The inevitable end result of our last 56 years

[W. Niederhut]

39 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Americans across the board feel disenfranchised, and for good reason. 
 

Ben,

     What "good reasons" are you referring to here?

     I hope that you are referring to the absurd 5-4 SCOTUS ruling in Shelby v. Holder and the recent systematic GOP efforts in numerous red states to suppress voting in America, and not to Trump's Big Lie about alleged 2020 election fraudulence that never happened. 

      Are you suggesting that Trump voters were "disenfranchised" in 2020-- contrary to all of the evidence?

    The only attempted "disenfranchisement" in recent American history has been Trump's multi-state False Elector scam, in which Trump pressured numerous GOP state officials to send False Electoral slates to Congress on January 6, 2021, effectively disenfranchising millions of voters in the U.S.

    As for you persistent denial of Trump's deliberately contrived violent coup attempt on January 6th-- and the ongoing threat of fascist demagoguery to American democracy-- it's truly a pity that you didn't listen to Congressman Raskin's eloquent commentaries in the most recent Congressional J6 hearing, which included references to Alexander Hamilton's Federalist essays, and Lincoln's commentary on the Alton, Illinois mob violence against a newspaper.

    The professor of Constitutional law, from Maryland, is quite the statesman-- a rarity these days.

   

Edited July 17, 2022 by W. Niederhut

[Benjamin Cole]

7 hours ago, Robert Wheeler said:

One would think Trump won the way he is still in everyone's head here.

Our Joe is accomplishing things Trump and the Maga crowd could only dream of.

Kudoos to our old Joe, who knows "the thing", and Kamala too, for accomplishing her accomplishments and successfully succeeding the mandates she was mandated to carry out.

RW-

This is a fascinating aspect M$M coverage today. More than 600 days into the Biden presidency, in which Biden has promised greater and permanent US military involvement in Europe, the Mideast and the Indo-Pacific (a little bit of geography when you add it all together), the topic is still....Trump. 

A divisionary diversion? In fact, obviously yes. Intentional? Who knows. Maybe Trump is just great clickbait.

In a way, we are seeing the New Donk Party in action. Closely aligned with the Deep State and military. But why? 

My take is Wall Street, Hollywood and Silicon Valley are globalist nerve centers, and now tightly bound to the Donks. They want the US military as a globalist guard service for multinational operations---a replay of what Smedley Butler saw.  Good relations with China and Saudi Arabia are par for the course. See the Biden fist-bump with the murderer MBS. 

Curiously, even old lefties seem blind to this new reality. 

 

 

 

[W. Niederhut]

12 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

Ben,

     What "good reasons" are you referring to here?

     I hope that you are referring to the absurd 5-4 SCOTUS ruling in Shelby v. Holder and the recent systematic GOP efforts in numerous red states to suppress voting in America, and not to Trump's Big Lie about alleged 2020 election fraudulence that never happened. 

      Are you suggesting that Trump voters were "disenfranchised" in 2020-- contrary to all of the evidence?

    The only attempted "disenfranchisement" in recent American history has been Trump's multi-state False Elector scam, in which Trump pressured numerous GOP state officials to send False Electoral slates to Congress on January 6, 2021, effectively disenfranchising millions of voters in the U.S.

    As for you persistent denial of Trump's deliberately contrived violent coup attempt on January 6th-- and the ongoing threat of fascist demagoguery to American democracy-- it's truly a pity that you didn't listen to Congressman Raskin's eloquent commentaries in the most recent Congressional J6 hearing, which included references to Alexander Hamilton's Federalist essays, and Lincoln's commentary on the Alton, Illinois mob violence against a newspaper.

    The professor of Constitutional law, from Maryland, is quite the statesman-- a rarity these days.

   

Ben this is the second time in the past 24 hours that you have leap-frogged and ignored a detailed response to your comments, without answering my questions.

What "disenfranchisement" were you referring to above?

And, did you listen to Congressman Raskin's eloquent commentary about the violent attack on the Capitol, and the threat of demagoguery and mob violence to American democracy?

You and Wheeler don't seem to grasp the essential point in Raskin's historic closing statement.

We're not just looking in the rearview mirror at Trump's unprecedented crimes.

We're looking at the potential future of anti-democratic, fascist demagoguery in America.

Edited July 17, 2022 by W. Niederhut

[Richard Price]

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

My guess is a civil war is not really possible in the US...the geography does not work out, and the 1/6 scrum a one-off. An insurrection is impossible, given the vast forces available to establishment Washington.

The 1/6 scrum was only possible due to extraordinarily light security at the Capitol that day, which then stood down.

Benjamin, I must respond and disagree once again.  W. Niederhut has already made a similar point while I was having to shut down and start over on this posting due to a computer problem.  Civil war IS possible, just not as you seem to view it.  It doesn't have to be one group against another and trying to hold onto regional territories.  The current war being stoked is not for this reason.  It is about creating anarchy in which a functioning democratic republic cannot be sustained, thereby creating a need for a security state doing away with most, if not all our historic liberties, rights and freedoms.  Into this void a strongman can get established and turn the country into his own kingdom.  If you actually look at the history, you will see this threat has not come from the "radical left", but from the RIGHT almost exclusively.

Your 01/06 scrum, as you prefer to call it, was possible because the person at the top of the chain of command was the fox in the hen house.  In a coup, the leadership is usually the current leader who has decided NO ONE could lead as well as he, or a high ranking military officer.  In this case, technically ONE person fits both positions, since we have (supposedly) civilian control of the military through the President.  If the "former guy" could have found just one more malleable person in the chain of command, he may well have succeeded.  Had he gotten to the point of mass resignation in the DOJ or the military hierarchy, all bets would have been off.  Things would have spiraled quickly out of control and a declaration of martial law, the invocation of the insurrection act or anything could have happened.  We have never had a time without an officially designated leader of our government.  So, yes an insurrection/coup is possible when it originates at the top of the chain of command as this one did.

[Benjamin Cole]

57 minutes ago, Richard Price said:

Benjamin, I must respond and disagree once again.  W. Niederhut has already made a similar point while I was having to shut down and start over on this posting due to a computer problem.  Civil war IS possible, just not as you seem to view it.  It doesn't have to be one group against another and trying to hold onto regional territories.  The current war being stoked is not for this reason.  It is about creating anarchy in which a functioning democratic republic cannot be sustained, thereby creating a need for a security state doing away with most, if not all our historic liberties, rights and freedoms.  Into this void a strongman can get established and turn the country into his own kingdom.  If you actually look at the history, you will see this threat has not come from the "radical left", but from the RIGHT almost exclusively.

Your 01/06 scrum, as you prefer to call it, was possible because the person at the top of the chain of command was the fox in the hen house.  In a coup, the leadership is usually the current leader who has decided NO ONE could lead as well as he, or a high ranking military officer.  In this case, technically ONE person fits both positions, since we have (supposedly) civilian control of the military through the President.  If the "former guy" could have found just one more malleable person in the chain of command, he may well have succeeded.  Had he gotten to the point of mass resignation in the DOJ or the military hierarchy, all bets would have been off.  Things would have spiraled quickly out of control and a declaration of martial law, the invocation of the insurrection act or anything could have happened.  We have never had a time without an officially designated leader of our government.  So, yes an insurrection/coup is possible when it originates at the top of the chain of command as this one did.

Richard Price---

I guess we have to agree to disagree on this one, but I appreciate the intelligent and civil manner in which you expressed your perspective.  I will re-consider what you have written.

To date, there is no evidence the 1/6 scrum was organized by anybody.

Incredibly, the one figure repeatedly caught on video, exhorting crowds to "go into the Capitol" on 1/5 and 1/6, including at and just before the initial breach of the building---that is Ray Epps--has been exonerated by The New York Times, who report that it is "baseless" to think Epps instigated anything at the Capitol, and that he is actually a nice guy. 

Back to your perspectives, perhaps pandemonium would have ensued for a few days had Trump fired everybody at DOJ, and simultaneously somehow cajoled the military into doing nothing or going along. 

That is different from a civil war or insurrection.

On the military joining Trump....in truth, the Deep State loathed, detested and reviled Don Trump, as seen by op-eds printed in the NYT by former CIA director Michael Morrel against Trump even before he was elected, and then by the lining up of The Deep State All-Star Team to brazenly lie an define the Hunter Biden laptop story as "Russian disinformation." 

Really? You think the Deep State would have allowed a Trump coup?

More likely, the Deep State would stage a coup of their own rather than endure a second term of Trump. When you think about it....

 

 

Edited July 17, 2022 by Benjamin Cole

[Matt Allison]

How are you feeling, Ben? Everything ok? These posts seem a bit unhinged from reality...

[Benjamin Cole]

1 hour ago, W. Niederhut said:

Ben this is the second time in the past 24 hours that you have leap-frogged and ignored a detailed response to your comments, without answering my questions.

What "disenfranchisement" were you referring to above?

And, did you listen to Congressman Raskin's eloquent commentary about the violent attack on the Capitol, and the threat of demagoguery and mob violence to American democracy?

You and Wheeler don't seem to grasp the essential point in Raskin's historic closing statement.

We're not just looking in the rearview mirror at Trump's unprecedented crimes.

We're looking at the potential future of anti-democratic, fascist demagoguery in America.

W-

Thank you for your comments.

It would take several good books to catalogue and define the disenfranchisement of Americans in the last 60 years.

Perhaps I will post my views on this rather large topic, starting with the JFKA. In a nutshell, much of disenfranchisement is economic; the demolition of the middle-class and the Detroitification of America. 

Another dose is political--the realignment of both political parties to serve the Deep State-globalist-multinationals.

Trump had nothing to do with the preceding, and in some ways represented populist views against these trends. 

I assure you, the blue-red pissing wars are a diversion, a side-story---akin to stating, "You know who assassinated JFK? The Republicans!"

The latest sign that you are totally disenfranchised: Your president fist-bumping MBS.

Is there one ordinary citizen in the US that wants to see a US President fist-bump MBS? ? The US is energy independent.

Who wanted Biden to fist-bump with MBS? Wall Street, Silicon Valley, international brokers-facilitators, military contractors. There is business to be done with MBS. 

 

[Benjamin Cole]

13 minutes ago, Matt Allison said:

How are you feeling, Ben? Everything ok? These posts seem a bit unhinged from reality...

Matt-

Your comments may be more cruel than you intend.

Better to speak gently. 

[Kirk Gallaway]

21 minutes ago, Richard Price said:

It is about creating anarchy in which a functioning democratic republic cannot be sustained, thereby creating a need for a security state doing away with most, if not all our historic liberties, rights and freedoms.  Into this void a strongman can get established and turn the country into his own kingdom.  If you actually look at the history, you will see this threat has not come from the "radical left", but from the RIGHT almost exclusively.

 

 

That's exactly what it is. In my most most compassionate interpretation , it is people who are having a hard time adjusting to the economic and social changes of our times,  who are overwhelmed with too many existential choices in their lives, and a feeling there's nothing to lose..  . It's an unconscious call for order. It's like a child wanting some sense of discipline. The culprits are not defined in the least, other than to call them something conveniently amorphous like the "deep state". So it becomes a striking out against everybody perceived to be in the opposite camp. There is no direction or plan. It all becomes a series of quests for short term victories "to own the libs."

 

[W. Niederhut]

12 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

W-

Thank you for your comments.

It would take several good books to catalogue and define the disenfranchisement of Americans in the last 60 years.

Perhaps I will post my views on this rather large topic, starting with the JFKA. In a nutshell, much of disenfranchisement is economic; the demolition of the middle-class and the Detroitification of America. 

Another dose is political--the realignment of both political parties to serve the Deep State-globalist-multinationals.

Trump had nothing to do with the preceding, and in some ways represented populist views against these trends. 

I assure you, the blue-red pissing wars are a diversion, a side-story---akin to stating, "You know who assassinated JFK? The Republicans!"

The latest sign that you are totally disenfranchised: Your president fist-bumping MBS.

Is there one ordinary citizen in the US that wants to see a US President fist-bump MBS? ? The US is energy independent.

Who wanted Biden to fist-bump with MBS? Wall Street, Silicon Valley, international brokers-facilitators, military contractors. There is business to be done with MBS. 

 

Ben,

     The U.S. may be technically "energy independent," but U.S. oil & gas producers are now actively exporting and selling their products on the international markets-- which adversely impacts U.S. domestic supplies and prices.  Biden is trying to convince the Saudis to increase the international supplies.

     As for voter disenfranchisement in the U.S., historically, it has mainly been a result of racial discrimination, especially following the collapse of Radical Reconstruction in 1877.  The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was supposed to fix that problem, but the Republican-controlled SCOTUS voted 5-4 in Shelby v. Holder to block enforcement of the Voting Rights Act.  The Koch SCOTUS also undermined a century of campaign finance reforms with their Citizens United ruling.

      Republican-controlled states then launched a systematic campaign of voter suppression strategies-- limiting ballot boxes, mail-in voting, polling places, and imposing increasingly strict ID requirements, none of which has been justified by evidence of significant voter fraud.

    Trump has falsely claimed that his fans have been disenfranchised.  It's malarky.  The only disenfranchisement of voters in the U.S. at present has been perpetrated by the Republican Party.

    The most outrageous example is Trump's 2020-21 False Elector scam!

[Ron Bulman]

2 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Ben,

     What "good reasons" are you referring to here?

     I hope that you are referring to the absurd 5-4 SCOTUS ruling in Shelby v. Holder and the recent systematic GOP efforts in numerous red states to suppress voting in America, and not to Trump's Big Lie about alleged 2020 election fraudulence that never happened. 

      Are you suggesting that Trump voters were "disenfranchised" in 2020-- contrary to all of the evidence?

    The only attempted "disenfranchisement" in recent American history has been Trump's multi-state False Elector scam, in which Trump pressured numerous GOP state officials to send False Electoral slates to Congress on January 6, 2021, effectively disenfranchising millions of voters in the U.S.

    As for you persistent denial of Trump's deliberately contrived violent coup attempt on January 6th-- and the ongoing threat of fascist demagoguery to American democracy-- it's truly a pity that you didn't listen to Congressman Raskin's eloquent commentaries in the most recent Congressional J6 hearing, which included references to Alexander Hamilton's Federalist essays, and Lincoln's commentary on the Alton, Illinois mob violence against a newspaper.

    The professor of Constitutional law, from Maryland, is quite the statesman-- a rarity these days.

   

I didn't like him when I first became aware of him.  Raskin might make a good president.  This presentation is outstanding imho.  Though I saw it in the hearing I didn't grasp the importance of his words.  Thanks W.

[Kirk Gallaway]

Man, this is precious! Do you know it was Cippilone who argued for Trump in his first impeachment hearing? We see here clips of the  arguments of Adam Schiff for the Prosecution and then Cippilone for the Defense. Who turned out to be prophetic and who turned out to be a stooge? Cippilone, who after being Trump's counsel for a few years obviously knew better, but of course his job is to  make the case for Trump.  It starts with Hayes commentary at 1:57.'

Haye's mentions something I didn't know. That Cippilone was Laura Ingraham's spiritual mentor and was instrumental in her conversion to Catholicism!  My God!!!!

 

[Sandy Larsen]

15 hours ago, Robert Wheeler said:

One would think Trump won the way he is still in everyone's head here.

 

Trump hasn't even been indicted yet. Of course he's still the object of conversation.

Do you watch/read the news?

 

[Benjamin Cole]

5 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Ben,

     The U.S. may be technically "energy independent," but U.S. oil & gas producers are now actively exporting and selling their products on the international markets-- which adversely impacts U.S. domestic supplies and prices.  Biden is trying to convince the Saudis to increase the international supplies.

     As for voter disenfranchisement in the U.S., historically, it has mainly been a result of racial discrimination, especially following the collapse of Radical Reconstruction in 1877.  The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was supposed to fix that problem, but the Republican-controlled SCOTUS voted 5-4 in Shelby v. Holder to block enforcement of the Voting Rights Act.  The Koch SCOTUS also undermined a century of campaign finance reforms with their Citizens United ruling.

      Republican-controlled states then launched a systematic campaign of voter suppression strategies-- limiting ballot boxes, mail-in voting, polling places, and imposing increasingly strict ID requirements, none of which has been justified by evidence of significant voter fraud.

    Trump has falsely claimed that his fans have been disenfranchised.  It's malarky.  The only disenfranchisement of voters in the U.S. at present has been perpetrated by the Republican Party.

    The most outrageous example is Trump's 2020-21 False Elector scam!

W-

Thanks for your comments. 

Of course, we agree on the indefensible treatment of non-white voters, and women voters, until recent decades. 

But if you use the ID-politics lens exclusively, perhaps you lose sight of the conversion of the New Donk Party into Deep State apparatchiks. 

The Deep State can fly the rainbow flag, and get Colin Powell or Lloyd Austin to serve as a visual cue,  but in fact every event or episode is used to expand US military presence globally, whether it be 9/11 or Ukraine.

The purpose of the US military, although paid for by US taxpayers, is to serve as a global guard service for multinational corporations. 

Just more than 600 days into office and Biden has vowed permanent increased missions to Europe, the Mideast and the Indo-Pacific. 

I understand the Saudis are a large oil producer, and oil markets are global.   I still see no need to get involved in wretched Mideast wars (including Yemen) or to publicly appease MBS.

Biden's fist-bump with MBS was beyond the pale. Surely, Biden did not ponder the optics, or was unaware of what he was doing at the time. 

(Separately, absentee ballots have been a mechanism for election fraud going back to at least 2000  and 2004, and were likely used to tip Ohio into the Bush Jr. column in 2004. I do not support the use of absentee ballots. In France voting is by hand, in person, after showing ID and, then counted by hand.)  

 

[Joe Bauer]

Regards the January 6th committee hearing next Thursday ( July 21st ) and it's final assessment fireworks show...

"Be there...it will be wild!"

You will get to hear what Trump himself was doing for over 3 hours while his own Capital building full of all our Congress members and Mike Pence were under life and death attack and seige and it's own beaten down, injured and over run police force was continually begging Trump's authorization for outside reinforcements, which went purposely unmet.

How many here have actually listened to or read Trump's Jan. 6th, 2021 Ellipse speech in it's entirety?

You cannot argue, debate or defend Trump in any credible way regards his incitement of the Capital Building attacking mob if you have.

Also, you cannot defend Trump in his ignoring pleas for reinforcement help from the Capital police for over 3 hours as well.

Trump's ellipses speech is one of the most incoherent, delusional, paranoid, self-obsessed and irrationally rambling rants ever presented by a President to the American people.

Seriously, Trump defenders, read the speech. All of it.

And try to defend it and him.  You can't.

No highly credentialed Psychologist could ever paint Trump's Ellipses speech as anything but the ramblings of a very mentally ill man.

 

Edited July 18, 2022 by Joe Bauer