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This latest impeachment for inciting violence may have grounds, unlike the 2020 effort which charged Trump with asking Ukrainians to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden’s influence-peddling. Pelosi ignored then-vice-president Biden on videotape threatening to withhold $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees to Ukraine to stop a Ukrainian investigation into Hunter Biden. Mainstream media allies cooperated on both fronts.
Ever since Trump got the Republican nomination in the summer of 2016, mainstream media has amplified every Democrat effort to impugn him. First they magnified the Clinton campaign’s fabricated Steele Dossier and dubious Trump/Russian collusion story. They ignored Obama’s use of intelligence agencies to spy on Trump’s campaign before the 2016 election and then afterward on his transition team. They cheerleaded the dubious Mueller Investigations into General Flynn and President Trump, neither of which found anything to prosecute and only succeeded in bankrupting Flynn, destroying his reputation, and crippling Trump’s presidency.
Conservatives did a slow burn watching all this and 90% negative media coverage of Trump’s presidency despite its long string of successes: Trump isolated Iran and its terrorism. He killed Iran General Soleimani, ISIS founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and al-Qaeda leader Qasim al-Rimi, among others. He forged the Abraham Accords between Israel and Arab leaders. He spurred economic growth that Obama claimed would be impossible. He reduced illegal immigration and built over 400 miles of new border wall. He hammered out favorable trade agreements with Canada, Mexico, the EU, and China. He appointed hundreds of pro-life judges and three originalist Supreme Court justices.
He eliminated the Obamacare individual mandate, reformed the VA, withdrew from the Paris Accord and the Iran nuclear agreement, got NATO Countries to pay their fair share, cut restrictions on oil drilling and coal exports, fast-tracked and funded a COVID vaccine, brought unemployment to record lows, raised median household income to record level, brought home troops from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq, reformed the criminal justice system, and created the Space Force. Trump may be the most controversial president ever, but he’s also one of the most accomplished, especially considering he did all that in four years.
After losing on November 3rd, however, Trump claimed election fraud. Mainstream media said there was no evidence. Millions of Trump voters however, watched as Trump was winning that evening when swing states abruptly stopped counting votes, sent observers home, and resumed counting. By morning they were reporting that Trump was losing. Pennsylvania extended its deadline for counting votes without constitutional authority, after which the votes swung to Biden.
Is that evidence of election fraud or coincidence? Millions of Trump voters believe it was cheating. Mainstream media denied it all and called the election for Trump. Hundreds of observers made sworn depositions of voter fraud. That is evidence. Only two eyewitnesses, for example, are needed for a murder conviction and sometimes only one, but mainstream media continued claiming there was no evidence. There’s also video of ballot stuffing in Georgia. Law suits alleging fraud were dismissed on procedural grounds like lack of standing. There is plenty of evidence for election fraud largely perpetrated by Democrats, though probably not enough to overturn the result.
Our Founders gave us freedom of speech for many reasons, but one was for irate citizens to blow off steam by expressing their anger verbally and in writing. Here in 2021, people don’t use 18th century broadsheets; they use Facebook, Twitter, and Google.
Those outlets are owned and run by leftists who have been censoring news and posts with which they disagree, especially about election fraud. Because they’re private companies, they probably aren’t violating the 1st Amendment, but they’ve assumed enormous political power and they’re using it against conservatives, so far under the legal protection of Section 230.
We now have a huge percentage of our electorate that no longer trusts the electoral process. One could debate whether that mistrust is justified or not, but there’s little dispute that it exists. That is a huge threat to our republic that should give all of us the shivers.
Trump has been accused of narcissism even by supporters. What they at first saw as a character flaw was turning into an unraveling after his election loss, and it accelerated week-to-week. By January 6th it had completely blinded him to the political reality that Biden’s election would not be overturned. His unwillingness to accept that is embarrassing for all who voted for him. I will not vote for him in any 2024 primary and I hope he doesn't get the Republican nomination again. Right now I'm looking at Nikki Haley.
18 comments:
Tom,
Appreciate your reference to "1984." You probably read the novel prior to 1984 as I did. It certainly seems like reality now, does it not?
The problem appears to be once elected by the Democrats then you probably are immune from being charged with a crime. Probably the best example is HRC; she's Teflon. All FISA warrant were illegal from their inception and should have been tossed by the Fruit of the Poisonous Tree legal doctrine. That didn't happened so the lack of any reaction to criminal behavior is not a deterrent. When will this stop? Ever?
Nikki Haley v. Kamala Harris? What about Tulsi Gabbard? Not sure which party she will align with, though.
Mr. Trump's refusal to concede, and push for (largely denied) court review,
served well to expose an ASTONISHING amount of chicanery growth, and insolence on the part of "the usual suspects".
I suspect most folks outside the political and media industries knew of the
breadth and severity....now what?
I agree that the distrust of of the electoral process is a dangerous thing. I have always been in favor of a simpler popular vote. It is obvious why mistrust has been building so rapidly, what else would one expect when the seeds of mistrust are being sown from the very top. Trump is willing to plant this dangerous mistrust in our democracy because his ego can’t stand losing, not because any evidence suggested he rightfully won the election. I don’t understand blaming mainstream media for finding no evidence, they were just reporting the facts, that case after case was being thrown out for lack of evidence, even by Trump appointed judges. This dangerous distrust we are seeing is created when people say things like "Trump was winning, and then “swing states abruptly stopped counting votes, sent observers home, then resumed counting and then Trump was losing." Because the truth is that it is routine for ballot counting to be suspended late in the evening to be picked up the following morning, and that the evidence does not suggest that observers were “sent home”. It is dangerous that such seeds of doubt are sown with so little evidence to back them. Why plant a dangerous seed by stating as fact that “there’s also video of ballot stuffing in Georgia.” Why add to the dangerous distrust of our electoral process when investigators found otherwise, which is why the case didn't win in court. Gabriel Sterling, a top Georgia election official said Trump's team is "intentionally misleading the public about what happened on election night”. How can this column not be seen as needlessly adding to the very thing it proclaims to be worried about, our voters dangerous mistrust, when Trump’s own officials at Homeland Security stated that “The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history.”
Most of America saw Trump for what he is, and saw what was coming. To most it was clear that Trump was dangerous, that with his lies he was leading people on to what resulted with the insurrection. I also agree with the analogy to 1984. Trump’s authoritarian nature, and his lies are pure Big Brother, however oafish their articulation. There is nothing sinister about voices being silenced on media platforms. That is pure capitalism at work. No private business should be forced to propagate anything, let alone dangerous lies.
It is fair to try and balance out Trumps accomplishments in office with the disappointments, such as our astronomical deficit and debts, but such policy issues seem almost silly when compared to where Trump has ultimately led us, the attack on our capitol. What happened was because of the spreading of doubt and mistrust without strong evidence, the perpetuating of stories like “ballot box stuffing”. We all, as a country, need to learn to separate fact from fiction.
Sean Hannity’s list of Trump’s accomplishments should outweigh electing a Bumbling Biden who is a pawn for socialist Democrats. Sadly, as Bruce Poliquin stated on Ray Richardson’ radio show last week, most people vote emotionally rather than on actual issues or accomplishments.
I would vote for Haley but SD Governor, Kristi Noem, has higher ambitions and may also run. Both good choices, Kommie Harris, not so much.
I recommend that you read “The Navarro Report” but especially take a look at the graph on page three. Election fraud was a definite factor in Trump’s loss if one is willing to look for it. The Left-wing media, of course, is not interested in facts.
With all the posturing about integrity, helping out the little guy, being all in for minorities, refugees and the downtrodden, the Dems cheated. I don’t know how they can live with themselves, but a quote by a 60’s radical comes to mind again, “The issue is never the issue, the issue is always the revolution. To the Left, all that matters is the accumulation of power and wealth at the expense of all else.”
Even with a pretty good knowledge of American history, this Tuesday will be one of the worst days of my 71 years on this planet. It will primarily be because Trump unquestionably exposed the Swampy Deep State which politically makes us no different than a hell-hole 3rd world country.
Kafir . . . no other President has fulfilled a list of accomplishments greater than Trump. I find it interesting that the so-called party of tolerance is the most intolerant. If you think differently, then reprogramming is a necessity. These same people compare Trump to Hitler?
Oh, but it was just fine that riots, disruption and looting took place related to BLM and ANTIFA for months on end.
Kafir, like Mr. Mclaughlin, is trying to blame the media for not reporting on supposed election fraud blame when it is the courts who found a lack of evidence. Why do people ignore the courts when discussing this, and instead jump to the media? Claiming that the Dems cheated, when the courts say otherwise, is the kind of talk that led to the insurrection and a dead police officer. I don't know how anybody that was complicit in the spread of such talk can live with themselves. The attack on our democracy was brought about because of Trump's lust for power and wealth at the expense of everything else, including our democracy. On the day of the insurrection we did indeed look like a 3rd world country. On January 20th there will be a huge sigh of relief coming from most Americans.
Here is a more extensive list of President Trump’s accomplishments: https://fraudscrookscriminals.com/2021/01/17/president-trumps-accomplishments-in-four-short-years/#comment-24192
As I said in the column, Peter, courts have generally ruled on procedural grounds, not on substance.
The case can be made that what led to the Capitol attack is even greater frustration than that which led to the ascension of Trump in 2016. If you start the "led to"clock at noon January 6 you miss a lot of contributors to the attack, like it or not. Those who don't want to look at the rising frustration have now invented -- at least I haven't heard it before -- the term "whataboutism" -- as if it is fallacious to examine history for clues. "Whataboutism" is something like the classic rhetorical device "tu quoque"; in any case, the war to destroy rude Mr. Trump's 2016 win began long ago, and that engendered a lot of frustration.
The refusal to consider the damages to the nation by the Democrat-supported perpetual street rallies/protests/riots/insurrections is rhetorically clever but hypocritical, and foolish if the goal is to resolve the nation's various agonies. Those agonies will remain during & after the Biden/Harris era; they would not have been alleviated had Hillary Clinton won in 2016. The American people, even including those with whom I disagree, deserve better leadership and better problem-solving. That seems unlikely. Let us bicker on, then.
In case you haven’t seen FB’s policy...
https://about.fb.com/news/2021/01/preparing-for-inauguration-day/
uh-oh. Then it looks like my comment above would get wiped from FB.
“The Party told you to reject all evidence of your eyes and ears.” -George Orwell 6/8/1949
“Don’t believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news…What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.” -Donald J. Trump, 7/23/2018
Your meme with people blindfolded by masks captioned “Democrats and Rinos are shown evidence of election cheating” is clever, but it doesn’t prove anything. Neither does your claim that “generally” Trump’s lawsuits were dismissed for procedural reasons, like lack of standing. Trump may not have standing in many of those lawsuits, but someone, somewhere must. Afterall, if my vote was fraudulently dismissed or thrown out or counted for the other candidate, surely I would have standing. With hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of Republican votes across 6 states fraudulently discounted one way or another, can’t Trump’s legal team find one person who they could represent? But it looks like you’re right about claims being dismissed for procedural reasons. Interestingly, despite the constant claim of fraud by Trump, his lawyers and opinionists in conservative media, most lawsuits don’t even allege fraud. This article summarizes the outcomes of 42 lawsuits brought by 1/5/2021: https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-campaign-lawsuits-election-results-2020-11 Here’s an article describing 5 lawsuits in 3 states where they expressly tell the judges these aren’t fraud cases: https://time.com/5914377/donald-trump-no-evidence-fraud/ Most of the lawsuits just seek to have hundreds of thousands of Democratic votes thrown. Some lawsuits simply ask the respective judges to just invalidate hundreds of thousands of Democratic votes. Some lawsuits ask the state Supreme Courts to throw out all the votes and have the Republican controlled legislature select the electoral votes. Some just tried to get states to stop counting votes where he was leading. I hope we never get to a level of judicial activism where standing is granted to a President in his effort to stop counting votes simply because he’s leading. All of which just lends to the rank insidiousness of Trump, his lawyers and supporters in the media. They claim fraud to their audiences, but they don’t before the judges, because the fraud that they so desperately need to exist simply doesn’t. This article here describes AG Barr telling Trump to his face that his fraud allegations are “bulls**t.” https://www.axios.com/trump-barr-relationship-off-the-rails-b33b3788-e7e9-47fa-84c5-3a0016559eb5.html If there’s “plenty of evidence of voter fraud largely perpetrated by Democrats” then Republicans need to figure out a way to get that evidence to Barr and Trump’s lawyers, because they haven’t found it yet.
There was no ballot stuffing in GA. It was an artfully clipped piece of footage and then proclaimed to something that it wasn’t: https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2020/12/04/no-atlanta-didnt-count-ballots-in-secret-or-in-suitcases/?sh=46d33e35e5a4 Trump has been lying to his believers, and the partisan opinionists in conservative media have been repeating those lies, ad nauseum. Trump summoned his followers to DC on 1/6/2021 and then directed them to take to Capitol Hill as Congress certified his election defeat. He lied again when he said Pence had the constitutional authority to simply flip a switch and award the election to Trump. That’s why they stormed the building chanting, “Hang Mike Pence.” This will be Trump’s legacy, convincing 70+ million Americans our system of elections doesn’t work.
“Post truth is pre-fascism.” How does a democracy continue when half the population is convinced it doesn’t work? These next four years feel critical. Republicans need to reject Trumpism, because he blatantly tried to steal and strong-arm this election for himself with ample complicity from the conservative media and Congress. That's not how democracies function. This is alarming article: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/01/11/capitol-riot-self-coup-trump-fiona-hill-457549
Well, the election is over. The arguments will last. The real issue now, for me at least, are the repercussions. We now face extreme, leftist policies right out of the gate by an incompetent puppet with limited cognitive abilities. Seriously challenged. Why in the middle of a pandemic would anyone destroy the energy sector and stop blocking illegal immigration? Is there no evidence of energy independence? No evidence of the destructiveness of crime and mayhem by illegals? He (Oh wait! Must I use a pronoun like "It"?) stops the wall while putting razor wire around the Capitol to protect himself (itself?) by an imagined throng of conservative terrorists, white supremacists and racists that never materialized? Absolutely insane. The invasion of the Capitol on Jan. 6 was clearly an Antifa incited and led action. We are in such a mess, thanks entirely to our political, elite class on both sides of the swamp.
I just saw this video that seemed so relevant to this discussion. It talks about, in an honest way, Trump's accomplishments and about distrust in our elections. It seems like a good spark for further conversation, as does Steve's column above. Hopefully, if our country has any chance of once again uniting, we will not hide from such discussions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1M6CXhUS-x8
Here’s an interesting article about a very tense phone call between Trump and House Minority Leader, Kevin McCarthy, where he finally had to tell Trump about the 1/6 riot, “It wasn’t antifa. It was maga. I was there.”
https://www.businessinsider.com/kevin-mccarthy-tells-president-insurrection-was-maga-not-antifa-axios-2021-1
It feels like there could be a real reckoning within the Trump wing of the Republican party. Put yourself in the position of any of those Capitol hill rioters. Trump summoned them to his rally on the day of Biden’s certification after spending months convincing 70+ million Americans that the Dems stole the election. They listened to an untold number of TV pundits repeat the same claims. So they answered his call and made the patriotic pilgrimage to the Capitol to take back their vote, their government, their country. They probably felt like it was revolution every bit as divinely decreed as the one in 1776. We all know what happened next, because we watched it unfold on our TVs. Chants of “Stop the steal,” “The steal is real,” and “Hang Mike Pence,” were recorded. Those thousands of Capitol hill rioters then returned to their hometowns and were probably received like conquering heroes by all the friends and family sympathetic to their cause and effort. They risked arrest, incarceration, injury and even death to heed Trump’s call and reclaim this errant government for the god-fearing patriots of this country. But then public sentiment quickly and sharply turned against that insurrection. When many began blaming Trump, Trump began blaming antifa, and conservative media began to as well. There has to be real disillusionment among those thousands of patriotic warriors and their friends and family who now watch the ex-President who they trusted for years and the media who they trusted for years suddenly calling them antifa thugs. After all, is there any worse insult in the maga universe than being labeled antifa. I wonder how many of them are thinking, “We invested four years into this. Has our President and the media been playing us this whole time?”
But the events of 1/6 and Trump’s reaction to it are alarming, but in an odd way, they’re fascinating also. Trump and many in the conservative media lied to the base and effectively marshalled this army of believers to come to the rally and then besiege Capitol Hill. By some accounts, Trump enjoyed the initial footage of the attack on the Capitol. He tweeted his “love” for those “special people.” Then public sentiment quickly turned against them, against Trump and blamed him for his role in it. How did Trump respond? He disavowed them and called them antifa. That episode is emblematic of his term in office. He departs the WH house the way he occupied it: cutting loose his most loyal supporters for his own short-term gain. He demands loyalty but returns none.
OK, Steve, you seem as though you might be capable of civil debate. Your points seem to me to be based in large part on the contention that the election was fair, not stolen. I contend that it seems extremely likely that it was fraudulent. I'll not delineate (or go on about) all the evidence you would call lies: mail in ballots, observers blocked, midnight suitcases after staff sent home, all 6 swing states closing up shop and low and behold...out comes Biden on top in the middle of the night,vote totals dropping for Trump at 2am while the numbers rise the exact same amount for Biden, hackable Dominian machines with all their flaws developed with the Venuzuelans and Chinese, servers in Frankfort, dead people or non-residents voting, more votes than registered, no signatures, no voter ID a lot, and possibly the most significant evidence would be the, literally, thousands of sworn affidavits alledging these fraudulent actions; all that compared to one (1) anonymous whistleblower on Trump's first sham impeachment. Combine that and more with the fact that a 78 year old, seemingly senile, non-campaigning old, ineffectual white guy who couldn't draw more than 17 people to a rally somehow defeated a hugely successful incumbant (albeit with plenty of personal issues to you guys), and you've got the burden of proof on you to prove all this untrue. You can't just say it is so (lies) and assume that's the end of it. As far as the lawsuits go and the courts' refusal to hear the cases, that is the ultimate denial here. Had a single court opened up to an evidentuary hearing, the election would have to have been overturned. That is my opinion, and it is shared by about 74 million, normal, patriotic, rational Americans. There were, indeed, some very upset MAGA types in the Capital riots, but there were also known agitators from Antifa, BLM, and some radical right-wingers as well (Proud Boys?). Not even close to Trump's fault when compared to the incitements on the left by Biden, Pelosi, Waters, Harris, Hollywood types and a host of others. My personal favorite is Kamala saying (paraphrase), "There will be riots up to and after the election and there should be!" Hello! "Incitement of insurrection"? Finally, you say "thousands" of rioters. Wrong. A couple hundred people acting illegally out of maybe 500K at Trump's speech...surely 200K minimum. All this followed by an inauguration where the crowd was armed military. Hmmm...seems like the guy claiming to having been elected by the people had to be guarded from the people. Ironic. RSVP?
True enough, I can’t prove the claims of fraud to be lies. I’m limited to what I read and what I can see. I can’t prove these fraud allegations are lies anymore than you and Trump’s attorneys can prove the fraud allegations are true. Since Trump is the original plaintiff, the burden of proving the “massive voter fraud” is on him. But, as one of my linked articles shows, most of his lawsuits don’t allege the fraud that you listed in your response. In PA, Trump’s lawyers allege Republican poll watchers were removed in Philadelphia. When pressed by the judge, his lawyer admitted – just before withdrawing the lawsuit – that “there were a non-zero number of poll watchers.” Much of what you wrote is addressed in two of the articles I linked. The vote totals changing from one candidate to the other overnight is due to the way states chose to count mail-in votes. FL counted Biden-heavy, mail-in votes as they were received over the course of weeks prior to the election. As election day progressed, Biden had a big lead until the Trump-heavy, in-person votes began to be counted. Trump ended up carrying the state. PA, MI, WI handled mail-in votes differently. Those states chose to not count mail-in votes until after polls closed, which meant during election day, the results aired on TV reflected Trump-heavy, in-person voting. Then they began counting Biden-heavy, mail-in vote ballots. Smartmantic and Dominion sued Fox, Newmax, OAN, Guiliani and Sidney Powell for defamation. The cable channels were forced to air an interview that dismantled the claims the machines and software threw the election for Biden. If those news channels had any credible evidence supporting their claims, they should have stood up for journalists and their reporting? The affidavits are interesting, but why were Trump’s legal teams incapable of doing anything with them? If there is an army of people credibly swearing they witnessed ballot tampering in a US Presidential election, doesn’t it strain believability that they were unable to successfully bring any case to bear? I find it interesting that Trump’s legal adults in the room – Jay Sekulow and Pat Cipillone – wanted nothing to do with these myriad lawsuits.
I agree, Trump was a hugely popular President – with the Fox crowd – but reviled outside of it. 70 ex Repub. defense officials signed a letter enumerating the reasons why they were going to vote for Biden, among them. Armitage, Negroponte, Chuck Hagel, William Webster, Michael Hayden and Gen. Kelly. Kelly was Trump’s Chief of Staff, one of the 4 most important positions in a Presidential cabinet. What could Kelly have seen that alarmed him so much he felt compelled to tell the world he was doing the one thing he’s never done in his life – vote for a Dem?
Occums razor: the simplest solution relying on the fewest number of assumptions is usually the most likely. Which is more likely, an untold number of election officials, volunteers, Secretaries of State and Governors pulled off a coordinated conspiracy to rig the election in at least 13 different ways across six states in such a way as to prevent any evidence from being heard in 52 separate lower courts, or did more voters just vote for Biden?
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