The "Green Bay Sweep"--One Year Later

[Dill]

So here we are one year after the Capitol insurrection and Trump's failed autogolpe.
https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/january-6-capitol-insurrection-anniversary/index.html
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/jan6-peter-navarro-ted-cruz-green-bay-sweep-1276742/

Some 752 people have been convicted of breaking into the Capitol, but the ring leaders and planners of the coup attempt remain at large, some guiding the "slow moving coup" still underway to throw the next election. This time, if all goes according to their plan, this time around they will have the "right people" in place who will place party over country and rule of law.

We have a Congressional committee investigating the plot to overturn the election through coordinated action among Trump operatives in critical swing states--the so-called "Green Bay Sweep"--but this is an election year, and if they haven't completed their investigation by election time, it may never be completed.
https://news.yahoo.com/jan-6-anniversary-biden-blames-trump-for-insurrection-in-speech-at-capitol-152113083.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall

The Maga faction is rewriting history on right wing news outlets, stirring opposition to the new "witch hunt." Trump is the front running GOP candidate for 2024, according to polls.
https://www.aol.com/trump-lashes-biden-scathing-speech-155442888.html   https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/january-6-insurrection-hoax/   https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fbi-confirms-there-was-no-insurrection-on-jan-6/ar-AANxOuQ

I don't wish to "remember" 1/6 so much as to acknowledge that the "coup" is still very much with us, ongoing, not over.

Biden gave an effective review of the facts this morning, but that will not move the 10s of millions who still believe it was Biden, not Trump, who violated "election integrity" in 2020.

So I am wondering how many of my MB colleagues share this concern whether coup leaders will ever be held accountable for their actions or whether, as with the Russia investigation and Trump's 1st and 2nd impeachment, they'll get off scott free to continue to undermine democracy. The prospect of these Superminority leaders again evading accountability makes other issues, like voting rights and filibuster reform, even more urgent.

Do any agree with McConnell, that the investigation is just partisan political theater over an unfortunate incident, a few mistaken calculations on the part of the Capitol police planning security and an unruly and undirected crowd? Is democracy really at stake, or will everything be ok once the Dem theater is over and the GOP has control of Congress and maybe the Senate again? Are "both sides" doing it? 

[*Nately120*]

My general take...

we have a two party system
one party has an easier path to victory than the other
that party has been infiltrated by a cult and cult-like thinking
democrats have received a combined 10 million more votes than republicans in the two Trump elections
republicans either can't, won't, or refuse to acknowledge that Trump lost either of those two elections

Trump is likely to be the 2024 candidate. He's likely to run against either Hillary Clinton, or Joe Biden who have received a combined 10 million more votes than he has and, yet Trump is favored to win the election

Our political system is so slanted towards one side that many Americans are concerned that we will be able to nothing but watch as the will of 30% of the people will be enough to win "in a landslide" and if that doesn't work, then enough finagling can be done to assure that the will of the specific minority will be the only one that matters.

People who look down on 3rd world dictatorships as shitholes, and who also proudly wave the American flag and celebrate our day of independence over a stifling royal family will cheer and declare our country stronger than ever.

Oh, and as for the 1/6 thing...well, like any good super villains the GOP leaders who lead the charge will all get away with it as their expendable henchmen who ended up dead or captured will be declared some combination of "fallen patriot" or "political prisoner" or "filthy liberal antifa plant" and suffer the consequences.

[masonbengals fan]

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/01/anniversary-of-a-disgrace/#slide-1

This pretty well sums it up for me.

[Dill]

(01-06-2022, 03:42 PM)masonbengals fan Wrote: https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/01/anniversary-of-a-disgrace/#slide-1

This pretty well sums it up for me.

Thanks for posting that, Mason. I think it is the best representation of what might be called the position of “McConnel Republicans,” who grant Trump did something bad but consider hearings to investigate the Capitol breach nothing more than “political opportunism.”
 
The article offers a blizzard of “whattabouts”: a Harvard professor bombed the Capitol in 1915 and shot J.P. Morgan, a Puerto Rican nationalist shot 5 Congressmen in 1954, in the 80s leftists set off bombs in the capitol and Pentagon,  “left-wing mobs” overran the Wisconsin state capitol in 2011,  chased Republican senators down Capitol hallways during the Kavanaugh hearings, supermajorities of Dem voters believed Russians hacked/stole the 2016 election. And don’t forget 9/11 and the shooting of Steve Scalise, not to mention the Dems who “pandered” to the riots of 2020 following the death of George Floyd.  Apparently we’ve “seen worse” and “both sides do it”; though it is admitted Trump went farther than Dems who contested the 2000 and 2004 elections.

As for 1/6, “the Republicans in Congress who shamefully supported the objections to Biden’s election mostly did so in the same fashion as the Democrats who objected to prior presidential elections — secure in the knowledge that they were participating in a cynical stunt and would be saved from the consequences of their actions by others.”

So the conclusion is—“Many of the January 6 opportunists on the left want to respond by enacting centralizing changes to the American system. But in January 2022, as in January 2021, we should mistrust anyone who says we won’t have a country if we let the system work as it always has. America works, and its system should not be burned down in the name of saving it.”  Nothing to see here folks. Move along.

But there is much missing from this assessment, starting with the Green Bay Sweep attempted before the election, secretly coordinating MAGA operatives in many states to send false Electoral certifications to Congress and culminating in the rally which launched the assault on Congress. Isn’t conspiring/attempting to overturn an election illegal? The failure to coerce Pence to invalidate certification has since led to an ongoing coup which continues after the election. Are we “let[ing] the system work as it always has” if we look the other way? 

[Dill]

So 11 Proud Boys up on sedition charges. I place this on this thread because it is relevant to the question of how much of the insurrection was planned. However, I am not sure the Proud Boys push into the Capitol was part of the Green Bay Sweep. It seems entirely possible that different groups were working their own, different, coup angles, not necessarily in coordination with one another--or even it began that way, some elements went "rogue" on 1/6, operating independently of Meadows/Bannon's "war room." I don't think a breach of the Capitol was intended by Navarro et al.

Seditious conspiracy: 11 Oath Keepers charged in Jan. 6 riot
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/founder-oath-keepers-charged-seditious-conspiracy-82247388

WASHINGTON -- Stewart Rhodes, the founder and leader of the far-right Oath Keepers militia group, and 10 other members or associates have been charged with seditious conspiracy in the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol, authorities said Thursday.

Despite hundreds of charges already brought in the year since pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol in an effort to stop the certification of President Joe Biden's 2020 election victory, these were the first seditious conspiracy charges levied in connection with the attack on Jan. 6, 2021.

It marked a serious escalation in the largest investigation in the Justice Department’s history – more than 700 people have been arrested and charged with federal crimes – and highlighted the work that has gone into piecing together the most complicated cases. The charges rebut, in part, the growing chorus of Republican lawmakers who have publicly challenged the seriousness of the insurrection, arguing that since no one had been charged yet with sedition or treason, it could not have been so violent.

The indictment alleges Oath Keepers for weeks discussed trying to overturn the election results and preparing for a siege by purchasing weapons and setting up battle plans. They repeatedly wrote in chats about the prospect of violence and the need, as Rhodes allegedly wrote in one text, “to scare the s—-out of” Congress. And on Jan. 6, the indictment alleges, they entered the Capitol building with the large crowds of rioters who stormed past police barriers and smashed windows, injuring dozens of officers and sending lawmakers running.

Authorities have said the Oath Keepers and their associates worked as if they were going to war, discussing weapons and training. Days before the attack, one defendant suggested in a text message getting a boat to ferry weapons across the Potomac River to their “waiting arms,” prosecutors say.

On Jan. 6, several members, wearing camouflaged combat attire, were seen on camera shouldering their way through the crowd and into the Capitol in a military-style stack formation, authorities say.

The indictment against Rhodes alleges Oath Keepers formed two teams, or “stacks,” that entered the Capitol. The first stack split up inside the building to separately go after the House and Senate. The second stack confronted officers inside the Capitol Rotunda, the indictment said. Outside Washington, the indictment alleges, the Oath Keepers had stationed two “quick reaction forces” that had guns “in support of their plot to stop the lawful transfer of power.”

Rhodes, 56, of Granbury, Texas, is the highest-ranking member of an extremist group to be arrested in the deadly siege. He and Edward Vallejo, 63, of Phoenix, Arizona, were arrested on Thursday. The nine others were already facing criminal charges related to the attack.

[hollodero]

(01-06-2022, 01:53 PM)Dill Wrote: Do any agree with McConnell, that the investigation is just partisan political theater over an unfortunate incident, a few mistaken calculations on the part of the Capitol police planning security and an unruly and undirected crowd?

I think it's all that too; at the same time, this sure is not the whole story, and not the important story.

It still is disturbing to see what was going on that day. Gallows and all. Spooky. But if everyone had agreed afterwards that it was a disturbing event, whole-heartedly condemned it as every decent person should, then it would maybe not be all that disturbing as a singular event of a bunch of lunatics, and McConnell, that smart cynical bastard, would have a fair point. He has not, for the storming isn't the lone scary part.
The much scarier thing than the insurrection attempt, imho, is the ongoing reaction of the almost entire Republican Party to that event.

That's why I'd say your democracy is very much at stake. Of course, this is mainly based on Trump setting all the steps for getting future elections overturned to his will and a whole party apparatus supporting him in that effort. Or on people just rather believing conspiracy lies they read on facebook rather than the reasonable people reasonably denying wide-spread election fraud with all democrat and quite some republican election officials, all judges, all law enforcement apparently being in on the fix. Or on Brad Raffensberger being censured and whatnot for the eternal sin of having done his duty for securing and certifying a free and fair election. Yeah, eff this guy, right. And all that can be discussed about all that is some counter-arguments like bringing up liberal hypocrisy in one or the other convoluted way, that the awful Dems politicize the event, that one comes from a partisan viewpoint etc etc, all that deflecting and false equivalencies and side-battles; the route cynical, yet not converted McConnell goes. While this is actually going on and your people just shrug. Half of the country doesn't care, and many are actively rooting for replacing democracy with following Trump's will. Just imagine what a smart guy could do with that kind of opportunity.

The eventy of January 6, as bad as they were, imho pale in comparison.

(01-14-2022, 05:16 PM)Dill Wrote: However, I am not sure the Proud Boys push into the Capitol was part of the Green Bay Sweep. 

According to Peter Navarro, it was not. I've seen an interview with him where he seemed real pissed at the Capitol stormers for ruining the Green Bay sweep, which had something to do with Pence and the electors count.

Oh yeah, I might add former Trump officials openly debating coup attempts on TV and nothing really happening in reaction to that on the list.

[Dill]

(01-15-2022, 12:13 AM)hollodero Wrote: . . . for the storming isn't the lone scary part.
The much scarier thing than the insurrection attempt, imho, is the ongoing reaction of the almost entire Republican Party to that event.

That's why I'd say your democracy is very much at stake. Of course, this is mainly based on Trump setting all the steps for getting future elections overturned to his will and a whole party apparatus supporting him in that effort. Or on people just rather believing conspiracy lies they read on facebook rather than the reasonable people reasonably denying wide-spread election fraud with all democrat and quite some republican election officials, all judges, all law enforcement apparently being in on the fix. Or on Brad Raffensberger being censured and whatnot for the eternal sin of having done his duty for securing and certifying a free and fair election. Yeah, eff this guy, right. And all that can be discussed about all that is some counter-arguments like bringing up liberal hypocrisy in one or the other convoluted way, that the awful Dems politicize the event, that one comes from a partisan viewpoint etc etc, all that deflecting and false equivalencies and side-battles; the route cynical, yet not converted McConnell goes. While this is actually going on and your people just shrug. Half of the country doesn't care, and many are actively rooting for replacing democracy with following Trump's will. Just imagine what a smart guy could do with that kind of opportunity.

The eventy of January 6, as bad as they were, imho pale in comparison.

I agree with this pretty much. I'd just tweak it a bit by saying "all" our people aren't shrugging. But it might be that "most" or certainly enough are to grant the anti-democratic forces control of government, which, when they have it, will enable them to keep passing laws to keep their superminority in power.  Preserving the filibuster takes precedence over preserving democracy.

There may be an analogy here to resistance to civil rights legislation back in the '60s, when people who "of course" were against racism and segregation nevertheless attacked King and civil rights protestors who were actually fighting racism and segregation. Following MLK's analysis, it was the white "moderates" who were the biggest obstacle to change. Today barely a third of the country is "rooting for replacing democracy," and a third or so understand the stakes and actively oppose them, but there is a disturbing number of "centrists" and "independents" who don't see a major problem. They view this conflict through variations of "both sidesism," one of which is that our politics are simply cyclical and someday the Dems will be thankful for the filibuster and Repubs will be complaining about anti-democratic policies, etc. "The system is working" so distrust people who want to change it (e.g., see Mason Bengal's link to the National Review article, written by people who aren't MAGA). 

Another variation would be comparisons which never go beyond the symmetry of each side's rhetoric to the basic asymmetry of evidence supporting the rhetoric. That's why many people hear Dems accusing Repubs of being anti-science and Repubs accusing Dems of being anti-science and stop there to conclude that "both sides" are just engaging in political performance. Meantime, COVID streaks through our millions of anti-Vaxxers, keeping the pandemic with us, the virus evolving, etc. Same when Dems raise the alarm about voting rights in danger. More "theater." There is no capacity among such folks to understand what is at stake when 50 million people WANT to re-elect a president who tried to throw the election--personally involved himself in doing.  So yes, Democracy is at stake.

The events of Jan.6--I wouldn't say they "pale in comparison," but only because they are not separate for comparison--i.e., they are not separate from the The Green Bay Sweep and the 5 or more states who sent alternative, forged, electoral certificates to the Senate and the National Archives in hopes of the throwing the election to the House, nor from the current ongoing push to selectively reduce voting and to give GOP controlled state legislatures final control over electoral votes. 

(01-15-2022, 12:13 AM)hollodero Wrote: Oh yeah, I might add former Trump officials openly debating coup attempts on TV and nothing really happening in reaction to that on the list.

This list/message board?

[hollodero]

(01-16-2022, 03:27 PM)Dill Wrote: I agree with this pretty much. I'd just tweak it a bit by saying "all" our people aren't shrugging. But it might be that "most" or certainly enough are to grant the anti-democratic forces control of government, which, when they have it, will enable them to keep passing laws to keep their superminority in power.  Preserving the filibuster takes precedence over preserving democracy.

Yeah I don't think it has much to do with the filibuster. I get why it matters on voting rights, yet still In a sense, I feel often liberals tend to get sidetracked with topics like these. On the overall point, sure there are people that aren't just shrugging. It mainly happen to be the people that had sided with the democratic party in the first place. That's, hm, 25% of American people if being generous.
So yeah, as a nation, you are shrugging, for roughly 3/4 of all people do just that - at best. Many also actively root for the autocratic one-party system. But it's not just about them. In the end, it's not the extremism of some people, but the lethargy of most people that will with a concerning likelihood bring US democracy down.

Our own democracies have issues. But if in some western european country a former higher official would go on TV after a lost election and describe in detail how they had planned to ignore the outcome and just rather put their guy in place, this would be a scandal beyond proportions. In the US, Peter Navarro does just that and it's rather for the laughs than anything else. This is all rotten to its core, and of course just a tiny example. But it's just so weird that even under these circumstances, the party that supports all that cannot possibly lose by more than 5 percentage points and then inevitably win big in one of the upcoming elections. It is clear where this ends. Even if some of the more lethargic folks believe in the system being unbeatable or that Nikki Haley will lead the republicans back to reason and righteousness or whatever dream.

(01-16-2022, 03:27 PM)Dill Wrote: There may be an analogy here to resistance to civil rights legislation back in the '60s

I'll keep this short, I don't think there's a real fitting one. Imho this is just too different in many core elements.

(01-16-2022, 03:27 PM)Dill Wrote: Another variation would be comparisons which never go beyond the symmetry of each side's rhetoric to the basic asymmetry of evidence supporting the rhetoric. That's why many people hear Dems accusing Repubs of being anti-science and Repubs accusing Dems of being anti-science and stop there to conclude that "both sides" are just engaging in political performance. Meantime, COVID streaks through our millions of anti-Vaxxers, keeping the pandemic with us, the virus evolving, etc. Same when Dems raise the alarm about voting rights in danger. More "theater." There is no capacity among such folks to understand what is at stake when 50 million people WANT to re-elect a president who tried to throw the election--personally involved himself in doing.  So yes, Democracy is at stake.

Yeah, that I can get behind. And that's one of the frustrating things, how specifically this "both sides do it" type of argument (I count "it's all theater" as a variation) is misused with gross false equivalencies and whatnot... often, it seems, as a way to go blind on the heineuos actions of the republican party. In a sense, liberals have managed to be so appalling that many people rather go willfully blind than to side with them in any measurable way. And at times, I can even understand why. But that apparent fact sure makes things worse.

(01-16-2022, 03:27 PM)Dill Wrote: The events of Jan.6--I wouldn't say they "pale in comparison,"

Nah, just to clarify, I rather meant they maybe would pale in comparison if the public perception would be one of universal denouncement. In that case, I could have at least found some sympathy for the argument that idiots are everywhere.

(01-16-2022, 03:27 PM)Dill Wrote: This list/message board?

Tried to clarify that above.

This message board is just a microcosm.

[Dill]

(01-17-2022, 07:11 PM)hollodero Wrote: Yeah I don't think it has much to do with the filibuster. I get why it matters on voting rights, yet still In a sense, I feel often liberals tend to get sidetracked with topics like these. 

Dill Wrote:[url=http://thebengalsboard.com/Thread-The-Green-Bay-Sweep-One-Year-Later?pid=1146764#pid1146764][/url]There may be an analogy here to resistance to civil rights legislation back in the '60s

I'll keep this short, I don't think there's a real fitting one. Imho this is just too different in many core elements.

Two central terms of comparison would be use of the filibuster to block voting rights legislation and a large number of "independents" and other non-committed who don't see why minority civil rights should be an issue for them, if it is an issue at all.

Liberals tend to get "sidetracked" on the filibuster once they grasp how it has been used to block civil rights legislation. The nothing that filibusters is neutral and tends to favor "both sides" is one version of that "both sidesism we both deplore.

But you are right to note that there are also important differences between then and now. Eg, the civil rights violations today are not nearly so egregious an visible as they were in 1964.

(01-17-2022, 07:11 PM)hollodero Wrote: Our own democracies have issues. But if in some western european country a former higher official would go on TV after a lost election and describe in detail how they had planned to ignore the outcome and just rather put their guy in place, this would be a scandal beyond proportions. In the US, Peter Navarro does just that and it's rather for the laughs than anything else. This is all rotten to its core, and of course just a tiny example. But it's just so weird that even under these circumstances, the party that supports all that cannot possibly lose by more than 5 percentage points and then inevitably win big in one of the upcoming elections. It is clear where this ends. Even if some of the more lethargic folks believe in the system being unbeatable or that Nikki Haley will lead the republicans back to reason and righteousness or whatever dream.

This is why I am thankful we have posters from outside the U.S., who have not normalized and adapted to this astonishing state of affairs. Their registered shock is a salutary reminder of what used to be normal, and still is in successful democracies elsewhere.

For 50+ million Americans right now--and maybe 70-80+ in 2024--Trump's openly attempting to subvert an election is not a serious objection to his running again.

So we are in this crazy, strange situation in which we have hard public evidence of Trump's attempt to subvert the election, and no evidence what so ever that Biden stole the election. Worse, the proffered evidence, like conspiracies promoted by Giuliani and Sidney Powell, flip over into more evidence of Trump malfeasance.  And yet the party which actually tried to steal the election has been able to convince tens of millions that's what the other side really did, and so, as you say, cannot lose by more than 5% if they lose at all. 

You and I spent four years aghast at what Trump did and said, but his supporters had spent 8 years before that believing that Obama was equally outrageous and an existential threat to the nation--though the threat appeared at the time, and still does, to be wholly manufactured. Imagine if the cartoon history below of O's administration was factually correct. How is a vote for THAT president's Sec. of State any riskier than one for an outsider, a successful businessman, untainted by politics?  



That is in part why MAGA world is ready to "take back" the nation with illegal means. They believe libs have already done that. TRULY believe it. Party leaders believe otherwise, but not the mass of MAGA voters. And in contrast to previous elections, voters can no longer just vote out some official not getting the job done and try the other party's alternative. No matter how bad the GOP candidate is, you can't vote for the far more terrible party of treason and lies, who gave us an illegal president who was not born on U.S. soil. 

Something has happened to break their judgment, undermining trust in government (including the FBI,CIA, and CDC) and academia--all outside authority--rendering every false equivalence a credible trump of pro-democracy candidates and policies, and it happened between 1974 and 2016--and especially after 9/11.  I'm including here many "independents" as well, who have difficulty seeing much difference between Trump and every president who came before him.

[hollodero]

(01-20-2022, 10:18 PM)Dill Wrote: Two central terms of comparison would be use of the filibuster to block voting rights legislation and a large number of "independents" and other non-committed who don't see why minority civil rights should be an issue for them, if it is an issue at all.

Liberals tend to get "sidetracked" on the filibuster once they grasp how it has been used to block civil rights legislation. The nothing that filibusters is neutral and tends to favor "both sides" is one version of that "both sidesism we both deplore.

I don't really think so. The filibuster is a tool for the minority party, not one for the republican party necessarily. I get Manchin's point that once the dems are in the minority again, they would miss the filibuster dearly.
(What I think he gets wrong though is the notion that the republicans will uphold the filibuster. I am willing to bet that is one of the first orders of business when they regain power there, to get rid of it and blame it on the democrats.)

Why I used the word sidetracked is just that I really hear soo much more about Manchin and Synema than I hear about the actual voting rights bills. The two get painted as collaborators and seemingly are the worst sinners of them all for not wanting to go that route. This, imho, is just way too much focus on these two and way too little focus on what they all, inculuding those two, want to achieve. Going after Manchin put all pressure away from the Republicans, and the Democrats rather are percieved as battling among themselves. It's not a good look, and also the shaming of a senator that holds a democratic seat that is unlikely to be a democratic seat to begin with imho is not a wise course of action.

(01-20-2022, 10:18 PM)Dill Wrote: This is why I am thankful we have posters from outside the U.S., who have not normalized and adapted to this astonishing state of affairs. Their registered shock is a salutary reminder of what used to be normal, and still is in successful democracies elsewhere.

For 50+ million Americans right now--and maybe 70-80+ in 2024--Trump's openly attempting to subvert an election is not a serious objection to his running again.

So we are in this crazy, strange situation in which we have hard public evidence of Trump's attempt to subvert the election, and no evidence what so ever that Biden stole the election. Worse, the proffered evidence, like conspiracies promoted by Giuliani and Sidney Powell, flip over into more evidence of Trump malfeasance.  And yet the party which actually tried to steal the election has been able to convince tens of millions that's what the other side really did, and so, as you say, cannot lose by more than 5% if they lose at all. 

You and I spent four years aghast at what Trump did and said, but his supporters had spent 8 years before that believing that Obama was equally outrageous and an existential threat to the nation--though the threat appeared at the time, and still does, to be wholly manufactured. Imagine if the cartoon history below of O's administration was factually correct. How is a vote for THAT president's Sec. of State any riskier than one for an outsider, a successful businessman, untainted by politics?  



That is in part why MAGA world is ready to "take back" the nation with illegal means. They believe libs have already done that. TRULY believe it. Party leaders believe otherwise, but not the mass of MAGA voters. And in contrast to previous elections, voters can no longer just vote out some official not getting the job done and try the other party's alternative. No matter how bad the GOP candidate is, you can't vote for the far more terrible party of treason and lies, who gave us an illegal president who was not born on U.S. soil. 

Something has happened to break their judgment, undermining trust in government (including the FBI,CIA, and CDC) and academia--all outside authority--rendering every false equivalence a credible trump of pro-democracy candidates and policies, and it happened between 1974 and 2016--and especially after 9/11.  I'm including here many "independents" as well, who have difficulty seeing much difference between Trump and every president who came before him.

I don't know if folks really believe all that from the bottom of their hearts or just take such positions in the interest of being a good team player. Maybe it's a little bit of both. In general, I think your frontiers have just hardened over the last few years, that reality and facts really do not matter any more. You don't need facts, you need talking points repeated amongst your own peers, and it does not matter any more to convince anyone but your own. Which goes both ways, but of course is way more extreme on the Trump/GOP side of things. I even feel that being egregiously fact-free is actually not problematic, but a bonus for many. It makes the libs go so crazy, and that is the main objective.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(01-25-2022, 11:49 AM)hollodero Wrote: I don't really think so. The filibuster is a tool for the minority party, not one for the republican party necessarily. I get Manchin's point that once the dems are in the minority again, they would miss the filibuster dearly.
(What I think he gets wrong though is the notion that the republicans will uphold the filibuster. I am willing to bet that is one of the first orders of business when they regain power there, to get rid of it and blame it on the democrats.)

I see this point being made all of the time and I have to wonder where it came from.  The last time the GOP held Congress and the Executive branch I don't recall the topic of ending the filibuster ever coming up.  I've never heard a prominent GOP member calling for the end of the filibuster.  Ending the filibuster entirely is solely a Dem position.  Now, I'm not saying I'm omniscient and that it's not possible some GOP member has advocated for this.  But what I can say with 100% certainty is that it's not a party wide issue and wasn't during the entirety of Trump's presidency.


I really do wonder where this idea that the GOP ending the filibuster is a fait accompli came from.  I see no grounding in reality or fact for making this claim.

[hollodero]

(01-25-2022, 01:07 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: I see this point being made all of the time and I have to wonder where it came from.  The last time the GOP held Congress and the Executive branch I don't recall the topic of ending the filibuster ever coming up.  I've never heard a prominent GOP member calling for the end of the filibuster.  Ending the filibuster entirely is solely a Dem position.  Now, I'm not saying I'm omniscient and that it's not possible some GOP member has advocated for this.  But what I can say with 100% certainty is that it's not a party wide issue and wasn't during the entirety of Trump's presidency.


I really do wonder where this idea that the GOP ending the filibuster is a fait accompli came from.  I see no grounding in reality or fact for making this claim.

You're right, there probably is indeed no grounding in reality. I made my assumption because I feel I got to know the GOP a little. And what I feel is different this time around is the possibility of a justification. They can do it and claim it's what all but two democratic senators wanted to do before them and hence the dems were the ones opening this can of worms. It's a popular point to make, like it was when they pushed their SC nominee through with the nuclear option and blamed it on Harry Reid. It's not even a bad argument to make and I just assume it's too good to let pass.

Granted, I also assume they will do it to get some very fishy election shenanigans through, on the behalf of Donald Trump who desires to not be denied his will again like it had happened last time, and I also feel the GOP has moved outside of the democratic spectrum. Something I can not prove and that hopefully might turn out not to be the case still.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(01-25-2022, 01:22 PM)hollodero Wrote: You're right, there probably is indeed no grounding in reality. I made my assumption because I feel I got to know the GOP a little. And what I feel is different this time around is the possibility of a justification. They can do it and claim it's what all but two democratic senators wanted to do before them and hence the dems were the ones opening this can of worms. It's a popular point to make, like it was when they pushed their SC nominee through with the nuclear option and blamed it on Harry Reid. It's not even a bad argument to make and I just assume it's too good to let pass.

I can see you extrapolating the judicial appointment to the filibuster as a whole, but they're not directly comparable.  In fact, McConnell warned Harry Reid that he was setting a bad precedent when he ended the filibuster for, non-SCOTUS, judicial appointments.  Where this example really resonates with the current situation is in the argument of Sinema and Manchin, that carving out a pet exception to the filibuster will inevitably lead to ending it entirely.  I have to reiterate this point, even though I know you're not disputing it, but the "GOP will end the filibuster" talking point was obviously created to justify the major changes the Dems are proposing.  It's blatant manipulation and obfuscation and has no basis in reality.

Quote:Granted, I also assume they will do it to get some very fishy election shenanigans through, on the behalf of Donald Trump who desires to not be denied his will again like it had happened last time, and I also feel the GOP has moved outside of the democratic spectrum. Something I can not prove and that hopefully might turn out not to be the case still.

You and I both hope we've seen the last of Trump as a presidential candidate.  As for the red state voting laws, many of them are still less restrictive than blue states, even after the changes.  Why don't we hear about how Delaware is on the "Bull Conner side of history?"  On that topic, Biden's speech in Georgia was easily as vitriolic as any Trump ever gave.  Comparing everyone who doesn't agree with you to racists and segregationists isn't exactly bringing people together, but it's frequently used in today's political climate.

[Dill]

(01-25-2022, 11:49 AM)hollodero Wrote: Dill wrote: Something has happened to break their judgment, undermining trust in government (including the FBI,CIA, and CDC) and academia--all outside authority--rendering every false equivalence a credible trump of pro-democracy candidates and policies, and it happened between 1974 and 2016--and especially after 9/11.  I'm including here many "independents" as well, who have difficulty seeing much difference between Trump and every president who came before him.

In general, I think your frontiers have just hardened over the last few years, that reality and facts really do not matter any more. You don't need facts, you need talking points repeated amongst your own peers, and it does not matter any more to convince anyone but your own. Which goes both ways, but of course is way more extreme on the Trump/GOP side of things. I even feel that being egregiously fact-free is actually not problematic, but a bonus for many. It makes the libs go so crazy, and that is the main objective.

Sorry I am a week getting back to this, Hollo. But you raise some discussion-worthy issues here so I don't want to ignore them.

 Your phrasing of the bolded above implies a symmetry, with only a matter of degree distinguishing the parties from one another. But I’m arguing that recognizing asymmetry and qualitative, structural differences between the parties should take priority in political analyses assessing “what is wrong” in U.S. politics. (Remember that thread I began last year on the structural differences between MSM and Right wing media, not to mention my posts on the structural differences between the parties which make Republicans now something like a regime party?)
 
To be sure, there are symmetrical features, mostly at the level of rhetoric. E.g., each side now accuses the other of trying to steal the election. “Both sides” say that. But if each party’s talking points don’t circulate well amongst the other side, it is not because both disregard “reality and facts.” If you take the extra step to ask “Ok, what are those facts then, and how are they vetted and circulated as ‘talking points’”? then some rather strong differences appear: in one case the circulating points are grounded in signed documents, videos and recorded criminal phone calls which can be evidence in court; and in the other case, they are grounded in mere claims of Trump and Giuliani, with a surrounding penumbra of Chinese paper and the Italian laser conspiracies.
 
So we have two very different information environments, in which statements purported to be true and factual are vetted and circulated according to different rules. One--created by and for the GOP--can’t maintain the Big Lie that Biden stole the election with documents, data, and vetted testimony; one has, rather, to delegitimize the MSM, the Dems, the FBI and to some degree even courts manned by Trump-appointed judges. It is an environment which induces audiences to self-censor, to avoid reading/listening to other sources, prejudged as “fake news.” This has been going on for two decades now. It's why people make cult analogies to the current GOP--cult leaders teach their followers how to spin and dismiss counter evidence as proof of "lies" and "hypocrisy," and so to stay away from the "normies" and any sources of information contesting the cult leader's views. That cultic self-censorship indeed creates a hardened "frontier," as the Berlin WAll once was, which prevents dialogue and exposure of leader's lies. Back in 1988 it would have been very odd to claim the Berlin Wall existed because "Germans" had hardened the frontier between the BRD and DDR.

The GOP leadership plays for the team, sure. But Trump—no longer a player--is the coach who decides game strategy and who gets to suit up. So the party as a whole has to operate on alternative facts, not grounded in documents, data, emails, and vetted testimony. While Trump was president the GOP protected him from consequences instead of exercising its oversight responsibilities. Now it is following a lie to fuel a rolling coup.

The other information environment, which I'll call "MSM" here, is much more diverse, not committed to a political leader and party. "Lies" may appear in it, but they get vetted, contested, and eliminated pretty quickly. They cannot continue to circulate for years and become the rally ground for tens of millions of voters supporting an autocratic leader.
 
Outside of grousing about our 2-party system, I don’t see how your views/reactions on GOP behaviors differ from those of most Democrats. You understand, as do most Dems, that there is no evidence Trump lost the election because of fraud. There IS evidence that his Meadows/Giuliani-run team tried to overturn a legitimate election. Those are Dem “talking points,” sure, which we circulate among our peers. But it’s not like no one tries to circulate them across party lines, and it is certainly not like we “don’t need facts” to main tian those points.

So when you, referencing U.S. voters, say OUR “frontiers hardened” and WE “don’t need facts,” I don’t recognize myself or the MSM or the Dem party in general in those statements. Yet, for reasons that are not clear to me, you speak as if "both sides" were "hardened" and "don't need facts" when clearly that description is only accurate for one side. 

[Dill]

An update on the Green Bay Sweep:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/15/us/politics/jan-6-subpoenas-trump.html

WASHINGTON — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol subpoenaed two of Donald J. Trump’s campaign aides and Republican Party officials from battleground states on Tuesday as it dug deeper into a plan to use false slates of electors to help the former president stay in office after he lost the 2020 election.

The use of bogus slates was one of the more audacious gambits employed by allies of Mr. Trump to try to keep the presidency in his hands, and the committee’s members and investigators have made it increasingly clear in recent days that they believe the effort — along with proposals to seize voting machines — was a major threat to democracy.

Among those subpoenaed on Tuesday were Michael A. Roman and Gary Michael Brown, who served as the director and the deputy director of Election Day operations for Mr. Trump’s campaign. The panel also summoned Douglas V. Mastriano, a Pennsylvania state senator; Laura Cox, the former chairwoman of Michigan’s Republican Party; Mark W. Finchem, an Arizona state legislator; and Kelli Ward, the chairwoman of Arizona’s Republican Party.

In letters accompanying the subpoenas, the committee said it had obtained communications that showed Mr. Roman’s and Mr. Brown’s “involvement in a coordinated strategy to contact Republican members of state legislatures in certain states that former President Trump had lost and urge them to ‘reclaim’ their authority by sending an alternate slate of electors that would support former President Trump”....

The scheme to employ the so-called alternate electors was one of Mr. Trump’s most expansive efforts to overturn the election. It began even before some states had finished counting ballots and culminated in the pressure placed on Mr. Pence to throw out legitimate votes for Mr. Biden when he presided over the joint congressional session to certify the election outcome.

Hope they can get the final report out before elections this year.

For those who have forgotten, "The Green Bay Sweep" was Navarro's name for a Trump Team plot to create alternative electors from seven states, which were sent to the Senate and National Archives to "create questions" about the validity of the actual electors. Pence was then supposed to halt or reject certification of electors until the individual states could "clarify" which slate of electors was the correct one. The direct goal was to create spectacle--air time not controlled by the MSM--in which Americans would for two days see legislators arguing about whether the election results were valid, and so doubt Biden's win en mass. Beyond that, it's not clear what Bannon, Navarro, Guiliano and Trump expected.  There was hope among plotters that the election could be thrown to the house by default, where each state would have a single vote, giving Trump the election, despite Biden's winning the popular vote by 7 million AND the electoral college.

The attempt to steal the election is documented with both video (e.g., the attempt of Michigan alternative electors to get into their state house) and the alternative slates signed by fake electors--real people, who were coordinated from some still murky center, which probably included Giuliani and Trump himself.

[GMDino]

Just as an aside the My Pillow guy is still out there saying he has "evidence".

This happened to day.

As Mike Lindell walks away from his “election integrity” speech on the steps of the CO Capitol today, he gets served with Eric Coomer’s (Dominion Security) defamation lawsuit. “What is this?” “It’s for you.” From @Marshall9News pic.twitter.com/F9Aq3qHdfl

— Ron Filipkowski ?? (@RonFilipkowski) April 5, 2022