The inevitable end result of our last 56 years

[Richard Price]

27 minutes ago, Matt Allison said:

Very much looking forward to him being charged with seditious conspiracy along with the others.

From your lips to GOD's ears.  I am wondering if anyone in our justice system is going to ever get up the nerve and necessary documentation to defend their/our democracy.  If our founders had the timidity of our current political leaders, we would still be flying the Union Jack.  When do our leaders come to understand the dire consequences of what happened on January 6 and continues unabated even now.  If there is no punishment for the crimes committed, we are not surviving as a republic.  While there is much to be appreciated about moderation and "coming together" as a nation, failure to punish those who directly and unabashedly attacked the very foundations of our nation as a republic will yield the same fruits as those that fueled the rise of נאצי Germany over the Weimar Republic.

Sneaked that one in instead of poopoo maybe.  It's Hebrew text for the "N" word.

[W. Niederhut]

1 hour ago, Ron Bulman said:

FYI.

Bannon Surrenders On Contempt Charges: "Focus On Signal, This Is All Noise" | Video | RealClearPolitics

So ironic that Trump and Robert Mercer's notorious grifter, Steve Bannon, would be blathering now about "signal-to-noise" ratios.  Not surprisingly, Bannon is suggesting the diametric opposite of the truth.

The actual "signal" here is that Trump, Bannon, et.al., conspired to overturn the election-- even inciting a violent attack on the U.S. Congress.

The "noise" is the Fox/GOP propaganda denying and downplaying what really happened on January 6th.

[Benjamin Cole]

Query:

Whatever the "truth" on 1/6, will it turn out to be a 9/11?

Another platform-excuse to increase the police and surveillance state? 

That is what many readers here seem to be missing. 

Whatever happened on 1/6, it "becomes a crisis, and never let a crisis go to waste." 

It is in the interests of the national security state and allied media to define 1/6 with as much hyperbole as possible. And whatever Liz Cheney says is a narrative, not journalism.  

Keep your thinking caps on, drink the kool-aid not. 

 

 

[Jeff Carter]

21 hours ago, Denny Zartman said:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/verify-what-happens-next-if-electoral-college-votes-arent-certified-on-january-6/ar-BB1cxiUt

As can be seen by referring to actual statute rather than being triggered by MSM hyperbole, a concept of a “coup attempt” based on preventing Pence from certifying the election seems equally dodgy, despite five months of breathless speculation on this and another similar thread, twitter, etc: 

1) the fixed date for the certification process can be changed

2) once the process has begun, there is no fixed time by which it must conclude

3) should the vice-president be somehow incapacitated, then the certification is to be led by the next person in the line of succession aka the Speaker of the House who is Nancy Pelosi.

So, is this right?: the plan was to use unruly mob to attack the Congress, force Pence to postpone the certification, have the Secret Service remove him to Andrews airfield and then on to Alaska, so that Nancy Pelosi could then declare Trump the president?

[W. Niederhut]

1 hour ago, Jeff Carter said:

As can be seen by referring to actual statute rather than being triggered by MSM hyperbole, a concept of a “coup attempt” based on preventing Pence from certifying the election seems equally dodgy, despite five months of breathless speculation on this and another similar thread, twitter, etc: 

1) the fixed date for the certification process can be changed

2) once the process has begun, there is no fixed time by which it must conclude

3) should the vice-president be somehow incapacitated, then the certification is to be led by the next person in the line of succession aka the Speaker of the House who is Nancy Pelosi.

So, is this right?: the plan was to use unruly mob to attack the Congress, force Pence to postpone the certification, have the Secret Service remove him to Andrews airfield and then on to Alaska, so that Nancy Pelosi could then declare Trump the president?

Nice try, but no cigar, Jeff.

Removing Pence to Andrews AFB on January 6th would not have constituted incapacitation.  At most, it would have delayed Pence's certification of Biden's election-- probably to buy Trump and his Bannon/Eastman goon squad more time to work on Pence to implement their Eastman coup plan.

The Trump coup plan outlined in the Eastman and Ellis Memos, (only recently made public-- contrary to your "five months of breathless speculation" meme above) was to have Pence object to the Electoral College vote tallies for several states which had been targeted by Trump's "Stop the Steal" propaganda campaign prior to January 6th.

The concept was to have the election outcome determined by a House vote, with one vote per state.

You also seem to be unaware that Trump and Eastman tried to directly leverage the threats to Pence and Congress during the attack to alter the certification of the election.  For example, Eastman called or texted Pence's aid during the attack to advise Pence that he was in danger because he refused to cooperate with the (Eastman) coup plan!

Similarly, in a phone call with Kevin McCarthy during the riot, Trump told McCarthy that the mob cared more about the election outcome than McCarthy did...  Hint, hint...

Time for you to go back to the drawing board to concoct another inane theory about what happened on January 6th. 🤥

[Ron Bulman]

 

[Matt Allison]

Very strange how some people are happy to promote any conspiracy theory that anyone cares to dream up... unless of course it's one that points to Donald Trump trying to overturn the 2020 election...

You guys are trying too hard and it shows.

[Jeff Carter]

1 hour ago, W. Niederhut said:

Removing Pence to Andrews AFB on January 6th would not have constituted incapacitation.  At most, it would have delayed Pence's certification of Biden's election-- probably to buy Trump and his Bannon/Eastman goon squad more time to work on Pence to implement their Eastman coup plan.

Leaving aside the fact that the Eastman legal advice, dodgy and hare-brained as it may be, does not in any way constitute a “coup plan”, you have in the months previous theorized an alternate concept, which I referred, relying on an incapacitation or removal of Pence from the scene. Here is a sampling of your posts:

“a coup plan to block Pence from certifying the election results by having the Secret Service move hm to Andrews AFB on January 6th.”

“…a Trump plot to physically remove him from the Capitol on January 6th”

“… a deliberate effort to prevent the certification of the election and possibly assault or even murder (Pence).”

“…ancillary Trump plan may have involved creating a pretext to remove Mike Pence from the Capitol”

What I am noticing generally, as with Russiagate threads (where you are on record often praising and endorsing the Steele Dossier), is the theorizing is derived from matters that are wildly misrepresented, based on hyperbolic supposition, or made up entirely. Often cued from mainstream media reports. It does not contribute to a healthy or informed political culture. And yet on other topics you are entirely articulate and informed… 

[Benjamin Cole]

So...who is more likely to stage what is essentially a coup, or to manipulate events and perceptions prior to elections, while gaining media cooperation?

1. Trump & Co. 

2. The national security state

[W. Niederhut]

    No one has won one of these prestigious awards since Rob Wheeler did a year or two ago, but I would like to nominate Jeff Carter and Benjamin Cole for 2021 Donald J. Trump Golden Toilet Awards for their tireless forum deposits in defense of former U.S. President Donald Trump... 🤥

 

The Donald J. Trump Golden Toilet Award

 

 

[Kirk Gallaway]

6 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

So...who is more likely to stage what is essentially a coup, or to manipulate events and perceptions prior to elections, while gaining media cooperation?

1. Trump & Co. 

2. The national security state

Ben, you've also said this.

Ben:  (the Democrats  are)tight with , the national security-Deep State

 

So by juxtaposition, you're making a red blue comparison here. Let's examine that.

This is the silly elephant in the room. A sloppy thinking, bait and switch theory that Ben seems to be buying. If the NSS is on the side of the peaceful transfer of power in  a legitimate election, and the overwhelming majority agree, it's absurd to say the NSS is controlled by the Democrats. In this case, it's aligned with the will of the people.

 

Since that argument is more fears and feelings and hold holds no weight.  The next thing to do is the very thing the corporate powers don't want you to do is "Follow the money".

 

The defense contributions including the National Security "deep state" run about 55% to 45%  for the Republicans, and as you might know many corporate funders fund both sides of the aisle to hedge their bets so that's why it's as close as it is. Trump as he bragged, initiated the biggest peacetime increase in our lifetime. In the previous Obama administration Obama gave less than the defense department requested in 7 of 8 of his years in office. Trump gave what was requested in all 4 years asked except I believe in his last year,Trump was slightly under which could be explained as budgetary constrictions in the transition. These are facts.

 

We have never had a Presidential  conflict of personal interests in government as Trump ever before. Is it so unbelievable that that would raise red flags in government? Not at all!

 

So to those who are so willing to inject the specter  of the " JFKAC , that is the NSS as a menacing pro active force", during the Trump years, If we use the NSS whistle blowing that lead to the first  Trump impeachment where the overwhelming majority in Congress thought Trumps actions were either 1)worthy of removal from office or 2)very highly improper but didn't rise to the level of  removal, anyone who would fault the exposure of such actions as an overstep of the NSS is off their rockers.

 

What we saw in the Trump Presidency is not so much the stridency of the "NS deep state" but it's malleability to the executive branch. In that we can at least say there's certainly no shortage  of examples of shady attempts  by the Trump administration to use the government, and his position in government  which was obviously no surprise as that was also the proven case with Ukraine's Zelensky, but according to Josh Bolton's book, despite all Trump's rhetoric, Trump was willing to offer concessions to our greatest trade rival, China's Xi, if he would investigate Biden, and for brevity sake we'll leave partial  forum favorite Putin out of it for now. We could also talk about Trump using his office,to phone up the Georgia AG to throw out the results of a legitimate election.

 

Then there's Sec. of State, Mike Pompeo (who you've expressed great admiration for ,Ben) went to the CIA with his plan to kidnap Julian Assange! (Who you extol as a hero.) Can you imagine a greater violation of First Amendment rights? And yet you were notably silent. Where was your usual knee jerk First Amendment outrage, Ben?  Pompeo then made a speech, trying to establish a legal foundation to kidnap Assange but not specifically talking of a plot. But for some reason it didn't happen. So it was Trump Sec of State going to intelligence to propose a plan to kidnap Assange, and doesn't come away with a plan. We obviously can't  say why it never transpired. But probably because the CIA said it wasn't wise! So who was the greater threat there?

 

 One can be  entangled  in superficial appearances. But there were plenty of other reasons why anybody from any department of government might not be thrilled with Trump other than the sort of boring, boilerplate assertion by Trumpies that Trump was a peaceful non warmongering,  non kidnapping president that wouldn't go with the NSS grand plan which again explodes into myth as Biden accomplished in 8 months to get of Afghanistan, a feat that Trump couldn't do in 4 years!

 

So there's no reason to assume that one party controls the NSS. And to further explode this myth  I'll make a prediction that if a non Trump Republican gets in office in 2024, no matter what the disenfranchise Trump supporters think, the traditional relationship between the Republican Presidents and their NSS will probably resume.  History shows, to assume any Republican would give up such levers of power is absurd. Sorry!

 

 

 

.

Edited November 16, 2021 by Kirk Gallaway

[Jeff Carter]

I hadn’t been following this “coup” narrative until just these last days. All the narrative threads have been crafted and disseminated by the same media interests who presented the Russiagate lies, using the exact same methods. The Trump campaign telegraphed that it was planning to use legal avenues to challenge results months ahead of last year’s election. The efforts ultimately went nowhere because the court filings showed they had no case. Trump’s lawyers drew up legal schemes, based on sketchy interpretations of Electoral procedures, and those efforts also went nowhere, because the schemes relied on participation by people like Pence who could not be convinced there was any merit to the advice. So the legal and legislative foundation of the US political system worked as expected and was never under any kind of threat. Yet a coup narrative has been spun out of nothing. Trump’s ineffective legal advisors met at a local hotel last December, and now the WaPo is describing their meetings as taking place in a “command bunker” or a “war room.” That’s ridiculous, but also irresponsible and manipulative.

An angry mob bursts into the Capitol - to do what? What happened? Nothing did, a procedure was delayed for a few hours, and then it proceeded and the US democratic system remained intact, and was actually never seriously challenged or threatened. The mob had no plan and was following no plan, they had their temper tantrum and then dissipated. Yet all these shameless stories of the republic teetering on a precipice, based mostly on empty boasts or harebrained aspirations expressed by persons who had no power or influence.

The result will be new legislation restricting public access to federal buildings and more police powers to target what is now called “Domestic Terrorism”, definition of which will be ambiguous. The new powers will be directed at political dissent and activists - as it always has been, but to a greater degree and with less Constitutional civil rights protections. Protest events such as the March on the Pentagon back in 1967 will never happen again, and any attempt to do so will see the organizers facing long prison terms.

[Kirk Gallaway]

Jeff, I'll go with you on the point of various media outlets posing questions like. "to think how close we came". Implying that we were bordering an overthrow. Trump and the people around him would never have succeeded.  But there would have been 2 to 3 days of utter chaos, that could have been very destabilizing, bringing all the nuts out of the woodwork, claiming they've been stolen.

I don't know if you're just asleep up there in Canada, but I've been to a few places, and in every country on earth that will precipitate a clampdown, and a much more immediate  police action than your future prediction in your last sentence. So even though it wouldn't topple the government. You're perception of the threat, seems very  cavalier.

So Jeff, from what you've gathered, do you think Trump could be guilty of crimes here, that in a just society should put him in prison?   

Edited November 16, 2021 by Kirk Gallaway

[Matt Allison]

7 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

So...who is more likely to stage what is essentially a coup, or to manipulate events and perceptions prior to elections, while gaining media cooperation?

1. Trump & Co. 

2. The national security state

1. Actually happened.

2. Vague theory you promote to encourage Americans to distrust democratic authority, and thus embrace authoritarianism.

[Jeff Carter]

1 hour ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

Jeff, I'll go with you on the point of various media outlets posing questions like. "to think how close we came". Implying that we were bordering an overthrow. Trump and the people around him would never have succeeded.  But there would have been 2 to 3 days of utter chaos, that could have been very destabilizing, bringing all the nuts out of the woodwork, claiming they've been stolen.

I don't know if you're just asleep up there in Canada, but I've been to a few places, and in every country on earth that will precipitate a clampdown, and a much more immediate  police action than your future prediction in your last sentence. So even though it wouldn't topple the government. You're perception of the threat, seems very  cavalier.

So Jeff, from what you've gathered, do you think Trump could be guilty of crimes here, that in a just society should put him in prison?   

hi Kirk

it seemed to me that all the nuts were already at the rally, and the Capitol authorities had the means and manpower to quickly regain control if they chose to do so. Most of the people inside the Capitol building were doing little more than taking selfies, which may have appeared chaotic but was not “destabilizing”.

Trump is ultimately responsible for the killing of the Iranian general, and the others nearby, which was a serious breach of international law. But the US does not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC and so he will never be prosecuted for that. Otherwise, Trump’s legal position is an internal US domestic issue which I have no opinion. It is my understanding that the NYC business milieu in which Trump operates is corrupt. However, the US legal system is designed to prevent “fishing expeditions” by legal authority, and a specific legal case against Trump has not yet been presented.