caulfield12

Do you honestly believe the majority of police officers and active duty military are really on Biden’s side? We spent days this week speculating about how many were actually helping the rioters or, at best, benign indifference. As for coups and the military/industrial complex, I guess it depends on your version of 11/22/63 events.

The real kicker would be if Trump tries to charge Pence for going around him in the chain of command...simply to take the focus away from himself. What happens then?

We’re back to Designated Survivor storylines...but, it feels at least like a 50/50 possibility Biden would stand down like Gore did in 2000 if Trump still had the nuclear codes or control of and/or allegiance from at least half the US military.

By this logic, they would have been heroes had they succeeded? The Founding Fathers are only the good guys because they won the Revolutionary War? They all would have been hung had the British won. The worst thing happening to these guys is losing their jobs or getting outed on the Internet , so far.

But the key point here is McVeigh wasn’t attempting to subvert the results of an election or assassinate Clinton. Nobody would argue that it was an attempt to overthrow the government. And the police/ATF/FBI weren’t exactly cooperating with those groups to help them carry out their stated goals. Ruby Ridge, Waco, OKC and Columbine were birds of a completely different feather. Could we apply sedition/treason there?

Texsox, if VP Pence was taken hostage or, God forbid, murdered/lynched...would we still be saying, well, what about that Bernie Sanders fanatic who shot up the Republican softball game?

I have pretty much never heard that said about BLM or Antifa in the last 4-5 years. Portland riots pretty much scared Greg off the ''internets."

Back to two sides, again. The Twitter ban might work over the short term, but the polarization is not going to simply melt away before 2024. In fact, the disparity between lower middle class and poor whites and the 1% is only going to be exacerbated by the Covid-19 wealth redistribution which is still ongoing. And the constant buzzword will be socialism despite virtually nobody calling Trump that for adding nearly $6 trillion to the deficit. Socialism for Iowa farmers and market intervention in the form of subsidies to offset the trade war were perfectly fine with Trump/Ernst voters there. It's only socialism when those benefits go to black and brown people, illegal immigrants/DACA recipients or even women.

But what percentage of eligible American voters or those who actually voted for Trump in 2016/20 are represented in that 22%? Normally, we’re lucky to get 50-55% of eligible voters to cast ballots. This year, 154 million (votes) still represents less than half the US population. At any rate, there’s undoubtedly a high correlation between followers and voters in his case. If anything, the most important point is free/instantaneous communication with millions for free. Strip away Twitter and FB, he wouldn’t have had a prayer to win in 2016. Let’s not forget those years before he officially announced in 2015 that he was building up his base, going back to the Birther controversy.

Sure, but how often do the networks televise WH press conferences or speeches? The Covid-19 daily press briefings probably added up to more airtime than the last 4-5 presidents combined. The difference is society is so mobile and 24 hour news oriented that there's not an obvious secondary option to reach a huge mass of individuals on a daily basis, instantly.

Ummmm...quote from Suze Orman? It sounds almost Hitlerian when you consider the redistribution is away from minorities/women and towards upper class whites. If you could prove it was going more towards those under 35, that would be at least one positive spin for the country, notwithstanding the completely unnecessary nature of inflicting most of this on ourselves.

https://globegazette.com/news/state-and-regional/govt-and-politics/sen-grassley-i-love-my-work-has-no-plans-to-retire/article_10b6ea93-4fa6-5f55-ae3a-27b24e85d164.html

Grassley will be able to stay as long as he wants to. The Toomey, Burr and Ron Johnson seats are more likely.

I would have hated to witness an actual vicious attack.

Isn’t banning him now just going to create or add to the perpetual grievances on the right against media/tech elites like Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg? The whole “cancel culture” that Hawley brought up when his book was dumped by Simon & Schuster? Still hard to imagine that 15-20% of the country will not follow him to OAN...or his own channel, wherever he eventually ends up. This is going to make him more of a martyr, IMO...and somehow I have a feeling Dorsey is not going to give back all the profits he made off of Trump for the last 5 1/2 years. Twitter was definitely trending in the wrong direction as a company, and Trump helped to make it more relevant again. We keep arguing people will get bored of Trump’s act or he will just fade away, but it’s going to be a long and drawn out process. Trump is going to do everything he can to empower and pass the baton on to Don Jr. or Ivanka, at the very least...especially if legal troubles bring him down.

“It’s an inconvenience at this point, is all it is,” he said. “This is not some mass insurrection, coup attempt. They’re not destroying or burning down the fricking Capitol building. This hyperbole and this emotion that the media is spewing now, like this is some kind of end-of-times scenario, is ridiculous.”

Elaine Chao just resigned, so it’s really on with Trump vs. McConnell. GA runoffs were undoubtedly the final straw for that family, as Trump cost her husband his majority leader spot for two years and perhaps longer. Buttigieg now gets to hit the ground running on that long-debated infrastructure stimulus bill. https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/07/politics/elaine-chao-cabinet-resignation-trump/index.html

Supposedly, Pence as well as Pelosi were being secured in that area behind where the SS officer fired his gun from...

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/rudy-giuliani-accidentally-leaves-voicemail-042600037.html Full recording of call included...

ACAB=had to look that one up There has to be some degree of nuance, here. Obviously, not all cops are bad/bastards, whatever. That said, if people of all races and creeds witnessed the same exact response to these riots/protests as what we saw in Lafayette Park over the summer, we wouldn't be having such an argument. In that situation, the Secret Service and National Guard were assertive/aggressive, and pretty much instigated all the action, as well as choreographing a series of coordinated tear gas attacks...which were ostensibly to clear a path so Trump could pull his Bible stunt in front of that church, and the good 'ol law and order show of force. Here, you had so many issues with the security lines/defensive perimeter (granted, a much bigger area to provide coverage) that it was almost impossible to stop the protest advance without using deadly force. So when clearly the Lafayette Park situation, where you had protestors surrounded/hemmed in and outnumbered....here you had officers in an impossible tactical situation where they were simply overwhelmed or gave way intentionally. Even the officer with only a baton trying to protect the Senate lobby...you could almost see him thinking that striking one of the first protesters up the stairs would 1) not stop the mob behind him, and 2) likely injure himself in the process/inflame the crowd, and 3) that a delaying/stalling approach while waiting for reinforcements was the wisest course of action. Had he opened fire with a sidearm into the crowd, one can only imagine how much worse things would have gotten. All these things are understandable enough. The problem is that it's almost inconceivable that BLM/Antifa protesters wouldn't have been violently assaulted were the situation reversed. Taking selfies with those guys? Not cracking them over the head with batons and bombarding them with pepper spray? The body count would have been in the high teens or even 100's. Yet these protesters were almost treated with deference and there was even a common bond/camaraderie evident in some of the reactions or interactions. Just watch videos of the Chicago Democratic Convention in 1968 or The Trial of the Chicago Seven. It had nothing like that feel, it was more like unruly college kids who'd somehow burst through security, couldn't believe they'd gotten so far...and tore down the goal posts just for the heck of it (the mob mentality setting in and subsuming individual ethics or morality.)

Marc Short is his name...haven't gotten to the final page of this yet, but FOUR (4) are now dead, not just that lone woman who was critically wounded/shot.

Can the Congressional Medal of Freedom be taken back, lol?

Marco Rubio has to be breathing a sigh of relief he came as close as possible to the getting consumed by the fire but still retains his political viability for 2024 going forward. Cruz and Hawley are DONE. On second thought, with Rubio, he has been so craven politically during the last 6 years that there might be no redemption for him, either. You just get no clear idea what he actually stands for, as he's the GOP counterexample to John Edwards in many ways (minus the marital issues.) The GOP governors and Nikki Haley/Paul Ryan have done the best job staying as far away from the fray as possible.

Can we really give positive credit to Lindsey Graham for making GA SoS Raffenberger so "on guard" (after 13 attempted calls from the WH) that he felt he had no alternative but to record that call? Graham was one of the first, and most outspoken GOP'ers to completely jump onboard with the Trumps when it benefited him politically, but was quick to complain this year when Jamie Harrison was killing him in fundraising and it even looked like losing a SC statewide race to a Democrat was a very distinct possibility.

Trump's immigration policy has been so effective he's cut the "illegals vote" by roughly 75%, from nearly 5 million in 2016 to just 1.2 million in 2020. Amazing. Yeah, that guy deserves to be put out to pasture with Judge Roy Moore.