Just trying to help here

by liberal japonicus

Given the median age around these parts, I post this article as a public service.

Since Twitter and Facebook banned Donald Trump and began “purging” QAnon conspiracists, a segment of the chattering class has been making all sorts of wild proclamations about this “precedent-setting” event. As such, I thought I’d set the record straight.

Click on the twitter thread at the end, hours of hilarity. Even more when you realize the original tweeter graduated from the same school as Trump.

Comments

[Michael Cain]

While I am certainly in the oldster group, I spent a lot of years in the small computing and data communications industry. Here are two predictions about where the important consequences of the Parler clamp-down are going to be in two or three years.

1) Smartphones are now the predominant general-purpose computing device for most Americans. For the vast majority of Americans, Apple/Google have complete control over what software may be loaded and run. (Poll question: who here knows, without looking, how to sideload an application into their phone?)

2) Amazon's almost certain violation of the "we will never look at the data you store in our cloud" side of their standard agreement.

[cleek]

meh.

companies have no obligation to be party to violent insurrection in any way.

[liberal japonicus]

Michael, apologies, though I think there are a number of people here (including me) who are not up to speed on this.

About AWS, there must have been people reporting what was on Parler that Amazon can simply say it asked for verified procedures. It can also point to the violence on the 6th and simply say it was taking due diligence, and if Parler did not have a procedure in place, they were just being cautious. IANAL, but I don't think the standard agreement allows them to look the other way when Parler was potentially facilitating violence.

According to BuzzFeed, Amazon Web Services (AWS), told Parler officials that the violence in posts on the site ran afoul of its terms of service, and that it did not believe Parler had a process in place to get back on track. “Because Parler cannot comply with our terms of service and poses a very real risk to public safety, we plan to suspend Parler’s account effective Sunday, January 10th, at 11:59PM PST,” the company’s trust and safety team wrote in a letter to Parler.

Given that others were able to download basically all of Parler

https://www.mediawinii.com/how-80tb-of-parler-posts-videos-and-other-data-was-leaked/

I think Amazon can point to that and say that others reported it, though perhaps some can give a more inside explanation.

[Girl from the North Country]

Poll question: who here knows, without looking, how to sideload an application into their phone?

With or without looking, I have no idea what this even means!

[russell]

Apple/Google have complete control over what software may be loaded and run.

We used to have a pretty strong anti-monopoly bias. Now we don't.

There are pros and cons. One of the cons is that you get what the monopolistic provider wants to give you.

As a society, we pays our money and we takes our choice.

And, what cleek said.

[russell]

With or without looking, I have no idea what this even means!

LOL.

I'm still on a flip phone.

[bobbyp]

With or without looking, I have no idea what this even means!

Thirded. I even looked. Still do not have any idea.

companies have no obligation to be party to violent insurrection in any way.

Unless it enhances shareholder value./sarcasm

[wj]

Poll question: who here knows, without looking, how to sideload an application into their phone?

With or without looking, I have no idea what this even means!

I haven't encountered the term before. But I'm guessing it means finding an app somewhere other that the "app stores" already set up on your phone. And then installing it.

For example, my town has an app to connect residents to stuff. Downloadable from the town's website. No app store involved.

[cleek]

i know what it means, but i've never bothered.

i'm perfectly happy with my iPhone and what other people create for the iOS store. i think of it as a tool, not yet another (#^%@@*!!!) computer i need to meticulously cultivate.

[wj]

I'm recalling that, at his appearance at the final rally of the Georgia run-off election, Trump said that if Democrats won the state’s two Senate runoff elections, “America as you know it will be over, and it will never—I believe—be able to come back again.”

It seems . . . odd . . . to ever say this, but from Trump's lips to God's ear.

[cleek]

one can only hope he was right

[Donald]

Here’s a thread about Qanon as a cult. You actually feel sorry for ( some of) these people, like you might for anyone who gets caught up in some bizarre group. Is it their fault? Sure, but people do dumb things.

https://twitter.com/GraceSpelman/status/1348352847230988288

[russell]

They're like Millerites, only with guns.

[cleek]

christ... that article on the tween just under the one Donald linked to.

A Game Designer’s Analysis Of QAnon

i despair.

[laura koerber]

They are the inevitable result of the Republican party's decision to create division and polarization. https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2021/01/10/tea-party-protests-trump-bob-inglis-column/6594986002/?fbclid=IwAR0Iq2AiNy6tdwcueXuzOHqduuJ3oFycMGFqnmgWkqqKRUdCBrC6xaejoKQ

[laura koerber]

I am not willing to transfer the responsibility fot the attacks on Congress to Parler and Qnon. The blame rests squarely on the Republican party. They deliberately and cynically replaced discussion of policy and ideas with slander, defamation and lies and they have been at it for a long time. Trump is the result of their hatemongering. And Republicans are in the position where they will lose elections if they don't pander to the haters they created,

[laura koerber]

https://truthout.org/articles/republicans-can-say-what-they-want-but-they-created-this-monster/

I don't know how the Republican party can change the arc of their degeneracy--and that's assuming the leadership wants to. (and who is the leadership of the Republican party? Is it in reality the Faux evening line up of haters?)

[russell]

You know, it's all fun and games until somebody gets hurt.

I do feel badly for some of these folks, because they're being used. But at a certain point, the fictional narrative becomes so absurd that gullibility becomes kind of hard to excuse.

There is a global cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles. They rule the world. Among other things, they eat children. Very well known people, including most of the (D) leadership, are part of this.

That's the basic QAnon credo.

Trust me when I say that I have experience with people who believe unusual things. I'm way more than sympathetic to oddballs.

But at a certain point, we're all obliged to take a look at what we believe and ask ourselves if it really holds up. That point is generally when what we believe makes us think really horrible things about other people. Ideally before then, but that's where the rubber kind of meets the road.

Look at another person, and say to yourself, yes, that person worships Satan and eats children. Because somebody on a blog somewhere - some anonymous shadowy individual who identifies themselves with a capital letter - said it was so.

Real person, anonymous blog entity. Real person eats babies, because anonymous blog entity says so.

And then decide the real person needs to be killed or imprisoned or otherwise destroyed.

Right?

I run out of sympathy somewhere around the "real person vs anonymous blog entity" part. I more than run out of sympathy at the "so we must destroy them" part.

Absent clinical medical illness, severe chemical dependency, or other significant mental impairment, people are responsible for and accountable for what they choose to believe, and especially for the actions they take based on what they believe.

The cult-like aspects of Q are profoundly sad and perhaps even tragic, but they do not excuse the actions of the followers.

These people clearly intended harm to members of Congress. Assault, kidnap, maybe murder.

The folks who weren't on the pointy end of all of that were right there behind them. They were fine with it all.

No excuses.

[bobbyp]

Like Scrooge, the GOP has been forging this chain link by link starting with the baby steps of Dicky Nixon, taking cues from the success of George Wallace in Dem primaries during the 70's, going into full blown overdrive under Reagan, and the finale, the denial of the legitimacy of Democrats to govern embodied by the Newt and his poo-flinging successors.

It's only gotten worse since Bush staked his political capital on privatizing Social Security. The looming inability to win the presidency is driving the GOP into full blown Confederate rebellion.

[novakant]

The Trump / Parler ban - while in this very moment something we might applaud - is obviously problematic since it shouldn't be up to a bunch of Silicon Valley people to decide what's acceptable speech etc. but it should be regulated by politicians and the courts.

Merkel et al agree with me:

https://www.politico.eu/article/angela-merkel-european-leaders-question-twitter-donald-trump-ban/

[wj]

it shouldn't be up to a bunch of Silicon Valley people to decide what's acceptable speech

They aren't deciding what is acceptable speech. They are merely deciding what speech they will choose to pass along.

If it helps, think of your local newspaper deciding which Letters to the Editor they will publish.

[sapient]

The Trump / Parler ban - while in this very moment something we might applaud - is obviously problematic since it shouldn't be up to a bunch of Silicon Valley people to decide what's acceptable speech etc.

I agree that it's problematic, but as long as we consider these companies to be private entities, and call them to account (before Congress, etc.) for what they allow to happen on their platforms, I think they're well within their right to ban people who are plotting violent criminal conspiracies. It will be interesting to see the law on this develop in the courts.

[sapient]

develops, I meant.

In other news: Josh Hawley.

[sapient]

I see that the Josh Hawley NYT article was the underpinning of the LGM post that GftNC posted earlier elsewhere. Well worth reading for people who can stomach it. I'm not anti-religious (usually), and have had moments of faith myself, but articles like this make it tempting to equate religion with Q, and not in a good way.

[Hartmut]

Q is not even original. Replace 'Democrats' with 'Jews' and you get mostly highlights from the very old playbook.
Btw, the mob storming the Capitol displayed both pro-Israel and blatantly antisemitic signs and symbols. But since the Yahoo from Netanja began to openly support the antisemitic campaigns* by the likes of Orban and Kaczynski, this should be no longer a surprise.

*targeting mainly liberal Jews

[Girl from the North Country]

Trust me when I say that I have experience with people who believe unusual things. I'm way more than sympathetic to oddballs.

This made me laugh, russell. I may be deeply unsympathetic to e.g. woo-woo alternative medicine, as you will have gathered on other threads, but it is partly in response to some of the people I knew (and was friends with, and sympathetic to) in my hippy youth.

[Nigel]

I don’t think the problem is so much tech companies banning individuals for breaching terms of service (though I’m also more concerned about ‘infrastructure’ companies policing content), as it is the tech service providers being quasi monopolies in their particular spaces.

Facebook ought to be at the head of the queue for some antitrust action.

[Nigel]

If it helps, think of your local newspaper deciding which Letters to the Editor they will publish.

It really doesn’t.

The disparity in power and scale is so great it that fails as an analogy, I think.

[JanieM]

I agree that having the social media companies doing what they're doing is problematic, and these questions should be revisited in the long run.

In the short run, however:

1. Apparently Clickbait was for a long time violating terms of service that were enforced on other people but not him. No link, not going looking for it, but e.g. I read that someone at some point set up a twitter account and did nothing but tweet exact copies of Clickbait's tweet -- and they were shut down. So my objection is to the fact that they didn't shut him down years ago, not to the fact that they've done it now.

2. We don't know (at least I don't know) to what extent the FBI (or whoever, in the government) has pressured the social media companies to take this action right now...

3. ...in order, on an emergency basis, to disrupt the active planning of an all-out assault on DC, not to mention 50 state houses, on or before January 20 by the same mob with reinforcements. Anyone who thinks these people aren't going to try something again is deluded.

And since this country is an armed to the teeth lunatic asylum right now, I don't really give a damn if one way of disrupting the mayhem is for Twitter to shut down the chief lunatic's account, among others.

I'm aware that all these actions can and may well be used against my side in the future. It would be nice if we got some sane policies in place before that time comes. Also voting rights legislation to make sure "my side" retains a strong voice in the proceedings.

Etc.

[wj]

Facebook ought to be at the head of the queue for some antitrust action.

The problem is that there are network effects that make belonging to the same social network as everybody else highly desirable. Facebook isn't the only social network (LinkedIn, for just one example). But it's the one everybody chooses because everybody else has chosen it.

I don't really see a good way to break it up (dividing members how???). I mean, you could break up AT&T geographically. You could break up Standard Oil in various ways. But a social network?

And if you try, expect to see everybody fairly rapidly pick one of the pieces and migrate there. Thus recreating the problem.

In fact, I suspect the only real "solution" is to treat it like a public utility. And regulate it accordingly. (Cue howls of outrage from the libertarians.) Not sure if we want to go that way or not. But not seeing another viable option.

[russell]

it shouldn't be up to a bunch of Silicon Valley people to decide what's acceptable speech etc.

They aren't deciding what is acceptable speech. They are merely deciding what speech they will choose to pass along.

wj is correct.

and, if we don't want a handful of corporate actors - literally, you can count them on one hand - to be able to decide what should and should not be available in the marketplace of ideas, then we should take steps as a society to make sure no corporate actor is in a position to do so.

We don't.

So if Twitter, or Facebook, or Google, or Amazon, decides you're out, you're basically out.

Read 'em and weep.

[liberal japonicus]

It's funny (in that dark ironic way) that facebook seems to be the choice of older folks and those younger wouldn't be caught dead on it. So treating facebook like a public utility is a bit hopeless cause it may, in a decade or so, be like [fill in a defunct-ish service here]

[russell]

it is to laugh.

irony's been dead for quite a while now, but apparently Trump decided to dig its sorry corpse out of the cold ground, sit it up in a chair, and shoot it in the head. Just to make sure.

I can't wait until we go a whole day without hearing his name. Maybe, someday, even a week, or a month.

Maybe ever.

soon come.

[Tony P.]

wj: In fact, I suspect the only real "solution" is to treat it like a public utility.

Public utilities are not funded by ad revenue.

I can dimly picture a subscription-based, regulated-public-utility social network, though. Especially if the USPS is made the default ISP and universal last-mile-connectivity provider.

--TP

[hairshirthedonist]

What JanieM said at 8:13. (I love how that saves me a bunch of typing.)

[bobbyp]

and, if we don't want a handful of corporate actors - literally, you can count them on one hand - to be able to decide what should and should not be available in the marketplace of ideas, then we should take steps as a society to make sure no corporate actor is in a position to do so.

I believe we can take those steps via anti-trust, public takeover (yay! pure communism!), enhanced regulation (don't ask me for specifics...I don't know an algorithm from algae)...but how about removing their patent rights? Then perhaps, we would truly have a "marketplace of ideas" by reducing barriers to entry.

Just a stab at it.

[sapient]

anti-trust

good enough for me

[russell]

we could start by not letting them buy every other company that's working in the same general domain and market.

baby steps.

[russell]

so, a funny story. with the joke mostly being on me.

my first reaction to the events of last week were "I gotta go do something about this!"

so, what do you do?

I thought, maybe I'll get a gun and just go hunting for Proud Boys and III%ers. Or, you know, just show up. Unfortunately, it appears there's a learning curve involved in being effective with firearms, and those guys are a few steps ahead of me. Plus, my wife said "no". She was pretty clear about it, in a non-directive but emphatic way. Plus, I doubt the DC and Capitol cops and the FBI would appreciate my gung-ho volunteer spirit.

So, what else? I checked the maximum age for the National Guard. I'm off by about 30 years.

OK, maybe Civil Defense. Remember Civil Defense? I'm showing my age here.

Turns out there is no Civil Defense anymore. At least as a public thing.

There is some vestigial thing - looks like some random dude hijacked the brand and put up a straight-outa-1995 website, complete with "lorem ipsum dolor sit amet" orphan pages. Some stuff for sale, too, including some kind of flamethrower / CB radio combo, for just under $2K.

How could you go wrong at that price?

The guy natters on for a while about the de-evolution of society in the big cities into lawless criminal anarky (sic), etc etc etc blah blah blah.

I looked out the window to see if the ravening hordes had shown up on my block yet.

Nope, not yet.

So I guess Civil Defense isn't for me, either. With or without flamethrower.

I suppose I'll just leave it to the pros.

Sometimes I just have to laugh at myself. Actually, most times I have to laugh at myself. And if I don't, my wife will, which is just one of the many reasons I love her.

A good friend of ours has a kid in DC, attending American U. She was all fired up about attending the inauguration, because she's a young person living in a big city where exciting things are happening and it's the first time she's ever voted.

Looks like that ain't gonna happen, due to the public ban (see earlier post).

Her mom will be relieved.

Stay safe out there, everybody, and let your friends and loved ones know you're thinking about them. We'll get through this, one way or another.

[wj]

Public utilities are not funded by ad revenue.

Not sure I remember that being part of the definition. Granted, it would be unusual, but....

[JanieM]

I looked out the window to see if the ravening hordes had shown up on my block yet.

LOL.

Reversing the logic, you might think that since I live in a rural area, the other ravening hordes would be on my doorstep. Not so far; Maine is not, after all, Idaho.

In fact, the article I linked quoted the Boston FBI guy saying "At this point in time, the FBI Boston Division is not in possession of any intelligence indicating any planned, armed protests at the four state capitals in our area of responsibility (ME, MA, NH, and RI) from January 17-20, 2021."

So, 46 states.

[sapient]

I suppose I'll just leave it to the pros.

You are so great, in every possible way.

I'm constantly thinking that I should learn to shoot a gun, but am I going to buy one? Where would I put it? I haven't totally decided not to do it, but yeah, it's a commitment.

I'm really happy to be part of the ObWi community, and apologize to GftNC for being disgruntled yesterday. I get depressed, but so do we all, and I hope we are friends.

[hairshirthedonist]

I’m ready to join RLM - Russell’s Liberal Militia. I want to be the explosives and electronic-surveillance expert. Or maybe fly the helicopter. Or maybe the martial arts/hand-to-hand combat specialist. I’ll have to think about it. I don’t want to rush into anything.

[liberal japonicus]

I don't want to be Debbie Downer, so maybe talk me down, folks.

I see a massive presence at the inauguration, and any protests broken up really quickly. I then see photos from the day, ideally of young white guys being subdued sent out along with statements that this is the libs plan. We are then treated to an indeterminate period of attacks on soft targets. Bomb a black church? They had a BLM banner! Smash the window of an organic cafe? They had avocado toast on the menu. It will be advertised as the situation that the liberals wanted.

The Atlantic article from Sept had this

On that front, a new study from the Vanderbilt University political scientist Larry M. Bartels offers important—and ominous—findings. Bartels found that antidemocratic and authoritarian ideas have secured a substantial foothold within the GOP’s electoral coalition. In a national survey he conducted in January, just over half of Republican voters (including both self-identified Republicans and independents who lean toward the party) strongly or somewhat agreed with the statement that “the traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it.” Just under half agreed that “strong leaders sometimes have to bend the rules in order to get things done.” About two in five agreed that “a time will come when patriotic Americans have to take the law into their own hands.” And almost three-fourths concurred that “it is hard to trust the results of elections when so many people will vote for anyone who offers a handout.”

Strikingly, less than one-fourth of Republicans disagreed with any of these statements. (No more than 8 percent strongly disagreed with any of them.) The rest described themselves as unsure.

Equally remarkable in Bartels’s research: The key predictor of which Republicans were most receptive to ditching democratic rules wasn’t age or education or any other demographic factor. Instead, hostility toward the nation’s growing racial and ethnic diversity—the central chord of Trump’s messaging—was the single best predictor of a willingness to abandon democratic precepts. Close behind was hostility toward cultural change, such as greater acceptance of gay rights.

That's how I see things going. Anyone tell me why that is not going to happen?

[russell]

maybe talk me down, folks.

Not me. All of that sounds exactly right. I’m not sure we’ll get through the inauguration without major incident, otherwise all of the above seems right on.

Haters gotta hate. I don’t know why. In the United States, haters can ammo up and kill people with relative ease, so here we are. Frightened angry people are dangerous.

We are, not headed for, but in, nous’ world of chronic violence that doesn’t quite reach to the level of full-on war. This country has spent at least half its history in that state, with a brief episode of no-kidding overt warfare, largely for the same reasons given in the Atlantic piece, and apparently we haven’t learned our lesson well enough to move beyond it yet.

It’s not gonna stop until we wise up. Probably not gonna happen in my lifetime. Maybe the millennials will get it together, after all of us boomers are dead and gone. Maybe not.

We all need to keep our heads and not let it make us freak out, but it’s here. Not trying to negative, just realistic, because you gotta see and acknowledge the reality if you’re gonna have any chance of dealing with it.

Don’t let it blind you to the good stuff, but don’t pretend it isn’t there.

[russell]

I'm constantly thinking that I should learn to shoot a gun, but am I going to buy one?

FWIW, my understanding is that many firing ranges have firearms you can rent for purposes of practice. Most will probably also be happy to provide you with basic firearm handling training, or at least be able to refer you to someone who can do that.

So you can most likely learn to safely handle and operate a firearm and shoot it accurately without having to actually own one.

Along similar lines, it’s not a bad idea to have some basic self-defense skills. Doesn’t have to be ninja level, just enough to let you avoid serious harm should someone attack you.

Most of us (I hope) will never need these things, but they are not bad skills to have in your back pocket, as it were. Be attentive to your state of mind, don’t get into stuff that’s beyond your comfort level, but there’s nothing necessarily wrong with being able to defend yourself if need be.

[novakant]

Sorry wj, russel, but comparing social media to the letter pages of a newspaper just shows that you don't understand how social media works - they're not just "passing along" speech.

And call me an old school European statist, but the power to regulate speech should not be left to market forces who operate according to the profit motive.

[novakant]

Here's a bit of further reading by the European commissioner pushing the Digital Services Act:

https://www.politico.eu/article/thierry-breton-social-media-capitol-hill-riot/

[russell]

also, too - via BJ, there is this.

A lot of the folks who showed up at the Capitol were naive clueless knuckleheads, full of themselves and full of crazy divorced-from-reality narratives about revolution and "taking their country back".

nous and Pro Bono have argued for treating those people differently than, for instance, the zip-tie boys. And I'm fine with that.

But all of these people - every one of them - have now publicly affiliated themselves with seditious violent enemies of the state. And probably left a public record of it, most likely including personal identifying information and pictures of themselves in the act, on the most public medium ever invented.

The state has resources they cannot imagine, and an army, and a powerful instinct and mandate for self-preservation.

I don't wish ill on the folks who are, actually, just naive knuckleheads who have made themselves more or less insane from a steady diet of QAnon and OAN and similar. But they're swimming in deep water now.

The Proud Boys say "Fuck Around And Find Out". Well, some folks, most likely including some of the Proud Boys themselves, are going to find out.

As the author of the piece says:

If that isn’t what you signed up for, now would be a good time to get out.

Shit's gonna get real, in more ways and in more directions than one. These folks took their shot at the king - the real king, not asshole Donny POTUS - and missed.

That ain't no game, and the feds don't play. If you have friends or family who are into this stuff, you may want to mention that this could be a good time to chill on the Q.

[russell]

but the power to regulate speech should not be left to market forces who operate according to the profit motive.

you mistake my comment for an endorsement of the various platforms' policies. it was merely a recognition of reality.

for good or ill - and opinions will no doubt vary - the arguments of European commissioners won't be very persuasive here in the US. they may, and should, and hopefully will, be persuasive and effective in the EU.

but not here.

this is the US. we love our country, value personal rights, but we worship money.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

Citing that article twice seems not like overkill.

https://arcdigital.media/qanon-woke-up-the-real-deep-state-72bbfcb79488

The perps and their co-conspirators and financiers inside the government and the conservative movement claim, as Limbaugh always has, that they are merely yelling "THEATER! in a crowded fire".

I saw an account by one of the crypto-Christian conservative Trump louts who broke into the Capitol, that as he paused outside the door he was about to enter, he prayed to his so-called god for guidance ... "Should I ... or not?" and God, the voices inside his head, didn't give him a "NO", (and since he wasn't black, no one thought to place a knee on his neck, so in he went.

These ilk cannot be talked to or reasoned with. Their religion is meth and confers fake superhuman and superspreader powers on them.

Hell, they wear a Covid-19 infection like a stigmata, and they share it with us, and they murder us with it, like a holy benediction.

The Capitol Hill cop who was beaten and trampled to death by the murderous conservative mob, including with a flagpole bearing an uncertain flag, doing the bidding of the White House and so-called elected government officials inside his place of employment, who he was trying to protect.

We're in 9/11, al Akhbar, here-I-come 72 virgins territory here, but of course, given their dour dumb fake Christianity, there's only one virgin and she's already been defiled by the entire Falwell family.

I'm certain at least one pilot hijacker on 9/11 secretly asked Muhammad at least once whether slitting the throats of the real pilots with box cutters and revving that plane into the fast-approaching towers of the World Trade Center was absolutely necessary, and upon hearing no response from the voices in his head, plunged on.

We have as much chance of talking to these brain-washed fanatic filth as a 9/11 passenger fruitlessly banging the drinks trolley into the locked cockpit door.

The conservative movement's best day in the 21rst century was 9/11. They fucking loved it.

It justified them. It was thrilling for them.

We must erect memorial monuments to this horrific event on January 6 ... a big one in Washington DC, to begin with.

And, we need to learn what and where the Aleppo of the evil sub-American conservative movement is, it's exact coordinates, it's caves and bunkers, and make it our righteous patriotic business to leave nothing and no one standing.

At this moment, the American government is rudderless, a half-assed terrorist is in the pilot's seat, and there is not a clown shoe among his millions of co-conspirators on the plane, and like Flight 93 on 9/11 over Pennsylvania, the craft is flying upside down and we're hanging from our seat belts.

Never bring a drinks trolley to a purely fascist ideological and radical religious fight.

"but, we worship money"

Yeah, the headline on some stock market sites said the Twitter ban of Trump would cost the company 10% of their profits and the stock was down a similar amount.

Like maybe this monstrous bullshit was on a par with Larry Hagman being killed off in "Dallas", or Trump himself leaving "The Apprentice".

My God, how will will we get on with the franchise and without our profit center?

Well, there's always the fat residuals for endless reruns and the conservative movement is already plotting those business decisions and let's not forget ..... the sequels!

They have a frighteningly deep bench of white sharks, acid-spewing, triple-jawed aliens, and sharply inclining learning curve velociraptors in pre-production as we speak and plenty of green screen left in bullshit psychotic America on which to project them.

Because America is fundamentally an unserious, full of shit confection as currently conservatively configured and the rule of law and the Constitution, if they say anything about combating and destroying Trump's perverted messianic Roy Cohn Mafiaso modus operandi, we seem not to be able to decide what chapter and verse, if they even exist, should apply, and even when we can find them and cite them, along comes some McConnell bullshit conservative with 72 virgin yeah-buts and codicils about why we cannot act.

[cleek]

And, we need to learn what and where the Aleppo of the evil sub-American conservative movement is, it's exact coordinates

40.758514, -73.9825968

[Girl from the North Country]

sapient,

Thank you for your apology, which I accept with caveats. I have an allergy to being told what to say, how to say it, how to behave, what words to use etc (always excepting e.g. the posting rules). I also have an allergy to being told what I think when it is not actually what I think. I have no problem with argument, enquiry etc, when done in good faith.

The reason I include caveats, is that this kind of approach is a recurring motif with you, which accounts for the escalated nature of my response. I hope we can come up with a "safe word" I can use to remind you, in case late at night or in the heat of the moment you forget yourself and issue "requests", demands or instructions. I would be receptive and grateful for any suggestions of such a safe word, from any quarter. Apart from this, we're all good.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

While thousands of hired killers tried to get to Democrats and liberals inside the Capitol, and murdered police, here's video of attempted murder (two Democrats already assaulted with intent to kill) by the usual suspects INSIDE the building.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/superspreader

It's easy to tell who the armed bank robbers are now during a pandemic bank heist.

They are only ones not wearing masks.

[cleek]

GOP is now without one of its biggest sugar daddies: Sheldon Adelson.

and nothing of value was lost.

[Hartmut]

That guy was a much better poster child than George Soros, if one was looking for a way to sell antisemitism. Is it ironic or just telling that he probably had lots of peddlers in that selfsame poison on his payroll?

[Russell]

Deutsche Bank is cutting off all future business with Trump. Rosemary Vrablic, who managed their business with Trump, resigned at the end of last year.

The man is, deservedly, radioactive.

[hairshirthedonist]

I want to endorse cleek's link. It's a really interesting read.

My sister-in-law has always been a kook and believed in nonsensical alternatives to the "official" story. Even the old, commonly laughed-at stuff like chem trails (and fluoridated water as Nazi mind-control! - I didn't even know that was a thing).

She is now off in Q land. She wanted to head to DC for the "rally" last week, but didn't only because she wasn't able to. She's all-in for tRump and lashing out at people on social media. It's not good.

A Game Designer’s Analysis Of QAnon

Posted by: cleek | January 11, 2021 at 05:43 PM

https://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2021/01/just-trying-to-help-here.html?cid=6a00d834515c2369e20263e987af81200b#comment-6a00d834515c2369e20263e987af81200b

[Marty]

So, I am not concerned about a bunch of loud mouths on the internet planning attacks on various places over the next week. Realistically they have no chance to do anything meaningful even if some of those guys actually get up in the morning, put on their camo that they wear to go duck hunting, kiss their wife or husband goodbye, drop off the kids at school and show up. There just aren't enough of those guys to do much that we haven't dealt with before.

If you believe that the military was slow to respond in protecting the Capitol, they dragged their feet providing the National Guard and the leaderships motives are suspect, then the 10,000 troops heading to DC is a bigger danger to democracy. I would want to know how they were outfitted, what equipment they were bringing, who was leading them on the ground and what the rest of the military level of alert is.

If we want to worry about a coup, they are who could actually make it happen.

Im sure that declaring a state of emergency and sending troops in who ended up being on the bad guys side was the plot of some Bruce Willis movie.

[hairshirthedonist]

Realistically they have no chance to do anything meaningful...

Except kill people. I don't think anyone is proposing that they'll take over the country.

There just aren't enough of those guys to do much that we haven't dealt with before.

The resources in DC, assuming they aren't the ones attempting a coup, will be far greater than what will be available at state houses across the country. Before last week, we hadn't "dealt with" a bunch of people storming the Capitol and threatening our legislators.

What we're talking about is yahoos shooting people or taking them hostage. "Dealing with" that might include shooting the yahoos and people on both sides dying. Even if that all falls well short of an overthrow of government, it's still a steaming f**king pile of unnecessary sh*t.

[Marty]

It is a pile of shit but I suspect that there will be very few places where there will be numbers large enough so the fuckwads have the nerve to shoot, knowing they will take fire back. I hope that number is zero. I do recognize the possibility that it could be nonzero at which point I want everyone standing in line with the first person to fire to be shot. Then it will stop.

[liberal japonicus]

https://blackthen.com/mccomb-mississippi-bomb-capital-of-the-world-1964/

The small town of McComb is located outside of Jackson, Mississippi, the state’s capital. It is noted that over a dozen bombings, riots, and other violent acts took place during that summer in McComb. If you were black and involved in any type of civil rights activities, such as voting or providing assistance to civil rights workers, you were considered a threat and targeted by whites.

Blacks were being arrested for any and everything that white people felt threatened by their being. Two teenage black students at a freedom school, who had been receiving harassing phone calls, were arrested for using profanity over the phone. The students were tried without counsel and sentenced to one year in jail under the “Mississippi Phone Harassment Law.” The individuals who were calling and harassing the teenagers received no jail time.

Churches and businesses were burned down. It was not uncommon to go to bed and hear explosive sounds during the night. No protection was provided to the black communities, as most of the law officials were part of the problem.. Law officials would only arrive to hide evidence, intimidate victims, or make victims disappear altogether.

By September 20, 1964, blacks in McComb were fed-up when the home of freedom fighter “Mama Quinn” was bombed. However, Mama Quinn was arrested for bombing her own home. Blacks had accepted the fact that there wouldn’t be any protection for exercising their constitutional rights from local and federal authorities. So, they decided it was time to take things into their own hands.

https://www.crmvet.org/info/mccomb1964.pdf

None of them had the nerve to shoot out in the open, which is why I said 'soft targets'.

[russell]

So, I am not concerned about a bunch of loud mouths on the internet planning attacks on various places over the next week.

what do you think last Wednesday was?

the 10,000 troops heading to DC is a bigger danger to democracy.

we have a specific recent example - recent as in, last Wednesday - of a mob storming the Capitol, killing a cop, assaulting all and sundry who were not of their number, destroying property both within and without the Capitol, and a smaller but significant number of people with apparent military or police training and background trying to capture and possibly kill members of Congress.

to my knowledge, we have no examples of National Guard troops, or any branch of the military, taking hostile action toward any member of government. correct me if I'm wrong.

I have to say I find your thought process puzzling.

In any case, if Trump manages to turn the military, then we're fucked. It's game over. There isn't even a discussion to have at that point.

I don't see that happening, FWIW.

[cleek]

I have to say I find your thought process puzzling.

nothing a Republican does bothers Marty. everything a Democrat does bothers Marty.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

It's only terrifying when both sides do it.

[Girl from the North Country]

My (second) reading of Marty's comments @ 10.08 is that he worries that there may be clandestine Trump supporters organising within the military, National Guard etc, to mount a more effective coup attempt.

And when he says I want everyone standing in line with the first person to fire to be shot. @10.27, I believe that he is talking about people within the coup attempt.

Marty, is that a correct reading of what you meant?

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

https://digbysblog.net/2021/01/no-rules-for-anti-government-conservatives/

[cleek]

I don't think anyone is proposing that they'll take over the country.

well, they are. literally. that's their mission.

[cleek]

Capitol Police briefed Democrats on Monday night about three more potentially gruesome demonstrations planned in the coming days, with one plot to encircle the U.S. Capitol and assassinate Democrats and some Republicans.

On a private call Monday night, new leaders of the Capitol Police told House Democrats they were closely monitoring three separate plans that could pose serious threats to members of Congress as Washington prepares for Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration on Jan. 20.

The first is a demonstration billed as the “largest armed protest ever to take place on American soil.”

Another is a protest in honor of Ashli Babbitt, the woman killed while trying to climb into the Speaker’s Lobby during Wednesday’s pro-Trump siege of the Capitol.

And another demonstration, which three members said was by far the most concerning plot, would involve insurrectionists forming a perimeter around the Capitol, the White House and the Supreme Court, and then blocking Democrats from entering the Capitol ― perhaps even killing them ― so that Republicans could take control of the government.

"conservatives" are faux-outraged that people aren't crying about "Portland and Seattle" right now (they get a peanut every time they mention Portland and Seattle). they are minimizing what happened in DC even as members of the seditious party are planning to kill more people in the name of Donald Trump.

cast yourself back to 2013 and imagine the idea of Republicans planning mass murder in the name of Donald Trump. an utterly ridiculous thought, right?

the GOP is an utterly ridiculous party.

[McKinneyTexas]

I'm constantly thinking that I should learn to shoot a gun, but am I going to buy one? Where would I put it? I haven't totally decided not to do it, but yeah, it's a commitment.

Unless you plan to really understand what it is you are doing, I'd advise against it. My dad spent 3 years, starting when I was 7, teaching us how to handle .22's before letting us shoot 20 gauge shotguns on dove hunts. I was 13 before I was allowed to hunt deer. Since then, as a former hunting and shooting enthusiast, I've probably fired 20,000 rounds of rifle, pistol and shotgun shells.

Yet, I've had no tactical training and I wouldn't think of doing anything offensively with a weapon simply because of the ba-zillion things I don't know. I could stand behind my door and shoot an intruder. That's in my wheelhouse, but if you break that down, it's me with a shotgun and one large, slow moving target trying to get through a door.

Running around with a group of untrained, armed morons and trying to tangle with an organized military unit? No thanks. Those guys will just stay home, fantasize and do what so many across the spectrum do: furiously display the courage of the keyboard.

That's how I see things going. Anyone tell me why that is not going to happen?

Probably because the authors are wrong. I know a ton of DT supporters. They don't give two shits about skin color or gay people (we have gay couples and POC's living and openly interacting in an otherwise pretty small and closed-in golf community that otherwise is a hotbed of DT worship). The assholes we saw at the capital, even if they are the tip of the iceberg, do not represent a very large iceberg.

Dismissing wholesale political opponents--or reducing political opponents--as or to racists is a really tired, worn out trope. It continues to resonate in the usual circles, but outside that, it's grown really stale. It's a substitute for intellectual heavy lifting.

There are racists on the right. On the left too. And in the AA and Hispanic communities. And in the Asian community. The Republican party does have a statistically significant number of racists to one degree or another (yes, Virgina, there are degrees of racism, depending on how you define that term).

However, not being down with Ibran Kendi and his bizarre brand of anti-racism is not actual racism. It's simply rejection of a patently stupid approach to race relations.

Your 10:40 is more on target. They are, mostly, cowards. Dipshits playing soldier who have no idea what combat really is. There is probably a leavening of nutbags with prior military service who could be problematic if there was localized violence, but the dreaded privileged white males of America are not locking and loading to upend the coming intersectional paradise.

I've laid low because things are pretty heated here. Now you have a sense of how others outside your zone felt about months and months of "mostly peaceful protests". I'm not hearing diddly about de-militarizing the police, much less defunding them these days. I'm not sure how community workers would add value to a rampaging mob, regardless of the mob's theoretical political orientation.

Nor am I hearing any concern about loading up DC with the National Guard. I'm completely confident that this would be different if the protesting came from the left. BTW, I'm fine with calling out the Guard. We need them.

Last note: if you want to see what happens to a police officer who has been de-militarized, spend some time watching the officer who was murdered get beaten to death. He had no helmut, no kevlar vest. IOW, he had no protection.

We'll see how long this new "law and order" religion lasts on the left. And how far it extends.

[cleek]

Nor am I hearing any concern about loading up DC with the National Guard.

the Republican's goal is literally to prevent the literal, noshit, ferreals overthrow of the US government - to kill representatives, to install Republican rule. that's what many of these people are literally and openly advocating and planning.

protests over law enforcement's treatment of non-whites wasn't about overthrowing the government. i condemned the destruction of property at the time and still do. but breaking windows is not trying to take over the government.

different, right?

[cleek]

the Republican's goal is literally to prevent the literal, noshit, ferreals overthrow of the US government

argh

the National Guard's goal is literally to prevent the literal, noshit, ferreals overthrow of the US government

[hairshirthedonist]

Now you have a sense of how others outside your zone felt about months and months of "mostly peaceful protests".

Really? The protests were mostly peaceful, as in the number of protests and the number of people who participated in them far outnumbered the incidents and participants in looting, violence, and vandalism. And I don't know of people, certainly not here, who tried to suggest that the looting, violence, and vandalism didn't happen.

It was matter of not allowing others to smear the protesters as rioters, looters, and vandals when the intersection between those groups was very small. The commentary about peaceful protests was matter of making the distinction rather than allowing those things to be blurred together as one and the same.

Let's also not forget that some of the violence during BLM protests was created by overzealous policing and right-wing agitators.

Did you think the people cleared for Trump's bible photo-op got what they deserved?

[CharlesWT]

...the power to regulate speech should not be left to market forces who operate according to the profit motive.

And I certainly don't want it left to the people with political motives. And guns.

[cleek]

Let's also not forget that some of the violence during BLM protests was created by overzealous policing and right-wing agitators.

for example

[Marty]

Well yes GftNC, Im confused how it could be read any other waya.

[russell]

he worries that there may be clandestine Trump supporters organising within the military, National Guard etc, to mount a more effective coup attempt.

I have no doubt that the seditious rot we saw last week extends into the US military and police. What I find unlikely is that it extends to the 10 or 15 thousand Guards troops who are being called to DC.

If I'm wrong about that, it's all over. Or at least, we will actually have a real, live Civil War on our hands.

The likelihood that "a bunch of loud mouths on the internet" are doing their damnedest to make a peaceful transfer of power impossible is, by comparison, much much much much higher.

Short of "the sun will come up tomorrow", it's hard for me to think of anything more obvious.

For the last four years, we've been listening to Marty tell us all that the violence is all on the left, that right wing violence is just a trivial aberration, that groups like the Proud Boys and their ilk are not a matter of concern. Certainly not when compared, for example, to BLM and Antifa.

In the ~240 years this nation has existed, Americans have never attempted a direct assault on Congress or the Capitol, have never attempted to interrupt the peaceful transfer of power.

Never.

Not during the intensely partisan period of the early 1800's, not during the increasingly turbulent and violent lead-up to the Civil War, not during the violence of the Reconstruction and post-Reconstruction periods, not during the social upheavals around the rise of the labor movement, not during the Great Depression, not during the tension and violence around the Civil Rights movement, not during Vietnam.

Never.

Even during the Civil War itself, the transfer of power was accomplished peacefully.

Never, until last Wednesday.

Those fnckers were hunting Congresspeople in the halls of the Capitol. To capture and likely harm or kill them.

So the idea that right wing violence is some kind of aberration or matter of trivial concern needs to be off the table.

These people are fucking serious, and they should be taken seriously.

McK's comparison of the riots around George Floyd's murder with the actions of last Wednesday deserves a response, but I don't have time right now, unfortunately. I will try to return to it.

Also, McK's comments about handling firearms are wisdom. If you're not going to invest in seriously learning how to use them safely, best to just leave them alone. If you think you might want one for self-defense, you need to commit yourself to the possibility of killing somebody with one, otherwise best to just leave them alone. Absent all of that, the person most likely to be harmed is you.

[hairshirthedonist]

Last note: if you want to see what happens to a police officer who has been de-militarized, spend some time watching the officer who was murdered get beaten to death. He had no helmut, no kevlar vest. IOW, he had no protection.

Which of course means that neighborhoods need to be policed on a daily basis with people armored and armed to the teeth as though they're an occupying military force rather than being there to ensure public safety.

More and better-equipped forces were needed last week, which should have been obvious ahead of time from the ridiculous amount of available intel. Threats to our seat of government aren't happening everywhere all the time.

A large and well-equipped force will be needed on inauguration day in Washington. That doesn't mean we need commandos in every city every day.

I don't know what religion you're referring to.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

"Last note: if you want to see what happens to a police officer who has been de-militarized, spend some time watching the officer who was murdered get beaten to death. He had no helmut, no kevlar vest. IOW, he had no protection."

I don't know for sure, but I'm betting that equipment is now standard issue to the 2500 officers on the Capitol Hill Police Force, and like every other police force that has been militarized over the past two decades, an order is required to don that equipment.

No order was issued.

Why not.

Cops in major metropolitan areas beat the crap out of unarmed protestors, including women, while wearing the stuff.

These protestors were armed to a great extent, more than we know.

"We'll see how long this new "law and order" religion lasts on the left. And how far it extends."

Bullshit. No one here has objected to Antifa looters and rioters being arrested and charged.

BLM folks in many instances pleaded with Antifa to stop their mayhem and with police forces to interdict the bad actors among the crowds.

In fact, that so few were arrested is some kind of dog that did not bark in the night as right wing suspects have constantly and with impunity equated BLM and Antifa as one criminal enterprise.

We'll see how long this pro-government religion lasts on the right among those who were terrified that Mike Pence, vice-enabler in chief of anti-government forces, might have strung up and disemboweled by armed, crypto-christian lunatics who not two weeks ago held him in high esteem as one of the chief Trump apostles.

"There are racists on the right. On the left too. And in the AA and Hispanic communities. And in the Asian community. The Republican party does have a statistically significant number of racists to one degree or another (yes, Virgina, there are degrees of racism, depending on how you define that term)."

Sure enough. But that statement is close enough to lj's stand that all of us are racist to some degree for me to declare a bi-partisan standoff.

Demilitarize the police at all levels of government, but only after demilitarizing the American public.

[sapient]

Running around with a group of untrained, armed morons and trying to tangle with an organized military unit? No thanks.

Certainly not my intention. As to buying a gun, your words of wisdom are, in fact, why I don't own one now. That's unlikely to change.

Demilitarize the police at all levels of government, but only after demilitarizing the American public.

This.

[hairshirthedonist]

Situational law-and-order religion, if you will:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/12/politics/congress-briefing-us-capitol-threats/index.html

[Girl from the North Country]

Marty, thank you for confirming my understanding, which hopefully provides some clarity. In all fairness, it took me a couple of readings of your comment to be (fairly) sure that was what you meant.

[russell]

Demilitarize the police at all levels of government, but only after demilitarizing the American public.

This ^^^^^.

[cleek]

five people died because of the Republican Party's attempt to overthrow the government last week. and they're threatening to do it again.

the GOP's response is to complain about unrelated events that happened seasons ago.

they are not capable of governance. they are, as the quote says, three death cults in a trench coat, pretending to be a political party.

[Marty]

russell, something less than 2000 people marched to the Capitol, something less than a few hundred breached the Capitol. This is an infinitesimally small number of people who made a big splash. Then, they all went home. They keep getting arrested in their home towns. They didn't regroup and destroy DC the next night. Most of them were not armed and the only shooting was by the police.

It wasn't the only federal building this year to be attacked, and the others were attacked repeatedly by antifa or whoever and required the National Guard to protect them.

It was a bad thing, it was of almost no actual consequence to the operation of our democracy.

There simply are not enough right or left wing radicals willing to pursue violence in this country to be of more than minimal consequence. Mostly we give them a bigger platform than they deserve.

I grew up with them. Members of the KKK. I was recruited to join when I was in the army. They are mostly pathetic followers looking for a way to feel important. They are a completely different set of people than the average Trump supporter. Ther is nuance to be observed here.

[cleek]

four people died in Benghazi. the GOP held countless hours of hearings and talked about non-stop for months.

what are the odds more than 10 Republicans will vote to even allow hearings into the Republicans' failed coup?

[nononeithinkisinmytree]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/police-warn-house-dems-of-plot-to-encircle-the-capitol-and-assassinate-them-says-report?via=newsletter&source=CSAMedition

Crowd size:

https://theconversation.com/it-is-difficult-if-not-impossible-to-estimate-the-size-of-the-crowd-that-stormed-capitol-hill-152889

I estimate there were only slightly fewer attackers against the Capitol than attended Trump's inauguration in 2017, which as we know was the largest inauguration crowd since Leni Reifenstahl employed a wide-angle lens.

"I grew up with them. Members of the KKK. I was recruited to join when I was in the army."

You never cease to amaze with the numbers and depth of your life experience in all matters, and your domiciles.

You remind me of Carl Reiner's and Mel Brooks' 2000-year-old man.

[cleek]

A day before rioters stormed Congress, an FBI office in Virginia issued an explicit internal warning that extremists were preparing to travel to Washington to commit violence and “war,” according to an internal document reviewed by The Washington Post that contradicts a senior official’s declaration the bureau had no intelligence indicating anyone at last week’s pro-Trump protest planned to do harm.

...

“As of 5 January 2021, FBI Norfolk received information indicating calls for violence in response to ‘unlawful lockdowns’ to begin on 6 January 2021 in Washington. D.C.,” the document says. “An online thread discussed specific calls for violence to include stating ‘Be ready to fight. Congress needs to hear glass breaking, doors being kicked in, and blood from their BLM and Pantifa slave soldiers being spilled. Get violent. Stop calling this a march, or rally, or a protest. Go there ready for war. We get our President or we die. NOTHING else will achieve this goal.”

where are the hearings, GOP Senate?

[nous]

I am not disagreeing with what McKinney and russell said about firearms, except in their admonition to leave them alone. I think that it is good to understand firearms and to have some experience with them, to have handled them and fired them and know how they work. If nothing else, it dispels a lot of myth and magical thinking about them. We will all have better firearm legislation if more on the left understand the tool for what it is.

The hard part is trying to find someplace to shoot a firearm, learn the basics, and try a few out, without also being subject to paranoid right wing propaganda and NRA proselytizing. I haven't fired anything in years because the places to do so in an urban area are all run by crazies.

[nous]

Which is also not to say that you should go out and buy a firearm and keep it in your house. I'm just talking about learning how and having the experience of shooting different firearms at different ranges and learning safety - the things the NRA used to do before it became a recruitment arm for terrorists.

[russell]

it was of almost no actual consequence to the operation of our democracy.

Because it was not successful. The lack of success was not guaranteed.

The things that you are willing to wave away never cease to amaze me. And I'll leave it at that. I don't see a basis of common understanding of fact here, and that makes further discussion an exercise in futility.

[Nigel]

The problem is that there are network effects

While that is true, there are also the 'buying up any possible competitor' effects to be considered.

[McKinneyTexas]

the GOP's response is to complain about unrelated events that happened seasons ago.

Seasons ago? Seriously? It was less than a year ago.

Unrelated? No. Not unrelated. Leftwing violence seemingly aided and abetted by leftwing politicians and aligned movements produce a reaction. So, there is a relationship.

The fact is, there was widespread rioting, looting and burning across the country for months. The left was AWOL and, if anything, enabling of that activity. And, doing dumb shit like calling for defunding the police. All of that chatter made sense to people who were already on board, but for the rest of us, it sounded not so great.

Trying to disrupt the presidential election is a difference in kind. I made that pretty clear the other day, but you can't have it both ways--as both side generally try to do--it was shitty then and it's even shittier now. Too bad all the law and order types today weren't a bit more vocal back then.

Trying to say that rioting and burning over police violence is understandable and--as one commenter state here--justified as potentially a part of negotiating for more power (or words to that effect), but that rioting over a stolen election is completely off limits isn't going to sell outside your neighborhood.

Among other reasons for this, the reason why the riot in DC missed the mark is that there was no credible evidence of any kind that the election was stolen. That was a complete lie.

However, if the election had been open and notoriously stolen (think Russia, Cuba, Venezuela), wouldn't that put the rioters in a different light? This is a thought experiment, not an attempt to rewrite history.

[Nigel]

It's funny (in that dark ironic way) that facebook seems to be the choice of older folks and those younger wouldn't be caught dead on it...

I'm an older folk, and I wouldn't be caught dead on it - while both my kids use it.

But generally, you're right.
Which is why they've bought up so many of their more hip competitors.

[Marty]

"You never cease to amaze with the numbers and depth of your life experience in all matters, and your domiciles."

Were you in the army in the 70's? In Texas? It was a pretty common experience.

I have lived most of my adult life in 4 places, Dallas, Toronto, Boston area and Florida. I did travel some in the army living in Missouri, Georgia, Arizona and Texas. None of that seems like it is an odd amount of domiciles.

[Marty]

"The lack of success was not guaranteed."

Of course it was. Sans military support that would have certainly changed the outcome it was a pathetic show by idiot dillwads trying to make news, all of whom knew it would ultimately fail. Thenn they went to dinner and caught a plane home.

[McKinneyTexas]

I think that it is good to understand firearms and to have some experience with them, to have handled them and fired them and know how they work. If nothing else, it dispels a lot of myth and magical thinking about them. We will all have better firearm legislation if more on the left understand the tool for what it is.

The hard part is trying to find someplace to shoot a firearm, learn the basics, and try a few out, without also being subject to paranoid right wing propaganda and NRA proselytizing. I haven't fired anything in years because the places to do so in an urban area are all run by crazies.

Ok, I did not see this coming. I agree 100% with most of what you say. Not sure where you live, but in Houston, you can go to the American Shooting Center (they probably have a website) and shoot rifles, pistols and shotguns all day long. They have a very stout safety regime and I've never been approached by anyone touting politics (although DT stickers on the back of pickup's are ubiquitous).

Getting a firm handle on the fundamentals of safe firearms handling, how they work, etc. is useful like knowing how to use a power saw or do rough carpentry. Very learnable and very useful. And, as you say, it takes away a lot of the mystery around firearms.

[Tony P.]

I'd like to see President Joe Biden exhort an angry mob of Antifa goons and BLM activists to march to the Supreme Court and "show strength" to "take back" the Constitution from Amy Coney Barrett, the Perjurer, the Pervert, and the Receiver of Stolen Goods.

But let me be clear: I'd only like to see that in order to hear what the likes of Josh and Ted and Mo and Kevin and Rudi would have to say about it.

--TP

[russell]

Imagine this, and it doesn't take much imagination:

Some of the rioters break into the Senate chamber while Pence and some or all of the Senate are still there. They kidnap Pence and one or more Senators. Perhaps kill them.

Trump declares martial law and refuses to step down as POTUS until... who knows when.

What prevented that was one Capitol cop who had the wit to shove a rioter and, using himself as bait, distract that guy and his pals from the Senate chamber.

I'm not making this shit up. We have video documentation, of all of that.

And, had that happened, I'd say at least half of Trump supporters would not only accept it, they'd welcome it. I'm being generous.

I basically agree with McK that this isn't all about race, although that is certainly caught up in it. If you call a cop a nigger because he won't let you into the Capitol, race is rattling around in your head somewhere.

What it is primarily about is a refusal to accept the outcome of a legitimate election. It is a refusal to abide by the rule of law and the Constitution, and an attempt to impose your own will instead, by force.

The majority of Trump supporters would accept that. They'd be fine with it.

So I'm not really interested in nuance.

[russell]

Trying to disrupt the presidential election is a difference in kind.

Thank you.

there was no credible evidence of any kind that the election was stolen. That was a complete lie.

Thank you, again.

However, if the election had been open and notoriously stolen (think Russia, Cuba, Venezuela), wouldn't that put the rioters in a different light?

As a thought experiment, and speaking for myself and off the top of my head, I'd say it would put rioting in a different light, but not attempted kidnap and assault and possible murder of elected officials.

ymmv