In His Book, Boehner Insults Republicans, But He's Still Lying Like Crazy.

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Saturday April 03, 2021 · 4:30 AM PDT

2021/04/03 · 04:30

Image from WIkipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boehner#/media/File:John_Boehner_official_portrait.jpg

Former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives John Boehner has a new book coming out entitled “On The House: A Washington Memoir”. In an article Boehner put together for Politico.com, Boehner gives the world a glimpse into his upcoming book. In the article, Boehner seems to be trying to sell the idea that he was a normal Republican politician, just trying to do his job, when suddenly in 2011, all of these crazy wackos took over the Republican party:

Retaking control of the House of Representatives put me in line to be the next Speaker of the House over the largest freshman Republican class in history: 87 newly elected members of the GOP. Since I was presiding over a large group of people who’d never sat in Congress, I felt I owed them a little tutorial on governing. I had to explain how to actually get things done. A lot of that went straight through the ears of most of them, especially the ones who didn’t have brains that got in the way. Incrementalism? Compromise? That wasn’t their thing. A lot of them wanted to blow up Washington. That’s why they thought they were elected.

Some of them, well, you could tell they weren’t paying attention because they were just thinking of how to fundraise off of outrage or how they could get on Hannity that night. Ronald Reagan used to say something to the effect that if I get 80 or 90 percent of what I want, that’s a win. These guys wanted 100 percent every time. In fact, I don’t think that would satisfy them, because they didn’t really want legislative victories. They wanted wedge issues and conspiracies and crusades.

To them, my talk of trying to get anything done made me a sellout, a dupe of the Democrats, and a traitor. Some of them had me in their sights from day one. They saw me as much of an “enemy” as the guy in the White House. Me, a guy who had come to the top of the leadership by exposing corruption and pushing conservative ideas. Now I was a “liberal collaborator.” So that took some getting used to. What I also had not anticipated was the extent to which this new crowd hated—and I mean hated—Barack Obama.

I guess that John Boehner wants us to feel sorry for him. I guess he wants everyone to think that “Here was a guy who rose to the top simply by exposing corruption and pushing Conservative ideas. Then, suddenly, out of nowhere, he had had to deal with all of these new crazy Republicans that were elected in 2010.” Yeah, that’s not exactly what happened.

For more than 100 years, the Republican Party has been lying its ass off, and for more than 50 years, the Republican party has drenched itself in bigotry-- including racism, sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia--and now, in Boehner’s new book, he acts like Republican craziness only magically appeared in 2010. Yet, John Boehner was first elected to Congress in 1990, when George H.W. Bush was still President. Back then, Boehner pushed the lies of Supply Side Economics, the lies of “Too Much Government Regulation”, and he pushed all the rest of that Reagan nonsense. In 1994, he was one of the architects of the pack of lies and nonsense known as the “Contract With America”. Back then, he never complained about all of the lies that were told about Bill Clinton’s healthcare initiative.

In the years after 1994, Boehner never complained when Newt Gingrich repeatedly threatened to shut down government and hurt Americans in order to get his way. He also never complained about all of the lies that were being told on Talk Radio by people like Rush Limbaugh, and he never complained about the lies that were told by Fox News when it sprang to life in the second half of the 1990s. In fact, Boehner told many of the same lies that Limbaugh and Fox News were telling back then.

Year after year, the lies told on TV and Radio by Republican talking heads got worse, and worse, and still Boehner never complained about the lies, never corrected the lies, and never lifted a finger to try and rein in what was happening. It was only when all of the lies made *his* life harder, starting in 2011, when a whole pack of lies got a bunch of idiots elected, that he started to have a problem with them.

Sorry John Boehner, you have a lot more to do with the rise of craziness in the Republican party than most Americans. Stop pretending that you were some kind of “normal Republican” while this craziness happened. You embraced the lying Republican culture in the 90s and the 2000s as much as anyone while the lies got worse and worse. When, in the 2010s, the lies got even worse, only then did you start to realize how bad things had gotten, but it was only because the lies were hurting you. You, John Boehner helped the lies to get to that level by supporting the lying machine for decades up until that point. If you are looking for someone to blame, I suggest that you start by looking in the mirror.

The GOP Has No Solution For Gun Violence Because They Are Not The Party Of Solutions

StevenJoseph

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Wednesday March 24, 2021 · 7:41 AM PDT

2021/03/24 · 07:41

71aCpExoGQL._AC_SL1500_.jpg — I hate these people

If you were to ask Congressional members of the GOP what their solution would be about all of the gun violence in America, you would quickly find out that they do not have one. When large scale gun violence occurs, they sometimes offer “thoughts and prayers”, and recently, Ted Cruz decided to fight to prove that his thoughts and prayers were good enough by getting angry at anyone who thought that his thoughts and prayers were not good enough.

Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that God is real and that The Bible represents God’s thoughts. From reading the Bible, it is apparent that God himself does not believe in merely trying to pray a problem away. Sure, lots of examples of the power of prayer are in The Bible. However, what is also clear throughout the Bible is that God does not merely want people to pray. He wants them to *act*. If all mankind needed was prayer, God would not have had various tribes in the Bible fight wars. If all we needed was prayer, Moses would never have needed to do all of the things that he did.

I have never heard a priest, a minister, or a rabbi claim that prayer alone is enough, but Republicans act as if it were. They act as if prayer alone can solve our problems. However, the phrase “Heaven helps those who helps themselves” has been around for a long time for a reason. No society survives without action—without tending the fields, raising the livestock, and teaching people to defend their countryside. History shows us that very few things change from prayer alone. When you hear that “God answers all prayers—but sometimes the answer is ‘no’”, you realize that prayers alone will not solve everything, and, in fact, the God of The Bible obviously does not want human beings to rely only on prayers. God wants people to act. Noah’s Ark was not built only through prayer, and Joshua did not win at Jericho by simply praying. These men prayed, but they also acted.

Yet, Republicans expect us to simply live with the idea that tens of thousands of Americans will be wiped out, over and over again, year after year—and that the only thing to do about it is pray. Even when presented with evidence from places like Australia of how reducing the number of guns can greatly reduce the amount of gun deaths, they ignore the evidence and insist that the only way to live is to live in a country where there are more guns than people.

Yet, it is worse than that. Even if someone believed that so many guns were necessary, shouldn’t they also realize that there are certain people who should not have guns? Surely, people who have used guns in the past to commit felonies should not have guns. Yet, Republicans cannot even support universal background checks in order to make sure that the guns that do exist do not fall into the wrong hands.

So, why is this the case? Well, long ago, the National Rifle Association (the NRA) started pushing the idea that, with regard to gun safety, “if we give an inch, they will take a mile”. It is the idea that the more that is done regarding gun control and gun safety, the more it will inspire further changes, and more restrictions on guns. So, the gun industry believes that it cannot give an inch—even when it makes sense—lest the gun safety supporters soon take a mile.

Because of this mentality, not only does the NRA seem to oppose every single law made to enhance gun safety. They also actively support anything that will tend to increase both the number of guns and the number and scope of gun rights that gun owners have. The NRA and its supporters seek not only to thwart efforts toward creating a safer society. They actively seek laws that result in society being less safe.

When the NRA started pushing to allow people to bring guns into bars, churches, and preschools, people realized that the NRA actually cared very little about safety. You see, over the years, the NRA has slowly became a tool of the gun industry, and the gun industry wants to sell guns. Because of this, at this moment, the NRA is ultimately about gun manufacturer’s profits. This is why the Republicans have also fought hard to make sure that the gun industry is not held liable for all of the death and destruction that their guns cause.

You see, Republicans are afraid what will happen if the gun industry is forced to reap what they sow. If the gun industry were forced to shell out money to pay for all of the misery that their guns cause, that could greatly reduce profits, which means that the gun industry, and the NRA, would have fewer dollars to toss into Republican campaign coffers. Yes, a large reason why so many people in the U.S. keep dying from guns is because Republicans want the money to keep rolling in—and they worry far more about that than how many people get slaughtered by guns each year.

President Reagan used to say that the Republican Party was “the party of solutions”. However, when you look at what the Reagan Administration actually proposed, their “solutions” were simply an effort to dismantle the solutions that Democrats had crafted since the 1930s. Their solutions were to simply make things worse. Looking at today’s situation regarding guns, we can see that little has changed since the days of Reagan. For at least the past sixty years, the Republican party has never been the party of solutions. Instead, since at least the time of Reagan, the Republican party has been the party of making things worse, and the current situation with guns represents that perfectly.

Why Some Black Students Do Worse Than Some Other Students In College

StevenJoseph

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Sunday March 21, 2021 · 4:38 AM PDT

2021/03/21 · 04:38

Old Main at Widener University. Image from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widener_University

Recently in the news, the subject has come up as to why some Black students do poorly in college. The incident involving Professor Sandra Sellers that took place at Georgetown University Law Center has also inspired at least one tinged-with-racism diary on the subject to be posted here at DailyKos.com, and before I read yet again some racist trope about Affirmative Action putting kids in college that were not ready for it, I figured I would let people read what a Black professor has written on the subject.

Dr. Matthew Lynch
Image from www.authorsden.com/...

Dr. Matthew Lynch, an Assistant Professor of Education at Widener University wrote an article that was posted at authorsden.com listing 15 possible roadblocks for Black college students. I am posting a listing of his 15 possible roadblocks below:

Institutional Racism
Self Sabotage
Family Influences
Low Socioeconomic Status
Failing Schools
Cultural Gaps
Crime and Drug Abuse
Lack of African American Teachers
Lack of Parental Involvement
Resistance to Middle-Class School Norms
Lack of Priorities
Low Teacher Expectations
Low Effort Syndrome
Anti-Intellectualism
Social Services

Dr. Lynch’s article gives a brief overview on each issue. Unsurprisingly, Affirmative Action did not make his list. I believe that if Professor Sandra Sellers had read Dr. Lynch’s article, and especially if she had read his book entitled “Closing the Racial Academic Achievement Gap”, odds are good that she would not have ended up wondering on Zoom in a very racist manner why some Black students do not do as well in college as other students. In my opinion, this offers still more evidence that racists are some of the most ignorant people on the planet.

Hitler's, Limbaugh's, and Trump's Secret: Teaching People How To Feel Superior To Others

StevenJoseph

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Monday February 22, 2021 · 2:56 AM PST

2021/02/22 · 02:56

Should we teach people to help others or to put down others?

I can remember as a kid how much I loved to get complimented. I loved hearing that I had done a good job. Today, I still love hearing that I did a good job, whether it is from a boss, from a customer, or even from my parents. This desire to feel good about oneself is the key to how various leaders have gotten a devoted fan following.

At his political rallies, Adolf Hitler always had lots of enemies to pick on including other nations, various races, and certain religions. This was essential to how he built up and maintained his devoted following. Every time he picked on Jewish people, most of his audience felt better about themselves because they were not Jewish. Every time he picked on Black people, most of his mostly White audience felt better about themselves because they were not Black. Hitler eventually got so good at making people feel good about themselves by putting down others that he could eventually whip his audiences up into a frenzy.

Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh did the same thing with his radio audiences. He picked on Black people, feminists, and liberals. He called President Barack Obama the “Magic Negro”, and he called feminists “Femi Nazis”. Since Limbaugh died on February 17th, I have seen some people write about how Rush Limbaugh was “funny”, a “comedian”, or a “humorist”. Yet, Rush Limbaugh was the master of only one form of humor: the put down. He had no idea how to be funny without putting down some other group of people, including traditionally oppressed groups such as women or black people.

Limbaugh never practiced self deprecating humor, and there was a reason for that. If a White Conservative like Limbaugh were to insult himself, he would see it as giving permission to other White Conservatives to put themselves down, and that was the complete opposite of his purpose. Limbaugh’s biggest fan base was White, Protestant, Conservative men. Limbaugh knew who his audience was, so his favorite target were people who were not White, not men, and not Conservative.

Fox News followed in Trump’s footsteps, and they got popular the same way. The fox news producers called it “feeding the crazies”. They would produce story after story of some supposedly terrible thing that Democrats had supposedly done--death boards, illegal detention camps, or whatever. Then the Fox News hosts would talk about how awful Democrats were hour after hour. As they did this, their Conservative Republican audience felt better about themselves, and they kept coming back for more.

Donald Trump was a fan of both Rush Limbaugh and Fox News, and his rallies were of the same style as Limbaugh’s radio programs and Fox’s talking head shows. At his political rallies, Trump picked on Democrats; he picked on women; he picked on Muslims and Brown people. What should be of no surprise is that Trump got the same kind of devoted following that Hitler, Limbaugh and Fox News got. Trump was using the exact same techniques. He was lifting people up by putting others down.

If Democrats really want to cut the legs out from under the Limbaugh’s and Trump’s of the world, perhaps we should spend a little more time teaching people how they can feel better about themselves without putting down other people. People like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Beto O’Rourke feel better about themselves by helping others, like they have been doing for the citizens of Texas this past week.

So, perhaps we could say this:

Republicans have learned to feel better about themselves by putting down others.

Democrats have learned to feel better about themselves by helping others.

Perhaps this is why Joe Biden, a man who had spent his life in service to others and caring about other people, was the Democratic nominee. Maybe this is why Joe Biden won the U.S. Presidential election, because most Americans would rather act like Joe Biden than Donald Trump, Rush Limbaugh, or Adolf Hitler. Perhaps most Americans would rather help other Americans than put them down. Perhaps helping others is really what Democrats are all about.

So, Republicans, What Would Jesus Do?

I know what I would do. :)

Trump Has Been Worshipped Like Hitler & Mussolini Were Long Ago Because He Ran As A Fascist

StevenJoseph

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday February 20, 2021 · 6:52 AM PST

2021/02/20 · 06:52

Image From The LA Times: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-trump-fascist-inclinations-20151209-story.html

During the 1930s and 1940s, Mussolini and Hitler were worshipped. They both campaigned for political power as Fascists and they ran their country as Fascists. This Fascism included the hatred of certain religions, certain races, and certain countries as well as economic isolationism through things like tariffs. Donald Trump’s first wife, Ivana, once said that Trump used to keep a book of Hitler’s speeches in a cabinet by his bed. This was decades ago. Trump’s ex-wife had little reason to lie about this. When Trump was asked about it, instead of denying it, he asked how the reporter had heard about it.

I believe that Trump thought that Hitler’s words had great power, so he studied them over and over again. There is a website with Hitler’s translated speeches, and you can’t read them without realizing how much they sound like the speeches Donald Trump gave throughout his 2016 Presidential Campaign. In the 1930’s, Hitler learned to charm large audiences, and in 2016, so did Donald Trump. Hitler’s use of populist rhetoric contributed to his rise to power. Later, Trump used populist rhetoric to rise to power.

After Trump won the U.S. Presidency in 2016, some people said he won because of bigotry, and some said he won because of economics. However, the Fascism of Mussolini and Hitler dealt with both bigotry and economic isolationism, and that is what Trump ran on: bigotry, including keeping immigrants out of America (which is economic isolation from foreign workers as well as just plain bigotry), and tariffs, which reduces the number of purchases of foreign imports. Trump didn’t win on just bigotry or just economics. He won on both.

Image from The Seattle Times: www.seattletimes.com/...

The American voters who were bigots loved Trump’s bigotry, and a number of union workers in the Industrial Midwest loved his promise of tariffs on China. In addition, Trump ran on Reagan’s traditional three legged stool by promising tax cuts, Conservative judges, and a build up of the military. The build up of the military was, of course, also done by Hitler and Mussolini. These various issues gave Trump five ways to woo voters Conservative voters as well as working class White voters—bigotry, tariffs, tax cuts, Conservative judges, and a build up of the military. In addition, Trump ran a highly sophisticated social media campaign that was miles ahead of Hillary Clinton’s social media campaign. In the CNN series “The 2000’s”, David Axelrod, one of Obama’s 2008 campaign advisors, said that that President Obama wouldn’t have won without his social media campaign on the Internet—that’s how big a difference a social media campaign can be.

So, I disagree with anyone who says that Trump won just because of bigotry or just because of economics. I believe that both were crucial to his win, so it was not just one or the other. In addition, when Fascists have been elected to Western nations, they have always been worshipped. Mussolini and Hitler were both worshipped—only to be reviled later because while they temporarily built up the economy, the combination of increased bigotry and increased debt that these Fascists created, along with the war that their nations ended up fighting, ended up crushing their countries. Oh, Trump wanted a war with Iran in early 2020, but too many of us rubbed his Twitter Tweet claiming that Obama wanted to start a war to win re-election in his face, so that helped make him back off that insane idea.

Fascism can win elections, and it can get a leader worshipped, but at a terrible price. In 2020, Trump was so focused on his Fascism plan that he completely ignored the dangers of COVID-19, and when he could not start a war to keep him in office, like George W. Bush did, the obvious flaws of Fascism, along with his complete inability to listen to scientists, did Trump in.

Some people have argued that Trump was not a Fascist because his Presidential term was not as bad or extreme as Hitler’s or Mussolini’s. However, I would argue that a lighter version of Fascism is still Fascism, just as light beer is still beer. Trump may not have given us the complete Fascist experience of massive war and millions dead, but he would have if he could have, so he was, at the very least, aspiring to be a world class Fascist. if Trump tripped up before he reached the world class Fascist finish line, he was still heading there. There is a good chance that Trump was unable to drag us into a war with Iran only because, after so many years of having troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and after the unending “War on Terror” these past 20 year, Americans were already sick of war.

In my opinion, Trump has been worshipped as other Fascists have been. In the long term, I believe that he will be just as reviled as the other Fascists were after World War II.

Is Trump a Fascist? The articles below might help you form an opinion:

Articles Saying Trump Is Not Much Of A Fascist:

Don’t Call Donald Trump a Fascist

How fascist is President Trump? There’s still a formula for that.

Fascism, Trumpism and the Left

Historian: Today’s Authoritarian Leaders Aren’t Fascists—But They Are Part of the Same Story

Articles Indicating Trump May Be A Fascist:

Trump’s War on the Press Follows the Mussolini and Hitler Playbook

Why Fascists Fail: History’s autocrats have been the architects of their own demise. Even if he seizes power, so will Trump.

Fear Not: Trump Isn’t Hitler. (But He Might Be Mussolini)

Trump explains tweeting Mussolini quote

Rise of Donald Trump Tracks Growing Debate Over Global Fascism

How Hitler went from fringe politician to dictator — and why it's a mistake to think it couldn't happen in the US

Articles About Fascism In General:

A Definitive Guide To Historical Fascism

Dictator Literature by Daniel Kalder review – the deathly prose of dic-lit

How Fascism Works

Normalizing fascists

How Journalists Covered the Rise of Mussolini and Hitler

Wikipedia: Fascism

Encyclopedia Britannica: Fascism

Why Fascist Leaders, & Leaders In General, Get Worshipped:

Abstract: Fascism As Political Religion

Wikipedia: Statolatry

Wikipedia: Fascism and Ideology

Some Thoughts About The January 6th Insurrection

StevenJoseph

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday January 09, 2021 · 8:02 AM PST

2021/01/09 · 08:02

Photo from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_storming_of_the_United_States_Capitol#/media/File:2021_storming_of_the_United_States_Capitol_09_(cropped).jpg

1. Apparently, the invasion of the U.S. Capitol was planned in advance on Trump-supporting social media websites where anyone could see.

On the Washingtonian website, this was the headline on January 5, 2021, the day before the U.S. Capitol insurrection:

MAGA Geniuses Plot Takeover of US Capitol

Here is some of that article:

TheDonald.win, an online forum for fans of President Trump, is on fire Tuesday with members’ plans to travel to DC for pro-Trump rallies. Since the rallies coincide with Congress’s expected confirmation of Joe Biden’s victory over Trump, a subset of TheDonald.win’s posters have discussed ways they might “occupy” or “storm” the US Capitol to make citizens’ arrests of lawmakers who hold old-fashioned views like honoring state-certified election results.

Yes, there were actually articles on publicly available blogs and social media about how Trump supporters were planning to “storm” or “occupy” the Capitol one or more days before it actually happened.

2. Capitol Police were asked about the planning to “storm” the U.S. Capitol before January 6th, and the Capitol Police brushed those concerns aside.

The Washingtonian article from above continues:

Eva Malecki, a spokesperson for the US Capitol Police, declined to comment on the MAGA fans’ thought experiments but tells Washingtonian that “While we do not discuss the means, methods, or specific resources used to carry out our protective responsibilities, the United States Capitol Police has comprehensive security plans in place and we continuously monitor and assess new and emerging threats, with the overall goal of keeping those within the Capitol Complex safe and secure.”

Some of TheDonald.win’s commenters nonetheless think they’ve found a way in that the cops may have forgotten: The Capitol complex’s system of pedestrian tunnels, originally built to protect delicate lawmakers from Washington’s weather. In one discussion titled “If we occupy the capitol building, there will be no vote,” for instance, commenters bat around the idea while taking into consideration doors that are “built like castle walls,” barricades, and law enforcement.

3. At least one Trump supporters that dreamed of storming the U.S. Capitol apparently had fantasies of herding the lawmakers all into one room while Trump supporters stood guard:

Tunnels are a big topic of discussion in other posts, like this one that fantasizes about “Every corrupt member of congress locked in one room and surrounded by real Americans.” (Pessimism, alas, surfaces that members of Congress will instead “vote via Skype from the luxury of their villas with private security guarding their families like the coward commie scum they are.”) Another shares an old-timey map of the tunnels that purports to show the complex from below. Sample comment: “It’s the worst map I’ve ever seen.”

Is that what the zip-tie plastic handcuffs were for—to hold the lawmakers hostage in one room? If so, what was their next move? Did they even have a next move?

4. The U.S. Capitol Police has more than 2300 officers and civilians. How many did you see when you saw the January 6th Capitol footage?

I would think that on a big day like Wednesday, January 6th, when a big protest rally in D.C. was expected and Congress was conducting important business, such as counting Presidential votes, that a lot of the Capitol police would be working that day. So, how many of that 2300 staff was working on January 6th? Does anyone think that anything close to 2300 Capitol police officers and civilians were working that day? Were even 230 working that day? From the Associated Press:

It is not clear how many officers were on-duty Wednesday, but the complex is policed by a total of 2,300 officers for 16 acres of ground who protect the 435 House representatives, 100 U.S. senators and their staff. By comparison, the city of Minneapolis has about 840 uniformed officers policing a population of 425,000 in a 6,000-acre area.

840 uniformed police officers can handle the city of Minneapolis, but the 2300 person staff of the Capitol police cannot manage 16 acres of ground? Seriously?

5. A lot of us on the Left seemed to realize how dangerous the January 6th protests might be. The Capitol Police have their own intelligence division. How could they possibly miss the possibility of a big problem?

There was a front-page article on DailyKos around January 4th about the upcoming January 6th protest which mentioned that the protest might be dangerous because Trump supporters on social media had been talking about how they wanted to sneak guns into Washington D.C. The article also noted that at previous Proud Boy Trump Supporter rallies in November and December there had been violence.

The comments on that article were generally in agreement that people on the Left should avoid the Trump supporters in Washington D.C. on the 6th because some of them would probably be looking for a fight. In addition, the mayor of D.C. warned the citizens of D.C. before January 6th not to interact with the Trump rally-goers. Washington D.C. also asked in advance for more than 300 national guardsmen to help the existing D.C. police with traffic control on January 6th. That sounds like Washington D.C. was expecting a lot of people on January 6th—and maybe some conflict. At the Capitol, however, I guess the Capitol police plan was to what, sleep in? Give lots of officers the day off?

6. Capitol Police twice rejected offers of help for January 6th.

WASHINGTON — Three days before supporters of President Donald Trump rioted at the Capitol, the Pentagon asked the U.S Capitol Police if it needed National Guard manpower. And as the mob descended on the building Wednesday, Justice Department leaders reached out to offer up FBI agents. The police turned them down both times, according to senior defense officials and two people familiar with the matter.

Despite plenty of warnings of a possible insurrection and ample resources and time to prepare, the Capitol Police planned only for a free speech demonstration.

OK, so let’s say you are the Capitol Police, and you figure that won’t have enough people to handle a big protest on January 6th. Why wouldn’t you take the extra help offered before the protest? In addition, let’s say that on January 6th, your police are overwhelmed (because maybe you gave too many people the day off). Why wouldn’t you take help when offered?

7. Where was the 7-foot nonscalable fence that usually is up in front of the capitol when big rallies occur?

From what I have read, it is standard practice to ring the Capitol in a 7-foot non-scalable fence when they know that a big protest is coming. The 7-foot fence is apparently up now. Why wasn’t it up before? Also, where was the riot gear that the Capitol Police were wearing during the BLM protests?

8. By January 2nd, a U.S. Representative from Texas, Louie Gohmert, was telling people “that you gotta go the streets and be as violent as antifa and BLM.”

A few days before the rally, an actual U.S. Congressperson told Trump supporters that they had to get violent. At the rally itself, before Trump supporters marched to the capitol, Trump lawyer Rudy Guliani said that the way to settle the election was “trial by combat”. Should anyone be surprised that violence came soon after?

9. Did Trump’s January 6th rioters think that they could do anything they wanted because Trump would pardon them? Will Trump pardon them?

Just thinking about this idea makes me want to hurl, but wouldn’t it earn Trump undying loyalty from these lunatics if Trump pardoned him? What would Trump think he had to lose by pardoning them? Can Trump blanket pardon them all in one document?

Some Trump Supporters Want To Talk About Other Events Of Civil Unrest. OK, Let's Talk.

StevenJoseph

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday January 08, 2021 · 6:21 AM PST

2021/01/08 · 06:21

Photo from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Lives_Matter#/media/File:George_Floyd_Memorial_in_Portland,_Oregon.jpg

On January 6th, 2021, a U.S. President had a large group of his supporters meet near the U.S. Capitol, and then whipped them up into a frenzy before encouraging them to walk to the U.S. Capitol and interfere with the final steps of the U.S. election for President. The result was numerous acts of domestic terrorism and an insurrection against the U.S. government. In an attempt to try and normalize what happened, certain Trump supporters have sought to compare what happened on January 6th to recent events of civil unrest in this country. So, let us compare and contrast what happened on January 6th with other recent events of civil unrest such as the Black Lives Matter protests.

Last year, there were a number of events of civil unrest which largely occurred after Black American George Floyd was murdered by one or more police officers on a city street while those officers were actually being filmed. The resulting unrest should surprise no one. Personally, I could not even watch 60 seconds of the event before I was so horrified that I could watch no more.

Because I watched some of the video and was horrified by it, I believe I understand what drove so many Americans to protest in 2020. Those Americans were protesting not just George Floyd’s murder but all of the horrible times that police officers and other Americans had done horrible things to people who were not White, and these protestors wanted change. However, what these protestors got from Donald Trump was not any understanding of the anguish that they were feeling. Instead, they saw Donald Trump sending militarized law enforcement against the protestors while he repeatedly talked of the need for “law and order”. Donald Trump acted like he cared so much about order and about things like windows being broken, but he never acted like he cared about why people were protesting. Last year, the vast majority of Black America never seemed to believe that Donald Trump cared one bit about what had happened to George Floyd or any of the other Americans who had been brutalized or murdered by police.

Then last November, Donald Trump, after being a truly terrible President, a president who was repeatedly racist, sexist, and xenophobic, and a President who largely ignored COVID-19 while it destroyed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans, lost his bid for re-election. Trump and his allies then spent the next two months spinning lie after lie about a stolen election, all the while ginning up grievances in his supporters. Trump and his allies repeatedly told his supporters that if Joe Biden was allowed to take office, America would be destroyed, and many of Trump’s supporters believed him. Then, on January 6, 2021, in a last ditch effort to try and overturn a free and fair election, Donald Trump had thousands of his supporters meet at a rally near the U.S. Capitol. Trump then had a group of other speakers, followed by himself, stir up the crowds as much as they could and then unleashed them on the U.S. Capitol in a last ditch effort to remain in office. Next, after promising twice to go to the Capitol with them, Donald Trump went home and watched the events unfold on television, and he seemed to enjoy what he saw, according to people who observed him. Trump apparently also resisted sending in the national guard in order to protect the members of Congress.

So, a man supposedly so upset about the breaking of windows and such last year, a man supposedly so in love with law and order, and a man who supposedly loved and respected law enforcement—a man who seemed to love sending in an overwhelming number of law enforcement personnel against protestors last year, what did he do on January 6th? He fired up a crowd, sent them on to the Capitol to wreak havoc, then sat back to enjoy the events on television while he delayed sending in the National Guard—all to overturn a free and fair election in order to benefit himself personally. To me, the BLM protests of last year, and Donald Trump’s attempted coup against the United States seem very different.

The Black Lives Matter protests last year were a bunch of people protesting to make things better for millions of Americans, and most of the protests were peaceful—because a majority of the BLM protestors did not want to wreak havoc—they just wanted to make things better for millions of Americans. On January 6th, the President of the United States, selfishly incited a riot to benefit himself—to keep himself in power—like a tin pot dictator would do in some banana republic.

Trump’s supporters, according to what has apparently been posted on sites like Parler, were getting so keyed up by Trump’s lies during the days before Trump’s January 6th rally that they were planning to come wearing body armor and to potentially die for their cause. By the time of the rally, they apparently came bearing both pipes and pipe bombs. They knew because of where Trump had them meet (near the Capitol) and when Trump had them meet (the day Congress counted the Presidential votes) exactly what Trump expected them to do—to unleash terror on Congress. To me, people protesting in the streets against citizens being murdered is quite different from a President lying to his citizens for months about an election and then whipping them up into a frenzy at a rally, only to then unleash his newly created domestic terrorism insurrection mob on Congress. The Black Lives Matter protestors were trying to make things better for millions, and Donald Trump was simply unleashing a terrorist mob to try and destroy American democracy in order to try and save his own hide.

Do you still think you want to compare BLM protests with Trump’s January 6th insurrection, Tucker Carlson?

A Little Bit Of Karmic Justice For Senate Republicans Who Allowed Trump To Continue In Office

StevenJoseph

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday January 07, 2021 · 4:57 AM PST

2021/01/07 · 04:57

Photo from Wikipedia: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Jan_6_2021_Pres_Trump_Rally_Live_DC_Crowd.jpg

Every Senate Republican knew in 2016 what an awful human being Donald Trump was. Republican Senators like Lyndsey Graham even said so before Trump was nominated in 2016. Yet, when Donald Trump got the Republican nomination, the truth-telling stopped for Senate Republicans, and the lying began. People like Senator Graham started saying the exact opposite things about Trump as they had said before he was nominated. By January of 2020, Donald Trump had clearly abused his power and committed a crime in extorting the President of Ukraine, yet Senate Republicans refused to do their job and remove Donald Trump from office.

Near the beginning of 2020, Republican Senators were so busy covering for Donald Trump that they refused to even let witnesses testify during his impeachment trial. Then these same Senate Republicans failed to convict Trump and remove him from office. Because of this, Donald Trump was President as COVID-19 began to sweep over American. Because of this, it was President Donald Trump who failed to adequately act as COVID-19 began to kill dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of Americans. As this went on, cowardly Republicans failed to speak up—they failed to say that Trump wasn’t doing enough. Senate Republicans failed to say that Trump wasn’t making sure that enough tests were done. These Republicans didn’t point out that Trump should have been making sure that there was a coordinated effort to get the states the PPE and medical equipment that they needed, and these same Senate Republicans didn’t tell the truth about the need to wear masks or about the danger of COVID-19. As a result of Trump’s inadequate response, hundreds of thousands of Americans died.

Then, when Donald Trump clearly lost the general election last November, and when Trump kept lying about his loss, Senate Republicans kept silent about Trump’s lies and then some of these Republicans even supported Trump’s lies to the point of being willing to disenfranchise tens of millions of American voters yesterday.

By yesterday, some Republican Senate Members, such as Lindsey Graham, had begun to realize that Trump’s lies had gone too far—that they were hurting our American Democracy. Yet for other diehard Senate Trump supporters, only when bullets were flying in the nation’s Capitol did some of these Republicans begin to wake up to reality. Only when Senate Republicans were cowering behind the Senate furniture did some Senate Republicans begin to appreciate the horror that they had unleashed. Only when deadly karma started stalking the halls of Congress did Senate Republicans have a taste of the horror that their lies had unleashed upon America.

In Nazi Germany, it was the lies that lead to the Holocaust. It was the lies about the Jews, the homosexuals, and the Black citizens that lead to the horror. It was the lie that the Aryan race was superior to all other races that helped Germans do the unthinkable. In Nazi Germany, the lies were told, year after year, and year after year, more and more people believed those lies. Yesterday, Donald Trump’s lies led to at least one person being killed. In addition, last year, Donald Trump’s lies and incompetence may have led to tens of thousands of people dying from COVID-19 that did not have to die.

Yesterday, we learned once again a truly horrible truth. Lies can kill, and those who allow those lies to continue, and even aid those lies, are also culpable in those deaths.

Of Course The Pretend Party Would Worship The Pretend President

StevenJoseph

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday November 14, 2020 · 3:50 AM PST

2020/11/14 · 03:50

From Wikipedia: "The Young Pretender", Charles Edward Stuart: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Carlos_Eduardo_Stuart_Infante_de_Anglais.jpg

I was born in the 1960s. For my entire life, the Democratic Party has been a real party trying to come up with real solutions to real problems. During that same period of time, the Republican Party has been the Pretend Party. During my life, the leaders of that party have pretended that people were not poor or needy. They pretended that there was no racism, sexism, or bigotry, or that if it existed, it either needed to exist, or it made no real difference anyway.

Over the decades, the Republican Party has pretended that the Democrats were all radical Socialists and Communists—that Democratic economic policies could not work—and that asking the richest businessmen to give a little more back from all of the money that their hardworking employees had earned for them was some kind of huge burden—and something that we should worry about more than all of the Americans who were starving. Republicans have pretended that minds weren’t terrible things to waste, that people all over American weren’t trying to live off of a too-low minimum wage, and that legacy entrances into colleges weren’t a form of institutionalized discriminations in favor of White people over everyone else.

However, this year, the pretending is particularly egregious. This year, a Pretend Republican President pretended that a deadly virus was no big deal, that it would magically go away, that he did not need to take extraordinary measures to deal with it. This fake President pretended that making fun of wearing a mask would not have a terrible impact, and that blocking Chinese citizens from coming from China to America, but letting everyone else return from China, would totally take care of this deadly virus.

Today, we live in a world where the deadly virus is out of control, which of course was what happens when the President of the United States of America has massive super spreader events, hour after hour, day after day, not requiring people to wear masks, and his followers follow suit. It is what happens when a Pretend President says “Open the businesses!” and “Open the schools!” because he wants to get re-elected and does not care about how many people get sick.

Not only does Donald Trump not care about how many people have gotten sick or will get sick, he hasn’t even bothered to have experts come up with a plan to make sure that America has the contact tracing it needs or that front line workers have the PPE gear that they need. He scaled back testing that could help Americans know who was sick so that they could be quarantined because he figured that scaling back testing would make the number of infections look lower, because he worried that the rampaging infection that occurred due to his own negligence would make him look bad, which of course it does anyway.

Today, Pretend President Donald Trump spends most of his time plotting ways to try and overturn an election that he clearly lost as he does little to deal with the crisis that rampages across America, killing thousands upon thousands in its path. The irony is that if he had dealt effectively with the crisis from the beginning, by simply letting professionals draw up plans to deal with it and then putting them into action, Donald Trump might have easily gotten re-elected. However, Donald Trump’s advisor, Jared Kushner, who Donald Trump pretends knows everything, apparently told Trump early on that if he did not pretend that COVID-19 was not a threat, the stock market would crash, and then Trump risked not getting re-elected. So, Donald Trump once again pretended that his idiot son-in-law knew what he was talking about and pretended that COVID-19 would magically go away—and Trump’s ever worshipping Republican base pretended that Donald Trump was the wisest man ever—and then they pretended that they could gather in large numbers without masks and that it would not create a super spreader America.

Spider Man would say that with great power comes great responsibility, but the Pretend Republican Party has been ignoring its responsibility to the American people for more than 100 years. This is why Pretend President Donald Trump was a perfect fit for them. A Pretend Party demands a Pretend President, but a Pretend President, unfortunately, just pretends that real problems do not exist, and that one day they will magically just disappear.

Once All Of The States Certify The U.S. Presidential Vote Tallies, Trump Is Pretty Much Toast.

StevenJoseph

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday November 10, 2020 · 11:03 AM PST

2020/11/10 · 11:03

Why have Donald Trump and his minions been running around saying things like “Stop The Count!” even in states that Biden was leading in? It is because Trump knows that after a state is completely done counting, the next thing to happen will be that the vote will be certified. Once the vote is certified, pretty much all Trump’s team can do is one of the following: 1) ask for a recount, 2) try to get certain votes thrown out, or 3) try to get one or more states to host a new election. Let us take those three points in reverse order:

3) Trump won’t get a new election for any state without substantial proof of wrongdoing--which he will not have—because there is no widespread fraud.

2) Trump won’t be able to get enough votes tossed out in order to make a difference because Biden is winning by thousands of votes in every state he is leading in.

1) This leaves a recount. Recounts pretty much never change a count by more than a thousand votes, which means even with a recount, Trump’s chances of winning a recount are incredibly slim since Biden has a lead of much more than a thousand votes in all of the states in which he is leading.

The reason why Donald Trump and the two Republicans running for the U.S. Senate seat in Georgia want the Secretary of State of Georgia to resign is so that he cannot certify the vote totals. Basically, once those vote totals are certified, those totals are pretty much set in concrete, and Trump’s only real option would then be a recount, which would most likely do Trump no good. This is why Trump and his team are flailing around like idiots, launching awful lawsuits without merit that are probably giving judges laughing fits in their private chambers. This is why the counting of the votes scares them so much. For the Trump campaign...

Counting leads to Certification leads to No Way Out For Trump

It is also why the Trump team just filed an injunction to prevent the votes from being certified in Pennsylvania. However, the AG of Pennsylvania is right on the money:

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro (D) dismissed the new lawsuit as “meritless.”

“This is the latest meritless lawsuit to challenge Pennsylvania’s election, which was overseen by bipartisan election officials and was lawful, fair and secure. For months, the vast majority of these lawsuits have been dismissed and found to have no merit by Courts at all levels, and this one is no different,” Shapiro said in a statement.

Trump’s legal attempts kept failing because he has no proof of widespread fraud, and he has no proof of widespread fraud because there is no fraud. Trump is just afraid to leave the White House in January because then he would have to face the Attorney General of New York. So, Trump is having his lawyers throw whatever they can against the legal wall in the desperate attempt that something will stick. It is pathetic, and the odds are highly likely that all of his attempts will fail.

Update:

State certification dates are listed here.

In 2020, state electors must be chosen by December 14.

Why I Believe that Arizona Did Better For Democrats Than Florida

StevenJoseph

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday November 04, 2020 · 8:54 AM PST

2020/11/04 · 08:54

From https://www.azdhs.gov/preparedness/epidemiology-disease-control/infectious-disease-epidemiology/index.php#novel-coronavirus-mask-up

Why did Arizona match the positive polling for Democrats better than states like Florida? To understand this, one needs to realize that political polling does not measure whether or not America has a massive pandemic going on. Polls also do not measure if Donald Trump has a solid ground game in states like Florida and Joe Biden does not.

Polling has always been educated guess work. Any sample taken might be skewed in one direction or another. In addition, polling simply measures people’s opinions. It does not measure whether or not someone will actually get off his or her butt and go and vote. I have lived in Arizona for over fifty years. Please allow me to explain why Arizona performed better for Democrats than places like Florida.

Arizona Eventually Handled the Pandemic A lot Better than Florida Did

Because Arizona Republican Governor Doug Ducey eventually listened to the five Arizona Democratic mayors who begged him to allow the cities to implement things mask mandates, Arizona was able to cut COVID-19 infections by about 75%. That was the conclusion of a study by the CDC. In addition, Arizona actually had a state funded campaign called “Mask Up Arizona” encouraging people in Arizona to wear masks. Also, because the infection rate dropped dramatically here, that allowed Democrats in Arizona to actually have some vestige of a ground game where some people knocked on doors while wearing masks and encouraged people to vote. The lower COVID-19 infection rate meant that people were less afraid to either leave their house to drop off a ballot at a polling place or to stand in line and vote.

Yes, Arizona Actually Had A Bit Of A Ground Game Where People Knocked On Doors

Arizona actually had some ground game projects, such as The Arizona Ground Game. In addition, people actually came from California to knock on doors in Arizona. This was needed because Republicans still had a ground game in every battleground state in America. Throughout the pandemic, Donald Trump has told everyone that COVID-19 was nothing to worry about and the Trump Campaign actually devoted a decent chunk of money to having a ground game in every battleground state. Trump also had people dedicated to passing out yard signs, like this guy.

Democrats did not devote money to a ground game like the Republicans did, which is why I believe that Democrats did as badly as they did in places like Miami, Florida. According to reports that I read, Democrats in Miami were begging for money for a ground game, but the Biden campaign, because of COVID-19, really did not invest in a ground game where people would knock on doors.

Politicians would not spend all of the money on ground games if they were not effective. Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg invested a ton of money and effort for a ground game in Iowa and New Hampshire. Joe Biden did not. Guess who did much better in Iowa and New Hampshire than Joe Biden? The answer would be Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg.

I am not blaming the Biden campaign for not investing in a ground game during a pandemic. I have supported Biden for President from before he announced, and I do not blame Biden for not wanting people to knock on doors during a pandemic. However, I have been worried for months than Trump had a massive ground game and Biden did not.

Lots of people will say that the polls were wrong, but the polls cannot measure whether or not there is an ongoing pandemic, and they cannot measure whether or not a politician has a ground game. Polls measure what people believe, but not whether or not they will get their butts to a polling place or whether or not there are people knocking on their doors and encouraging them to vote. The polls were not wrong. People really do think Donald Trump stinks. Polls just cannot predict who will vote and who will not.

Do Dems Have A Groundgame Problem In Miami, Florida? What About In Other States?

StevenJoseph

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday October 29, 2020 · 9:30 PM PDT

2020/10/29 · 21:30

Miami From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami#/media/File:Miami_collage_20110330.jpg

'We’ve got to stop the bleeding': Democrats sound alarm in Miami

Party officials in Florida’s most populous county are sweating weak early voting turnout among several key groups.

MIAMI — Democrats are sounding the alarm about weak voter turnout rates in Florida’s biggest county, Miami-Dade, where a strong Republican showing is endangering Joe Biden’s chances in the nation’s biggest swing state.

No Democrat can win Florida without a huge turnout and big winning margins here to offset losses elsewhere in the state. But Democrats are turning out at lower rates than Republicans and at lower rates than at this point in 2016, when Hillary Clinton won by 29 percentage points here and still lost the state to Donald Trump.

One particular area of concern is the relative share of ballots cast by young voters of color and less-reliable Democratic voters. Part of the problem, according to interviews with a dozen Democratic elected officials and operatives, is the Biden campaign‘s decision to discourage field staff from knocking on doors during the pandemic and its subsequent delay in greenlighting — and funding — a return to door-to-door canvassing.

“We did not get the kind of funding for different vendors who would do that type of work until late in the campaign,” said Rep. Frederica Wilson, a party institution who represents Miami’s heavily Black congressional district.

Wilson said the good news is that Biden’s running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris, is working with her on a turnout event for this weekend geared toward young Black men. But the veteran congresswoman said there are still skilled operatives in her district who excel at turnout work who have yet to get approved by the campaign, a puzzling delay for an operation that raised a record $363 million the month before.

“I screamed. Hollered. I called. I lobbied from the top to the bottom,” Wilson said of her efforts to get turnout operations started in the community, including sending written proposals to Biden’s campaign and having virtual Zoom meetings with his advisers.

...

Would the Dems be able to get some money to the skilled operatives to help turnout in Miami? Is Joe Biden’s campaign talking with Congresswoman Frederica Wilson? :)

Here’s another article about the issue:

As Florida eclipses 2016 early vote totals, Democratic turnout lags in Miami-Dade

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