Sunday, January 03, 2021

A completely unexpected bipartisan win for civilization? This matters, a lot!

How on Earth did this slip past Mitch McConnell?

 By a vote of 81 to 13, the Senate on New Year's Day joined the House in overriding Trump’s veto of the National Defense Authorization Act. It was the first (and last) veto override of Trump’s presidency. Among the shifting reasons Trump gave for that veto were its requirement that military bases named after (incompetent) Confederate generals be renamed, and his demand for the repeal of protections from liability for online sites hosting the content of third parties. But I suspect the real reason was the inclusion in the bill of the Corporate Transparency Act. 

Years ago, it occurred to me that perhaps the single biggest progressive reform Congress could enact would be to eliminate the anonymity of shell corporations, requiring the disclosure of their ultimate beneficial ownership. It would go a long way toward solving a whole range of corrupt practices, from tax evasion to money laundering, and all manner of other illegality. 

Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) had introduced a version of this legislation in the House every year since 2009. I had no real hope that such a fundamental reform would ever be achieved. So I’m a bit stunned that it actually passed Congress. This is huge. 

In addition to requiring disclosure for most new corporations, it also requires it from existing corporations over a two year period. It’s not perfect. It only requires that this information be given to the US Treasury Department, rather than being made public. But that’s the nature of legislative compromise. That doesn’t seriously detract from its virtue. 

Of course, Trump has been a notorious, corrupt user and beneficiary of shell corporations.  (Among other things, he was virtually the only developer of high-end residential properties in NYC to allow purchases of units by anonymous shell companies, making them havens for money laundering by Russian mobsters and all manner of other disreputable people. This is likely at the core of his love of all things Russian.) So it’s no wonder he vetoed the bill. It’s ultimate passage is an achievement that should be celebrated.  (Thanks to Russ Daggatt)

== An implied next step... one simple act that would save the world ==

Naturally, this long-needed reform is consistent with everything I said in The Transparent Society about the core health metric of any society is light and reciprocal accountability. But all the more so in this case, because it is a clear step toward the one act that I think could save the world, especially Western Civilization, in a single shot. That reform would be a World Ownership Treaty with one simple provision:

 If you own something, you must say, publicly, "I own that." 

Here's my earlier missive about this concept, back in 2010, and more generally in The Transparent Society.

For most humans, this would be a small and temporary inconvenience. A few ambiguous property lines might abruptly come into conflict and each nation must offer its own conflict-resolution systems, ideally with plenty of Solomonic incentives for out-of-court mediation. And as I suggested in 2010, this could be phased in, starting at the top.

 Despite all those palliations, sure, such a worldwide edict would open a decade-long golden age for lawyers. So? we need new jobs for humans anyway. But that's an almost trivial side-effect.

Imagine if all property - from ocean-going tankers to great tracts of land - can be attributed either to a state, to named people, or to accountable foundations. Then the tax base will expand, enormously, allowing a rate CUT for almost all honest taxpayers. 


But that, too, is a secondary effect.  

So is enabling markets to work better, by empowering consumers and buyers and sellers to know better who owns what. It is where Adam Smith and Hayek overlap in agreement! No 'defender of free enterprise' should oppose that -- though many hypocrites will. 

But no, even that is secondary!

The primary outcome of such a worldwide accounting of ownership would be the abandonment off truly vast amounts of land and riches that are now ambiguously 'owned' by mafias, cartels, drug lords, and countless other kinds of scoundrels. All that vast wealth would devolve to states who would first use it erase crushing debt burdens and then - very likely - be able to declare a year-long tax holiday for honest folks. 

And yes, there's likely that much illicit wealth, out there. (Developing nations would better be able to retrieve trillions stolen from them by former kleptocrat despots, and present day ones would likely topple.)

Oh, there'd be clever tricks and cheats. Picture a drug lord, knowing that he cannot declare ownership of an entire valley without prompting too many questions, simply handing out parcel deeds to every man, woman and child living on the estate... with the assumption that they will then 'sell' their parcels back to him at a very low price. Yes. Though to avoid scrutiny he'd have to leave them with some of the land and some profits. Call it a form of redistribution, even if you are cynical. (This bears some relationship to the methods of Hernando de Soto, that bore such excellent fruit for poor farmers in Peru, empowering them to participate better in market economics.) 

Point is that vast amounts of criminality and evil in this world are built on a house of cards, relying on shadows and obscurity. (e.g. Vladimir Putin might spend sleepless nights worrying if the Russian populace will find out how much of their wealth he and 100 other former commissars now own.)

== Specifics ==

Want the biggest reason for this reform? Bigger than erasing most governmental debt and giving honest citizens lower rates and a tax holiday? 

Bigger than disempowering drug lords and despots around the globe? Bigger than basing policies and market decisions on greater participant knowledge, the very thing enthusiasts claim healthy markets require?

Okay, how about saving the world?

On 16 March 1978, the oil tanker Amoco Cadiz ran aground on Portsall Rocks, 2 km from the coast of Brittany (France). NOAA estimates that the total oil spill amounted to 220,880 metric tonnes of oil resulting in the largest oil spill of its kind in history to that date.  While Amoco wound up paying reparations to France, the actual owner of the tanker itself was so thoroughly masked under shell companies that investigators could never find or hold them accountable. This sort of thing happens all the time... and defenders of capitalism are utter hypocrites when they say public exposure in the open marketplace will take care of most such problems.  No, not when 'public exposure' is a mockery and light never shines upon the skulldugerous mighty.

Hence, an aggressively radical idea... actually serves to save moderate, even capitalist processes from the very contradictions and lethal cheats that act -- as both Adam Smith and Karl Marx described -- to detroy market societies from within, turning consumers, citizens and the young against them.

No anonymous ownership of anything. You want the state to uphold and defend your property rights? Declare them! If no one claims ownership of a corporation, it dissolves and loses all its assets. 

Do I expect any of this to actually happen, short of the "Helvetian War" that I described in EARTH? 

Of course not. The powers of the world come in all varieties and many of them are generally in favor of enlightenment civilization that's been very good to them.  Still, the "good" or "sensible" zillionaires are twitchy, nervous types with obsessions distracting them from helping us overcome the well-focused and tightly collaborating cabals who are busy bringing back feudalism. And yet...

...oh, well, if Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney can plug away at this for 12 years, I suppose I can, for 30. Thank you, Rep. Maloney. I lay my sword at your feet.


== Oh but glance at this jpeg ... to see what we're up against ==

I've long held that THE central issue before us is the war on all fact based professions. No other matter compares, for one simple reason... all our other fights - e.g. to advance justice, fight racism/sexism, save the planet and all the rest - will go far better if the power of FACT is restored, because in those battles, facts are on the side of justice!

Which is why the all-out war on facts must be fought above all else. 

Our enemies of civilization know this. As exemplified in this graphic from 'Medal of Freedom recipient' Rush Limbaugh. It summarizes the all-out, Kremlin/Foxite-funded war vs. all nerdy professions perfectly: our major sources of objective fact are all part of the “universe of lies”:


Which is why the new administration needs to make this Job#1.  

Perhaps starting with my proposed FACT ACT.


207 comments:

1 – 200 of 207   Newer›   Newest»
David Brin said...

"'I just want to find 11,780 votes': Trump attacks Georgia officials as crucial runoffs approach...

And in thaat case would he claim victory by a ONE VOTE margin? He shoulda asked for 20,000. I begin to suspect he may seek to cheat.

https://news.yahoo.com/trump-georgia-runoffs-190320492.html

Alfred Differ said...

Keith,

Thank you for the PDF links regarding Peanut Butter.
I can see why no one should consider a moon for Pb at this point.

There is nothing quite like the way astronomers toss around reasonable estimates to constrain possible models of reality. Learning the method teaches so much about how we can reason about things without possessing a detailed model of them. "So... you think Pb might have a moon? Well... let's play with some numbers." Hah!

I remember well one of my grad professors being upset at those of us in his class when we could NOT think through probability estimates on our feet. It demonstrated that we did NOT understand the quantum theory he was teaching. We could regurgitate it on homework and tests, but with no deep understanding. We derailed him that day, and he spent the rest of it hammering home why we had to care enough to be able to do it. I'll never forget his agitation and annoyance. 8)

That second paper offered what absolutely every estimation paper should offer.

"IF we are in the ballpark, here are the observed spectra you should see when instrument X comes online. IF we are merely close, here is a range of possibilities. Also, here is what can throw us completely off."

Excellent.

Alfred Differ said...

Larry,

If, despite the grandstanding, Pence just does his job and Biden's victory is secure, then I will acknowledge that it was probably best we didn't initiate that rabbit hole last time. How's that for fair-minded?

Quite fair.

As for the earlier part...

retroactive justification

You won't have to do that. He lost this one badly enough that our DoD folks won't successfully divide into warring camps. Whether you are right about the previous election or not, the danger to us was a split between people who agree with you and people who think the institutions are strong enough to survive this without having to resort to extra-legal means.

I suspect history will look back at this period as temporary insanity that is actually inline with expectations for American behaviors. The method we used to win the Cold War also changed the world. We are stuck with it now and have to re-imagine ourselves in this new world. Of COURSE we will fight about it.

Alfred Differ said...

Regarding the new transparency act... there goes my plans for taking over the world. 8)

I expect it will go through a period of toothlessness as Treasury decides what they want to do and not do. How much do they want to prosecute?

It will begin to matter when we enforce it upon the lawyers who help set these things up. Back it up with state law that enforces professional consequences and things will get very interesting indeed.

A lot of Nevada corps are going to have to deal with this, though. Last time I looked at establishing a start-up, they offered strong advantages that might just have evaporated.

Keith Halperin said...

Thanks, Dr. Brin. This sounds like an argument similar to Hernando de Soto's and Institute for Liberty and Democracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hernando_de_Soto_(economist)#Main_thesis
I agree with him that people (especially poor ones who currently don't have it) should have title to what they own.(In general, we need to define what we mean by "own," though.)
We were having a related discussion sometime back on the Charlie Stross blog.
There was belief that the richest may not actually OWN all that much, but they CONTROL a great deal, and it's control rather than ownership that really matters.
Also, will an AI be able to own things? (It was suggested on the blog that a corporation IS an AI.)

David Brin said...

Keith thanks. inserted mention of de Soto.

Der Oger said...

And Luxemburg suddenly needs a new source of income. Perhaps selling EU passports, like Malta?

That said, your transparency idea will only work if it starts at the top, and then goes down. Otherwise, we will end up like China: A totally transparent citizen and an opaque government.

Larry Hart said...

Remember way back when the earth was cooling in October, when the Republican position was that if the vote counting was dragged out for days or weeks, it would destroy confidence in the election?

Larry Hart said...

Dr Brin in the main post:

...this graphic from 'Medal of Freedom recipient' Rush Limbaugh.


Well, if you just snip off the annoying rightmost 1/3 of the picture, the remaining image makes a lot more sense. Rush's face with the caption "Universe of Lies".

Larry Hart said...

In 2004 Ohio, the secretary of state (I used to know his name but I forget it now) was obviously in the bag for George W Bush, but they had to at least pretend that their goal was an honest election. Now, Trump keeps reminding the GA secretary of state that he's supposed to be a Republican--that is, he's supposed to be making sure his team wins. It's equivalent to reminding an umpire that since the Yankees appointed him to the position, his job is not to fairly call balls and strikes, but to call plays in the Yankees' favor, whatever actually happens on the field.

Republicans have become everything they falsely accuse liberals of being--insurrectionists and traitors.

"Treason's Greetings"

"Trump is the reason for the treason."

These things write themselves.

Larry Hart said...

It's about time! (emphasis mine)

https://twitter.com/rudepundit/status/1345819141534605312

Democrats in Congress are truly not understanding how angry we, their voters, are over what Trump and the GOP are doing. Everyone I speak to and hear from is fucking enraged at the MAGA freaks. We're a powder keg, too.

Ahcuah said...

I just want to add to a comment from Dr. Brin on the previous post:

"(1) Note that the US Navy high command moved the USS Nimitz and other tempting targets out of the death trap Straits of Hormuz, steaming east fast enough that traitors cannot order them back in, before Inauguration Day."

It looks like that order has been reversed (you can click on the bold/italics).

In Reversal, Pentagon Announces Aircraft Carrier Nimitz Will Remain in Middle East.

Or, here's the bare link:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/03/world/middleeast/trump-iran-carrier-nimitz.html

"The Pentagon said on Sunday that it had ordered the aircraft carrier Nimitz to remain in the Middle East because of Iranian threats against President Trump and other American officials, just three days after sending the warship home as a signal to de-escalate rising tensions with Tehran."

So much for reducing the chance of a Tonkin.

David Bayly said...

The war on experts , as seen by a Banksy fan

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2361383231/permalink/10158870872073232/

Jon S. said...

Re: Bean Dad -

David. He tormented a nine-year-old child, who he acknowledged had difficulty with spatial reasoning, for six hours, refusing to so much as give her a goddamn hint as to how his manual can opener (which he also acknowledged as a particularly tricky model to operate) worked. He could have taken twenty fucking seconds away from his precious jigsaw puzzle to show his daughter, an actual human being, the basic operating principles of the device, but he insisted that she had to work it out from first principles ("what problem do you think the inventor of the device was trying to solve?").

SIX HOURS. Six hours during which his child, supposedly one of the most important people in his life, was crying in frustration and hunger. Six hours rewarded in the end with dear old Dad actually permitting her to eat baked beans as a celebration, and then posting the entire story on Twitter to try to garner approval for his withholding of food from a growing child.

(In case you might be thinking he was a really nice guy who was just exaggerating, he's also of the opinion that the First Amendment has been twisted by "activist Jew judges" and "mud-people apologists" - his words, not mine.)

My kids are autistic. And when the time came for them to learn how to use a can opener, I showed them, demonstrated on one can, then had the child concerned at the time open a second one. Now they can do it just fine, and nobody had to cry while Daddy, the adult they're supposed to be able to trust to help them, recounted tales of "some of the great cans I've opened over the years".

I'm just glad I was able to let him know what I thought of his parenting style before he deleted his account.

Don Gisselbeck said...

Vaush did an excellent take down of this critter. His main point was that humans are successful not because of individual achievements but trusting social relationships. https://youtu.be/LxdR1ty6GW8

David Brin said...

Jon S while I agree that refusing to even offer hints was evil. I draw the boundary differently than you. Kids are tougher than we give credit and most of our ancestors faced challenges like this at nine or younger. She had no basis for genuine fear and there is confidence-building satisfaction in overcoming frustration. It boils down to "you had to be there." Also "How does she view the whole thing in retrospect."

And yes, if they have perceptual/processing difficulties that's another matter. You fine-tune the challenges so that they WILL be overcome by the kid's own confidence-building efforts. I think we can agree on that.

Keith Halperin said...

@ Everybody: Google engineers just organized a union, affiliated with the Communication Workers of America.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/04/technology/google-employees-union.html

Don Gisselbeck said...

Speaking as a mechanic, the proper sequence for learning any new skill is: watch then do under supervision.

Duncan Ocel said...

Congrats to the union for this step towards transparency. The only possible room for negative outcomes I can think of is the strange but historical case of assets being held in trust by organizations which are noncooperative or even hostile to their beneficiaries. In the fifties, for example, when the Klamath indian tribe was being federally terminated, the tribe was given a short period of time to sell off land, after which the remaining tribal land was transferred in ownership to a Portland-based bank. Later on, when the tribal members wanted to reassume control of their remaining land, they voted to terminate the trustee status of the bank. But instead of returning the land to public tribal ownership, the bank liquidated the land assets and gave a payout to each tribal member.
It sounds like a ludicrous situation, where either communication failure or outright animosity shaped the outcome, but such is so often the case in Indigenous-Colonizer relationships.
If a relationship failure along those lines occurred midcentury, it is not a stretch to imagine a similar setup resulting in lost assets for an innocent party when terrible circumstances prevail.

jim said...

I saw the change to eliminate anonymous shell corporations, it is long overdue.
What I will find interesting is what is the Treasury department is going to do about old shell corporations involved in criminal or civil cases. Apparently this law is retroactive, meaning existing anonymous shell corporations will have to reveal their owners (this happens in 2 years).

So every single money laundering case over the last 10 or 20 years needs to be reviewed. If lawyers or law firms are repeatedly involved with clients that engage in money laundering will they be prosecuted? Disbarred? Fined? Imprisoned?

The thing that pissed me off the most about the Obama administration was their refusal to prosecute wealthy and or politically connected criminals. Obama did not need republican’s permission to uphold the law he just chose not to uphold the law when it came to the powerful.

Will Biden’s administration be different????

Alfred Differ said...

I remember spending a lot of time trying to figure out how my camp kit can opener worked. Frustrating, but I didn't have an adult pressuring me... or hunger. Mostly curiosity with a touch of possible future embarrassment if I didn't figure it out.

Once a kid is crying and frustrated, they won't learn much about a new tool. They have to learn how to calm themselves first. Parents really oughta know that, but too many fathers don't. Gotta learn to be tough. Pfft!


I figured out the camp kit can opener after utterly mangling the can. It was a jagged, dangerous mess. Cut myself too if I recall, though not much. I was proud of my little achievement and then promptly forgot how to do it since I rarely use the tool. Years later as an adult I figured it out again with less blood.

Kids ARE tough, but they can learn not to trust their fathers REAL fast with harmful consequences later. I don't think it wise.

Alfred Differ said...

David Bayly,

That's a good one. Clear distinction between concrete thinking and abstract thinking.

I think that is a better description of the boundary in this fight. It isn't so much opposition to nerds. It is opposition to our abstractions being more important for education than their concrete facts.

Larry Hart said...

The finale of Captain America: Civil War :


Everett Ross:
"So how does it feel...to spend all that time, all that effort, to see it fail...so spectacularly?"

Zemo:
"Did it?


Zemo wanted to get the Avengers to destroy each other. He didn't get them to kill each other, but he did break the team apart.

Sounding real familiar.


John E Johnston III said...

The contract to build the Amoco Cadiz was signed in Chicago in 1970 after extensive negotiations, in Chicago and Spain, between Astilleros and Amoco. The nominal purchaser under the contract was a yet-to-be-formed Liberian corporation, Amoco Tankers Company. It is not one of the cross-claimants; after taking delivery of the ship, it transferred title to another Liberian corporation, Amoco Transport Company.

john fremont said...

@Don Gisselbeck

Speaking as an avionics technician, I cosign

Tony Fisk said...

The beans debacle reminds me of a scene from the comic tale "Three Men in a Boat", where the supposedly adult trio are preparing their first meal, and realise they've forgotten to bring a can opner!

Larry Hart said...

Someone who's not me is finally pointing this out! Emphasis mine...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/05/opinion/trump-georgia-senate-elections.html

...
Of the many stories to tell about American politics since the end of the Cold War, one of growing significance is how the Republican Party came to believe in its singular legitimacy as a political actor. Whether it’s a hangover from the heady days of the Reagan revolution (when conservatives could claim ideological hegemony) or something downstream of America’s reactionary traditions, it’s a belief that now dominates conservative politics and has placed much of the Republican Party in opposition to republican government itself.
...
Considered in the context of a 30-year assault on the legitimacy of Democratic leaders and Democratic constituencies (of which Republican-led voter suppression is an important part), the present attempt to disrupt and derail the certification of electoral votes is but the next step, in which Republicans say, outright, that a Democrat has no right to hold power and try to make that reality. The next Democrat to win the White House — whether it’s Biden getting re-elected or someone else winning for the first time — will almost certainly face the same flood of accusations, challenges and lawsuits, on the same false grounds of “fraud.”
...
The issue for Republicans is not election integrity, it’s the fact that Democratic votes count at all.
...

jim said...

Lets have a little fun and play the game
WHAT IF Biden acts like Trump???
What could he be doing?

Appoint Hunter to be the Ambassador to China.

Announce that George Bush Dick Chaney and the torture crew are going to be handed over to the International Criminal Court .

Tell the FCC to revoke the broadcast license for Fox and Clear Chanel for their role in helping spread the pandemic.

Completely cancel student debt.

Demand 500 million extra for the IRS to audit every one of the 1% ers.

Publicly ask foreign governments that have an extradition treaty with the US if any Trump official violated their anti-corruption laws and pledge to expedite the extradition of those officials to face justice.

Order an investigation of insider trading among members of congress.

Demand a billion dollars for a wide ranging prosecution of white collar crime targeting money laundering and the lawyers and accountants that enable it.

Raise tariffs on Chinese goods again.

Mint those trillion dollar platinum coins and pay off the debt. (hahahahaha)

(now I don’t think biden will do anything like that but this is kind of fun to imagine.)

Larry Hart said...

Good point...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/04/opinion/trump-georgia-call.html

Yet if there is no penalty for Republican cheating, there will be more of it. The structure of our politics — the huge advantages wielded by small states and rural voters — means that Democrats need substantial majorities to wield national power, so they can’t simply ignore the wishes of the electorate. Not so for Republicans, which is why they feel free to openly scheme against the majority.


Another good point...


During impeachment, Republicans who were unwilling to defend the president’s conduct, but also unwilling to penalize him, insisted that if Americans didn’t like his behavior they could vote him out. Americans did, and now Trump’s party is refusing to accept it. It’s evidence that you can’t rely on elections to punish attempts to subvert elections. Only the law can do that, even if it’s inconvenient.

Smurphs said...

Did you all see the Powerball and MegaMillion jackpots are both over $400 Million?

I allege that the games are rigged and demand they keep picking numbers until I win.

That's how it works, right?

Smurphs said...

Sorry, I know the above is a stupid, snarky comment. I just so want to post it to the Trumpists on Fox/Breibart/Qanon, etc. But I am unwilling to contaminate my computer by creating a fake login.

So I posted it here. Forgive me.

David said...

Re: Google unionization

If I recall correctly, there was initial skepticism of this effort - not that it was needed, but that the organizers had made some tactical errors in requiring >50% certification vote, which was seen as an artificially high bar.

Guess it wasn't.

The really interesting thing here is that the coming fights against management are already being signaled as "not about money." So what will they be about? Privacy? Surveillance capitalism? Monopolistic practices?

Or, perhaps, of we are REALLY lucky, they will be about the disastrous "hands-off" approach that Google has taken on its YouTube platform, allowing the very worst of the worst to game the algorithm to "red pill" a generation of users.

Starting about 2 years ago, we coined the phrase "Dark UX" to refer to working to make the digital products we design to be profitable, even when the profits were being extracted by harming the user.

There's a LOT going on behind the scenes.

David said...

BTW - if you haven't read this piece about the "oafish power play" of Trump's phone call to the Georgia Secretary of State, it contains this little gem:

"[Trump] reached for one of the most powerful tools available to any master dealsmith, which was to demand that someone he understood to be a subordinate just fucking fix it for him. In the recording of that hour-long phone call that the Washington Post released over the weekend, Trump does this sometimes in tones of peevish impatience and at other times in an oily simper, but mostly he just does it over and over again, even after it has become clear even to him that it is not working. The cumulative effect is basically that of watching a fat old housecat try to solve a Rubik’s Cube."

H.L. Mencken would be proud.

matthew said...

Pennsylvania GOP refuse to seat Democrat. His election was certified by the PA State Supreme Court, but they are refusing to seat him because his opponent refuses to concede. The new GOP normal is to refuse legitimacy to *any* close vote. There is no obvious remedy to this action - the State Supreme Court already ruled on it. Just a naked power grab.

https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/spl/jim-brewster-pennsylvania-senate-gop-refuse-to-seat-nicole-ziccarelli-20210104.html


Trump getting rid of his own US Attorney in Georgia and replacing him by written order. Pak was set to resign on 1/20, so this is *very* unusual. Someone needs to get Pak under oath *today* to testify as to what happened.

https://www.npr.org/2021/01/05/953477812/trump-appointed-u-s-attorney-in-georgia-resigns

Just because a coup is sloppy doesn't mean it is not a coup. In fact, it helps to convince media and citizens not to take the threat seriously.




Larry Hart said...

matthew:

There is no obvious remedy to this action ...


There is, but no one wants to acknowledge it. It's a French word, popularized around 1793.

Larry Hart said...

I can't find the article at the moment, but I saw one recently which (properly, IMHO) described Mike Pence's role tomorrow as being like the guy who opens an envelope at the Academy Awards and reads the winner. He doesn't get to decide the winner. And if he refused to read it, the winner would still be the winner. The reading of the contents of the envelope isn't a performative act, but an informative one.

Larry Hart said...

A while back, I posted an old folk tale about the king's friend who always said "That's wonderful" about anything that happened, no matter how seemingly-bad. And the punch line which demonstrated that even his being thrown into the dungeon turned out to be a good thing. I don't want to bore with repetition, but you get the idea.

In that light, I wish I had had the foresight four years ago to proclaim happily, "That's wonderful!" when the company I had worked at for sixteen years decided (with one week's notice) not to renew my contract, and I was out on the street looking for a new job just at the time that Donald Trump's surprise election threw the economy into turmoil.

Because, had I not been so unemployed back then, I would not have had reason to take a new job at a health care organization. Because I did just that, I was able to receive part 1 of the Moderna COVID vaccine this morning. Not quite the secret origin of Captain America, but I'd like to think that I can feel it re-writing my RNA as we speak. :)

As the protagonist of Vonnegut's Hocus Pocus often said, "How much longer can I go on being an atheist?"

scidata said...

I didn't like TNG much. One episode that was really good though was when the Cardassians were preparing a secret invasion and one rogue Star Fleet captain (Maxwell) caught on to their skullduggery. Picard apprehended Maxwell just in time to avert a war. But in the closing scene, Picard reveals to the Cardassian commander that although Maxwell was stopped, Picard knows Maxwell was right. We're onto you, and we'll be watching.

Mango Unchained may have done the Union an invaluable service by warning of what may come. Maybe that's why MoscowMitch is so consternated with the current goings-on. Ix-nay on the eason-tray. Of course others here have observed this too.

Keith Halperin said...

Hi Folks,
For some reason, I tend to get these comments in batches hours apart, so I get behind:
@Alfred: re: Proxima b articles:
You're very welcome. I like to think there's a tremendous amount I don't know, but a decent amount I can look up...
I've been interested in (the possible) exo-planets and planetary habitability since the '80s and there were so few articles then and so many now! YAY!!

@Everybody: re: Transparency, No More Shell Companies
I'm not a corporate attorney or a financial specialist (I'm just EVIL, EVIL, EVIL!!! Ra-ha-ahh-ha-hah!!!), but here are some things I would do were I on the “other side” to minimize any “inconveniences” this might cause:
1) Take it to court and tie it up for years.
2) Work to have it legally repealed by the next Congress.
3) Have it very narrowly defined.
4) Make sure there's no/little money to enforce it.
5) Make sure enforcement is very confusing, complicated, and ambiguous- more money for the lawyers and specialists!
6) Move my ownership to a jurisdiction which doesn't take such things as seriously- maybe a formal tax-haven, maybe not.
7) Make sure I transfer ownership to a front or puppet which I control.
8) Create new forms of digital ownership which wouldn't be affected by the new ruling.
9) Work to set up digital “ownership exchanges” so that the change in legal ownership (but not control) can be done as easily and quickly as buying and selling stock.
10) Use technology to digitally, quickly, and easily dissolve and reform a company.

If I can come up with these pretty quickly, imagine what the $500+/hr folks will be able to do...(No YAY)

duncan cairncross said...

Jim says - what IF Biden does

"Appoint Hunter to be the Ambassador to China." -
Nepotism but he will probably do a better job than most

"Announce that George Bush Dick Chaney and the torture crew are going to be handed over to the International Criminal Court."
A bloody good idea

"Tell the FCC to revoke the broadcast license for Fox and Clear Chanel for their role in helping spread the pandemic."
Possibly a step too far

"Completely cancel student debt."
Not a bad idea

"Demand 500 million extra for the IRS to audit every one of the 1% ers"
An absolutely SUPERB idea! - only START with the 0.001% - that will probably pay for itself ten times over

"Publicly ask foreign governments that have an extradition treaty with the US if any Trump official violated their anti-corruption laws and pledge to expedite the extradition of those officials to face justice."
That is as it should be


"Order an investigation of insider trading among members of congress"
Another SUPERB idea

"Demand a billion dollars for a wide ranging prosecution of white collar crime targeting money laundering and the lawyers and accountants that enable it."
Another SUPERB idea


"Raise tariffs on Chinese goods again"
The First actual BAD idea in the bunch


"Mint those trillion dollar platinum coins and pay off the debt. (hahahahaha)"
Unsure - it could work

So Jims suggestions intended in a facetious manner are

Three SUPERB ideas that really really should be done
Three OK ideas
Three ideas that are neutral
ONE bloody silly idea

I know Jim does not mean these as suggestions but overall I would certainly go for that policy mix

Der Oger said...

@Jim: I may add some points to your list:

Order the construction of national memorials (think of Yad Vashem) in regard to the Extinction of Native Americans and Slavery. (I looked it up, but I did not find something with an equal symbolic power than, say, the Lincoln Memorial.)

Order the construction of memorials depicting the Trump crimes.

Order to tear down Trumps Wall. Give back land where it was disowned, for free.

Make a "Kneefall of Warsaw" maneuver vs. Black People, Native Americans, Latinos.

Commute all Death Sentences of all Federal Prison inmates.

Pardon all non-violent drug offenders in federal prisons (or reduce their sentences).

Pardon Julian Assange & Edward Snowden.

Awarding the presidential medal of freedom to Zack De La Rocha (who might reject it).

Ask for forgiveness in Southern America, Iran etc. for toppling democratically elected rulers and installing a dictator.

Order to conduct noisy air force training maneuvers over Mar-A-Lago and other Trump golf places.

Order that defense and intelligence contractors may not be hired anymore by the Federal Government.

Larry Hart said...

duncan cairncross:

I know Jim does not mean these as suggestions but overall I would certainly go for that policy mix


I wasn't quite sure how to take jim's "suggestion" post. From past conversations, I wouldn't expect his reference to Biden "acting like Trump" to be taken as a bad thing. He actually does prefer Trump's policies to those of mainstream Dems and mainstream Republicans. So I suspect that the point was that the things he imagines Biden doing--both good and bad--are simply "liberal" versions of the kind of things Trump does. Hunter instead of Junior. Both raising tariffs on China. Attacking media that the particular president doesn't like. That sort of equivalence.

'Course, while I claim to read trends, I don't read minds, so YMMV.

* * *

I'm posting this at 7:45 pm CST. How about we just stop counting all those extra votes that keep coming in and just call the Georgia elections right now?

:)

Larry Hart said...

Keith Halperin:

For some reason, I tend to get these comments in batches hours apart, so I get behind


Comment moderation. It's not just you.

David Brin said...

Wow, Der Oger you really are left of our community's center. Though you argue with more cogency and maturity than Jim used to. (I'll hold off any judgements on 2021 Jim.) That's fine.I'm sure we can agree on those 31 dseiderate shared by liberals and moderates alike... then commence arguing from there, is a better nation and world.

Tony Fisk said...

Seems like the Democrats have one, and probably two, new senators.

MustGo Mitch, much?

Alfred Differ said...

Der Oger,

I'm a defense contractor. Not all of us are hired to shoot people. I just help keep the computers and networks running.

You are thinking of mercenaries, perhaps?

For the record, I don't want Julian Assange pardoned. Not even in the slightest. I don't want him brought back to the US either. Let him be... elsewhere.

As for Snowden, I would like to see him serve one week in jail and then have his sentence commuted and live his days as a free man never to work in our field again.

Tim H. said...

The GOP seems to have a difficulty with "Vox Populi, Vox Dei":

https://www.npr.org/2021/01/05/953738158/in-explosive-debate-pa-gop-refuses-to-swear-in-reelected-democratic-senator

I don't think the apologists for the .001% planned for serving politicians to actually believe them.

Larry Hart said...

Seen on Stonekettle's Twitter feed:

Garbage in: Trump 2016
Garbage out: January 2021

Larry Hart said...

The rest of the world agreeing with me...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/05/opinion/trump-republicans-election.html

The governing “philosophy” of these unprincipled Trump-cult Republicans is unmistakably clear: “Democracy is fine for us as long as it is a mechanism for us to be in control. If we can’t hold power, then to hell with rules and to hell with the system. Power doesn’t flow from the will of the people — it flows from our will and our leader’s will.”

scidata said...

Congratulations to the US junior hockey team for beating Canada for the gold medal. We Canucks are bitterly disappointed by the loss, but we recognize that the game is sacred and we respect our southern brothers who love it as we do. A la prochaine.

Larry Hart said...

The musical Hamilton on the Georgia elections...


Freedom for America! Freedom for France!

Gonna start a new nation! Gotta meet my son!

We've won! We've won! We've won!

The world turned upside down!


* * *

Best words in the English language:
"soon-to-be Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell"

jim said...

Larry
The only policy of Trump I really support is his attack on globalization.

Although by signing off on the 2,000$ checks for all Americans a very important psychological barrier was broken and now direct payments to all Americans is now inside the Overton Window of political action, and that is potentially a good thing.

And Trump’s actions have shown us that the Presidency is actually a very powerful position if one is willing to use the power of the presidency. No more of the Obama excuse “I am helpless without congress.”

jim said...


Unfortunately I am very pessimistic about the Biden presidency.

First of all he was elected by an anti-Trump coalition not a pro Biden coalition. The different parts of that coalition have very different expectations. It would take a Politian of extortionary skill to manage a coalition like this … and that is not Biden.

Second, the opposition is fired up and don’t even consider him to be legitimately elected.

Third, the senate even at 50 democratic senators and the vice president don’t have the votes to eliminate the filibuster. That leaves McConnel in driver seat. And he has an obvious strategy to break up the democratic party….. Slow walk everything and only agree to do things that the corporate dems want and never what the progressives demand. He will probably try to demand that any cooperation from him must be paid for by screwing over progressive priorities.

Fourth, There is a really good possibility of recession caused by a spike in oil prices in the next four years. Oil is still critical to the economy and oil extraction is real problem, fracking has been shown to be economically unprofitable and the finances of every oil company in the world are in trouble due to the low price of oil and the increasingly higher cost of extraction. We are now likely in the situation in which the price of oil is not high enough to ensure future growth in extraction, and if the price of oil increased enough to stimulate new extraction the higher price of oil would cause an economic recession. The recession would drive down demand for oil and then its price, putting the oil companies right back into financial crisis. If you rinse and repeat this is likely to be how peak oil plays out.

Fifth, climate change is picking up and we can expect many climate change induced disasters and that will put a whole lot more stress on our social system. (God forbid that we get the flooding of the central valley in California in the next four years, easily a Trillion dollar disaster.)

Sixth, on the international front American hegemony is in deep trouble and Biden may not be able to change that.

Then there are some wild cards possible. What if the one or more of the covid vaccines turn out to have serious negative effects on some portion of the people who take them?

Larry Hart said...

Dr Brin:

Wow, Der Oger you really are left of our community's center.


I'd say that's only true because most of the community is US-based, and we've come to understand that getting anything done here requires buy-in--or at least toning down of active resistance--from states with small populations but equal representation with populated states, and who perceive us as literal demons. Therefore, our expectations of what is possible skew more rightward than our actual desires.

Duncan Ocel said...

@Der Oger
Perhaps I could argue to go further:

Abolish our punitive prison system and replace it with rehabilitative models.

Use Eminent Domain to seize 10% of the land area of the US and return it to indigenous control.

Open borders in all ways; anyone who wants to come in can get an ID and a Social Security number printed out at the border. Every adult residing in the US is eligible to vote and to work and pay taxes.

Adopt Modern Monetary Theory principles to guide federal fiscal policy.

Pay out huge reparation checks to Black families that trace roots to slave OR sharecropper days; announce publicly that these checks cannot wholly make up for the suffering that our ancestors caused.


Go 'head and disprove my points! I feel that I'm only being SLIGHTLY left with these.

Larry Hart said...

McConnell must have just had a "Do you still think you can control them?" moment.

Robert said...

Der Oger's suggestions look good to me, mostly. But then I consider Sanders fairly right-wing (although not as right as most of the Democrats).

From a global perspective, American politics runs the full gamut from moderate right-wing to batshit crazy right-wing. You don't really have a left wing anymore.

Larry Hart said...

re: stormTrumpers on Capitol Hill...

They had a chance to prevent this last January.

Larry Hart said...

After today, it will be hard to maintain the narrative that the danger of violence comes from leftist protesters. Maybe we start taking white-wing terrorism seriously?

Larry Hart said...

Duncan Ocel:

Open borders in all ways; anyone who wants to come in can get an ID and a Social Security number printed out at the border. Every adult residing in the US is eligible to vote and to work and pay taxes.


I'm pretty much with you on "work and pay taxes", but are you seriously arguing that anyone in the world who makes it to our shores immediately becomes a voting citizen? There's a reason that naturalization is a thing. Your stance is analogous to saying that anyone touring the "World of Coke" exhibit in Atlanta should be a voting member of the board of directors of the Coca Cola company.

David Brin said...

Sorry, got time crushed this morning, then kvelled on good news... while we await a plausibly likely McVeigh event, alas.
-----

Alfred & I are generally aligned. We have a reason to fight the Mad-Treasonous-Confederate-Putinist right that some of you don't have... that only if it it utterly crushed will there be a chance of arising some kind of moderate/adult/sensible Smithian-libertarians that will sit down and negotiate, offering proposed solution alternatives that use paternalistic government a bit less and incentivized competitive problem solving a bit more. Over-dependence upon ANY one path or method is a recipe for long term disaster... though right now, restoring a vigorous, Rooseveltean nation and alliances and science is vastly more important than anything else, while we crush the treason.

"I don't want Julian Assange pardoned. Not even in the slightest. I don't want him brought back to the US either. Let him be... elsewhere. As for Snowden, I would like to see him serve one week in jail and then have his sentence commuted and live his days as a free man never to work in our field again."

Amen. Snowden is a real man who has expressed willingness to pay for his crime commensurately to his civil disobedience, which did us net-good, but cannot be wholly excused. (Civil disobedience is worthless without willing acceptance of proportionate pain, as taught by Gandhi and King.) Two years in a medium-low prison... then free (like the Pentagon Papers guy) to spend the rest of his life as a college prof thronged by co-eds. Assange, in contrast, is an utter asshole who took a great idea and threw it into ill repute.

David Brin said...

Yipe... and we have a lefty WINNER in Duncan Ocel. That's fine Duncan O. Chime in with that stuff. So long as you promise to fight alongside us for all the stuff here, first, because we can GET these things if we are shoulder to shoulder...

https://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2019/07/debate-special-shall-we-let-them-divide.html?fbclid=IwAR2El-XshEFSKSFFBAzxX6YZwJ5G2VVPXHHFUG8BdE8Rvwg7WKmzhqZWkYI

Then, yeah, I'm sure gonna oppose the full versions of those things you posted as longer range goals. They are utterly loopy... though AIMED in the right direction we must go.

David Brin said...

"Third, the senate even at 50 democratic senators and the vice president don’t have the votes to eliminate the filibuster."

Nope, wrong. When installed as Majority Leader, Schumer can:

1. Restore the TALK FILIBUSTER... requiring that senators trying to block legislation talk the whole time. Watch, then, as the McConnellite/Putinists get more picky about what they block.

2. If that fails to dislodge the traitors and they continue blocking needed legislation, the majority can simply vote to end the filibuster by majority vote. That's it. Period. The filibuster is traditional. And now that the Putin Party is in full civil war mode, then play rough.

3. Romney and the 'never Trumpers" can finally end their craven, mincing dance and save the filibuster by providing ten votes for cloture enough times to get essentials passed. I both hope for it... and kinda hope not.

4. Schumer must IMMEDIATELY denounce the entire principle of the Majority Leader controlling what goes to the floor! One idea is that every Senator shall get five opportunities per session to demand a floor vote on anything... and Speaker Pelosi should grant every House member (yes, including Republicans) one per session. It is one of dozens of jiu jitsu moves I recommended in POLEMICAL JUDO that'd make dems clear the party in favor of meaningful reform.

There are others. Have a look.
http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2019/07/debate-special-shall-we-let-them-divide.html

Larry Hart said...

jim:

Unfortunately I am very pessimistic about the Biden presidency.


Yeah, big surprise there.


Second, the opposition is fired up and don’t even consider him to be legitimately elected.


So you were equally pessimistic about the Trump presidency?

jim said...

Wow thing are really getting out of control in DC today.

If Biden does not immediately bring the hammer down on this sedition we will not have a democratic republic for long.

These people can not be allowed to violently overturn the results of the election.

I wish I had the confidence in Biden to handle this dangerous situation with some real backbone and make these assholes pay a real price.


David said
"2. If that fails to dislodge the traitors and they continue blocking needed legislation, the majority can simply vote to end the filibuster by majority vote."
that was my point. The Dems do not have Joe Manchin's vote to eliminate the filibuster.

Larry Hart said...


Fox News quotes Brad Parscale, the former Trump campaign manager: “This is not MAGA” and “we are not Antifa.”


With all due respect, this is MAGA, and you are exactly what you try to portray Antifa as.

As Katniss Everdeen put it:

If you think...for one second...that the Capital will ever treat us fairly, you are lying to yourselves. Because we know who they are and what they do. THIS is what they do! And we must fight back.

I have a message for President Snow. You can torture us, and bomb us, and burn our districts to the ground. But do you see that? Fire is catching. And if we burn...you burn with us!

Larry Hart said...

Seen on TV:

"Pres. Trump authorizes sending national guard to Capitol Hill"


Which begs the obvious question--on which side?

Larry Hart said...

"Deplorable" is too nice a word. Hillary grossly undercounted the percentage of Trump supporters in that particular basket. She said only half of them.

#ThereAreNoGoodTrumpSupporters

Keith Halperin said...

@ Everybody: Is this Trump's "Dead Zone" moment?
https://imgur.com/gallery/hkgFw

Larry Hart said...

Legitimate question--I don't know the answer.

If...just theoretically...Trump were to be impeached and removed from office in the next 13 days, would he still be entitled to lifetime Secret Service protection. Because if not, that would be reason enough.

matthew said...

It will be interesting to see if Trump declares an emergency in response to a riot that he called for this morning. He has sent in the National Guard troops he controls (DC) now that NG from Virginia and Maryland are on the way. If Trump goes the Insurrection Act route for an insurrection that he started and supported just this morning, then he is clearly signaling a coup in unambiguous terms.

I suspect he does not have the nerve, but I'm not sure.

Keith Halperin said...

@Everybody (Mainly Americans): NBC projects Osoff as winner in GA

Robert said...

Larry Hart: After today, it will be hard to maintain the narrative that the danger of violence comes from leftist protesters.

Why?

Your country has maintained the narrative that Republicans are the party of fiscal responsibility why Democrats are profligate spenders for a couple of generations, contrary to evidence.

You've maintained the narrative that black folks with guns are dangerous while white folks with guns are patriotic for, apparently, as long as you've had a country.

What makes you think this narrative is going to be any different?

jim said...

I just saw Biden’s response the rioting and attempted sedition on the capital today.

OH MY GOD- WHAT A SPINELESS FREAKING PUSSY !!!

He called on Trump to make it all better.

He should have said something like this
“This out of control seditious mob is trying to violently and unconstitutionally overturn the results of the election. I will not stand for this behavior. I will be ordering the FBI to use all the video footage from the lawless violent actions on the capital to identify all those involved. We will be prosecuting to the fullest extent of the law, all those involved in this unconditional violent attempt to overturn the results of the election. I do not take lightly my responsibility to defend the constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic.”

Der Oger said...

@Alfred:

"I'm a defense contractor. Not all of us are hired to shoot people. I just help keep the computers and networks running.

You are thinking of mercenaries, perhaps?"

I think mostly of mercenaries, but I'd keep outsourcing of services in the intelligence and military community at the lowest level possible, for several reasons.

First, I am mostly with Machiavelli's view on mercenaries that they can cause more harm than they provide benefits, simply by the virtue of costing more than a regular employee of the state. (I myself worked for a temporary employment agency, once. While I earned a little bit more per hour than the local staff, my company charged three times that number in total.)

Additionally, when I read Snowdons "On Permanent Record", what shocked me somewhat was the extent the intelligence community relied on private contractors to provide core services in very vulnerable areas, for grossly inflated wages per hour.

Second, I believe, core functions of the state must be able to be fulfilled by the state at any time, thus the state must offer the necessary training for this functions. (What has to be considered a core function, and how to recruit the people to fulfill these functions once you have trained them may differ culturally and is open to debate.) By handing them out to private companies, you give away things beyond money.

Third, during the protests this summer (especially in DC and Portland) the Federal government used unmarked, unidentified agents for riot control. I remember one article linking them to mercenaries, but I cannot track it down now. Also the extent that contractors served as counterintelligence spies against the Standing Rock protesters is something I personally find worrysome.

Consider the following scenario: The DoJ and Homeland Security hire mercenaries from certain companies (which CEOs happen to have good relationships to the Adminstration). Second, use covert employees to stage false flag attacks and exercebate existing counter-protests. Third, use the intel gained on specific targets - opposition leaders, unruly generals etc. - to take them out, preferably in the same hour. Then, quell counter-protests with the remaining troops, while the military is beheaded or compliant, and the rest of the country in chaos. Finally, pardon anyone involved in the coup d'etat (if you need them later on).

Granted, it sounds paranoid ... but not totally impossible. It is more a bad feeling and the thought that having a sizable, motivated, well-equipped and well-placed private army might work.


"For the record, I don't want Julian Assange pardoned. Not even in the slightest. I don't want him brought back to the US either. Let him be... elsewhere.

As for Snowden, I would like to see him serve one week in jail and then have his sentence commuted and live his days as a free man never to work in our field again."

What I don't meant was not to sanction the crimes they might have committed - but the reaction shown by the Praetorians was out of proportions. I could well live with having them sentenced, but demanding 175 years for Assange is just gross. Sentence them, yes, but either with a light sentence (as Dr. Brin proposed) or pardon them after a few days.

Also, lets get not hypocritical: Assange also published material about war crimes (or at least very questionable behavior), and Trump pardoned some of them, recently. I also believe that the NSA conducts not only political espionage on allied nations (like, Germany), which is a criminal behaviour our government choose not to persecute (Merkel got flak for playing nice), but also industrial espionage on a regular basis. (I don't say we do not do it, or would not do it, if we had the capabilities of the NSA. But the difference would be that the BND director, and possibly the Secretary of the Chancellor's Office would have to resign immediately if caught red-handed.)

David Brin said...

Sorry about these moderation comment waves. A couple of loony assholes made it necessary, alas.

I that category I do NOT put Jim... though frankly, his hystrionics do prompt me to skim and shrug and move on.

Larry Hart said...

Robert:

What makes you think this narrative is going to be any different?


Good question.

Possibly because white stormTrumpers actually put the life and limb of actual congresspersons, including Republicans, at risk. It's not just theoretical for them.

But I do have to admit that the video on tv showing Capitol police chatting up rioters and posing for selfies with them gives me pause. I'd have thought that the Proud Boys actually threatening police last night would have put them on our side.

Der Oger said...


The visual parallels are frightening.

1933: Nazis build a great heap of books to burn them.
2021: I see a great heap of journalistic equipment during the Congress riot during the live coverage on TV, the crushed items bearing the AP logo.



matthew said...

In the pile of smashed journalistic equipment Der Oger mentioned, a video cable was tied into a noose and hung up. I hope that journalists have a *lot* of security after dark tonight.

David, I think your call for a radically different inauguration ceremony will be answered now. Good prediction, even though I do not think that your good idea for Harris will be done. But there will be no high-value cluster of targets now, I do believe.

Larry Hart said...

Robert (reprised) :

What makes you think this narrative is going to be any different?


I'm watching a lot of live tv coverage, and I see indications that could go either way.

To your point, it is obvious that law enforcement has a different standard for dealing with white-wing terrorists than they do with BLM activists or even peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square.

On the other hand, that very thing is being noticed as something wrong more than I've ever seen before. It's not just me this time. I've heard several different tv commentators point out the comparison between this police response and Lafayette Square as well as posing the rhetorical question of how quickly and forcefully these insurrectionists would have been dealt with had they been black.

TV coverage brought down the Vietnam War. TV coverage of the George Floyd murder brought white people into sympathy with BLM and gave killing of unarmed black people a bad name. I'm somewhat hopeful that the visuals of stormTrumpers showing us what they are might have a similar effect.

One tell to look for--do the Republicans in congress go through with the plan to protest the electoral counts from several more states, or do they just get the counting over with ASAP?

Larry Hart said...

jim:

OH MY GOD- WHAT A SPINELESS FREAKING PUSSY !!!


It doesn't surprise me that you blame the guy with no power yet.

That said, I echo your invective, but aim it at the Congressional leaders on both sides "begging" Trump to put a stop to this. When you're at "begging" a bully for mercy, he's just getting started having fun.

Larry Hart said...

It won't happen, of course, but my Summer Daydream has Biden announcing that anyone who is arrested for opening fire on the insurrectionists can expect a full pardon and a Congressional Medal of Honor on January 20.

Tim H. said...

The dignity of transitions of Government in the past has been part of our respectability, our soft power, that "Drumph!" is squandering. This is still a powerful nation, but these thousands of little cuts add up eventually, if this continues long enough, we may no longer be able to project power much past our borders. Our place in the history books will be a lesson on the perils of hubris.

scidata said...

Isolation of a species, nation, tribe, or individual is so dangerous. I'm sure such nodes will show up as dark malignancies in any Prime Radiant that may eventually be created.

"I am alone and miserable."
- Mary Shelley, "Frankenstein"

Zepp Jamieson said...

I think today's events will kill the "Stop the Steal" movement--certainly in Congress, and effectively amongst Trump's supporters.
Irredeemable cowards are showing their true colours: Texas AG Ken Paxton made the ludicrous claim that the thousands of protesters and insurrectionists at the Capitol were actually members of Antifa, dressed up as Trump supporters.
Speaking of which, did you notice how many of those clowns looked like Cosplay people from a comic con?

matthew said...

MSNBC just reported that Twitter just announced that they froze Trump's account and are reviewing it for suspension. Apparently, he upped the ante again. Someone hide the nuke football, Trump's favorite toy just got removed from his hands and he'll want to throw a tantrum.

Larry Hart said...

Anyone still want to argue that Pence would have been worse?

Just askin'

matthew said...

Here is a link to the Trump Twitter freeze.
https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1346970430062485505

Larry Hart said...

Zepp Jamieson:

Irredeemable cowards are showing their true colours: Texas AG Ken Paxton made the ludicrous claim that the thousands of protesters and insurrectionists at the Capitol were actually members of Antifa, dressed up as Trump supporters.


If Twitter had been around in 1938, we undoubtedly would have been told that Krystalnacht was caused by Jews dressed up as Nazis breaking their own windows. For the insurance money.

David Brin said...

Even if it were deemed inappropriate for normal argument. my WAGER DEMAND tactic is ideal for dealing with monstrous calumnies like this one: "Texas AG Ken Paxton made the ludicrous claim that the thousands of protesters and insurrectionists at the Capitol were actually members of Antifa, dressed up as Trump supporters."

Some prminent person instantly challenging Paxton to baack his howler with escrowed wager stakes, like a man and not a lying blowhard, would eviscerate the coward.

Larry Hart said...

There is also the question of why Rudi Giuliani would have sent a crowd of antifa to invade the Capitol.

Just sayin'

Der Oger said...

@Larry Hart: Goebbels didn't need twitter. The word "Kristallnacht" itself is Nazi Propaganda. Cristallo was expensive and mainly used for luxurious drinking cups, chandeliers and mirrors, and it was to foster the antisemitic propaganda; to build the illusion that only wealthy Jewish bankers and merchants have been hit by the "people's anger."

Der Oger said...

Some thoughts:

1) One message got lost, but I had to smile. The new Attorney General nominee is Merrick Brian Garland.
2) Congrats to the Senate and Georgia Senate seats. I was wrong, but I did not expect Trump working so hard for Georgia to flip.
3) Once the initial horror of the Capitol Riot was gone, I realized that the Democrats might have received a political windfall. And having even Republican lawmakers crying for their blood is an opportunity.

Larry Hart said...

I hate to say anything good about Mitch McConnell, but what he's saying right now in the Senate chamber backs up a rhetorical question I've been asking for months now. If Trump refuses to leave, what can he actually do?

Bill Maher and people here on this list accurately predicted something like the events of today would happen. But my point is--even with a violent insurrection by stormTrumpers, it didn't ultimately prevent Congress from acting. If they had not been able to reconvene today, they would have done so tomorrow. If, God forbid, congresspeople had been maimed or killed so that they couldn't complete the count, Trump still wouldn't eke out a win. Whether or not a new president is anointed, Trump's existing term ends at noon on January 20. There's no procedural path from an armed riot to a Trump win.

So I ask again, even if the exact same thing happens on January 20, what can Trump do to stay in power?

Larry Hart said...

Der Oger:

Once the initial horror of the Capitol Riot was gone, I realized that the Democrats might have received a political windfall. And having even Republican lawmakers crying for their blood is an opportunity.


Yes, the ironic thing is that if Congress does what it looks like they will and skip the objections to the other states (besides Arizona, already in progress), then the certification of Biden's win might happen earlier than it would have without the riot.

Robert said...

Here is a link to the Trump Twitter freeze.

Interesting comments there. Apparently Twitter is controlled by antiamerican foreigners and it is treason to cut off the commander-in-chief's communications…

Robert said...

So I ask again, even if the exact same thing happens on January 20, what can Trump do to stay in power?

A counter-question. If the police (and other law enforcement agencies) continue to selectively follow orders, what could the non-Trumpists do to stop it, if extra-legal actions were being taken? You've got nearly half your population apparently convinced Trump won the election, and they seem to be the half that's more inclined to violent and impulsive acts.

Robert said...

I find it amusing that gun-toting protestors threatening Democrats are patriots, while candle-toting protestors delivering copies of the Constitution to Republicans are vicious antifa terrorists.

TCB said...

Re: Julian Assange. A couple of days ago the judge in the the extradition hearing blocked his extradition to the US. After rejecting about half a dozen different objections, such as the notion that Assange could not get a fair trial here or that notion that Assange hadn't technically broken any law; the British judge did agree, however, that US prisons are pretty much barbarous and might drive him to suicide.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/04/uk/julian-assange-extradition-wikileaks-us-gbr-intl/index.html

Re: THIS self-righteous chucklefuck again??? THIS lickspittle again? THIS prim preening fool again?
I refer, of course, to the estimable James Comey, who has just dropped a new book in which he says "Donald Trump should not be prosecuted after leaving office... Fired FBI director: next attorney general must ‘foster trust’"
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/05/james-comey-donald-trump-prosecuted-saving-justice-new-book
Mr. Comey, it took Benedict Donald exactly one day to send his brownshirts into the halls of Congress and make you look like a spineless, simpering, myopic twat once again.

Re: Billionaires and how they use the far right to advance oligarchy. Here's a good article called How Billionaires See Themselves (Reading the dreadful memoirs of the super-rich offers an illuminating look at their delusions.)
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2021/01/how-billionaires-see-themselves
Relevant right now both because it's a new article and because it mentions one of the invisible villains of the hour.

Sam Zell talks in his memoir about the importance of the “first mover advantage.” When the 1996 Telecommunications Act eliminated restrictions on the number of radio stations that any one person could own, Zell started snapping up distressed radio stations around the country at bargain prices. Eventually he had a giant network of them that he sold to Clear Channel for $4.4 billion. Zell doesn’t indicate that he did anything to improve the radio stations, or even that he had any interest in radio. He just knew that radio stations could be sold for more than their existing prices. In other words, absolutely nothing might change about a company or an industry, but someone like Zell can swoop in and make a giant load of money from it.

The radio station case is an example of trying to control as much of something scarce as you can. There are a limited number of licensed radio stations, so Zell just tried to buy up what he knew other people would soon need and have to pay him for.

Didn't do anything to improve radio??!??!?!?!??! Zell is one of the people who helped make sure you can hear right wing hate radio in every populated part of America. Zell is one of the people who put that rabid mob in the Capitol Rotunda. He may not even have known that would result. But he did nothing to prevent it. As Thom Hartmann said, the owners of these huge radio networks don't want to give shows to people who say they don't pay enough taxes.

BTW I am as left as anybody here, or close to it. I'm fully on board with nearly all Der Oger's recommendations, and partly on board with one or two (I can see the government needing to hire contractors for various roles... but the mercenaries? They ought to be rare and on a tight leash.)

And if I didn't say it before, we should test everyone for psychopathy who wants to be in charge of anything bigger than an ice cream truck, in government, military OR business. Weed them out! Psychopaths in power help NOTHING.

TCB said...

Oh, and: If you like living in a free United States of America, thank a Black voter. Or a Navaho, or any other voting person of color in your vicinity.

TCB said...

I've been consistently skeptical of Dr. Brin's insistence that COVID could have been created in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. But this article makes a reasonable-sounding case that it may have.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-escape-theory.html

David Brin said...

TCB try actually listening. You imply with "insistence that COVID could have been created in the Wuhan Institute of Virology" that I FAVORED that theory - when I made it very clear that I simply saw no refutation of that portion of the horizon of possibilities.
And that those reflexively shouting down any possibility were being rash.

I had prepared the following for posting then decided not to, as it became clear that there are actually a few sane - or self-preserving - republicans in congress, as the gambit has crashed overwhelmingly. Still you might find it interesting:

Commenting on the drama in real time. It seems some GOPpers in the House and Senate are defecting from the "objection" front, but there will be more than enough to force one hour of debate in separate houses over each disputed electoral slate. They need to disqualify TWO state slates to deny Biden a majority and throw things into the horrifically flawed scenario in the XII amendment. Almost everyone thinks that can't happen, though, because... after those posturing objections, the houses debate for 1 hour then vote separately. According to the 1887 law that has been followed rigorously for 134 years, if EITHER house supports the state-reported slate, then that slate is counted.

"When the two houses disagree, then the statute states that the votes of the electors whose appointment was certified by the governor of the state shall be counted." From section 17 of the applicable 1887 law. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL32717.pdf


Hence all pundits say that the GOP noise is just that, noise.The only way to subvert at this point would be if 12 Democratic members became unable to vote AND House Republicans had no conscientious, loyal-American defectors... AND all but at-most two Republicans in the Senate also voted in unison against two legal state elector slates.

David Brin said...

Slowly, grindingly, America is clawing its way back. Yesterday we took back (barely) the Senate. Tonight Biden becomes official-official-official. In 2 weeks we have done with the insane confederates and eject Mitch's ugly puss from real power.
We're having our Gettysburg... but it's a long way to Appomattox.
Putin enjoyed today's riot. He's not gonna have a nice February.

Tony Fisk said...

One image from today stays in my mind:
As police manning the Capitol barricades *waved* MAGA insurrectionists through, and posed with them...
A lone black cop tried to prevent their entry.

TCB said...

TCB try actually listening. You imply with "insistence that COVID could have been created in the Wuhan Institute of Virology" that I FAVORED that theory - when I made it very clear that I simply saw no refutation of that portion of the horizon of possibilities.

Or maybe I just didn't want to waste half an hour looking up the exact wording you previously used, sheesh.

Jon S. said...

"...even if the exact same thing happens on January 20, what can Trump do to stay in power?"

Nothing. At noon on Jan 20, if Donnie's still in the WH, he's a trespasser. And apparently, the Secret Service (or at least the majority of them) are not terribly interested in maintaining a squatter in the building. The only matter that might possibly be in question is whether Joe Biden would be inagurated on schedule, or the position would instead devolve on Speaker of the House Pelosi.

Alfred Differ said...

Der Oger,

but I'd keep outsourcing of services in the intelligence and military community at the lowest level possible

I'd generally agree. I'm libertarian enough to prefer my government not pick everyone's pocket to pay my wages whether they are inflated by my actual employer or not. It's not like I couldn't find other work if I had to do it.

However,

1) costing more than a regular employee of the state

Heh. Lots of people think we do, but the calculation isn't so simple. Between my demand and my employer's additional percentage, I'm sure I do cost the federal government more than if they hired me as a civilian (instead of contract) employee. I happen to know my employer's markup and it isn't more than a few percentage points. I have a decent idea what a civilian makes who does roughly what I do. That is the larger percentage. There is HUGE difference between me and them, though. I can be fired easily. Let go too if my skills fall out of favor. Seriously. I'm GONE from the ranks if they feel they have cause (same day) or if they decide I'm not a good fit for their needs (takes a little longer, but no measured in more than a couple weeks).

Additionally, my entire employer can be fired every year if we do not perform suitably well. Well… maybe not right at the start of a long contract, but most of the contracts I've been on are mostly composed of 'option years'. Our customer exercises an option to keep us around… or not.

This simple difference enables my customer to be flexible in a way they cannot accomplish without contractors. The civilian staff are unionized and part of the federal government. We are merely contracted service providers. They buy our services like you'd buy a hamburger. Want fries with that? That flexibility carries with it a price, hence our mark-up. Well… my mark-up in my case that is aggregated into what we charge as our price.

2) core functions of the state must be able to be fulfilled by the state at any time

We are in agreement. So is my customer. They aren't always able to ensure we are easily set aside, but they HAVE been good at it lately. HOWEVER, on top of the fact that we can be quickly fired, we can also hire people FAR faster than they can. We can shift our resources too. My employer serves more than one contract customer, so we can pick people off of one and move them to another if it makes sense. The federal government really can't do that without an enormous number of rules coming into play.

3) unidentified agents

Yeah. That's a problem. If American's care enough about it, which I think they should, they should get Congress to put a stop to that shit. Citizens should be able to look any of us in the eye and ID us fairly easily.

4) demanding 175 years for Assange is just gross

Well… I'm going to disagree with you. This is part of the typical game played in the US between prosecutors, defense lawyers, judges, and juries. Prosecutors ask for a lot expecting it to be whittled. That would likely happen for Assange. We also like our bluster about punishing people practically forever, but… well… Assange is white. We only REALLY stick it to brown people. Sick I know, but I think we SHOULD stick it to Assange if he comes back. What he did was pretty damn evil. (You probably don't know it from my viewpoint. We don't like to talk about it.)

5) hypocritical

Don't use Trump to make a case that we should do this/that. He's a corrupt bastard I'd leave in a desert to die of thirst if his car broke down on the side of the road. Not many make it onto that particular list of mine. He has.

Larry Hart said...

Robert:

"So I ask again, even if the exact same thing happens on January 20, what can Trump do to stay in power?"

A counter-question. If the police (and other law enforcement agencies) continue to selectively follow orders, what could the non-Trumpists do to stop it, if extra-legal actions were being taken? You've got nearly half your population apparently convinced Trump won the election, and they seem to be the half that's more inclined to violent and impulsive acts.


I'm not asking what they could do to make our lives miserable. I'm asking how Trump would stay in power. And you haven't answered that.

Yes, I've noted sadly and with some horror that a percentage of law enforcement seems to side with the insurgents. But the military won't. And after noon on Jan 20, they won't be required to take his orders. The business community seems to have abandoned Trump. Even before the Capitol riot, many congressional Republicans were backing off from Trumpism. Two Republicans who had bet the farm on Trumpism couldn't even win Georgia for gosh sakes, even with control of the Senate on the line.

And we'll see over the next few days, but I'm thinking a lot of reality-challenged Trump supporters are happy to go along when it's a kind of game, but are beginning to be scared for their own safety after yesterday.

I'm not making any firm predictions, but I'd like to see if there's an attitude adjustment in the near future. The Overton window snapped over quite a bit yesterday afternoon and evening. In a matter of hours, not only did most Republicans abandon the effort at denial of certification, but re-impeachment and the 25th Amendment suddenly aren't off the table. You could see the "I thought we could control them," moment in some of their eyes.

So I ask again, even if the exact same thing happens on January 20, what can Trump do to stay in power?

And I'll counter-question you. If, say, the population of Chicago or New York decided to storm Trump Tower wreck the place with the tacit cooperation of local cops, what could Trump do to stop it?

Larry Hart said...

The non-deplorables in the Republican Party who backed trump because he was useful to their political goals finally seem to be awakening from some sort of fever dream that they are anxious to distance themselves from. It's kinda like that bit from Monty Python with the Piranha brothers:

"In a fit of pique, they napalmed Chelsea."

"Even the police had to stand up and take notice."


I suspect Ted Cruz and that Hawley guy are wishing the riots had happened a few minutes earlier, before they incriminated themselves on national television.

The Chicago Tribune--a paper so (old school) Republican that its first ever (since 1840) endorsement of a Democratic presidential candidate was Barack Obama--editorializes thusly:

https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/editorials/ct-editorial-capitol-violence-trump-protesters-20210107-bqo36zwybbfxfkv3fwlj5qjrla-story.html

...
Where does the accountability lie? First and foremost, with the president of the United States. For the past two months, he has raged against the outcome of the election, falsely claiming that Democrats rigged the vote in state after state to deny him a second term. He has encouraged dark conspiracy theories that inflame suspicious minds. He has used his office in attempts to cow state election officials to reverse the results. He has pushed Republicans in Congress to do whatever possible to keep him in the White House.
...
Trump’s enablers — those who also bear responsibility for the chaos in Washington — include several Illinois Republican members of Congress. Reps. Mike Bost of Murphysboro and Darin LaHood of Peoria joined other Republicans in refusing to acknowledge the reality of Trump’s defeat. They were among those supporting the absurd court challenges intended to invalidate Biden’s legitimate victory.

A new Illinois Republican in Congress, Rep. Mary Miller of Oakland, also objected to Wednesday’s Electoral College vote, falsely stating that the vote “did not uphold the Constitution.” Miller disgraced herself Tuesday at an outdoor rally in Washington by quoting Hitler.
...
If Trump will not concede, he should resign now.

Larry Hart said...

And of course, the painfully obvious rhetorical question--were the police lenient/complicit because the rioters weren't black?

I'd go further than that. Of course, skin color makes it more palatable (to them) to dehumanize protesters. But the woman killed in Charlottesville was white, and they were happy to support her killers. Apparently, if you protest for justice and equality--American values--then you should be arrested if not killed, because "law and order". If you protest for Confederate values, then you are a patriot fighting tyranny.

I'm living in a cuckoo clock.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/heidi-stevens/ct-heidi-stevens-trump-supporters-mob-capitol-double-standard-0106-20210106-njqyjby45vhx3b3twsem4d257a-story.html

...
But apart from the condemnations, aside from the denunciations, a single question loomed large: How were armed insurgents allowed to breach the U.S. Capitol, forcing the evacuation of the United States Congress? How are we seeing photos of a man sitting in Nancy Pelosi’s desk, with access to the emails still on her screen? How did it get to that point? And would it have, had the group been made up of people of color?

I sincerely doubt it.

Who can forget that image from June 2, when the D.C. National Guard stood blocking the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during protests after Floyd’s death? Who can forget the peaceful demonstrators tear-gassed in the plaza between St. John’s Church and Lafayette Park this summer when Trump wanted a photo at the nearby Episcopal church? We’ve watched Confederate statues receive better protection than the U.S. Capitol building did on Wednesday.
...

jim said...

Impeachment should start today.
Why?
The president can not pardon himself for things he is being impeached on.

So charge him with sedition, money laundering, bank fraud, tax evasion, abuse of a charity etc. etc. every single charge that anyone has even a scrap of evidence for should be included in the impeachment. It should take more than 13 days to complete the impeachment, so congress can run out the clock on Trumps ability to pardon himself.

Larry Hart said...

From now on, people in MAGA hats or waving Confederate flags should be treated as Holnists were in The Postman.

Y'all Quaeda

Vanilla ISIS

Zepp Jamieson said...

LH said, "If Twitter had been around in 1938, we undoubtedly would have been told that Krystalnacht was caused by Jews dressed up as Nazis breaking their own windows. For the insurance money."

And in fact similar claims were bruted about by Goebbels and his crowd. The nature of propaganda used by fascists rarely changes.

jim said...

OMG
I have trouble expressing my disappointment with the democratic house of representatives decision to adjourn until after the 20th.

Do they have any idea how bad a decision this is?
This was a very serious attack on the constitution of the United States of American and they have decided to run away rather than stay and fight. I seriously don’t think they collectively have the ability to govern effectively. When congress people take office they take an oath to defend the constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic. They are not doing it. This is the biggest crisis in America sense the civil war but they sure don’t seem to be able to acknowledge it.

Keith Halperin said...

@ Everybody (mainly USAians):
Well folks, we've had our first coup attempt, at least the first I'm aware of. When do you think we'll have the next?

As I've said before, 74 Million Americans voted for a would-be dictator who has now encouraged sedition. How many of those 74 million STILL support him? If the 139/211 Republican Representative who supported the electoral challenge ARE representative of their constituents, then ~50 Million Americans support overturning the results of the election and STILL support Trump.
As Rachel Maddow said (to the best of my quoting):
"The GOP is a violent, insurrectionist party, with fascist markers."

How I disagree with our President-Elect:
This (yesterday's *terrorist coup attempt) may not be what we aspire to be, but this IS who we are now. We can not go back to normal and assume this was an aberration; it was EXPECTED.



*Initially, I thought the word "terrorist" was inappropriate and too extreme. Then I learned there were two pipe bombs discovered. That's terrorism.

matthew said...

Alfred, I'm guessing that you are not union? Is this correct?

Dennis M Davidson said...

The House and Senate Republicans should take the lead in impeaching, convicting and removing Trump from office immediately. Trump should be barred from ever holding office again.

This is a matter of integrity, courage and leadership. It’s not a partisan issue so the vote should be unanimous. It doesn’t need to be a kumbaya moment with the Democrats, either. Also, I don’t care if the GOP gets all the credit for this. Just reconvene Congress and get it done.

Unknown said...

How about "the capital building is not going to be repaired using taxpayer money until some serious changes to policing policies are implemented"? Let the legislators look at reminders of their tenuous position until they come to terms with their roles as public servants.

David Brin said...

TCB it's not the wording but the meaning.

===

Stayed up to watch it get done.

Cranky toddlers have screeched and yowled - abetted by outright traitors. To no avail. Even a wave of McVeighs plus Putin-pushed putsches will not stop America's revival... and the world celebrations to follow.

David Brin said...

I sigh and roll my eyes over Jim's convenient "blame your allies" exaggerations... only then "every single charge that anyone has even a scrap of evidence for should be included in the impeachment."

Well, well, son. That's a very good point. Okey dokey. I'll read not skim. For a while.

Der Oger said...

Some comments for me left to answer in this thread:

@Dr. Brin: "Wow, Der Oger you really are left of our community's center."

Yes, I might even be considered center-left over here. I voted a straight social democratic ticket for the most of my lifetime. But what matters more to me than the left-right division is the distinction of liberalism-authoritarianism.

Also, I can't resist a good brainstorming challenge.

@ Duncan Ocel: "Perhaps I could argue to go further:(...)"

Nice ideas! But wouldn't need Biden the approval of Congress? Until yesterday, I thought the president-elect would govern under a congress divided.

Now, there is a multitude of new options the Democrats can try.

@ Larry Hart: "Yes, the ironic thing is that if Congress does what it looks like they will and skip the objections to the other states (besides Arizona, already in progress), then the certification of Biden's win might happen earlier than it would have without the riot."

I could even imagine that yesterday political capital for the long term was generated. It might not have the same impact like, say, 9/11. But the act of storming the Capitol almost feels like a wrong move professional Goppers would not have made ... and now, it leaves them out in the cold wide open. At least, for a while.

Robert said...

I'm not asking what they could do to make our lives miserable. I'm asking how Trump would stay in power. And you haven't answered that.

Not particularly concerned about Trump. Am concerned about Trumpism, which I suspect will be with us a long while (just as fascism outlasted Mussolini). Sorry for not making that clear.

scidata said...

Crazy times, but please don't get sloppy -- mask up. We cannot afford to lose anyone else, especially just before the dawn comes.

Larry Hart said...

Zepp Jamieson:

The nature of propaganda used by fascists rarely changes.


You are correct. Twitter didn't create fascist propaganda--it just makes it easier to disseminate quickly and widely.

I maybe should have said, "If Twitter had been around in 1938, a wider audience would have been convinced from the start that Krystalnacht was caused by Jews dressed up as Nazis breaking their own windows. For the insurance money."

* * *

jim:

OMG
I have trouble expressing my disappointment with the democratic house of representatives decision to adjourn until after the 20th.


While I feel similarly*, I get the vibe that you would have come down equally hard on Nancy Pelosi and company no matter what they did. The same way John McCain and company were so outraged that President Obama didn't send troops into Syria until they suddenly had cause to be outraged that he did.

* Though I don't presume to know more about governing than Nancy Pelosi does.

* * *

Dr Brin:


Stayed up to watch it get done.


You're a better man than I. I saw the Senate vote 93-6 on Arizona, which meant that the state would be certified no matter what the House did, I figured they'd stop debate in the House for the same reason the home team doesn't bat in the 9th if they've already won. When it was clear that wasn't happening, I gave up and went to bed.

I was somewhat nervous on awakening because depending on how many states were objected to, they could have still been debating, or even adjourned until later. I see that Rudy Giuliani actually tried to make that happen, so that they could pressure some of the states to somehow change their certifications. But no, I awakened pleasantly to the fait accompli of Biden certified as President-elect.


Cranky toddlers have screeched and yowled - abetted by outright traitors. To no avail. Even a wave of McVeighs plus Putin-pushed putsches will not stop America's revival... and the world celebrations to follow.


Credit to Hamilton and company. Our government isn't designed so that a terrorist mob can change the outcome of an election. Oh, they can certainly make us miserable in other ways, but...well, it's like the scene in Douglass (not Scott) Adams's The Long, Dark Teatime of the Soul where Thor can't get a passport because he doesn't have a birth certificate. He tries to convince the official that he's a god who has been alive for thousands of years--before birth certificates were a thing. But--and this is a paraphrase from memory--"It's not a question of whether she believes he's really a god. It's a question of him not having a valid birth certificate."

Likewise, Trumpists could burn the Capitol to the ground and even kill some congresspeople, and Trump still wouldn't be president as of January 20.**

** Although I'm surprised Rudy Giuliani hasn't advanced the argument that the Gregorian calendar is unconstitutional, and therefore "January 20" doesn't really come until the day that we mistakenly call February 2. And that being Groundhog Day, the next day is February 2 all over again, so you wake up every morning thereafter with Trump being president. Y'know, if I were on the evil side, I could probably make that argument work. :)

Alfred Differ said...

matthew,

Non-union. Very small company. Vet/women owned kinda thing that gets a few extra points when competing for federal contracts.

I've worked for them over 10 years now and count as one of the gray-beards. There have been sudden firings of the type our customer needs and I'd say about 90% of them were the right thing to do. The ones that were not are a few years in the past and all related.

We pay fairly well, but it is a challenge to live in my part of Southern California, so the pay doesn't go as far as some new employees would hope.

What we do very well is adopt people into the family if that's what they want. Most don't, so they look out for their own careers and move on when it makes sense to them. Some do stay, though. Some even come back.

Our customer obviously wants a small company winning the contract we have right now. More responsive and all that. We can do what they cannot, but we don't suffer abuse of our people. That HAS been tried in my time and we don't sit for it. Not often, though, and the customer's bosses don't like it when it does. Things get worked out.

matthew said...

Called my Congressperson to ask her to join in the calls for impeachment. She had announced her decision before I got off hold to leave the message.
Perhaps there is a lesson there.
Pelosi now says that if the 25th Amendment is not used *tonight* then she will call the House back tomorrow to vote on impeachment. She says she has the votes. I believe her - she's the best vote-counter in at least a generation.

Lots of interesting tidbits about how this was allowed to happen. Perhaps one of the most interesting is that the head of the Capitol Police, the ninth largest police force in the US, turned down an offer of troops from both the DoJ and the FBI two days before the coup attempt. He's a hardcore Trump loyalist, btw.

Since Jim Acosta claims that the White House told him they were in contact with insurrectionists *inside* the Capitol chambers, there is reason to believe that some in the White House were coordinating with the coup attempt, while it was happening.

We held years of hearings on the four deaths in Benghazi. I expect no less in this case and will help hold my lawmakers responsible for making it happen.

Oh, and has anyone seen an explanation for the three "medical emergency" deaths during the coup attempt? I have not seen any yet. The lionization of the dead traitor by Fox is sickening - she was a 16 year Air Force veteran. She knew what the risks were in storming the Capitol while it was in joint session, with our VP presiding. No pity for traitors paying the price. She's nothing but scum.

David Brin said...

The 25th Amendment vs impeachment is dissected in detail in the most sadly under-read book, POLEMICAL JUDO, with some aspects that I would bet even Nancy Pelosi hasn't thought of. We'll see. We woulda been farther out of this mess, by now. Just sayin'

Another note: Years of "Benghazi hearings" over the death of 4 brave/foolish US diplomats who dived a thousand klicks beyond State Dept policy - with GOP congresses finally, reluctantly, agreeing there was no blame. So where's the outrage over four deaths caused when an allegedly Trumpist Capitol Police chief opened the gates for a similar mob?
BTW, someone makes a point, looking at the pathetic Proudboys in these images, that few of them likely saw themselves COMMITTING a 'coup" as opposed to COUNTING coup in the old sense of macho preening. What they live for. Especially knowing they'll very likely survive their 'brave' deeds.

Meanwhile, rats are deserting the bunker. The one thing I don't get is how hard is it to RECORD one of his roaming, White House meltdowns? What, you can't risk getting fired at this point? No, you will NOT go to prison! And the recording could help us no end.

Chuck Schumer, when you take the Majority Leader office... fumigate. Burn the drapes & rugs. Donate to a shelter.

David Brin said...

My brother edits/publishes the newpaper or magazine for twelve unions.

TCB said...

One positive of the Capitol riot and treason is that millions of Americans could see for themselves that the police do play favorites. They coddle fascists and clobber pacifists, tree huggers, the homeless, the poor... What minorities and anybody left of center has known for a hundred years and more, millions of Americans may have seen and really understood for the first time. That BLM has been telling the truth all along. As my coworker said: "What would the Capitol Police have done to a Muslim mob?"

TCB said...

@ matthew, I heard one of the Capitol goons accidentally tasered himself to death.

chef kiss

Larry Hart said...

The stormTrumpers have convinced themselves since yesterday that they were protesting peacefully, and that the violence was perpetrated by antifa disguised as MAGAts.

Ridiculous as it is, people can believe such contradictions. Proof in the pudding is immediately after 9/11 at which time many in the Middle East lionized Osama Bin Laden for poking the Great Satan in the eye while simultaneously believing that the attacks were perpetrated by the 4000 Jews who stayed home from the World Trade Center that day.

Larry Hart said...

matthew:

Pelosi now says that if the 25th Amendment is not used *tonight* then she will call the House back tomorrow to vote on impeachment. She says she has the votes. I believe her - she's the best vote-counter in at least a generation.


Agreed on all counts.

And as someone here pointed out earlier, even impeachment procedings would prevent at least some possible self-pardons or Pence-pardons. Even without the Senate doing the actual removal (which, after yesterday, might actually be possible).


Lots of interesting tidbits about how this was allowed to happen. Perhaps one of the most interesting is that the head of the Capitol Police, the ninth largest police force in the US, turned down an offer of troops from both the DoJ and the FBI two days before the coup attempt. He's a hardcore Trump loyalist, btw.


Give what we saw on tv, that last sentence sadly doesn't surprise me. I heard Biden announced that guy would be out of a job on Jan 20 if he doesn't resign first.


We held years of hearings on the four deaths in Benghazi. I expect no less in this case and will help hold my lawmakers responsible for making it happen.


Payback is a bitch, huh? :)


Oh, and has anyone seen an explanation for the three "medical emergency" deaths during the coup attempt? I have not seen any yet.


No, and I've wondered about that myself.


The lionization of the dead traitor by Fox is sickening - she was a 16 year Air Force veteran. She knew what the risks were in storming the Capitol while it was in joint session, with our VP presiding. No pity for traitors paying the price. She's nothing but scum.


I don't watch FOX or other right-wing media, but it doesn't surprise me that they make a hero out of her. And I agree with your sentiment, even as I'm disappointed in myself for doing so. One thing I blame Republicans for is for turning me into someone who can hate strangers enough to be glad they were killed, or to wish that they die.

Larry Hart said...

Robert:

Not particularly concerned about Trump. Am concerned about Trumpism, which I suspect will be with us a long while


Agreed, but it loses a lot of its focus without Trump. Look at the 2020 Republican platform, which was basically, "whatever Trump says it is." Remember your 1984, that the point of repression was not to make you believe that two plus two is five, but to make you believe that two plus two is whatever the Party says it is (even if it contradicts what they said it was before). Remember how, at his rallies, Trump has to refer to everyone he mentions as "The great so-and-so" or "The terrible so-and-so", because his audience doesn't know whether to cheer or boo until Trump lets them know.

Point being, Trumpism requires a Trump to tell followers what to think. It needs a Trump. And while there are other aspiring successors to the throne, they don't have Trump's innate Mule powers. He's more like Hitler than Mussolini in that way.

Also, just as Hitler made anti-Semitism socially unacceptable in the 40s, I think Trump did a lot of damage to Trumpism this week with the phone call to Georgia and then with the terrorist mob.

David Brin said...

If Pelosi delivered, she'd get an actual honeymoon... maybe a month... from the left. Go for it.

Keith Halperin said...

@ Dr. Brin: Re: Your brother's work:
Good for him!
I belonged to the Sheetmetal Workers Union decades ago, my wife belongs to IATSE, my late aunt worked for the AFofT, my father tried to get the AFofT at his college but could just get the NEA. IMSM, the '50s (which the Retrumplicans idealize) were the high-water period for American labor unions (alongside a very high marginal tax rate, which resulted in much less wage inequality between the average worker and the the CEO than now).

@Everybody: (unless there's about to be an "ONWARD"):
What ways can we come up with to marginalize, dilute, and defeat American (and worldwide) authoritarianism? I'm not thinking about specific tactics (as in OGH's "Polemical Judo") but general strategies, such as using Putin's "splitterism" aka, "Divide and Conquer" on them?

Larry Hart said...

If, as is likely, Trump issues blanket pardons for his family members, then (and only then), as soon as Biden is president, he should issue the exact same-worded pardon for Hunter Biden. It would be worth it for the humor value of watching Trumpists argue that he can't do that.

If Trump pardons himself, then (and only then) Biden should do the same for himself, for the same reason.

Alfred Differ said...

For the record, I do believe Matthew had a decent prediction a while back that this sort of effort would be made by Trump. I disagreed.

This is me admitting I was incorrect.
Wish I wasn't, but I am.


I AM confident Trump will be crushed... and then we will move into the next phase of this insanity where people like Hawley and Cruz fight over the carcasses on the battlefield.

Duncan Ocel said...

@Keith Halperin
Community-level self-sufficiency helps make the state less relevant to daily life. Perhaps more functional NGOs means less power in the government. As far as rules-fetishism goes, I'd think that dates to the beginning of the War on Drugs and the best angle I can think of to remedy it is to hire more granola-pacifist-leftists for K-12 teachers and admins. Kids growing up with few rules know how easy it is to live in a world with few rules.

Der Oger said...

@Keith Halperin:""What ways can we come up with to marginalize, dilute, and defeat American (and worldwide) authoritarianism? I'm not thinking about specific tactics (as in OGH's "Polemical Judo") but general strategies, such as using Putin's "splitterism" aka, "Divide and Conquer" on them?"

I think the best way will be to build a resilient society, design a "militant" democracy. Obviously, it is no short and easy process. It will take decades.

For starters, look at the 14 points of Fascism, and design a strategy countering each point.

Or try to amend the constitution with this little sentence:

"Human dignity shall be inviolable. To respect and protect it shall be the duty of all state authority." ... and have the courts sort out what that means for the next sixty or so years.

David Brin said...

Criminey. There are serious people who are actually calling the mob storming of the Capitol an 'attempted coup.' It was shameful, treasonous, insane, criminal and head must roll across the job-o-sphere.
But a coup?
THAT? Those pathetic knuckleheads? Many of them evil, sure. A beerhall putsch, certainly. And there are SOBs who certainly should lose their jobs.
But come now.

Watch CosaGavras's film "Z". Now that's a coup.

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/trump-attempted-coup-federal-law-enforcement-capitol-police-2021-1?fbclid=IwAR24ZvofQN-xY7cEQFFgO8IHn_zgxgsk8KMWIVL5GvBmxKWufTA0VaExHdM&r=US&IR=T

Lorraine said...

Would "no contract is enforceable unless it is published" be of a piece with "If you own something, you must say, publicly, 'I own that.'?"

Larry Hart said...

Alfred Differ:

For the record, I do believe Matthew had a decent prediction a while back that this sort of effort would be made by Trump. I disagreed.


I may be remembering the wrong thing, but I thought he predicted that the supreme court would back Trump's effort to forestall the inauguration and stay in office past Jan 20. If that wasn't matthew, it was someone else here.

Worried as I am about the things Trump can do, I disagreed on that one. This is me admitting I was right. :)

As someone who unwaveringly insisted that Benedict Donald was unsuited to the office from the very start, I am not going to say "I hate to say 'I told you so.'" Because I don't.

Robert said...

Oh, and has anyone seen an explanation for the three "medical emergency" deaths during the coup attempt? I have not seen any yet.

I haven't (haven't really been looking), but a crowd of that size, engaged in unusually strenuous activity in a fairly stressful situation, and with a significant proportion having almost Trumpian body shapes… I would be surprised if there weren't some cardiac episodes. And it would certainly be difficult for EMS to get to them quickly.

Robert said...

the best angle I can think of to remedy it is to hire more granola-pacifist-leftists for K-12 teachers and admins

Won't make much of a difference until you get rid of standardized testing and the petty tyrannies of school boards.

Both of which are worthy objectives, and will need to be done before your hypothetical hippy teacher will be able to keep their job long enough to make a difference.

Alfred Differ said...

Not so much a coup as an 'meaningful event' establishing durable behaviors within a cult.

Robert said...

There are serious people who are actually calling the mob storming of the Capitol an 'attempted coup.' It was shameful, treasonous, insane, criminal and head must roll across the job-o-sphere.
But a coup?


Why not? When someone is convicted of attempted murder it doesn't matter that their plan was laughably silly (unless they're trying to plead diminished metal capacity), only that they had an intent and took actions to accomplish that.

Those knuckleheads intended to change the government of a country by force. That's pretty well the textbook definition of a coup. If they'd been more competent we might be calling it a "failed coup" (if, say, they breached the safe rooms and had hostages).

Larry Hart said...

Robert:

When someone is convicted of attempted murder it doesn't matter that their plan was laughably silly


One of my favorite lines from "The Simpsons". Sideshow Bob talking about being jailed for trying to kill Bart Simpson and Aunt Selma.


Imprisoned for a crime I didn't commit.

I mean, "attempted murder". Do we give Nobel Prizes now for attempted chemistry?

David Brin said...

Lorraine: "Would "no contract is enforceable unless it is published" be of a piece with "If you own something, you must say, publicly, 'I own that.'?"

Well, there are arguments for agreements between parties that are legit and would be spoiled by revelation. Two companies planning to build something together but not wanting to spook some third party. I am Mr. Tansparency. In Earth I suggested secrets EXPIRE after short times and if you want those times, then they must be cached in a public service that opens them at expiration date... and you can buy more time, but at a steep curve for the rich.

Robert I am fine with prosecuting these turds.

Alas, you seem to buy into the notion that all meritocratic scaling in higher education is evil. To be clear, I am in favor of massive efforts to uplift poor kids, an effort supported by BOTH goody-socialism AND by the logic of Smith-Hayek market-competitive enterprise, which is not related to oligarchy but its OPPOSITE.

But those who would try to achieve equality by preventing the talented from rising on their merits are enemies of progress, not its friends. You really, really badly need to read the true refutation of that impulse. It's not anything written by that wretched monster Ayn Rand but by a famously brilliant liberal Democrat. Kurt Vonnegut..

Read "Harrison Bergeron."



Tony Fisk said...

Pence having declined to enact 25, impeachment is on tomorrow, on two counts: electoral interference, and inciting insurrection.
It's high time.
Noting OGH's reservations about Pres. Pence, I'd say he's got less than two weeks to bring about end times. Trump is more than capable of doing that himself at this stage, and isn't part of democracy about scrambling dictatorships?

duncan cairncross said...

Robert said

Won't make much of a difference until you get rid of standardized testing and the petty tyrannies of school boards.

Those two are the polar opposites of each other!!

I have done a fair amount of teaching in my career - teaching engineers and the like
When I am going to teach I need about eight hours of preparation for every hour of teaching

The schools should be USING a huge amount of prepared work when teaching - which implies a constant curriculum - where the huge effort of preparation is spread across thousands of schools

That does NOT in any way require lots and lots of testing!!!
Standardised tests - YES
Lots of tests - NO

Slim Moldie said...

Agree with Robert. The events yesterday amounted to a "sudden, violent, and illegal seizure of power from a government." (Among other things the mob prevented Congress from counting the electoral votes.) Individuals had pipe bombs and at least one had zip ties to take hostages. And how many people are dead now?

I prefer to read about science wonders and science fiction. The last 24 hours I feel like I'm reading a draft of Philip Jose Farmer's "A feast Unknown" that's been edited and re-written by Harry Crews.

Alfred Differ said...

Larry,

You could be right. Maybe not Matthew? Maybe not particular details?

Well...

I recall poo-poo-ing the idea that he'd incite a riot. I thought he'd understand the legal exposure he'd face. Apparently not. He really IS that stupid/clueless/bought into his belief of Rightness.

Obviously he was unsuited and incompetent, but this is stunningly stupid.


I will note that some are saying it isn't. That this breaks certain norms that won't heal. That this mob STAYS incited causing blood in the streets in the near future.

That's where I think they'll learn what a truly deep 'state' we have. Our institutions DO have some who will be complicit, but many will deeply object to the mess this creates.

If the mob does stay incite and blood flows in the streets, it won't just be 'The Left' being riled. It will be the deeper bowels of our institutions. Those rioting fools will be crushed.

matthew said...

This was a coup attempt. Full stop.
As I keep saying, just because it is laughable does not make it a coup. In fact, many coups started off as deniable "jokes" until the were suddenly serious and effective.

Of note are the number of individuals in the crowd with a "mission within a mission." Some of these treasonous assholes came prepared to take hostages (see photos of police-type zip tie handcuffs, pistols, etc.), with very detailed ideas of the hidden areas of the building. There were serious trained individuals in the hundreds in the building. Some have already been ID'ed as former military and "private security contractors." There was an operation within the chaos. Do not write this off. There was a serious attempt hidden in the buffoons.

Notice how security was called back, how the White House had communications established with the insurrection. Notice how many of our protector leadership moved pieces *away* from the event or withheld aid at critical times. This was an inside job.

The only reason this did not end with hostage-taking and executions was the Secret Security details of both the Vice President and the VP-elect. They, along with Nancy Pelosi (and the Sec. of the Army, who exceeded his authority. Thank you, US Army) got the National Guard from Virginia to deploy. This is the *only* thing that kept the coup attempt from seizing the actual electoral ballots, as well as keeping Congressfolk / Senators being held hostage. It was the move that turned the tide. This coup was a knife edge away from being a bloodbath. Pence is a horrible person, but when his own life was at threat, he acted to save the Union. Reduce his sentence, maybe even suspend it.

Don't dare downplay what happened. Don't lessen the severity. This was the first move in a long chain.

We got lucky and some people acted with great courage to prevent catastrophe. At least so far...

***
Re: predictions:
I predicted that Trump would try to declare an emergency and then delay the election / inauguration and that SCOTUS would uphold. I did also say that I thought that Trump would use riots *he* inspired to declare the emergency. This has not happened yet, though I believe it was the overall plan. I do not give myself credit for predicting our particular turn of events, unless I've forgotten something I wrote.

***
Re: unions:
Alfred, while I know that this is not your intent or that of your company, I also am aware that private contractors are often brought in an effort to bust federal unions. I was curious because the union membership of government contractors is a very interesting data point regarding the strength of public union membership. I asked for my information, not to throw shade at you. To expose myself a bit, I've been a member of management that crossed union lines to keep a public utility running during a strike in my younger days, a very hard choice for me. I'm still not sure what I should have done.

the hanged man said...

Robert, the three medical emergency deaths included a 34 year old woman who was crushed in the crowd. The two others were men in their 50s; one died from stroke, the other from heart attack.

TCB said...

Here's a comment I just read that makes sense to me. EVEN IF YOU DISAGREE WITH THIS ANALYSIS, READ IT. THIS IS IMPORTANT.

https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/ksupjk/protrump_rioters_could_face_up_to_20_years_in/giiau9k?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

It honestly looks like trump put together a pre-meditated plan to kill congress. He held back security and launched an attack on congress on the same day.

Fuller version:

So, allow me to sum up.

Weeks ago, there were a series of resignations at the pentagon. As a result, trump was able to install loyalists in positions of military leadership that withheld the national guard from doing their constitutional duty and protecting congress.

Trump whipped this angry mob into a frenzy and commanded them to attack congress on a specific day, the same exact day that he disarmed security at the capitol complex. The few police who were there invited the armed, angry mob into the capitol complex where they stormed the building, vandalizing, destroying, and stealing congressional property.

It honestly looks like trump put together a pre-meditated plan to kill congress. He held back security and launched an attack on congress on the same day.

Now, there are calls for his immediate removal. There are two mechanisms for this, the 25th amendment and impeachment. The 25th amendment requires the vice president and a majority of the cabinet. Impeachment Impeachment would require the house and then removal would require the senate.

The problem is that the cabinet member resignations are sending a clear message: they’re too terrified to be one of the ones who pulls the trigger on the 25th amendment. They don’t want any one of those MAGA terrorists to hunt them down next.

The same problem exists in the senate, compounded by the fact that the GOP senators would be highly motivated to either vote to keep trump in office or to stall the proceedings, because they, too, are terrified of the MAGA mob turning on them. They could lose their jobs, or worse, by taking a stand against trump.

I bold the word terrified here because the word “terrorism” relates to the use of violence and intimidation against civilians in pursuit of political aims. In short, trump has made people terrified of opposing him politically, this makes trump a terrorist in the truest sense of the word.

Trump is a weapon aimed at the United States of America. Our spineless republicans in the legislative and executive branches are the weaknesses that trump is now exploiting. This is not over. This is truly the most precarious situation the United States has been in since the end of the civil war.

It is further suggested that he will try again, maybe on the 19th, and this time they'll be better armed and organized, likely with a cadre of Erik Prince's Blackwater murderers at the core.

Defending our Congress will be New York and New Jersey National Guard among others, but is that enough?

What should WE be doing right now?

Der Oger said...

One thing that could be considered after Trump has been removed from office is removing lawmakers that supported Trump's wild claims. They have betrayed their oaths and there must be consequences. If not, the oath and attacks on the constitution become meaningless.

The sane part of the republican party can even profit from it, ridding them of a growing number of extremist lunatics that will eat them up in the long run.

Some irony: The FBI might receive and appreciate the help of those Antifa cells who specialize in uncovering/doxxing right extremists and white supremacists.

AVR said...

A coup is something between elites. I think the correct term here is 'insurrection'. A weak, failed insurrection. Not that the precise terminology matters as much as all that.

Larry Hart said...

Morning snippets:

I don't think Trump can get away with shooting someone on Fifth Avenue any longer.

What would have happened if a Kyle Rittenhouse had shown up with an assault rifle to protect the Capitol and ended up shooting people who were trying to grab his gun?

Wednesday afternoon, I kept wanting to remind everyone about Trump's summer declaration of the way to handle rioters, "When the looting starts, the shooting starts." At the time, I figured the response would be that the Capitol rioters weren't looting. Now that there is video of them doing just that--from federal property, which was the excuse used to arrest protesters in Portland--the rhetorical question is even more glaring.

I'm not entirely sure whether the difference is that law-enforcement cracks down on black protesters but gives white protesters a pass, or whether law enforcement cracks down on protests for justice and equality but gives protests for authoritarianism and white supremacy a pass. I'm thinking the correct answer is, "It can be two things."

In any case, just as the televised murder of George Floyd made police killing unarmed black people socially unacceptable even to whites, I think the televised juxtaposition between the response to Portland and LaFayette Square vs the "response" to the Capitol terrorists is beginning to make police complicity with right-wing thugs socially unacceptable even to mainstream America.

Finally, the obvious...

https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2021/Pres/Maps/Jan08.html#item-4

One thing that is increasingly clear to many people is that when unarmed Black Lives Matters activists were conducting peaceful protests around the country in various places, the police reacted with a huge amount of force, often involving helicopters, tear gas, flash-bang grenades, and batons. But when armed Trump supporters illegally broke into the Capitol and damaged federal property on Wednesday, the police did almost nothing to stop them. No helicopters, no tear gas, no rubber bullets, and just a couple of stun grenades. In fact, the po-pos even opened some doors, so that storming the castle (as it were) would be safer. One activist, Chanelle Helm, said: "I don't understand where the 'law and order' is. This is what white supremacy looks like."

For veteran social justice warriors, their longstanding suspicions that the police will not tolerate left-wing protests, but are fine with right-wing violence, was confirmed. Gregory McKelvey said that he was one of dozen of people who were tear gassed and beaten by police in Portland last summer when protesting the police killing of George Floyd. The protesters never attempted to get into a federal building, yet were met with people who looked like and were armed like troops. On Wednesday, McKelvey saw cops riding up on bikes. DeRay Mckesson, cofounder of a police reform group, noted that "Black and brown people have been shot and arrested for far less." Mckesson observed that on Wednesday, rioters sat on the Speaker's desk, but believes that Black people would never ever have gotten into the building. They [the police] would have started shooting at them the minute they started to rush at the police. Civil Rights attorney Ben Crump said: "If Black people had done what these white domestic terrorists did today, can you imagine the reaction? They would have been tear-gassed, pepper-sprayed, arrested, and charged with felonies—or treason."


Darrell E said...

David Brin said...
"Criminey. There are serious people who are actually calling the mob storming of the Capitol an 'attempted coup.' It was shameful, treasonous, insane, criminal and head must roll across the job-o-sphere.
But a coup?
THAT? Those pathetic knuckleheads? Many of them evil, sure. A beerhall putsch, certainly. And there are SOBs who certainly should lose their jobs.
But come now.
"

I think it is quite probable that this was an attempted to coup. First, the riotous mob was simply a tool, they are not the ones who planned and fomented the coup. Second, does a poorly executed coup attempt with little probability of success mean it wasn't a coup attempt?

This article makes a pretty good case that this was a coup attempt, Some among America's military allies believe Trump deliberately attempted a coup and may have had help from federal law-enforcement officials.

Some quotes from the article.

"They (multiple European security officials) said the circumstantial evidence available pointed to what would be openly called a coup attempt in any other nation. None were willing to speak on the record because of the dire nature of the subject."

"America's international military and security allies are now willing to give serious credence to the idea that Trump deliberately tried to violently overturn an election and that some federal law-enforcement agents — by omission or otherwise — facilitated the attempt."

""You cannot tell me I don't know what they should have done. I can fly to Washington tomorrow and do that job, just as any police official in Washington can fly to Paris and do mine," the official said. The official directs public security in a central Paris police district filled with government buildings and tourist sites.

"These are not subtle principles" for managing demonstrations, "and they transfer to every situation," the official said. "This is why we train alongside the US federal law enforcement to handle these very matters, and it's obvious that large parts of any successful plan were just ignored."
"

Darrell E said...

A couple more . . .

"The French police official detailed multiple lapses they believe were systematic:

Large crowds of protesters needed to be managed far earlier by the police, who instead controlled a scene at the first demonstration Trump addressed, then ignored the crowd as it streamed toward the Capitol.
"It should have been surrounded, managed, and directed immediately, and that pressure never released."
Because the crowd was not managed and directed, the official said, the protesters were able to congregate unimpeded around the Capitol, where the next major failure took place.
"It is unthinkable there was not a strong police cordon on the outskirts of the complex. Fences and barricades are useless without strong police enforcement. This is when you start making arrests, targeting key people that appear violent, anyone who attacks an officer, anyone who breaches the barricade. You have to show that crossing the line will fail and end in arrest."
"I cannot believe the failure to establish a proper cordon was a mistake. These are very skilled police officials, but they are federal, and that means they ultimately report to the president. This needs to be investigated."
"When the crowd reached the steps of the building, the situation was over. The police are there to protect the building from terrorist attacks and crime, not a battalion of infantry. That had to be managed from hundreds of meters away unless the police were willing to completely open fire, and I can respect why they were not."
"

"The third official, who works in counterintelligence for a NATO member, agreed that the situation could only be seen as a coup attempt, no matter how poorly considered and likely to fail, and said its implications might be too huge to immediately fathom."

That's the view from experts from among our closest allies. Based on what I've seen so far I agree with them.

David Smelser said...

Since "The President ... shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of impeachment.", would it be a judo move to draft articles of impeachment listing all Trump's wrong doings that we fear Trump/Pence may try to pardon.

These articles can't possible get resolved before January 20th, so this effectively runs out the clock on Trump's ability to get himself pardoned?

jim said...

In a way Trumps violent attempt at sedition and his involvement in that terrorist attack on basis of our democratic republic is a real gift to Biden and the Democrats if they take it.

It seems like Trump and his seditious supporters colluded with the top management at the capital hill police to ensure that the capital did not have adequate security to prevent this attempted coup. (David, it does not matter that this was an incompetent attempt, the intent to subvert the election was clear and the means was violence.)

All this is plenty of evidence for Biden to declare Trump a domestic enemy of the constitution and a national security threat. NO PARDON FOR CRIMINAL OFFENCES COVERS NATIONAL SECURITY THREATS.

If Biden comes out swinging on Jan 20th, takes this threat seriously and starts a full court press against those fomenting sedition and supporting domestic terrorism, my opinion of him will change drastically for the better.

Things he can do
1) Declare Trump a domestic enemy of the constitution and the United States. And if he has not pardoned himself start criminal proceedings against him and his family and criminal supporters.
2) Revoke the broadcast licenses for all Fox stations, clear channel stations, sinclare and any other broadcast company that has been pushing the lies that the election was stolen. And/ or helped to spread the pandemic. By receiving the license to broadcast they have a responsibility to act in the public interest -they have clearly failed and should pay a major price.
3) Declare the entire Murdock family supporters of domestic terrorism and start the legal conspectuses of that. (I am not sure exactly what those are but I am pretty sure after 911 there were some pretty big consequences for supporters of terrorism.)
4) A full and broad investigations into the activities of all Trump appointees. How many of his appointees supported his attempt at sedition? Did they engage in any other illegal activities?
5) Warn Corporate America that advertising with seditious organizations is a form a material support for those seditious organizations and carries with it some serious consequences.

Biden needs to be seen as Tough, Strong, Unafraid, Angry and taking Aggressive Action against the violent, seditious domestic terrorist threat. Enough is Enough Jan 20 is the Time to start bringing the Hammer down!

Robert said...

Saw this in a comment by Rob T. on Scalzi's blog, and thought I'd share it:

After the Cold War, it seemed for many American liberals like the world at large was moving toward greater heights of “liberty and justice for all.” But many American conservatives seem to have taken it as an occasion to celebrate the triumph of capitalism, and to get back to the business of making the rich richer without having to pay lip service to civil rights or any of that bosh. I think this is one reason liberals in politics continued the ideals of bipartisanship for so long (too long), while conservatives began treating opposition to their program as essentially illegitimate.

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2021/01/07/but-what-if-we-didnt/

jim said...

Here is the legal definition of sedition:

"Seditious conspiracy (18 U.S.C. § 2384) is a crime under United States law. It is stated as follows:

If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both."

I think that means every person involved in the preparation for Trumps rally (attempted coup) on the 6th is guilty of sedition, along with all those at the riot.

20 years would be close to the death penalty for Trump and many of his older co- conspirators.

Robert said...

Alas, you seem to buy into the notion that all meritocratic scaling in higher education is evil.

Are you referring to my comment about standardized testing?

I've seen no evidence it is meritocratic, as implemented in almost all cases. A sampling approach, to determine systemic outcomes and areas for improvement, sure, but a standardized test that ranks children? No.

As implemented in America (and Canada), standardized testing has led to teaching to the test, because students, teachers, and administrators are all judged by the scores. Given the formulaic marking schemes this approach leads to just regurgitation, not deep understanding. (In fact, deep understanding can interfere because you then deviate from the expected response, which costs you marks.) It also means that teachers are pressured (or ordered) not to spend time on subjects/topics that are not on the test, so that students can be drilled on topics that will be on the test*.

Well explained in this article here:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2013/02/09/a-warning-to-college-profs-from-a-high-school-teacher/

Test results are used without context. I've personally watched administrators castigate a staff because 50% of students in one category failed a standardized literacy test. There were only two students in that category, and the one who failed had only been in school for a month. I've seen administrators at school with high scores (99% pass rate) devote vast resources to preparing for the test, because they are personally evaluated by how much their school improves.

Back in the 90s while at teachers college I saw stats on the SAT. The single biggest predictor for score was zip code! I had a colleague, now retired, whose hobby was taking the SAT in languages he didn't know. On the multiple choice tests, in non-math subjects, he could reliably score over 60% just from pattern recognition and understanding how to take multiple-choice tests. So what is the SAT measuring?

Remember Campbell's Law? The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.

For the last 16 years, American education has been trapped, stifled, strangled by standardized testing. Or, to be more precise, by federal and state legislators’ obsession with standardized testing. The pressure to raise test scores has produced predictable corruption: Test scores were inflated by test preparation focused on what was likely to be on the test. Some administrators gamed the system by excluding low-scoring students from the tested population; some teachers and administrators cheated; some schools dropped other subjects so that more time could be devoted to the tested subjects.

https://newrepublic.com/article/145935/settling-scores

Other articles referenced above:
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/11/education/11scores.html?pagewanted=all
https://www.scpr.org/blogs/education/2013/03/28/13089/report-cheating-on-standardized-tests-in-75-percen/

An academic paper on the subject:
https://files.epi.org/2014/holding-accountability-to-account.pdf



*One of my colleagues has been arguing that the Ontario government should start standardized testing for science, not because he believes that standardized testing is good, but because elementary school teachers are dropping science in favour of more time for arithmetic and reading — which are tested (and administrators are judged by their school's performance, so administrators judge teachers by their students' performance.

Larry Hart said...

Tony Fisk:

Noting OGH's reservations about Pres. Pence,


With all due respect to Dr Brin, I think Wednesday put paid to any notion that "Pence would be worse". No matter what Pence might want to do, he'd be much more constrained in his ability to do so than Trump is.

The only occupant of the Oval Office who could possibly be worse than Trump is someone with his same influence over Brownshirts plus competence. Pence fails on both counts.

Larry Hart said...

Alfred Differ:

I recall poo-poo-ing the idea that he'd incite a riot. I thought he'd understand the legal exposure he'd face. Apparently not. He really IS that stupid/clueless/bought into his belief of Rightness.


I think he really did believe that Article II says he can do whatever he wants. Between the powers of the presidency and the possibility of a self-pardon, he honestly believed that the law didn't apply to him.

I use past tense because yesterday's hostage video seems to imply that someone on his staff put some fear into him.

Keith Halperin said...

@DO & DO: Thank you for your ideas.

Robert said...

Me: Won't make much of a difference until you get rid of standardized testing and the petty tyrannies of school boards.

duncan: Those two are the polar opposites of each other!!

Not really. They are both imposing requirements on Duncan's "granola-pacifist" teachers.

I admire that you get eight hours to prepare for a one-hour lesson. My school day has four nominally-75 minute periods, of which I teach three. The fourth is split: half is time the school administration can use to cover other classes, assign supervision, etc, the other half is mine to prepare lessons, mark, contact parents, fill out paperwork, set up and take down science labs, take mandatory compliance training, meet with administration, write proposals justifying why we need to buy more test tubes, photocopy handouts, write make-up assignments/tests for students who have been absent, modify lessons for students who have IEPs, etc. Needless to say I take work home.

Larry Hart said...

David Smelser:

Since "The President ... shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of impeachment.", would it be a judo move to draft articles of impeachment listing all Trump's wrong doings that we fear Trump/Pence may try to pardon.


While I'd like to agree, I suspect that Republicans would successfully argue (in Republican-controlled courts) that the phrasing only prevents Trump from pardoning himself from the impeachment itself, not for elements that he's being impeached for.

In my Giuliani-esque Summer Daydream, I'd like to argue that "except in cases of impeachment" means that while he is under impeachment, he can't use the pardon power at all. But again, that argument would only be successful if we were discussing a Democratic president.

My suggestion of a judo move--my wife insists it can't work, but I'm not so sure--is for President Biden to issue a pre-emptive self-pardon to himself for anything he might be charged with before any charges are brought against Trump. That would force the supreme court to take into account that when they rule on whether Trump's self-pardon is allowable, they'll be setting a precedent that applies to Democratic presidents as well. While not quite the same issue, assuming Trump pardons his children before leaving office, I would advise President Biden to immediately pardon Hunter for whatever suspicions he is under. Not in four years, but right now. I would do so for the sheer amusement value of listening to Republicans argue why he can't do that after they argue that Trump can.

Robert said...

AVR: A coup is something between elites. I think the correct term here is 'insurrection'. A weak, failed insurrection.

Incited by the wealthy, privileged leader of the country, against other branches of the government. I'd be comfortable classifying Trump as a member of the elite.

matthew said...

Interesting to note: Both Nancy Pelosi and Jeff Merkley had their laptops stolen from their offices during the coup attempt. Further proof that there were professional elements involved in the attack on the Capitol. How much do you want to bet that neither of those computers will ever be recovered? I suspect they are already in another nation, being examined by intelligence agency IT.

Also, how many bugs do you think were planted in the building? How many cameras and mics put in place. Seriously, every computer, flash drive and lightbulb / power outlet in the Capitol needs to be replaced before they building can be trusted again.

One of the teams that broached the building made directly for the areas where classified material is stored and conversations held.

This was an op, and had inside help.

jim said...

So I have been thinking what to do when / if Trump tries to pardon all those involved in the planning, promoting and acting in the seditious terrorist attack on the capital.

When Biden gets into office he can declare the attack on 1/6/21 a terrorist attack that was attempting a seditious coup. He can then announce that the US military will take as an admission of guilt anyone who accepts a criminal pardon for actions involved with the 1/6/21 attack. They will be declared domestic terrorist, seized by the US military, interrogated and imprisoned as threats to national security.

He can make it quite clear that these seditious a-holes have a choice –reject the pardon and take your chances in the civilian courts system or face military justice, there is no get out of jail free card.

Alfred Differ said...

matthew,

not to throw shade at you

Heh. It didn't occur to me to read it negatively.

The old truth with my customer is that the IT industry evolved faster than anything for which they were equipped to cope. They've dealt with that in their own civilian ranks since then, but they needed contractors (like me) to keep things running.

An early CIO essentially threw us the keys to the car at us and said 'drive'. That demoralized his civilian staff quite a bit… and it's kinda illegal. We weren't going to complain, but an IG would have hung him for it. The next CIO immediately steps to reverse the situation which demoralized some on my team. It WAS the right thing to do, though. The current CIO is working at balance with us contractors doing what we are good at short of driving the car. His civilian staff has meaningful work to do, promotion opportunities, and so do we.

I'm fairly sure the ultimate cause was unionized labor not being able to keep up training efforts. Carrying people through apprenticeships to mastery of a skill is a critical need that Unions can deliver. What failed was RE-training people with old skills that aren't needed anymore. A person can be Master one day and Novice the next when their tools are no longer relevant. [This has happened a few times to me, but I'm a contractor and know darn well I have to look after my own training.]



My particular employer IS providing a service that isn't in our contract that sorta fills this role. We bring in people as novices occasionally and get them trained. Sometimes our government customer hires them away from us. At present, at least half of the staff I count as 'customer' used to be 'peer' or 'subordinate' on the contract side. It's actually kinda annoying for us (counts toward the quit rate), but great for the customer and the people they take from us.

Could the civilian's union be doing this instead of us? I honestly doubt it. They are far less nimble and play more of a protective role than a training role. IF they did, though, we probably wouldn't be needed at all. Der Oger would get to see a more ideal arrangement.


I'm still not sure what I should have done.

Training, retraining, retooling, etc. Your people MUST accept the need to keep learning and management MUST accept some responsibility for arranging it. Unless you like losing talent (firing, lay-off, quitting) and training novices ($$$), you have to accept the duty. Everyone must.

Alfred Differ said...

or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States,

Check. The people milling about outside who never came in wouldn't be guilty of this, but the rest would be.

or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof

Possible check. We'd have to be careful with what qualifies as property here. Does the Speaker's mail count? Maybe not. There is always mail theft for that. 'Property' might mean territory, but I'm sure legal researchers could chime in on this.


Fines would probably be sufficient for most of the rioters who came inside. Even if they were just charged with the cost of the cleanup, that would probably teach most of them the lesson they need to hear. Actions -> Consequences.

Alfred Differ said...

Larry,

I use past tense because yesterday's hostage video seems to imply that someone on his staff put some fear into him.

Won't last.

He will froth at the next impeachment effort.

David Brin said...

Matthew sorry, thi is kinda ... inflated: "The only reason this did not end with hostage-taking and executions was the Secret Security details of both the Vice President and the VP-elect. They, along with Nancy Pelosi (and the Sec. of the Army, who exceeded his authority. Thank you, US Army) got the National Guard from Virginia to deploy. This is the *only* thing that kept the coup attempt from seizing the actual electoral ballots, as well as keeping Congressfolk / Senators being held hostage...."

There were ZERO centers of potentially repressive power that were seized or even remotely targeted. Every aspect of this event was about symbolism, which is what confederates ALWAYS care about far more than anything practical. See my posting about Republicans and ship names.

Might this have been intended to start waves of violence that might THEN open the way for power seizures? Possibly.

In fact, I deem it fr more likely that this may have FORESTALLED far worse... e.g. McVeigh stuff... by revealing how a vast majority of Americans reacted with revulsion.

----
""If Black people had done what these white domestic terrorists did today, can you imagine the reaction? They would have been tear-gassed, pepper-sprayed, arrested, and charged with felonies—or treason."

Biden said exactly that, explicitly. Maybe the majority of blacks and lib who know he is an ally will grow to a super majority that fights for him, even in 2022.

---
DS of course 1 purpose of impeachment is to wxclude those charges from pardon

Robert, the lefty rage against standarized testing has some basis... certainly minorities on average (!) have seen some hampering by them and finding other means for defining merit is called for. One powerful one has been to give admission ced to the top 20% of any high school, no matter where.

But to RAGE against standardized tests is another example of ignoramuses knowing and caring nothing about hisory, like the fools who rage that "Don't Ask, don't tell" was some kind of evil plot. When DADT was a a fantastic improvement over what came before it, taking us well over 60% of the way forward. AND IT WAS ALWAYS INTENDED TO BE TRANSITIONAL. And that's what it was. And it was replaced with full tolerance just as soon as DADT had done its job of calming uniforned folks down just enough.

STANDARDIZED TESTING WAS A HUGE ADVANCEMENT OF RIGHTS! In its time. It forced universities to greatly reduce the power of nod-and-wink old-boy admissions, by orders of magnitude. As I said, it's fine to criticize remaining injustices that the tests now manifest. But perspective, please.

Slim Moldie said...

Fourteenth Amendment

Section 3

No Person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Larry Hart said...

I'm sorry (not really), but I have zero tolerance for the people on right-wing stations and social media who actually believe (or claim to) that they are rightly outraged at an election which Trump won (in a landslide!) and which was stolen by Democrats and (for some reason) Republican state officials and Republican-nominated judges.

Oh, they have the right to believe whatever they want, but I don't have to spend any milliseconds or brain cells giving them any benefit of the doubt. I know I'm right and they are wrong. I understand that they think the exact same thing in reverse, but they're delusional and I am not. Fuck their feelings!

smitpa said...

How the hell do we keep Trump from tweeting? I know the social networks have banned him but that will last about a week. He has set up the Emperor in exile scenario over the last four years and he will play it for all it's worth. It'll be guest appearances on the Sean Hannity show every week. Now that the first coup attempt has failed the MAGA gang know to show up with their AR15's. We dodged the bullet the first time but how about the tenth time?

matthew said...

Lisa Murkowski is threatening to leave the GOP and caucus with the Democrats if Trump does not resign and the GOP distance the party from him.

https://www.adn.com/politics/2021/01/08/alaska-sen-lisa-murkowski-calls-on-president-trump-to-resign-questions-her-future-as-a-republican/


Nate Silver points out that with Alaska's new Top Four Primary system, she risks very little by the move.

Silver - "With Alaska's new Top 4 primary system, Murkowski has little electoral incentive to remain a Republican. It wouldn't surprise me if Democrats wind up with a 51-person caucus including 3 independents (King, Bernie, Murkowski)."

Keep an eye on this one.

Der Oger said...

Trump just got permanently suspended from Twitter.

David Brin said...

Taking the "football" launch codes from Trump is dangerous in its own right. What happens in the event Putin decides to spasm attack us, when our deterrent is bollixed in this way?

Keith Halperin said...

@ Everybody: To mangle Emma Goldman:
"I don't want a failed coup that I can't laugh at."
Randy Rainbow's Sedition! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wT5kafhG3Qw

@ Dr. Brin:
Were the Greys' Imperial Exams standardized tests?

Der Oger said...

"Taking the "football" launch codes from Trump is dangerous in its own right. What happens in the event Putin decides to spasm attack us, when our deterrent is bollixed in this way?"

Hopefully, the next in line of presidential succession gets the launch codes fast enough. But then again, I believe Putin to be a more saner person than Trump, and I worry more about what the latter could try shortly before the end of his term. Nuking Iran, perhaps?

(Which would be an interesting dilemma. Doing so would surely to be considered a war crime and a crime against humanity. What if the only thing that could stop this would be the weapon of one of his Secret Service agents? Would he be a hero or a traitor ?)

Larry Hart said...

matthew:

Lisa Murkowski is threatening to leave the GOP and caucus with the Democrats if Trump does not resign and the GOP distance the party from him.
...
Nate Silver points out that with Alaska's new Top Four Primary system, she risks very little by the move.


IIRC, Murkowski was primaried by the Republicans and ran (and won) as an independent. She owes little to the Republican Party, and the tactic you suggests keeps her as part of the majority caucus.

When it still looked like the Republicans would hold the Senate, maybe by one seat, someone on electoral-vote.com suggested that the Democrats offer Mitt Romney the majority leader spot if he'd caucus with them.

Robert said...

David: STANDARDIZED TESTING WAS A HUGE ADVANCEMENT OF RIGHTS! In its time. It forced universities to greatly reduce the power of nod-and-wink old-boy admissions, by orders of magnitude. As I said, it's fine to criticize remaining injustices that the tests now manifest. But perspective, please.

In Canada, university admissions aren't governed by standardized tests. Our universities don't have a problem with old-boy admissions.

I don't have a problem with using standardized assessment instruments to sample how well the system is doing, and find the best places to concentrate efforts at improvement. I have huge problems using them to label students (or schools).

Robert said...

What if the only thing that could stop this would be the weapon of one of his Secret Service agents? Would he be a hero or a traitor ?

Both. Hero to Democrats and the rest of the world, traitor to Republicans (and possibly Israeli hardliners).

Kal Kallevig said...

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/right-wing-extremists-vow-return-washington-joe-biden-s-inauguration-n1253546

https://www.emptywheel.net/2021/01/08/investigate-tommy-tubervilles-pre-speech-and-debate-actions/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+emptywheel%2FcAUy+%28emptywheel%29
The comments are particularly interesting. Serious people hang out at that blog.

I'm not so sure the invasion was intended to be symbolic. There were plenty of bozos there, but also a few that looked quite serious.

Keith Halperin said...

@ Der Oger:
In "Years and Years" at the end of Trumps SECOND term (mistakenly in November, 2024), "Our Glorious President" launches a nuclear attack on a Chinese military target. (Maybe I can watch the rest of the series now, or after 2020/01/21.)

@ Everybody:
How can we use "splitter" tactics to hive off the KKK/Brownshirt Wing (to create a third party, which would have elected members of government) of the GOP wing from the Spineless Toadie/Plutocrat Wing?
#NoGoodRepublicans, #NoGoodTrumpSupporters, #NoGoodTraitors, #BringDownTheHammer

David Brin said...

Okay, I give 1:3 odds Trump will resign ONE day early just to screw up presidential numberings and give Pence a humiliating asterisk. Anyway, this has all spun beyond him, as I've predicted for years. Putin has no further use of his gelded White House asset (except perhaps as a martyr.) No, Vlad's last chance to slash at us, before retribution - or at least neutralization - commences, is to ignite a hot phase nine of the US civil war:

“Round 2 on January 20th. This time no mercy. I don’t even care about keeping Trump in power. I care about war,” an anonymous person posted on a fanatic site.

Read this article, then tell me Joe & Kamala should be on the same platform, that day. Keep them - and Pelosi - apart!
OTOH they MUST come out and speak, expressing confidence! I have repeatedly described how to achieve that.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/right-wing-extremists-vow-return-washington-joe-biden-s-inauguration-n1253546

But yes. Pass out flags to the swarms of real Americans coming to celebrate, that day. Flags... attached to stiff, strong poles.

Alfred Differ said...

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/an-air-force-combat-veteran-breached-the-senate

Jon S. said...

"Interesting to note: Both Nancy Pelosi and Jeff Merkley had their laptops stolen from their offices during the coup attempt. Further proof that there were professional elements involved in the attack on the Capitol. How much do you want to bet that neither of those computers will ever be recovered? I suspect they are already in another nation, being examined by intelligence agency IT."

Apparently the one stolen from Pelosi's office was used exclusively for presentations, and had no secure data on it.

One twitter response: "The terrorists have threatened to release one PowerPoint presentation per day until their demands are met."

Tony Fisk said...

Remember that scene from 'Zulu' where Chaka is assessing the garrison defences with the lives of his men?

What happened Wed may have been a deadly joke in some ways, but clearly one with levels of sophistication and collusion. I only hope the protectors can read the cards played, and are ready for another, more serious attempt.

Pelosi has specifically met with and received assurances from the JCS that 'steps are in place' to prevent unstable persons from doing a 'President Clarke'. Obviously not saying what those steps are, and whether or not we'd have time to tweet our indignation should those steps fail.

Pence doesn't want to talk 25.
Pelosi has scheduled impeachment hearings later in the week. Some are trying to get them in motion by Monday. My wife tells me Mitch has been looking in his schedule calendar, and might be able to fit in at 1pm on the 20th... (he'd lose former pres. Privileges.)

Der Oger said...

@Dr. Brin:

"No, Vlad's last chance to slash at us, before retribution - or at least neutralization - commences, is to ignite a hot phase nine of the US civil war:

“Round 2 on January 20th. This time no mercy. I don’t even care about keeping Trump in power. I care about war,” an anonymous person posted on a fanatic site."

Even without Putin pouring oil into the flames, I wonder if "Phase Nine" (might be a decent title for a book) is avoidable at all; and, if not, if it would benefit the blue side to provoke or stall the outbreak as long as possible.

Also, since the Praetorian Caste had at least evidence that the assault on the Hill could happen, one must ask oneself if it did nothing out of ineptitude or by design, and ensure it remains loyal in the coming days.

"But yes. Pass out flags to the swarms of real Americans coming to celebrate, that day. Flags... attached to stiff, strong poles."

I asked myself if it was a mistake that "the Left" (= the part of your country that isn't bat-shit crazy right-wing) did not organize counter-protests on Jan. 6th. Sure, it would have given violent clashes (which might have been beneficial for GOP propaganda), but the heightened police presence there (because of the "leftists", of course) might have hindered the Assault on Capitol Hill. On the other hand, by not showing up, the Goppers are out in the cold, wide open now.

@Things Biden could do:
Transfer control of the Secret Service to the Inspector General of Homeland Security, and give them additional training in criminal and constitutional law. They remain bodyguards, yes, but also act as "planned witnesses" for later prosecution if their ward does something illegal.

Larry Hart said...

From Alfred Differ's "New Yorker" link above (emphasis mine) :

Brock’s family members and his friend said that his service in the Air Force was central to his identity.


Colorado Springs does seem to turn these out, huh?

Larry Hart said...

re: stolen laptops,

Maybe I watch too many movies, but shouldn't those have kill codes on them that can fry the innards in situations like this. Or do so automatically if codes haven't been entered in (say) 72 hours?

Larry Hart said...

Dr Brin quotes an anonymous traitor:

“Round 2 on January 20th. This time no mercy. I don’t even care about keeping Trump in power. I care about war,” an anonymous person posted on a fanatic site.


Have we reached the point in Camelot where the knights are riding their horses all over the Round Table, smashing it into pieces?

David Brin said...

uss Daggatt says: "It’s not over. Expect further Trump-incited right wing violence in DC and in state capitols across the country:

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/right-wing-extremists-vow-return-washington-joe-biden-s-inauguration-n1253546

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/09/trump-twitter-protests/?fbclid=IwAR0X2L9gTW6mSC8dC7kWsi0LChGGhxMmcsZXRlRD_8hANNMv3PzKcmOjNnM

Trump’s incitement:

https://twitter.com/sethabramson/status/1347908845281095680?s=21

David Brin said...

Eeek! A new pandemic? OMG. We better prepared for this new enemy, called B.1.1.7, or B-117 for short. One more reason to rejoice that 10,000 incompetent, corrupt traitor-loonies are about to be replaced by 10,000 sane, skilled adults.

https://www.statnews.com/2021/01/09/we-lost-to-sars-cov-2-in-2020-we-can-defeat-b-117-in-2021/

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