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Bobby Engel, the agent who was driving the presidential SUV, and Trump security official Tony Ornato are willing to testify under oath that no agent was assaulted and Trump never lunged for the steering wheel, a person familiar with the matter said. https://t.co/C9hVTkglLY
— The Associated Press (@AP) June 29, 2022
Well, her source / head of security denies telling her the story, and the driver denies being assaulted / that Trump tried to grab the wheel. Even the Washington Post thought the testimony smelled funny. The committee itself then played video showing that Trump was not in the limo, as the witness said the rumor was reported, but in an SUV. Either way, the whole thing was implausible.
Here's the thing. The committee has Secret Service testimony that would seemingly corroborate or dispute what Cassidy Hutchinson said today, but it wasn't played. Unclear why.
— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) June 28, 2022
Also, the “handwritten note” wasn’t hers.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/trump-white-house-attorney-disputes-cassidy-hutchinsons-testimony/
People who work with the attorney (and Trump himself noticed this when he put out his response) back up that the attorney’s handwriting is distinctive and she did not write the note. It’s one thing to get something wrong because it is rumor / hearsay. It’s another to get something wrong that you claim you did.
What’s the credibility jury instruction? If you find the witness’s testimony is false as to one thing, you can disregard part or all of their testimony? This reminds me of how organizations find leaks: by putting out implausible rumors and seeing how / if they get reported to the press.
https://mobile.twitter.com/ishapiro/status/1541491241678000128
The political question doctrine formerly left the Court out of a lot of thorny issues. Finding a constitutional right to abortion (taking advantage of the proclivities of the justices at the time) resulted in the politicization of the Court. What is interesting to me is that Breyer now joins dissents that ten years ago, he may not have joined. So be it.
Justice Thomas is bearing the brunt of the left’s attacks, but he has been the most intellectually consistent justice since joining the Court.
https://stanforddaily.com/2021/09/02/ras-strike-indefinitely-after-stanford-fails-to-meet-demand/
Revised alcohol and drug policy to end the “open door policy.”
GR, please don’t take your ball and go home. I (and I think I can say we) value your insights. This board is a place where I will challenge what I believe are extreme positions, or where I want to at least present evidence that will support my views on things.
I have no intention on changing your opinion of Trump. I am, however, interested in challenging your position he is directly responsible, and further criminally responsible for treason and sedition. My position is simply that the evidence, which we have known since at least January 12, 2021, does not support your position. I hope that I have supported my position with evidence. Please keep an open mind. With that spirit in mind, please consider listening to this podcast episode re: the January 6 hearings.
https://ruthlesspodcast.com/episodes/the-libs-are-dangerous
The tagline of the podcast refers to the Kavanaugh assassination attempt, so disregard it and keep an open mind. Keep in mind that this podcast is slanted, and the commentary is meant more to entertain than inform. It does present, however, a view of the January 6 hearings that I believe most of the nation holds at this point.
Fascinating. With regard to an actual plan to kidnap Pence or Pelosi, what evidence do you have to support your speculation as to what was going to happen? You cannot use what Trump said privately to advisors when he was blowing off steam or discussing alternative courses of action. You must have actual evidence from riot participants, indicted seditious conspirators, or public statements on January 6. The evidence must be direct, not “dog whistles” or “implied,” or “people could have interpreted this to mean….” (based on the legal standard for incitement).
I agree completely that everyone who assaulted a police officer, picked up a weapon and hit a peace officer, or even picked up a weapon should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Even the people who appeared to make a coordinated effort to incite the riot / get people to storm the Capitol should be prosecuted (although it appears they left the “rally” much earlier than the words cited by the committee). I do not agree that there is any evidence of a coordinated effort to actually kidnap / hold hostage Pence or Pelosi.
If you cite “zip-tie guy,” that has been debunked… by the prosecutors.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/capitol-riots-zip-tie-guy-190644133.html
Also, the one person who apparently publicly claimed that he wanted to take hostages, Larry Rendall Brock Jr., has not been charged with anything of the sort. There was testimony that another guy, Reffitt, talked about taking hostages. But Reffitt’s friend, Hardie, admitted that Reffitt was joking about taking Pelosi, and he never meant to go through with it (although he went into the Capitol). Reffitt was convicted of disorderly conduct and obstructing an official proceeding.
Did you see me calling for others to be charged with treason or seditious conspiracy? No. I was simply pointing out that the actual actions of Obama, H-Clinton, and Biden were more damaging to the Republic than anything Trump said when lashing out. In general terms, most people seem to agree with me that the riot wasn’t an “insurrection,” and that it wasn’t a serious effort to seize the levers of power.
I agree with you that Trump had it within his power to stop the riot. I also believe that his abandonment of the lower level people who are still in custody for just going into the Capitol shows that he has major character flaws. Note that I have no sympathy for anyone who hit an officer, or did more than just wander around the Capitol.
I completely agree with you that Trump should have spent his money on preventing the rule changes that could have stopped fraud (see court rulings in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania). He spent those millions on the lunatic fringe sideshow (as I explicitly noted in my original response by citing Giuliani and Powell. Should have thrown in Lin Wood, as well), rather than legitimate challenges to how the election was conducted. The sideshows allowed the media to concentrate on them, and distract from real, systemic issues with universal mail in balloting, voting by proxy, no ID verification, ballot harvesting, etc., that occurred in 2020. The media concentration on the sideshow convinced most of America to take the position that there aren’t problems with our election system. But ask yourself, why was the Georgia bill necessary?
I don’t really have an opinion regarding auditing the election, other than to note that the audits were meant to see if the submitted ballots were counted correctly, not whether the voters actually submitted the ballots, or if ballots were filled out fraudulently, which is the main problem with the rule changes.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/mar/2/wisconsin-probe-finds-2020-election-riddled-nursin/
I don’t know whether anything would have changed the outcome of the election. I don’t care, honestly. I just have some understanding of why people would be upset, and why they may have formed the beliefs they hold. I would like a reversion to a system where there would be a paper trail that could be audited, rather than the systems that are in place today. That’s also why I hate the current California system. It seems designed to be opaque and subject to abuse. For those interested in why systems matter, I recommend “The Battle of Athens,” a book about a 1946 seditious conspiracy (gentle ribbing here) against a local election machine in Tennessee. When the voting rules are bad, people should demand better systems.
This is a roundabout way of saying that the way to prevent both sides from continuing to undermine the legitimacy of elections is to adopt better systems that are not subject to abuse. Georgia did it, and look at how the media and Democrats reacted. I hope the experience in Georgia undermines once and for all the “voter suppression” narrative that prevents implementation of better, more efficient systems. The actual academic evidence shows that voter ID, for example, does not have a suppressive effect on voting. But people still trot out materials from Priorities USA and the media accepts their surveys as “evidence” all the time.
Other countries, and individual states, have implemented good election systems where the results can be quickly tabulated. As a result, people trust the elections, and participate at higher rates. Look at this, copy and pasted from the California SOS website for the primary election on June 7:
Election results are updated as often as new data is received from county elections offices after the polls close at 8:00 p.m. on Election Day. Ballots continue to be counted after Election Day during the canvass period; county elections officials must report final official results to the Secretary of State by July 8, 2022. The Secretary of State will certify the results on July 15, 2022.
As of today, turnout is at 21.4%. That is on pace to break the 2014 record low of 25.17%. Even the last gubernatorial election in 2018 got 37.54%.
[quote quote=6177]My major priority for a President is that he doesn’t commit treason – that he recognizes that the miracle of the American political tradition is that power changes hands peacefully, and accommodates that tradition.
And he committed treason – publicly and indisputably. Sort of a disqualifying act, don’t you think?[/quote]
I will not defend Trump’s personality. He’s probably a narcissist, and possibly a sociopath. BUT so are most politicians. He lacks discipline, which would have saved him from many of the faults that you cited. He surrounded himself with people who told him what he wanted to hear. Although he had a better BS detector (probably from years dealing with high level sociopaths) than most, in the end, hearing what you want to hear releases dopamine, which I would argue is the most addictive substance of all.
But let’s apply your filter to *sigh* Obama, H-Clinton, and Biden. They allowed the levers of government to be used to further a false political attack during an election. The Alfa Bank thing was intentionally falsified data generated by political operatives, and knowingly false. Hillary tweeted it after authorizing Sussman and others (Robby Mook admitted this under oath) to use the media and the FBI to launch a political dirty trick. When the attack didn’t work, they encouraged the continued the use of federal law enforcement to pursue the Russian collusion hoax, and be part of an attempted coup (impeachment). Despite the Sussman acquittal due to jury nullification, the evidence is d–ning that the Hillary campaign used a compliant FBI (including having the FBI embedded at Perkins Coie) to launch and continue the dirtiest of dirty tricks. They used the protection of classified material to lie to the American public for three+ years (I’m looking at you, Adam Schiff). They did it knowingly, and willingly. Biden flat out authorized the unmasking of General Flynn for political purposes. Obama knew that it was all a farce, and still authorized his DOJ and FBI to keep it going. Nothing has eroded the public trust in the FBI, the DOJ, the intelligence community, or the media (and deservedly so) more than deploying the apparatus of government in pursuit of political power. GR, was that all, in your opinion, just as treasonous? Would you agree that the Russia collusion hoax was just as damaging to the Republic as questioning the election?
Treason is a strong word with a legal definition. Just like incitement. But if we are going to use the colloquial meaning, (“light treason,” perhaps for “Arrested Development” fans) then apply it equally. Don’t forget that Hillary also questioned the legitimacy of the election. There were riots in the streets at Trump’s inauguration. The difference is that there weren’t pandemic rule changes, mail-in voting, or other irregularities to point at for Hillary.
Seventy-million Trump voters and not one of them would have protested an election result that had been reliably audited. Let’s ignore the root problem today. As always.
— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) June 10, 2022
GR, I agree with you on several fronts. Trump raised a ton of money to deal with election stuff. But he hired yes men and idiots to make him feel good rather than the right people. He should have deployed that money to prevent the illegal rule changes, hired better election lawyers up front, had a better ground game, and other things that may have made a difference. And where did all that money actually go? Into the farce that Giuliani and Powell put on, and not the independent efforts that bore fruit in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. What Trump did to the Georgia Senate runoff election was politically disqualifying behavior, but that’s my opinion, and it isn’t treason.
Regardless of the end result, however, can you acknowledge that the things that happened in plain sight in the states / cities at issue would raise suspicions in the mind of a neutral observer? And the inability to definitively address or explain these issues is a problem going forward?
I don’t know where you live, but here in California, the election laws are so lax that no one knows what’s going on. The primary that happened last Tuesday won’t be certified for over a week. During the recall, I received a voter registration notification for the previous owner of my house, who moved to Azerbaijan two years before the pandemic. Her son said she didn’t register to vote, and she indicated that she did not register. I ended up getting a ballot for her. Who knows whether she voted in the recall or not.
Contrast California with the recent Georgia election law changes. What was the reaction to strengthening verification measures? A coordinated media campaign to call it “voter suppression” and “Jim Crow 2.0.” Did you believe the media narrative? (I’m not addressing this to any specific member of this forum, I’m asking generally). Did you simply accept the speculation on what the voter verification laws would do to minority voting? Did you support Stacey Abrams’ and Raphael Warnock’s calls for boycotts? Did you care when MLB moved the All-Star game, and when minority-owned businesses and polling showed a negative reaction, USA Today let Stacey Abrams stealth edit her editorial? Did you follow up to see what effect the laws had on the most recent primary? Ask yourself, did the actual evidence change your opinion?
https://mobile.twitter.com/JoeConchaTV/status/1535299526508130305
Huh. Much better than I thought for the networks. I imagine they will easily beat Tucker (3-4M viewer average) combined. On a one on one basis, I guess we’ll see.
Shall we play a game? Let’s guess what television shows will out-draw the hearing in the ratings.
Playoff hockey and basketball will kick off at 8pm EDT. Those should easily out-draw the aggregate network ratings (despite being on cable). Will Tucker Carlson best the hearings in the ratings? Will a rerun or a reality show (only live on the East Coast) get better ratings than the hearings?
I will give Tucker a 25% chance of outdrawing the over the air networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC). I will give Fox local news and whatever they choose to air a 15% chance of out-drawing the other three networks combined (harder to get hard and fast numbers for local news between markets, especially with staggered programming across time zones).
Will a rerun of “The Office” out-draw the hearings?
https://mobile.twitter.com/CurtisHouck/status/1534879051680210945
https://mobile.twitter.com/SteveGuest/status/1534894840936386560
Seems like kind of a big deal to be burying.
Meanwhile, the drama at the Washington Post is still going. The racism accusation coming after she explicitly went after a Hispanic colleague (who just won an award yesterday). The complete lack of self-awareness from the media shows why public trust in them is deteriorating so rapidly.
https://mobile.twitter.com/LevineJonathan/status/1534895166284341248
https://mobile.twitter.com/JayCaruso/status/1534575134152982528
Also, CNN’s attempt to create doubt about the nature of the threat is incredible.
https://mobile.twitter.com/JosephWulfsohn/status/1534563788053168128
Simple. Do I feel like I need to go to the fringe and the craziest parts of the internet to find bad takes? Why should I go to the parts of the Internet that I know has the lowest quality information for filth that no one should amplify? NPR apparently has a reporter to do that for you. Were those theories making it into the mainstream or affecting the real world? I didn’t mention Ms. Owens’ mistake because plenty in the mainstream media did so. But when the false facts, and the baiting of the public comes from the journalists and the media, then I point it out.
If the right wing conspiracy theory starts trending on Twitter, or being spread (not mocked) by journalists, maybe I’ll post about it. If it results in real world trends or news, I’d be happy to acknowledge that it’s bad.
But if you simply type in “Ted Cruz tweets” into Twitter right now, you’ll see a bunch of purported identical tweets after tragedies, including coverage from Newsweek that describes the tweets and links to a CNN debunk (see? You probably saw the debunk, too).
An image purporting to show identical tweets from Sen. Ted Cruz after 12 mass shootings is fabricated. It includes a real message from Cruz following Tuesday’s school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, but he hasn’t tweeted the exact same message a dozen times. https://t.co/haqibvq6cd
— AP Fact Check (@APFactCheck) May 27, 2022
The hoax was exposed by at least 10:18AM on May 27. The debunked images are still in the top results and latest results on Twitter, mostly being tweeted in response to Ted Cruz’s remarks at the NRA convention and to the story of him getting yelled at in a restaurant. While I don’t agree with going ahead with addressing the NRA convention, or his knee-jerk reaction in favor of the NRA, I don’t think he should be harassed at a restaurant. I also believe that the NRA has a First Amendment (and Second Amendment, I suppose) right to exist.
My proposal isn’t that you read every article. But you appear to be in a information silo, and you simply absorb what you’re told by journalists and the media. For example, the Great Replacement Theory you cite above. What, exactly, is it? And if you have a precise definition, what is the origin of the Great Replacement Theory? What was its exact relevance to the Buffalo shooting? Did you read the manifesto (or at least an accurate summary) for yourself? Did you notice a disconnect between how the Buffalo shooter described himself and the origins of his madness and who the journalists blamed for the shootings?
If you know what it is, when the media conflates it with a general discussion of demographics as a political strategy, do you acknowledge that Democrats have been touting demographic change as their long-term political strategy since at least the 1990’s (do we need to discuss Tammany Hall)? Is it racist when Democrats do it overtly, or only when the media tells you it’s racist because Republicans are “hinting” or “alluding” or “connected” to it? Or are you predisposed to accepting media propaganda? Even your arguments are very similar to opinions put out by journalists that are misinformed (my original point, see above), require mind-reading, and create straw-man positions that are easier to knock down than people’s actual arguments. Don’t simply accept journalists’ opinions / arguments at face value, find the evidence yourself and evaluate it independently, with a skeptical eye.
https://mobile.twitter.com/bonchieredstate/status/1530592364066230273
Plenty of takes similar to this.
https://mobile.twitter.com/mldauber/status/1529236648386473984
Maybe it’s notable that you aren’t willing to even look to see if your sources speculated that this incident was white supremacy or tried to tie this to white supremacy. Or that the New York subway shooters were white supremacists. Or that the kid who set up the sniper’s nest in DC last month was a white supremacist.
This was a downward revision of 1Q. We’re not in a recession until 2Q numbers come out in July. To the extent bad news can be piled into the first quarter, and any pent up demand can be released in the second quarter, we may still avoid a recession. I’m not hopeful (inflation covers some reductions in units sold, for example, and the durable goods order numbers were terrible), but it is still possible.
[quote quote=6122]And no surprise, other right wingers claiming this was a false flag conspiracy by the government to justify tighter gun control. https://www.npr.org/2022/05/26/1101479269/texas-uvalde-school-shooting-misinformation-conspiracy-far-right[/quote]
I believe Ms. Owens (who amplified the fringe theories) should just own her mistake, and Rep. Gosar is prone to being suckered by these folks. But if you want to go down this path, let’s talk about all the people who immediately hoped / thought the shooter was a white supremacist. Not fringe elements as admitted in the NPR article, but a Stanford law professor, and a LA Times columnist. Interesting that NPR went to the depths of 4chan and Patriotfront (?), but they didn’t want to cover bad takes and conspiracy theories on the other side. Did NPR cover the white supremacy angle or the hoaxer? Did businessinsider? See how it works?
https://nypost.com/2022/05/27/salvador-ramos-arrested-four-years-ago-pol-says/
I’ll pre-empt you by saying I don’t believe this because there’s no evidence. It may be true and it may not be true. Rep. Gonzales wants it to be true, but until someone with access to a sealed juvenile record comes forth, in my view it isn’t true.
When there is a tragedy, humans try to process it in different ways. In this politicized environment, both sides tend to rationalize in a way consistent with their beliefs. My point was that “mainstream” journalists, celebrities, and pundits have primed the public to believe hoaxes and false information that they want to believe, and sell that information as legitimate. Then they turn around and create a disinformation industry and a fact checking process to further launder their opinions and make them feel superior.
