“A lot of these defendants — and I’m going to use this colloquial term, perhaps disrespectfully — but they’re all f***ing short-bus people,”

A beautiful quote in isolation but this is more pertinent:

hey were subjected to four-plus years of goddamn propaganda the likes of which the world has not seen since f***ing Hitler.”

The biggest danger to democracy in the US isn’t “short-bus people”, it’s the organisations that have crafted an alternative reality and have force fed the vulnerable with narratives like Q-Anon etc. While the capitol rioters need to face justice, I’d say that it’s imperative that the personnel involved with Cambridge Analytica and Aggregate IQ, together with their investors are more culpable and should be dealt with accordingly.

Regarding the Arizona/Maricopa CyberNinja “audit”, the official reply letter from the Maricopa Board of Supervisors is well worth a read.

Some highlights:

These accusations are false, defamatory, and beneath the dignity of the
Senate. … Their stunning lack of a basic understanding for how their software works is
egregious … You have rented out the once good name of the Arizona State
Senate to grifters and con-artists … We are stunned that you are asking us this question. It demonstrates a spectacular lack of understanding on your part…
We will not be responding to any additional inquiries from your “auditors”. Their failure to understand basic election processes is an indication you didn’t get the best people to perform in your political theatre.
We have wasted enough County resources. People’s tax dollars are real, your “auditors” are not.
You are using purple lights and spinning tables. You are hunting for bamboo.
These are not things that serious auditors of elections do.

Bear in mind that most of the board writing this letter are Republican 😁

Worth following “legaldad” on TikTok for some good takes on the “audit”. He’s a lawyer with ties to Arizona.

Also worth looking at the results of the genuine audits that were already completed in Maricopa by two experienced independent firms (Pro V&V and SLI Compliance) that specialise in election audits, are accredited by the Election Assistance Commission and don’t employ “ninjas”:

https://www.maricopa.gov/DocumentCenter/View/66843/SLI-Compliance-Forensic-Audit-Report
https://www.maricopa.gov/DocumentCenter/View/66844/Post-Audit-Report

Funnily enough, they found nothing of note.

Bear in mind that most of the board writing this letter are Republican

Yeah, but Bill Gates was involved and he was mates with Jeffrey Epstein.

And now the Hamburglar dude is running for the U.S. Senate.

Mark McCloskey, lawyer facing felony charges for pointing a gun at BLM protesters, announces Senate run https://t.co/cMPtQcQaio

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) May 19, 2021

Guess which gun-toting lawyer shares a lawyer with the QAnon guy.

Checkin in with Gateway Pundit pic.twitter.com/ZeW8zn5vfD

— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) May 19, 2021

Times they are achanging – possibly, maybe, hopefully

BBC News – Republicans defy Trump to back Capitol riot probe
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-57180679

Only the senate, it still has to pass the upper house I think. iirc it was the same with impeachment.

Yes, it will probably die in the Senate, but that is a surprising number of Republicans in the House that voted for it.

I’m still seeing lots of people online claiming that the Capitol riot was all just Antifa in disguise. 🙄

You’d like to think an official probe would help, but these people are already blindly ignoring the fact that no one arrested was antifa, and that right-wingers livestreamed it from their own social media accounts, so I doubt it.

I’m still seeing lots of people online claiming that the Capitol riot was all just Antifa in disguise.

I thought the Republican party had decided that the Capitol riot looked like a normal tourist visit?

See the guy on the left.? He now thinks it was just tourists.

So they lawyer claims the rioters were “brain damaged” etc. How many of them turned out to be in the services/police? Says a lot for their recruitment vetting!

Yeah, that’s the alternate gaslight story. They have a few variants.

The rewritten narrative appears to be something like:
– The speeches beforehand didn’t encourage any violence because Trump said “peacefully” (once, near the start. He also used the word “fight” 20 times and had the crowd chanting “Fight For Trump”).
– It was a perfect peaceful protest. There was no violence or damage.
– The violence and damage was all caused by Antifa/BLM in disguise.
– There is no evidence of violence or damage and the fact that there is so much video evidence of violence and damage from live-streams shows that it was a frame up by Antifa.
– The people that tore down the American flag and erected the Trump flag in its place were also Antifa.
– Ashli Babbitt was a brave patriot who was murdered by security for no reason at all and/or she was an antifa agitator and/or she never really existed.

nickc
Full Member

See the guy on the left.? He now thinks it was just tourists.

It’s really bizarre, this. Because there’s 2 photos of him during the attack that really stick out, one being that one where he is quite reasonably shitting his pants. But in the other, he was helping barricade the door against the mob, just a few yards from where Ashli Babbitt was killed. That’s bloody brave and deserves recognition. (and self-interested, sure, but most people in the chamber were not doing what he did)

And then, he decides to rewrite history. So now instead of being the brave military veteran who stood the line between his colleagues and friends and a riot, he’ll be remembered for the picture where he’s shitting his pants, and as a completely dishonest terrorist apologist. Why would you do that to yourself? There’s no shortage of other people who were spreading the lie…

 as a completely dishonest terrorist apologist. Why would you do that to yourself?

Even weirder is that answer to that very sensible question appears to be; so an narcistic amoral embezzling orange  shit-gibbon will think favourably of him.

I think you missed out increasingly irrelevant from that list of Trumps “qualities”, which makes it even more peculiar.

Apparently 51% of Republican voters believe the storming of the Capitol building was done by the radical left seeking to discredit Trump.

As I posted earlier, Republicans like those voting in Congress are doing nothing more than virtue signalling. They need to shit or get off the pot and start another party else they are just enablers.

Half of the Republican party’s support is bat shit crazy and the number of Republican representatives that are bat shit crazy is increasing as well. If you think you are hanging in there to try and save your party think again, your party is lost, see that 51% figure. The best that virtue signalling vote will get you is deselection or a Trump candidate standing against you come the next election cycle.

Does anyone on here think that there is any chance that the Republican Party will return to normality? That it will stabilise?……

Thought not, and given that thought, every day that so called non bat shit crazy Republicans procrastinate they are assisting the demagouges, traitors and fascists that they sit alongside (until they themselves get kicked out). They are destroying their country by backing a lie and that’s bat shit crazy too.

he’s not happy about the New York DA

Liz Cheney’s primary challenger getting the dirty laundry out before oppo researchers do.

Jesus Christ pic.twitter.com/R3FibIvMGk

— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) May 21, 2021

Apparently 51% of Republican voters believe the storming of the Capitol building was done by the radical left seeking to discredit Trump.

When he was in power, he was able to control the narrative and feed the big lie, now I would be surprised if the figure was still that high as he has been much less effective in communicating that lie in the face of reality. I think it will still be too high but I would expect it to be a bit less than 50%.

It is still a dangerous narrative to spout, but unless the democrats **** up big, it isn’t a winning narrative. They may further radicalise those already too far along that path, but they are not winning anybody over with this stupidity.

Ugh. For some reason I can’t log into my utility account. What am I getting wrong here? pic.twitter.com/3ILmwadeih

— Chris Krebs (@C_C_Krebs) May 22, 2021

fix it up

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. has convened a grand jury, suggesting his investigation of the former president Donald Trump’s business has entered an advanced stage after more than two years. https://t.co/DtqdWD9od2

— The Seattle Times (@seattletimes) May 25, 2021

Amazon buying MGM may get Trump nervous…. MGM own Apprentice outtakes

Amazon buying MGM may get Trump nervous…. MGM own Apprentice outtakes

The Orange Buffoon has closed his “From the desk” blog page. Probably because nobody was reading it. Hopefully he’s becoming increasingly irrelevant. Fingers crossed!

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/02/trump-blog-page-shuts-down-for-good.html

cheque bounced.

going off the deep end

Trump has been telling a number of people he’s in contact with that he expects he will get reinstated by August (no that isn’t how it works but simply sharing the information). https://t.co/kaXSXKnpF0

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) June 1, 2021

Yeah, saw that last night. People like Sidney Powell, Steve Bannon, that creepy My Pillow guy and Michael Flynn are apparently vying to provoke an insurrection. It’ll either be a treasonous plot that’ll land at least one of them in jail, a means of signalling to wannabe GOP presidential candidates that team Trump are the only show in town, pure grift or the insane mutterings of an increasingly irrelevant bunch of loonies.

It’ll either be a treasonous plot that’ll land at least one of them in jail

That sounds a very fine line for them to be taking – or are they so far down the rabbit hole they are hoping their arrest will actually start it?

That sounds a very fine line for them to be taking – or are they so far down the rabbit hole they are hoping their arrest will actually start it?

There are elements funding the GOP who apparently believe that democracy is a barrier to competing with China amongst other things. It’s a fair bet that there’s a whiff of grift from the likes of the useful idiots like Powell et all, knowing that they can fall back on the “shortbus” defence.

DO you not think that all those touting a coup think they are safe because if they do get arrested/jailed it’d be ‘proof’ theres a consipiracy and it’ll kick start the rebellion (whilst the mob frees them from jail)?

I see the ‘audit’ in Arizona are now going to give ‘tours’ of their work. Presumably other republican states will be given the VIP tour to see how they can join in. That starts getting a little creepy and dangerous. This stuff needs to be shut down now but it it does everyone is going to shout coverup.

Donald Trump had become frustrated after hearing from friends that his “From the Desk of Donald J. Trump" site — launched just a month ago — was getting little traffic, a person familiar with his thinking said. So he shut it down. https://t.co/RSt0xIbHD0

— The New York Times (@nytimes) June 2, 2021

a person familiar with his thinking said

“Thinking” here doing a lot of heavy lifting.

The former president had heard from friends that the site was making him look small and irrelevant

I love the emphasis on “small and irrelevant”. Marvellous.

Update: Lindell filed it today.

He's boasted that this suit will prompt the Supreme Court to overturn the election, 9-0. It won't, because 1) he sued private parties that don't have the power to do that even if the court ordered it and; 2) he's only seeking monetary damages. pic.twitter.com/aVTh9T1bJg

— Brad Heath (@bradheath) June 4, 2021

a means of signalling to wannabe GOP presidential candidates that team Trump are the only show in town, pure grift or the insane mutterings of an increasingly irrelevant bunch of loonies.

I hope people aren’t thinking that now Trump has gone, so are his politics. The GOP have become infected with it, their recent actions demonstrate this, all it takes is for them to field a presidential candidate with trumpian politics, but without the trumpian idiocy, and the dems to do too much cosying up to corporate America, and 2024 could see a return.

This is by no means over.

The appeal of Trump to the Republicans was that his daily theatre on social media was a distraction while the functioning apparatus of the state was quietly neutered or dismantled. Make no mistake here, there are a number of candidates waiting in the wings to repeat the cycle and they will rely on an energized voter base overcoming apathy from the liberally minded to retake office, perhaps permanently.

This all goes back to spending limits on personal donations – a small number of sympathetic billionaires with deep pockets and one hand on the policy tiller are probably the greatest threat to American democracy right now. Fascism isn’t a spontaneous movement – it relies on sponsorship to flourish, cut the funding off at the source and it withers and dies.

The appeal of Trump to the Republicans was that his daily theatre on social media was a distraction while the functioning apparatus of the state was quietly neutered or dismantled. Make no mistake here, there are a number of candidates waiting in the wings to repeat the cycle and they will rely on an energized voter base overcoming apathy from the liberally minded to retake office, perhaps permanently.

I don’t think that’s what happened. Trump said out loud what a lot of people thought. The Republican establishment initially believed he’d be a flash-in-the pan so they ignored him. Once he showed that the extremist voters supported him, other Republican politicians realized that opposing him would be the end of their careers. He just terrorized the Republicans and they were too scared to oppose him.

Guys like Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley are quite smart, but utterly dishonest. They know that Trump will eventually leave the scene so they are just hoping to pick up his supporters when that happens. It has nothing to do with policies because the Republican party basically has no policies anymore beyond cutting taxes and trolling liberals.