible to prove standing and thus impossible to sue for a constitutional violation. This is one glaring issue in our legal system. I mean there is *very* good reason for the notion of standing requirements to exist, but it does open the door to maliciousness with plausible deniability from the judicial.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Wednesday January 13 2021, @03:43PM
In the long term (and hopefully also the short term), I am not seeing how we lack, in all states, peaceful & lawful means to address this to the extent it should be addressed, whether by appeals and/or future elections.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @07:21PM (2 children)
You idiot. You do realize you can abstain voting for individual offices?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 13 2021, @06:52AM (1 child)
Makes you wonder if there is a reason they only posted one Senate race. I wonder if it has anything to do with approximately 40,000 vote difference between the two.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 13 2021, @03:15PM
The races I listed were all on a single ticket. The second senate runoff was a different contest altogether.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @07:23PM
Also you're only summing red and blue votes. Where are the green and gold votes? Whatabout Vermin Supreme write-in votes, shirley at least a few people are concerned about dental hygiene!
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Wednesday January 13 2021, @07:56PM
Someone has been watching YouTube conspiracy videos!
No one was able to find a single one of these so affected ballots during the hand recounts, were they? Someone with a motive to lie claiming they saw something is hardly definite proof. Undervotes (those not filling out entire ballots) are common in presidential elections. The percentage was actually lower this year than in past elections.
They couldn't find anyone with "standing" to file the suits for them?
Face it, the entire "Stop the Steal" movement was just political theater, designed to fire up the most gullible part of the base (and of course to collect donations). Trump, unless he has become completely delusional, knows he lost. The real reason he lost is that many conservatives have become sick of his behavior and voted against him while still voting red further down the ticket.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday January 12 2021, @03:30PM
Without any evidence.
This was the most scrutinized election in history. Cameras everywhere. Poll watchers everywhere.
Republicans said this was the most secure election in history.
Trump:
1. boastful bombastic lies about how the election was stolen, the facts are on my side, etc, but never shows a shred of evidence
2. files a blizzard of lawsuits -- all struck down in court, many by Republican judges, some of which were appointed by Trump -- for all kinds of problems, lack of standing, not a shred of evidence. One of the most recent Republican judge smackdowns even said "it is difficult to find any good faith here".
Because there were recounts in all the important places. How many times do you need a recount? You'll never be convinced. Because Trump told you otherwise and that overrides all reason, facts, evidence, logic and sense. Thus it is okay to try to violently overthrow a peaceful certified election. Because Trump said to do so!
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @11:00PM
Then stop reading it literally. Of the Constitution you say:
So it only makes sense to interpret "the blood of patriots and tyrants" not necessarily as a literal shedding of blood, but as bringing to the attention of both the public and government, the injustices of those with power, and the injustices meted upon those without.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @12:59PM (2 children)
When I was in school, the civics teachers were quite clear in stating the same position as GP. A government that doesn't dread the wrath of it's citizens will inevitably turn corrupt and oppressive.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday January 12 2021, @03:19PM (1 child)
We're not talking about corruption and oppression.
We're talking about crazy people who don't like the outcome of the election and are going to act with violence because they think the minority should rule over the majority.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @07:27PM
In way we are. Consider that the boogaloo succeeds (right now it's a joke but give it 8 years of DNC austerity...). What then?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Monday January 11 2021, @08:19PM (2 children)
No, the 2nd Amendment was meant to prevent the nation from weakening itself, the better to resist outside attack. A nation in which all the weapons are in the hands of a very few is going to have a real hard time resisting an invasion. The invaders will have an easy time picking off the elites and replacing them.
We were all supposed to be pulling together, not those of us outside of government and those inside our own government eyeing each other with the deepest suspicion. We have all these other tools to redress problems with governance. Bullets are supposed to be off the table entirely, not even a last resort. Because if we do resort to bullets on a large scale, the nation is already grievously wounded and fractured, and may not live.
A further goal could well have been accustoming people with the responsibility that comes with owning a firearm. There might also have been a bit of fantasy about enabling a lifestyle built around hunting. In the 18th century, there was enough wilderness to support a sizeable number of hunters. Today, no effing way. It's sport. For all but a tiny fraction of the population, it's not a serious way, can't be a serious way, to put food on the table. And as a sport, it's become an excuse to swagger around and pretend to be manlier than thou, as if the average city slicker couldn't bag a deer or a duck if they had to, or couldn't overcome their squeamishness about such thrilling tasks as gutting the kill.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @09:03PM (1 child)
fuck off and read the federalist papers.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday January 12 2021, @04:04PM
Low bar for entry, even. Don't need to read it, just have some time where you can be listening. https://librivox.org/the-federalist-papers-by-alexander-hamilton-john-jay-and-james-madison/ [librivox.org]
Also, as a general good read or listen, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is very interesting. The man could write. https://librivox.org/the-autobigraphy-of-benjamin-franklin-ed-by-frank-woodworth-pine/ [librivox.org]
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 11 2021, @04:14PM (30 children)
The U.S. of A. has never been a Democracy - it is a Republic, and when the democratic vote doesn't satisfy the rulers of the Republic they modify the rules until they get the outcome they wanted. Not every time, not all at once, but that has been the trend - for centuries - from the State represented Senate to the Gerrymandering of the House districts to slanted election rules favoring certain minorities for President - minorities that used to be majorities and are having a hard time accepting the fact that "majority rules" doesn't mean "we rule" anymore, not even when they stretch the rules to and past their breaking points. Even the lottery of the Supreme Court falls under control of the most frequent rulers of the Republic.
Nixon acted badly and the Nation reacted by putting in Carter. Trump made Nixon look classy and the Nation reacted by granting control of the House, Senate and Presidency to his opponents. Clinton pumped the economy until an eminent collapse was obviously nigh, and Bush beat Gore by a whisker in a recount. Obama Hoped for Change, and was tepidly competent, but the DNC's overconfidence and lust to make history again with a female president opened the door to a "business president" - I do sorely wish that we got Ross Perot instead of Donald Trump as our first business president, but that's not the timeline we are currently living.
What's next? We can only wait and see. I'm just glad we didn't launch any nukes.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Monday January 11 2021, @04:28PM (22 children)
It's called the Electoral College and they elected Biden.
The only ones trying to modify the rules are the Trump Terrorists.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 11 2021, @04:56PM (20 children)
I wouldn't give the mainstream Republicans a pass on that issue, Gerrymandering, "poll shaping" to disadvantage their opponents (biased registration requirements, inconvenient poll locations, long lines, only open during working hours on a single day, etc.), that's pre-Trump playbook stuff - sabotage of the U.S. Postal service is a new low, but I bet they'd have gone there without Trump eventually.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by slinches on Monday January 11 2021, @05:50PM (16 children)
You make it seem like Democrats don't do all of those same things when it benefits them. We need to recognize that everyone in power has been complicit in undermining our elections. They all play these underhanded games to try to gain more influence over the vote and most won't stop at limits of the law. Claiming one side is the primary culprit only serves to justify when "your side" does something unethical or illegal and perpetuates the problem. We need to call out all of it so we can work to eliminate this sort of behavior entirely.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @06:31PM (12 children)
All evidence disagrees with you, and pointing to BLM protests and the occasional riots that accompanied them is the worst sort of false equivalence.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @07:32PM
BLM burned down an Arby's. Raze the Capitol Building all you want for all I care, but damn anyone to hell if they burn down an Arby's.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday January 11 2021, @08:42PM (10 children)
BLM was people with a legitimate grievance about police brutality and murder.
The Capitol Insurrection was about people who didn't like the legitimate outcome of a peaceful election in a democracy. aka fascists. People who think the minority should rule over the majority. People who openly post about the wonderfulness of lawless anarchy. How it's okay to respond to words by firing a gun.
Fascism [wikipedia.org]
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @09:29PM (6 children)
Ya didn't feel like detailing the entire point. How anyone can be defending these fascist fucks is beyond me. They are going to bring down more restrictions of freedoms on the rest of us and of course they'll whine the loudest about it. Truly rightwing nutters like the ones making ezcuses here are just the worst of the worst.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday January 11 2021, @09:37PM (5 children)
It's SN. Especially ACs on SN.
They say these things, but are (rightfully) ashamed to own their own words. Even under a nym which is not a real personal identity.
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(Score: 0) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday January 11 2021, @10:53PM
Yeah, you press these people in real-life, they go from "We didn't cheat and you're terrorists" to "okay, okay, we cheated like fuck but the ends justify the means because Orange Man Bad. We're anti bad-guy and our opponents are the bad guys. How can people not understand this? We can never be terrorists because we're fighting the bad guys. It's so simple to understand, everything we do is justified because we're on the right side of history!"
Meanwhile, they're built the closest modern equivalent to a Nazi regime. "Anti-Fascists" fighting as brownshirts for the very same corporations they claim are oppressive, with a core tenet of fascism and national socialism being state control over industry (again, the industry "Anti-Fascists" are fighting for). A "grassroots" movement acting as enforcers for fuckhuge corporations literally using slave labor to make their products. Now they have shown themselves to be the true oppressors, and no amount of control and "It's okay when we do it" and other nonsense over the media will change the sentiment of the checkout line, which believes that Antifa/BLM are thugs and COVID-19 is a hoax.
No competent regime would push ahead so recklessly -- it's obvious that they're afraid of something, getting sloppy, and that their hand was forced somehow. What would you think if you were a tech startup considering using AWS? Better create a contingency plan, because they don't even need a real reason to wipe out your AWS infrastructure overnight. You can ditch AWS, more painfully, but you can. The oppressors' leadership are boomers and Jews, with the former generally being too out of touch to make sensible decisions and the latter being too arrogant to avoid overplaying their hand too early. Bernie and The Squad being, of course, controlled opposition.
They could have easily got away with building their regime and successfully enslaving everybody had they been a little more patient and subtle about it. Well, we can only hope that cooler heads prevail and everything normalizes into a boring politically moderate next 4 years of 1 meaningless token gun law and military involvement in Syria in exchange for domestic stability. The ball is in the Democrats' court now, if they want to full-throttle this game of chicken, so be it.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday January 11 2021, @11:00PM (3 children)
Oh yeah, the original reply intended for your comment. The annoying dweeb swarm problem happened overnight sometime in the past month or so, in other online places but apparently also here, totally inorganically. The question is, what exactly is it? Well, the smarm and snoot of the posts is pure Jewish arrogance and contempt, but is it real people (JIDF cube farm, sniveling Air Force punks at Eglin, Antifa/BLM) or is it some kind of bot farm operated by those mentioned? One thing's for sure, it is pretty goddamn annoying.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @11:58PM (2 children)
FBI CSA NSA DHS ATF INS look into the above asshole, comes from the same area as the traitorous fuck that got shot after ignoring an officer's warning and continued to break through the windows. Ethanol fueled will limely joun in the planned violence in the coming weeks, track this domestic terrorist and make sure he never sees the light of day after he pulls whatever violence he is planning.
Was it boston dynamics you worked for? What is your address again?
(Score: 0) by Ethanol-fueled on Tuesday January 12 2021, @12:16AM (1 child)
Oh, I'm sorry, I seemed to have made an honest mistake. Let me correct what I meant to say in my previous post: "Well, the smarm and snoot of the posts is pure White arrogance and contempt..."
There! Now that I'm no longer a racist terrorist, can we be friends again? By the way, why isn't Snoop Dogg being cancelled? He spent decades rappin' about and objectifying bitches and ho's, shouldn't he be next?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @12:34AM
JTRIG is gonna getcha!
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday January 11 2021, @10:18PM (2 children)
Wow. So it's now a Troll to point out the difference between BLM (grievance about police brutality/killings) and the Trump Capitol Overthrow Riot (because didn't like the outcome of election. Waaaah! It was stolen. No evidence. But... Waaaaah!).
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @12:00AM (1 child)
The sock puppeting and bad faith moderations are standard fair here. As usual the RWNJs are the worst offenders making life more terrible for everyone cause they can't get laid.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday January 12 2021, @03:22PM
Yes. I know that. I just love the outright brazenness of it. It's their highest form of debate, since they can't use a gun here.
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(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 11 2021, @07:18PM (1 child)
The way the parties have shaped up, no... they really don't. Show me districts that have been gerrymandered to benefit Democratic voters? The type of poll shaping that benefits Democrats is: Get out the vote, get as many people to vote as possible - so, I suppose they're "guilty" of that, but that's the ideal situation in a democracy anyway.
Are Democratic (or any) politicians blameless angels? No. Ala Arthur C. Clarke: any person who actively seeks public office should be automatically barred from holding it.
When the shit went down in Florida in 2000, I wasn't happy with the result, but I wasn't joining a mob to lynch the public officials who were carrying out the transition of power. The losing side in 2000 didn't entrench and turn the country upon itself, give inflammatory speeches inspiring a fringe minority mob to zealous action: stampeding themselves and law enforcement to death like some little Who concert [usatoday.com] chanting about hanging the Vice President and carrying handcuffs into the halls of Congress. Hillary lost in 2016 by the same margin that Trump did in 2020, I don't recall endless lawsuits and claims of fraud.
It seems to me that the events of the past week are the culmination of 30 years of borderline hate speech on talk radio, and yes there's the opposing viewpoint espoused by NPR and similar outlets, but when you weigh the two sides - one comes up not only smelling better, but also much closer to legal than the other one.
I will also say: it is unfair to paint all Republicans with the Orange brush. But I would say that any Congressman or Senator who took a stand in open session to protest the most carefully examined election results in US history, with 0 for 38 court cases supporting allegations of cheating, they do deserve to be remembered as part of the Orange party and the Orange party deserves more excoriation, ridicule, shame, boycott, un-employment, and microscopic examination of their dealings than Communist party did from the 1950s to the 1970s.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @09:32PM
Obi-wan got blacklisted for being an open communist party supported back in the 50s. Star Wars was his first major break in 20 years.
I think the same or greater level of condemnation he recieved for his otherwise innocent support of a political party should be shown to Trump's most fervent supporters. It's only fair if supporting an unpopular position gets you blacklisted for 20 years that supporting a violently and eventually unpopular decision gets you condemned for at least that long.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday January 11 2021, @10:31PM
The problem is that neither side benefits by giving up on gerrymandering while they're in power. Some court decisions in the past may indicate that the redistricting from the new census will be under more intense scrutiny. But a lot of it won't be under unbiased scrutiny.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @06:03PM
Indeed. That reason, among others, is why I am reluctant to vote for any Republicans now or in the foreseeable future.
(Score: 2) by Nobuddy on Tuesday January 12 2021, @03:09PM (1 child)
that you think gerrymandering has anything to do with a presidential election invalidates anything else you say.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday January 12 2021, @03:19PM
Gerrymandering affects the House of Representatives. That you can't wrap your head around the idea that a discussion isn't focused soley on the Presidential Election invalidates all of your writings, by your own logic.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @09:06PM
No, fraudulent mail in ballots and rigged closed source voting machines were used to steal the election.
(Score: 5, Informative) by agr on Monday January 11 2021, @04:31PM (4 children)
>...and Bush beat Gore by a whisker in a recount.
That's not what happened. The recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court was halted by the U.S. Supreme Court in a partisan 5 to 4 vote. Nonetheless, a peaceful transition ensued and Vice President Al Gore presided over the certification of the electoral vote for Bush.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 11 2021, @04:59PM
Thanks for the refresher - in my memory it was extremely close, and felt like dirty pool, but was close enough to just let it go and get on with life.
This recent crap feels like something put on us by enemy countries trying to weaken the U.S.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Monday January 11 2021, @05:19PM (2 children)
Yet another example of the State's Rights people not giving a crap about State's Rights.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday January 11 2021, @05:58PM (1 child)
I also point out that the people who scream loudest about "maw rats!" always seem to be the least concerned about anyone else's rights.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @08:13PM
Indeed. It almost seems by design, no? Hmmm, I wonder why that might be.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @11:12PM (1 child)
This tired wordplay again, which sounds so clever and is so wrong. It's a non-sequitur, like saying "The U.S. of A. has never been a Democracy - it has free speech laws."
Democracy means rule by the people, as opposed to theocracy (rule of religion), or several others. The means by which the US is doing democracy is via elected representatives, hence being a republic ALSO. It's not a binary choice. (Just like you can have free speech laws and laws enabling carrying weapons, and you can have free speech laws and laws forbidding carrying weapons.)
If you want to be correct, you could say "The U.S. of A. has never been a Democracy - it is an oligarchy." At least that way you can argue things based on their merits, rather than trying to confuse the audience with a "Chewbacca Defense."
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday January 12 2021, @12:53AM
A pure democracy would give all voters equal say in decisions, the U.S. Constitution does not do this - we elect representatives and those representatives are skewed in their power relative to the number of people they represent. A pure democracy would be one voter, one vote - congress and the electoral college tweaks that and not in a subtle way.
It's an important distinction, and one which the Republican party has leveraged until they are squeezed into the position of pandering to the most powerful minority and setting a divisive agenda against the less powerful majority of the population.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @05:33PM (2 children)
You seem to be forgetting four years of "#resistance" and daily attacks on the administration by way of the liberal media. It isn't just about the last contested election, it's about all the disrespect since then as well.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Monday January 11 2021, @05:59PM
Attacks? The liberal media merely reported what Trump said. His own actual words.
When Trump lied, as he almost always does, they pointed it out with actual facts.
The right wing news media is also free to point out facts and quote people.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @06:08PM
Oh, cry me a river! You are upset that "liberal media" is not saying nice things about your Orange Savior? This is why your lot decided to go for insurrection? If you want respect then you best start acting like you deserve it!
(Score: 3, Disagree) by looorg on Monday January 11 2021, @05:35PM (35 children)
What violent uprising? A group of people took it upon themselves to trespass -- if even that, it seems they might have been let in and if you are let in then it's not really trespassing is it? As far as coups or uprisings I doubt this would even qualify no matter how much some people would like it to. But people died, as far as I know from the news most of them appear to have died of causes not related to any violence -- the exception being the woman that got shot by the police, and possibly the police officers that may or may not have taken a fire-extinguisher to the head -- the news is a bit fuzzy on the subject. The others died for other reasons. Then the rest of the group of individuals that took part in this event appears to have been arrested one after another for one reason or another.
Overall the "bad orange man" is gone in a week (give or take a day or so depending on when this is read). This whole process now they want to kickstart seem to be dead on arrival and I doubt it till amount to much. It seems more like they want to be petty and vindictive or they want to make sure he doesn't run again next time. Beyond that all they seem to do is feed into the paranoia of his supporters that the Man and the socialmedia-industrial-complex is out to get them and silence them, the whole parler thing. Looking at it I'm not sure any longer if they are not right on at least that part.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday January 11 2021, @05:46PM (31 children)
So let me get this straight: A large number of people barged into the legislature yelling things like "Kill Mike Pence" and "Hang Nancy Pelosi", had brought handcuffs and guns, planted a couple of bombs and had more at hand, beat up a bunch of cops, killed a cop, grabbed some classified intelligence documents, stole a bunch of stuff, vandalized a bunch of stuff, by all appearances had plans to kidnap and/or kill members of Congress, by all appearances attempted to find and destroy the electoral college votes, and you think that's "trespassing"? If someone had tried to do that to your house, you would have been shooting a lot more than 1 of them.
That some Capitol Police officers might have been complicit in what happened doesn't make it not a bunch of crimes.
Even if it had been just trespassing, that is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison. And under the felony murder doctrine, each and every one of them could be charged for the death of the cop and go to jail for life.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @06:31PM (21 children)
Can you "say" all those things were done by Trump supporters? You can but are you right? And if a Trump supporter kills someone somewhere; it that Trumps fault?
The people are responsible for their actions, no one else. Some will go to jail. Many won't. Panic Action mentality will not fix anything. It will bring on the "which" hunts. (sp. yes that's correct)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @06:35PM (6 children)
You morons have some serious morality problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @06:53PM (5 children)
Wow so smart you are. Nothing moral about pointing at the wrong person. Give it up. Your an ass and you know it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @07:25PM (2 children)
Trump told them to march on the captol to help the "weak" Republicans, Rudy called for trial by combat, and over the last 4 years Trump has repeatedly encouraged violence.
You will burn in hell for trying to excuse his behavior, and you are now complicit in the violent insurrection that has left people dead. Truly you are a horrifying person. Don Jr. is that you?
Here is hoping the FBI has you on their list.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @10:18PM (1 child)
Hello FBI.
Trump told you to jump off a bridge. Why didn't you do it? if I scare you; maybe you need to log off and take a nap. You might feel better when you woke up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @05:12AM
u r srsly dum
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @08:25PM
Starting to be like Trump signs here on SN.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @12:39AM
wat
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday January 11 2021, @08:36PM (13 children)
I'll put it this way: Of the people who have been identified, lots of them spent years making pro-Trump social media posts, in some cases have become leaders of right-wing political and terrorism groups, have been observed at many Trump rallies, and showed up to this event waving Trump flags and wearing "Make America Great Again" hats among other symbols. If they're "crisis actors" or "Antifa plants", then it's awfully strange that neither Trump's campaign nor any of the groups they've been a part of have noticed that fact up until it suddenly became convenient to hang these folks out to dry to protect the Don.
this covers the legal ins and outs better than I can [lawfareblog.com], but the fact is that by the book if you entered the Capitol or brought a bomb there you can be jailed for it. And of course private entities are free under US law to punish people who took part by firing them, refusing to serve them, kicking them off of social media accounts, etc.
The general legal rule for incitement charges are that the person who tells a crowd to do something is among the people responsible for the crowd doing that thing. So, for instance, if a union president gave a speech telling the union members to go beat up the scabs, that union president can and probably will be charged with incitement if the union members do in fact beat up the scabs. And by the same token, when Trump told his people to, say, beat up people attending his rallies, he should be held legally and morally responsible for inciting - it's not that the people doing the beating aren't responsible, but he's also responsible for his part in what happened. Trump's speech right before the crowd attacked, and his tweets during the attack, is definitely a borderline case that I could see the jury go either way on: For example, he tweeted how much it was a shame that Pence hadn't helped him overturn the election results just before a group of people treated that as cause to kill Mike Pence.
What is a more likely tack towards making Trump at least partially immediately responsible is the actions he took both before and during the assault to prevent reinforcements from coming to the aid of the Capitol Police. He could have sent the DC National Guard and National Park Police but didn't. Shortly after the election was over, he replaced the Secretary of Defense with somebody who was oddly slow to allow the governors of Maryland and Virginia to send in their National Guards. After the election was over, he put in place policies that prevented the DC Police from going in. And the FBI was notably reluctant to arrest the people who were posting on social media about how they were planning some sort of big event at the Capitol on January 6 and telling people to bring their guns and other weapons to said event.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Informative) by arslan on Monday January 11 2021, @10:55PM (12 children)
Not an American. But from what was shown in the news in here in Oz, all he said was lets march on the capitol - similarly all his tweets shown in the news was about him being disappointed in folks or that the election was stolen, etc. Nowhere did I see any "lets go violent".
His support base seems to be rife with folks that can certainly cross that line but there's no real evidence where he actually asked them to. Its a slippery slope - if this is a precedent to indict him, any organizers of protests in the future will be indicted the moment a single person in that crowd goes mental.
I get that everyone hates him - but the amount of unreasonable hate is itself a problem. The dude is out of office in a few days - if they want to go on a witch hunt because he gropes someone or evaded taxes or had shady business dealings, go forth. Holding someone responsible for organizing a protest what ended up becoming violent because there were some nut cases in the crowd is setting a pretty bad precedent. Find hard evidence he actually asked them to go violent, then its a different matter.
All those folks that crossed the line should absolutely be punished.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday January 11 2021, @11:29PM (1 child)
You can read / watch the full speech here [rev.com] and decide for yourself whether he was intending to cause what happened with that speech.
As my last paragraph is talking about, what's more damning are the official actions he took before and after that speech that made it more likely that the attempted attack would succeed, which makes it seem a lot less like a "whoopsie-daisy" or even members of the crowd acting on their own, and a lot more like they were one prong of a plan.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @03:12AM
The article of impeachment [cnn.com] uses "if you don’t fight like hell you’re not going to have a country anymore" as an example statement that "encouraged - and foreseeably resulted in - lawless action at the Capitol".
From the transcript, it sure seems like he used the words "fight", "fighting", or "fought" many times. Is it forseeable that talking about fighting so much and then directing an angry mob to the Capitol would result in lawless action at the Capitol? Maybe...
(Score: 4, Informative) by c0lo on Monday January 11 2021, @11:50PM (9 children)
Actual transcript [aljazeera.com]
What do you reasonable think he meant when he said "And we fight. We fight like Hell and if you don’t fight like Hell, you’re not going to have a country any more."?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @12:03AM
They are fascist liars, they know exaxtly what they are defending and discussions are pointless. They are spineless twerps that don't want to take responsibility for supporting evil.
(Score: 3, Touché) by arslan on Tuesday January 12 2021, @04:24AM (5 children)
Uhh.. I dunno as someone with no dog in the fight, it could mean either "let's literally go violent" or "figuratively protest your brains out". What language should a protest organizer use? "Let's make love! Let's make love like no tomorrow so we will get back xyz!"?
It is quite _obvious_ which direction the folks that hate him are leaning. It is quite entertaining and a tad sad when you see folks that are supposed to be leaders and smart, educated people let their hate consume them - these are no Gandhi for sure; much like the other side. What's scary is they are leaders of the free world.
Again, as stated before those actual violent mob should be punished to the full extent.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday January 12 2021, @05:07AM (4 children)
Whatever is appropriate to the mob's ability to understand (very low in high emotional conditions) and the closest to your intention. If you can't control the mob, you don't gather the mob.
This is why the best circumstances I can infer in Trump's favor are to assume his intentions was to raise the mob by any means (including highly inflammatory rhetoric to drive the emotional load through the roof) with no regards on the consequences of doing so (i.e. not even considering the possible consequences, much less considering them and make mistakes on the possible outcome). In this best case scenario, Trump acted irresponsible - not a thing that you don't want from POTUS or any leader of whatever country.
What I feel like the most probable scenario is that Trump wanted chaos creating opportunities that he can seize. One of that possible opportunities involve troubles spiking to a level in which martial law can be justified, see https://www.propublica.org/article/before-mob-stormed-the-capitol-days-of-security-planning-involved-cabinet-officials-and-president-trump [propublica.org]
But, whatever the actual case may be, Trump cannot be exonerated by the responsibility from the results of his actions. There's no defense on the line "But I didn't intend to end this way" that can get him off the hook.
[Citation needed], mate, for the "let their hate consume them" part.
Besides hate, there are multiple explanations possible for the reactions of those "folks that are supposed to be leaders and smart", what makes you chose the "irrational hate against Trump" as THE explanation for this case?
Retribution to be paid to the "tools", throw the bus on top of the inconsequential scape goats, but let the wielder of those tools be?
That wouldn't be in any way less morally reprehensible than Hillary's "basket of deplorables", with the note that Hillary's brainfart didn't kill anyone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by helel on Tuesday January 12 2021, @05:36AM (3 children)
Even in this most favorable interpretation his recent appointment still blocked calls for the national guard six times [businessinsider.in] and the situation only started coming under control after Pence [cnn.com] decided to exercise his own authority. Or to put it another way, even if he wasn't actively trying to raise a riot he was more than happy allowing it to rage unchecked for hours.
And even that's ignoring the fact that the DC National Guard and Capitol Police were both ordered not to take normal precautions that are routine for any big event in DC. That strongly suggests premeditation which leaves only the question of who knew what when.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Wednesday January 13 2021, @04:04AM (2 children)
This is probably a more saner reason, i.e. him not doing his job to end the riots - assuming it is, I'm not really clear on what his active responsibility is here - he did go on TV saying that is not what they should be doing, asked them to stop and go home; of course he did continuing to sneak in his dissatisfaction with the "stolen election" nonsense but that's not a crime; poor form form & sore loser for sure.
So far all the other arguments seems to be interpreting his speech & intentions instead of providing hard evidence - and interpretation is a slippery slope. It is pretty common for protest organizers use the word "fight" figuratively, i.e we have to "fight for our right".
And no, in my opinion you cannot pin the actions of mobs that was not clearly and directly asked to break the rules on the organizers otherwise we'd shutting down a valid channel for free speech as anyone that disagrees with any protest agenda can easily just embed any hooligan in any protest to enact some violence and the protest organizers all cop the consequence. Like I said, slippery slope.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 13 2021, @04:29AM (1 child)
He told the terrorists that attempted to kill legislative leaders and the Vice President "we love you, you're very special."
As for ending the insurrection, it is his job. He's the head of the executive branch. He has the authority to send in the DC National Guard, even if the guy he appointed says no. This right here is why Democrats calling to invoke the 25th amendment are offering an easy way out. The 25th is for a president that is unable to perform their duties, such as due to illness or general incompetence. If Pence invokes it and Trump doesn't fight it he could quietly leave office as merely not up to the job of president because the alternative explanation is that he intentionally allowed a group of violent terrorists roam the capitol building for hours while his silence indicated his agreement with his appointments refusal to end the attack.
And lets not forget, before the sixth somebody ordered the Capitol Police and DC National Guard not to take the normal precautions they would take for any large gathering, this despite the fact that the FBI knew an attack was coming [rollingstone.com].
So our options are Trump is so incompetent that his appointments and advisers have orchestrated a coup attempt around him without his involvement or knowledge and then he just went along with it when they pulled the trigger or he himself attempted the coup. In the former case we might say that his rhetoric was inciting but not intentional. In the later case there's no question what he was attempting.
So, what do you think? Is Trump so weak he can't even bring himself to override Senior Army official Lt. Gen. Walter E. Piatt, a man he appointed last month, or did he just try to overturn the vote by violence?
(Score: 2) by helel on Wednesday January 13 2021, @04:31AM
Accidentally posted AC, didn't notice I had gotten logged out by mistake. That's one downside of allowing AC posts, I guess?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @11:15PM (1 child)
From the transcript.
"we become president," - We? Is that the royal "we"? Divine right of kings and all that.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday January 12 2021, @11:25PM
Nah. He's a senile narcissist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @06:53PM (2 children)
There is video of Capitol Security inviting them in, and the flexcuffs were also supplied by them. There are pictures online of the yellow duffel bag they were taken from. I'm getting the impression that there are three or four groups at play here: A small number of violent traitors who thought they were going to be heroes and believe they were getting orders directly from Trump, a larger group of useful idiots who had no real idea of what was going on but were invited in to boost the apparent numbers of the first group, a group of traitors within Capitol Security who were in on it and cheerfully left some of their colleagues to the wolves, and a possible* fourth group of professionals using the rest as cover for a smash-and-grab of classified materials and/or compromising the building's network. In light of all of that, I wouldn't be surprised if the pipe bombs and Molotov cocktails were 'found' by Capitol Security the same way cops 'find' blunts in people's cars. None of that would have been possible if the reinforcements they were supposed to have had been on site to supervise, and all of it is being used as a justification to stamp down on civil liberties and the rule of law in the name of security. There is a coup happening in the grande olde US of A, but it isn't the people rising up, rather it is the very security apparatus created after 9/11 to keep us all 'safe'. The only thing better than a false flag is to get someone else to wave it for you so you can smack them down for it.
*Assuming what was taken was real and not planted bait. And was actually stolen.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Monday January 11 2021, @09:12PM (1 child)
I have heard this a few times, or words to similar effect. If there truly is video of this, I would very much appreciate a chance to view it myself.
Do you (or anyone else reading this) have a link to such video(s)?
Thanks!
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by helel on Tuesday January 12 2021, @05:59AM
Here [nypost.com] is a Capitol Police officer holding the door for the rioters. There's also Capitol Police opening the barricades [snopes.com] for Trumps followers, altho reading up it seems like the police may have felt like there was no point in trying to hold the line there.
But then we come to my personal favorite, the cop waving rioters into the capitol building [worthy.watch]!
I don't know about the flex cuffs being supplied by Capitol Police but there was at least one cop taking selfies [independent.co.uk] with the crowd, which seems ... awfully familiar, given the situation, and there's at least some evidence [cbsnews.com] that police were giving the rioters directions to specific representatives offices.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 11 2021, @07:21PM (1 child)
You forgot: broke windows, scaled walls to circumvent barricades, ignored police orders, trampled and or beat a policeman to death, and for the coup'd grace: live streamed and/or recorded and broadcast themselves doing it to the world with clearly identifiable faces and voices.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by cmdrklarg on Monday January 11 2021, @08:28PM
Also forgot: erected gallows.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Monday January 11 2021, @08:11PM (2 children)
So you think the Qanon-shaman and his idiot friends constitute an actual uprising? Seriously? The pipe bombs wasn't even found at the Capitol. That was another incident. As far as I know it's not yet shown if there is a link or not between the two cases. I am fairly certain I didn't say that there wasn't crimes committed, crimes committed should be investigated and punished and there seems to be some solid cases for theft, trespassing and vandalism among other things. But pushing for a treason, a coup and/or a violent uprising is reaching a tad to far. I very much doubt that they'll be able to prove that no matter how much some people are claiming it was. As far as I know somewhere around 80ish arrests have already been made for various offenses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @08:33PM
Subject-verb agreement. "Bombs" is plural. Seems Republican riots produce regression, in grammar and toilet training [brokenbeatnik.com].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 13 2021, @05:16AM
The mascots? No.
The ex-military and militia types packing large amounts of weaponry, restraints, and explosives? Yes!
I'm sure their social media and phone communications will be used to determine each individual's intent. There was at least one video of people chanting "hang Mike Pence" and social media posts calling for the murder of Nancy Pelosi. Anyone supporting the murder of politicians is guilty of insurrection, and many more will be charged as accessories for the beating death of the one officer and trampling of one woman.
Every single person that stormed the building knew they were doing something wrong, even if they thought it was in support of democracy. These were the same people crying about rioters and insisting that peaceful protesting is the only way to voice dissent. They don't get to abandon those ideals just because they suddenly feel like victims, without evidence I might add. Or are consequences only for liberals these days?
(Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday January 12 2021, @01:27PM
Lets wait and see, I have a strong suspicion that in a few weeks or months this will from a legal standpoint have faded into oblivion and we'll hear nothing about any coup or violent uprisings except from various pundits. Some of these idiots that took part in it will be charged by and for various other crimes they did commit but not for sedition. But I could be wrong, but I doubt it.
(Score: 5, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Monday January 11 2021, @05:48PM
Video shows rioters beating officer with American flag [cnn.com]
Video shows officer being crushed by violent pro-Trump mob in deadly Capitol riot [nbcnews.com]
Social media videos show chaos, violence on frontlines of US Capitol clashes [abc7news.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Tork on Monday January 11 2021, @06:19PM
Heh. So either it wasn't violent or it was super violent but perpetrated by Antifa. 🙄
He wants to run again in 2024. Surely your news sources covered the whole 'barring Trump from future office' thing.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday January 11 2021, @10:09PM
The news isn't fuzzy at all, the officer took a fire extinguisher to the head. Of the 4 "medical emergencies", I know one of those "emergencies" i that a woman was trampled to death by the crowd. No idea about the other 3.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Monday January 11 2021, @07:33PM (1 child)
What if they are home-grown - they are already 'back' where they came from?
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday January 11 2021, @10:38PM
I thought that was his point.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday January 11 2021, @08:18PM (5 children)
"Plenty of people were disappointed with the outcome four years ago, but did not go trying to overthrow the government in a murderous rampage."
The last election wasn't 'stolen': you can only kill and destroy if your election is stolen...or you're up against a black person.
Two ways to tell the difference between you losing an election and it being stolen is by checking how much you hate losing and your IQ: Trump cannot comprehend losing, so it must have been stolen... except for the states where he won. Those states elections were valid; all others were stolen. Not the smartest thinking ever.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday January 11 2021, @08:27PM (4 children)
This present election wasn't stolen either.
No evidence that it was stolen has been provided.
Trump and gang filed numerous lawsuits, all of which were thrown out, many by Republican judges, some of which were Trump appointed. For lack or evidence. Lack of standing.
Trump has said time and time again that he has evidence that election was stolen, yet never shows the evidence. Providing that evidence would have benefited his court cases greatly.
If Trump had actual evidence the election was stolen, he might even convince skeptical people like myself. It's funny how Trump never ever produces anything of substance to back up his grandiose bombastic claims of fire and fury.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday January 11 2021, @10:08PM (3 children)
Read again: I'm agreeing with you.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday January 11 2021, @10:14PM (2 children)
I'm agreeing with you too.
Preaching to the choir as it were.
I love how a I now have a couple troll mods. Especially one on post that says [citation needed]. Another that points out the difference between BLM (grievance over police brutality / killings) and the Trump Capitol Riots (Waaaaaah! didn't like the election, but not proof it was stolen! Waaaaah!).
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @11:01PM (1 child)
Yes, indeed. It would appear that in this modern bizzaro world, asking for evidence of grandiose claims is now considered "trolling". What the hell happened to us?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @12:08AM
Trump normalized dishonesty and convinced morons that their feelings were more important than facts. We have millions of brainwashed cultists following Trump like children.
Pointimg out his crimes and misdeeds was greeted with Trump Derangement Syndrome accusations, and they cry like babies when corrected.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @08:36PM (6 children)
Republicans don't like the outcome of a democrat-stolen election. They tolerated, with sadness, both Obama victories.
Democrats couldn't handle democracy, and proved that in 2016. Hell, they kept rioting for 4 years. They didn't handle Bush Jr. very well either.
Fighting to preserve our republic, by keeping the legitimate president in power, is a just cause.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Monday January 11 2021, @09:34PM (4 children)
> democrat-stolen election [citation needed]
This was thrown out of over thirty courts, many by Republican judges, some of which were appointed by Trump. For lack of evidence.
Trump loudly and repeatedly claimed the election was stolen, he had evidence, the facts were on his side. Etc.
Yet in Trump fashion, he never produces even a shred of proof.
There were minor irregularities in this election, as in every election. Every county, then every state, certified their elections. This was the most scrutinized election ever.
I've head the most outlandish things said about the ballots, the machines -- things that should indeed be troubling -- but without a shred, not even the tiniest bit of proof. Nothing ever produced. Zip. Zilch. Nada.
Please provide evidence of Democrats trying to overthrow the 2016 election in a riot.
If you're talking about impeachment, this is a legitimate government function, peacefully done within the halls of congress, by elected representatives. Whether you like the outcome or not. And the Senate, following its own rules, did not hold a trial on the impeachment proceedings, and thus they went nowhere.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday January 11 2021, @10:15PM (2 children)
So it's now a Troll to ask for evidence. And to point out facts.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by helel on Tuesday January 12 2021, @01:19PM (1 child)
I've noticed this trend recently. Used to be any time you asked a conservative for evidence they'd slink off quietly but the last week someone's been troll-modding such requests...
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday January 12 2021, @03:24PM
It is fun to watch.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @04:23PM
That you believe the cases were thrown out for lack of evidence is reflective of the state of propaganda of the media.
They were primarily dismissed for lack of standing. This is not only very different, but something that should be deeply disconcerting to anybody who cares at all about anything besides 'orange man bad'. Dismissal for standing does not involve any consideration of evidence whatsoever - only a consideration of whether the alleged act, if it occurred, would have materially harmed the person filing the suit. So for example you can't sue Bob for breaching his concert with Joe if you're not Joe or some other party that can somehow prove harm.
Some of the cases dismissed for lack of standing include the ones that Trump himself filed against states where without observed irregularities he likely would have won. Think about what this means. The courts have said that even the president, the party who elections most directly affect, does not have standing to sue for practices that led to irregularities. This effectively means that the courts are stating that *nobody* has standing to sue states for how they conduct their elections. And so there is no longer any meaningful oversight of elections beyond state commissions. And if those state commissions are corrupt? Well, then democracy dies in those states. At least so longer as voters restrict themselves only to recourse as provided for by our legal system.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 12 2021, @12:11AM
Do you even read the shit you post? It is laughably bad propaganda.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 12 2021, @04:03AM (1 child)
And pigs fly. I'm granting the results of the election. I'm not buying that any of the above, even though it would be a remarkably low threshold to achieve, actually happened.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday January 12 2021, @05:24AM