For the record, this shit is still going on well. The absolute worst President since Andrew Johnson, and given the ultimate death toll of COVID-19, likely the worst of all-time:
I just listened to the audio and it struck me just how desperate Trump sounded. When Raffensperger contradicted him and corrected him, he just kept going with the same weariness in his voice, as if he was hoping that repeating it often enough could make it true. I've never heard him sound so weak.
It was painfully obvious Raffensperger was not going to bend, and yet Trump kept going, hoping that he'd get a different answer.
I just listened to the audio and it struck me just how desperate Trump sounded. When Raffensperger contradicted him and corrected him, he just kept going with the same weariness in his voice, as if he was hoping that repeating it often enough could make it true. I've never heard him sound so weak.
It was painfully obvious Raffensperger was not going to bend, and yet Trump kept going, hoping that he'd get a different answer.
The big defense from conservative defenders on social media most of the day was "it's only a portion of the audio from the biased Washington Post, let's wait til the whole thing is released". The whole thing is worse. He simply keeps repeating his demands. Weakness and even downright impotence are not defenses against attempted criminality. But since the Mueller team let off his son for no other reason than they though he was too stupid to know better, I suppose we should expect that same sort of treatment of the father. Granted an invulnerability shield because of their own incompetence and cluelessness. Who else in society gets a free pass for this reason??
I do encourage everyone to read that WaPo story jj just linked. It's hard to say anything stuns me about his behavior any more, but in a functioning democracy, the legislature would immediately convene, impeach and remove him.
Like I just told my cousin, I'm not stunned it happened, I'm at least somewhat surprised we have audio evidence. My guess is the GA Secretary of State leaked it, most likely because he's sick of his family getting constant death threats.
Here's the problem for the Biden Administration, and it's huge. To uphold any sense of the rule of law, Trump has to be punished and face consequences for what he has done. But doing so will frane the overall narrative of the Biden Administration as a retribution campaign against Trump, and every news cycle will be a cage match between Trump and whatever prosecutors are going after him, paralyzing the incoming Administration's ability to do anything for actual people. Trump is terrified of not having the office protecting him anymore, but he has basically inoculated himself because of political circumstances.
I am pretty sure Raffensperger leaked it. He literally threatened Trump on Twitter that the truth will come out prior to its release after Trump, once again, threw him under the bus on Twitter. He is actually standing up to Trump, and has since the beginning of these election fraud claims.
When it comes to Biden, just give Trump what he wants: An independent investigation looking at all claims of election fraud starting with that now released tape, and then stay the hell out of it unlike how Trump couldn't. "We have no comment on that independent investigation at the moment, nor will we provide one in the future," is all the administration needs to say regarding any investigation into Trump, and if they have too, remind the media that there is a separation between them and the judicial branch of government even if the last four years challenged that notion.
This is a fine idea in theory. It fails to take into account that Trump is basically going to be seen as a President in Exile by about 40% of the country, and any prosecution of him, even given this iron-clad audio evidence we now have, will be seen as an attack on THEM personally, the media will play along, and every nightly news cast for two years will basically be the political version of Monday Night Raw, with Trump claiming political persecution and tying that to the grievances of his base I have gone over endlessly in this thread. It would be this way even if a REPUBLICAN State AG or Federal Prosecutor went after him, if it's a Democrat, multiply that by ten. There is no way to hold this man accountable without further damage to the fault lines which are already cracking. If he isn't held accountable, then we are saying everything he did should be allowed and is normal behavior. There is no way to win this game. If you go back and watch old video clips from the time, there were plenty of normal people in New York who believed John Gotti was the true victim every time he was put on trial. Same dynamic here.
and like Gotti, and Nixon, history won’t remember the names of the people screaming conspiracy, they will remember the facts, the trials and the steadfastness of the people making the criminal accusations that what had happened is a crime and that person should be held accountable for it. Remember, prior to the Saturday Night Massacre, a majority of Americans did not want Nixon impeached. In the present, they were being manipulated by the media and public figures that this whole thing was a made up witch hunt that Nixon had no part in.
If Trump gets prosecuted for something, anything, he will have a fair trial. If he doesn’t get prosecuted, it is finally admitting that yes, there are people above the law and Americans, or at least those in power, are OK with that concept and the American people, if they are not ok with that sentiment, will blame the democrats for it.
People fear the present now and are willing to sacrifice the future for it. What selfish short sightedness that is.
Biden is also the perfect candidate to uphold these ideas as he should be, due to his age, a one term president. He doesn’t have to think of his political capital after this. What does he want to be remembered as; the president who cowardly hid in his basement like his distracters claimed or one who stood up to American values? Values the Republicans use to stand for and some still do.
If anything, that would be the political move, to finally fracture the two party system. Those 10 senators that made that speech today (led by Romney) really have the power to rebalance the Senate back to centre. Imagine those 10 just going independent and saying they no longer answer to their party, but to the people that voted them in, giving either the Republicans or Democrats a minority government. Put Republicans in their place. Tell them to actually choose Trump or American values. Let those ten voices grow in number to a more centralized party. Stuff like that happens in Canadian politics all the time and it has the potential to happen here as long as people are not afraid of the present.
And any Democrat looking to run in 2024 can just stay the hell out of it and let history and the judicial system do its thing. If it swings Trump’s way, they can say they had nothing to do with it. If it swings against him they can fall back on the line of letting the judicial branch do it’s job without any political interference.
It's a good argument and in principle I agree with you. I fear though that @jjstraka34 is right about the way it would play out in practice. Think about the O.J. Simpson trial and multiply that hugely in relation to the level of public interest and the degree to which people regard the truth as less important than the side they're on. Just finding a 'neutral' jury in the first place would be near impossible and there would be no chance that media coverage would let the facts get in the way of a good story.
It's a good argument and in principle I agree with you. I fear though that @jjstraka34 is right about the way it would play out in practice. Think about the O.J. Simpson trial and multiply that hugely in relation to the level of public interest and the degree to which people regard the truth as less important than the side they're on. Just finding a 'neutral' jury in the first place would be near impossible and there would be no chance that media coverage would let the facts get in the way of a good story.
What Johnny Cochran understood is that the case wasn't about facts once it reached that level of exposure, it was about emotion. OJ Simpson was obviously guilty, no serious person disputes this. The DNA match being anyone else was millions to one. A small part of it was DNA was relatively "new" and that Barry Scheck exploited that ignorance, but the societal elements were far more important. The prosecutors were dumb enough (or arrogant enough) to put a racist scumbag on the stand despite knowing about his past, the defense found even MORE damning stuff about Fuhrman, he perjured himself, and that was the ballgame. At that point, the not guilty verdict was middle finger to the LAPD, who had been terrorizing the African-American community for decades. The glove (which had shrunk during all the testing, which prosecutors ALSO knew) not fitting was just a cherry on top of the sundae, it wasn't the ice cream.
As a side note, I feel like it should almost go without saying that Mark Fuhrman has been a frequent prime-time guest on FOX News for at least the last 15 years as a "law enforcement expert". Which tells you all you need to know about how FOX views their own audience.
In case anyone was worried that Trump might have learned his lesson after alternatively threatening and begging the GA Secretary of State to steal the election for him he didn't.
He is suing for releasing the incriminating things that he said to the public. No joke.
"The real crime is reporting the criminal activity!" - The President*
In case anyone was worried that Trump might have learned his lesson after alternatively threatening and begging the GA Secretary of State to steal the election for him he didn't.
He is suing for releasing the incriminating things that he said to the public. No joke.
"The real crime is reporting the criminal activity!" - The President*
President Trump filed two lawsuits - federal and state - against the Georgia Secretary of State
Why so desperate Donnie? Biden should declassify everything so we can see the shit he's been up to that he's successfully hidden so far.
Georgia is a one-party consent state, so.......he's out of luck. He placed a call to Georgia. The person on the other line decided to record it. Tough shit. Or are we to believe and accept this ALSO doesn't apply to him because he's the President?? This is why every other President has professional staff who prevent shit like this from happening. The President doesn't just make calls to anyone he pleases at any time. Certainly not to ask someone to commit election fraud.
It's a good argument and in principle I agree with you. I fear though that jjstraka34 is right about the way it would play out in practice. Think about the O.J. Simpson trial and multiply that hugely in relation to the level of public interest and the degree to which people regard the truth as less important than the side they're on. Just finding a 'neutral' jury in the first place would be near impossible and there would be no chance that media coverage would let the facts get in the way of a good story.
I don't think this is true. I do not think that there are 74 million Trump fanatics in the United States, nor do I think 81 million are out to get him. A trial also only needs 12 people and a couple of alternates. There will be people there able to look at any facts and separate out any political bs that either side might attempt to pull.
Secondly, Trump will not have his trial in the media. It doesn't matter what they say. Those 12 jurors will be sequestered to make sure nothing outside of the trial influences them.
In case anyone was worried that Trump might have learned his lesson after alternatively threatening and begging the GA Secretary of State to steal the election for him he didn't.
He is suing for releasing the incriminating things that he said to the public. No joke.
"The real crime is reporting the criminal activity!" - The President*
President Trump filed two lawsuits - federal and state - against the Georgia Secretary of State
Why so desperate Donnie? Biden should declassify everything so we can see the shit he's been up to that he's successfully hidden so far.
Georgia is a one-party consent state, so.......he's out of luck. He placed a call to Georgia. The person on the other line decided to record it. Tough shit. Or are we to believe and accept this ALSO doesn't apply to him because he's the President?? This is why every other President has professional staff who prevent shit like this from happening. The President doesn't just make calls to anyone he pleases at any time. Certainly not to ask someone to commit election fraud.
You do if you are Trump and no one can stop your crazy stuff because you've been getting away with it for four years and you've surrounded yourself with sycophants, yes-men, and criminals.
It's a good argument and in principle I agree with you. I fear though that jjstraka34 is right about the way it would play out in practice. Think about the O.J. Simpson trial and multiply that hugely in relation to the level of public interest and the degree to which people regard the truth as less important than the side they're on. Just finding a 'neutral' jury in the first place would be near impossible and there would be no chance that media coverage would let the facts get in the way of a good story.
I don't think this is true. I do not think that there are 74 million Trump fanatics in the United States, nor do I think 81 million are out to get him. A trial also only needs 12 people and a couple of alternates. There will be people there able to look at any facts and separate out any political bs that either side might attempt to pull.
Secondly, Trump will not have his trial in the media. It doesn't matter what they say. Those 12 jurors will be sequestered to make sure nothing outside of the trial influences them.
There would be a problem with jury selection as each side tried to avoid selecting someone sympathetic to the opposition. Essentially there is no-one in the US who doesn't know who Trump is and the vast majority will have an opinion about him (which doesn't mean they're fanatical). A strong judge who takes a hard line to avoid the possibility of unlimited challenges for cause against jurors would risk providing potential grounds for a mistrial.
I don't think sequestering a jury is likely either. That's done increasingly rarely and attempting it in this case would be bound to be seen as a political statement given that the case will essentially not be about what the facts are, but the interpretation put upon those. There's also the practical consideration that a trial would probably end up being very lengthy (I could easily see it going over a year) and maintaining genuine sequestration over such a period is very difficult (and would contribute to the problem of selecting a jury in the first place).
My major take from the whole audio release isn't how pathetic Trump sounds (though he does). It's that he clearly actually believes all this shit. If there was ever a time where he didn't, he sure as hell does now. What's worse, a President of the United States cynically lying on purpose, or one whose lies have morphed into him creating his own alternate reality??
There's an article in the Times about the economic impact of the pandemic and the spin is very weird. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/01/upshot/why-markets-boomed-2020.html?utm_source=pocket-newtab
The author presents it as if the economic blow wasn't that bad, but whenever they go into specifics, it's a really dark indictment of just how ugly and miserable the pandemic has been. The folks who lost out the most were low-wage folks, and the upsides of the pandemic were largely soaked up by folks who were already rich.
They have this bizarre infographic that supposedly shows that income went up during the pandemic... but look at where that money comes from.
The main reason overall personal income went up is because of government spending and stimulus! And the other big chunk of that increase is mysteriously labeled as "all other income"--is that just stock growth and other passive income? Because that's more a measure of how the wealthy are doing than anything else.
It's another representation of how the pandemic has shifted money away from the poor and towards the wealthy, and another demonstration of just how important it has been for the government to shell out money to people that the free market had completely abandoned.
My major take from the whole audio release isn't how pathetic Trump sounds (though he does). It's that he clearly actually believes all this shit. If there was ever a time where he didn't, he sure as hell does now. What's worse, a President of the United States cynically lying on purpose, or one whose lies have morphed into him creating his own alternate reality??
I've said this a few times, maybe not here, but Trump is "fake it until you make it" gone way too far. Normally, someone can fake something but if they get caught, they stop with the lie. Trump keeps going no matter what and he's been able to get away with it because he's a rich businessman. He goes so far that he gaslights you and you start to doubt yourself reality.
His niece says he is the only person she knows who can gaslight himself. He's an actor who commits to these lies so much that he at least sounds like he really believes it. He keeps up these lies day after day, month after month if needed. If he thinks of a better lie in the meantime, he often latches on to that, and discards the previous lie. He fully commits to the new "reality" he's trying to maintain. That's why you can look back and see he's so inconsistent about some things.
This is just too perfect. As you may recall (or not because it was a one day story) Lindsey Graham did the EXACT same thing Trump did, then lied when he got called out. So they decided it would be best to have audio evidence this time:
I've been thinking a little bit more about the call, and there are some profoundly unsettling things about it.
First - We shouldnt gloss over the fact that Trump coerced and threatened the GA SoS will legal action for not manufacturing 11000 votes. That's text book coercion, and a clear abuse of power.
Second - He (almost certainly) fallaciously suggests that several other states were about to flip their electoral votes to Trump. While I have almost no doubt that that is just his profound desperation speaking - it does suggest he is and has been in contact with other elected officials about trying to overturn the election.
Thirdly - At one point, Trump essentially says that they want the 11000 votes, but they dont need them. That he has other options, but he'd rather not go that route being it would "Turn the world upside down". Presumably, he's talking about martial law... but still, for him to dangle that kind of threat out in the open on a conversation that he knows has half a dozen people on it (Including more than one person from the Ga SoS's side) is stunning.
Add all of that on top of the fact that he clearly believes this nonsense and he is starting to look dangerously irrational. This is the sort of behavior that keeps people on the edge of their seats as it relates to North Korea doing something dangerous. Now the most powerful person in the world is acting that way too.
I've been thinking a little bit more about the call, and there are some profoundly unsettling things about it.
First - We shouldnt gloss over the fact that Trump coerced and threatened the GA SoS will legal action for not manufacturing 11000 votes. That's text book coercion, and a clear abuse of power.
Second - He (almost certainly) fallaciously suggests that several other states were about to flip their electoral votes to Trump. While I have almost no doubt that that is just his profound desperation speaking - it does suggest he is and has been in contact with other elected officials about trying to overturn the election.
Thirdly - At one point, Trump essentially says that they want the 11000 votes, but they dont need them. That he has other options, but he'd rather not go that route being it would "Turn the world upside down". Presumably, he's talking about martial law... but still, for him to dangle that kind of threat out in the open on a conversation that he knows has half a dozen people on it (Including more than one person from the Ga SoS's side) is stunning.
Add all of that on top of the fact that he clearly believes this nonsense and he is starting to look dangerously irrational. This is the sort of behavior that keeps people on the edge of their seats as it relates to North Korea doing something dangerous. Now the most powerful person in the world is acting that way too.
January 20th cant get here soon enough...
Alot of people are speculating there is a reason those 10 former Defense Department officials issued that statement over the weekend, including someone I think is basically evil incarnate, Dick Cheney. Which is that what they are hearing from people in the Pentagon is deeply concerning.
The Georgia run-offs are upon us tomorrow. Kelly Loeffler's closing argument is that she will seek to overturn the results of a Presidential election. The fact that it's going to be close is an indictment of our entire society. Imagine how far we've fallen where this isn't disqualifying:
I'm so old I remember when the GOP didn't like traitors. Actually I'm not that old since a lot of them have been fetishizing the Confederacy my whole life.
I hope we get past January 6th on to January 20th without too much of the violence that Trump and his standing by Proud Boys are calling for. A violent coup attempt egged on by the loser President Trump kind of seems inevitable at this point.
This is not a problem that is unique to Trump any longer. The PA State GOP is refusing to seat a duly-elected Representative whose win has been certified and who the State Supreme Court has ruled is to be seated. As @BallpointMan pointed out over the weekend, winning a race is no longer enough for Democrats. If the GOP controls other branches of the government, they are now prepared to use them to refuse to acknowledge election victories of Democrats.
Still too early in GA, but unless trends change, the pattern is unmistakable. GOP has a turnout problem, and the Dems are making modest but consistent gains in rural areas with large black populations. If Perdue and Loeffler lose, you can basically blame Trump for telling his voters elections are rigged. Because a small but not insignificant amount of them aren't showing up.
Edit: Barring some sort of earth-shaking change in what we're seeing so far, Mitch McConnell is going to be the Minority Leader in the Senate. Which is nearly as celebration-worthy as Trump losing. They hitched themselves to the wrong wagon:
I really hate the GOP they're terrible for America. Why do people keep voting for them? They deserve zero votes, zero. I don't get it.
I mean they keep cheating, lying, stealing, commiting crimes. They're just the worst.
Right now, Wornack should win by about 1.1% and Ossoff will likely be a few tenths of a percent below him. It's of course conceivable that EVERY pattern seen through over 50% of the vote totals could flip on it's head, but that typically does not happen:
I really hate the GOP they're terrible for America. Why do people keep voting for them? They deserve zero votes, zero. I don't get it.
I mean they keep cheating, lying, stealing, commiting crimes. They're just the worst.
Right now, Wornack should win by about 1.1% and Ossoff will likely be a few tenths of a percent below him. It's of course conceivable that EVERY pattern seen through over 50% of the vote totals could flip on it's head, but that typically does not happen:
Wasserman just called Wornack's race in favor in the Democrat. Ossoff's race is still too close for him to call.
Loeffler was deeply unpopular and even though GA tends to be a conservative state she was always vulnerable to defeat ever since the news of her engaging in insider trading came out shortly after the pandemic's emergence back in March.
Perdue's not particularly well liked, but he's established and not quite as vulnerable or hated as she was. So that race could be closer.
I really hate the GOP they're terrible for America. Why do people keep voting for them? They deserve zero votes, zero. I don't get it.
I mean they keep cheating, lying, stealing, commiting crimes. They're just the worst.
Right now, Wornack should win by about 1.1% and Ossoff will likely be a few tenths of a percent below him. It's of course conceivable that EVERY pattern seen through over 50% of the vote totals could flip on it's head, but that typically does not happen:
Wasserman just called Wornack's race in favor in the Democrat. Ossoff's race is still too close for him to call.
Loeffler was deeply unpopular and even though GA tends to be a conservative state she was always vulnerable to defeat ever since the news of her engaging in insider trading came out shortly after the pandemic's emergence back in March.
Perdue's not particularly well liked, but he's established and not quite as vulnerable or hated as she was. So that race could be closer.
Dude's an insider trader and a coward. Hiding and refusing to debate Ossoff. Ossoff shredded him in the one debate they had and Perdue hid and hopes to coast into the Senate. He's pathetic. This is a guy GOP voters are voting for.
Comments
It was painfully obvious Raffensperger was not going to bend, and yet Trump kept going, hoping that he'd get a different answer.
The big defense from conservative defenders on social media most of the day was "it's only a portion of the audio from the biased Washington Post, let's wait til the whole thing is released". The whole thing is worse. He simply keeps repeating his demands. Weakness and even downright impotence are not defenses against attempted criminality. But since the Mueller team let off his son for no other reason than they though he was too stupid to know better, I suppose we should expect that same sort of treatment of the father. Granted an invulnerability shield because of their own incompetence and cluelessness. Who else in society gets a free pass for this reason??
and like Gotti, and Nixon, history won’t remember the names of the people screaming conspiracy, they will remember the facts, the trials and the steadfastness of the people making the criminal accusations that what had happened is a crime and that person should be held accountable for it. Remember, prior to the Saturday Night Massacre, a majority of Americans did not want Nixon impeached. In the present, they were being manipulated by the media and public figures that this whole thing was a made up witch hunt that Nixon had no part in.
If Trump gets prosecuted for something, anything, he will have a fair trial. If he doesn’t get prosecuted, it is finally admitting that yes, there are people above the law and Americans, or at least those in power, are OK with that concept and the American people, if they are not ok with that sentiment, will blame the democrats for it.
People fear the present now and are willing to sacrifice the future for it. What selfish short sightedness that is.
Biden is also the perfect candidate to uphold these ideas as he should be, due to his age, a one term president. He doesn’t have to think of his political capital after this. What does he want to be remembered as; the president who cowardly hid in his basement like his distracters claimed or one who stood up to American values? Values the Republicans use to stand for and some still do.
If anything, that would be the political move, to finally fracture the two party system. Those 10 senators that made that speech today (led by Romney) really have the power to rebalance the Senate back to centre. Imagine those 10 just going independent and saying they no longer answer to their party, but to the people that voted them in, giving either the Republicans or Democrats a minority government. Put Republicans in their place. Tell them to actually choose Trump or American values. Let those ten voices grow in number to a more centralized party. Stuff like that happens in Canadian politics all the time and it has the potential to happen here as long as people are not afraid of the present.
And any Democrat looking to run in 2024 can just stay the hell out of it and let history and the judicial system do its thing. If it swings Trump’s way, they can say they had nothing to do with it. If it swings against him they can fall back on the line of letting the judicial branch do it’s job without any political interference.
That was longer rant than I wanted. Sorry.
What Johnny Cochran understood is that the case wasn't about facts once it reached that level of exposure, it was about emotion. OJ Simpson was obviously guilty, no serious person disputes this. The DNA match being anyone else was millions to one. A small part of it was DNA was relatively "new" and that Barry Scheck exploited that ignorance, but the societal elements were far more important. The prosecutors were dumb enough (or arrogant enough) to put a racist scumbag on the stand despite knowing about his past, the defense found even MORE damning stuff about Fuhrman, he perjured himself, and that was the ballgame. At that point, the not guilty verdict was middle finger to the LAPD, who had been terrorizing the African-American community for decades. The glove (which had shrunk during all the testing, which prosecutors ALSO knew) not fitting was just a cherry on top of the sundae, it wasn't the ice cream.
As a side note, I feel like it should almost go without saying that Mark Fuhrman has been a frequent prime-time guest on FOX News for at least the last 15 years as a "law enforcement expert". Which tells you all you need to know about how FOX views their own audience.
He is suing for releasing the incriminating things that he said to the public. No joke.
"The real crime is reporting the criminal activity!" - The President*
Trump to sue Georgia secretary of state for recording a call where he demanded a crime be committed: report
President Trump filed two lawsuits - federal and state - against the Georgia Secretary of State
Why so desperate Donnie? Biden should declassify everything so we can see the shit he's been up to that he's successfully hidden so far.
Georgia is a one-party consent state, so.......he's out of luck. He placed a call to Georgia. The person on the other line decided to record it. Tough shit. Or are we to believe and accept this ALSO doesn't apply to him because he's the President?? This is why every other President has professional staff who prevent shit like this from happening. The President doesn't just make calls to anyone he pleases at any time. Certainly not to ask someone to commit election fraud.
I don't think this is true. I do not think that there are 74 million Trump fanatics in the United States, nor do I think 81 million are out to get him. A trial also only needs 12 people and a couple of alternates. There will be people there able to look at any facts and separate out any political bs that either side might attempt to pull.
Secondly, Trump will not have his trial in the media. It doesn't matter what they say. Those 12 jurors will be sequestered to make sure nothing outside of the trial influences them.
You do if you are Trump and no one can stop your crazy stuff because you've been getting away with it for four years and you've surrounded yourself with sycophants, yes-men, and criminals.
There would be a problem with jury selection as each side tried to avoid selecting someone sympathetic to the opposition. Essentially there is no-one in the US who doesn't know who Trump is and the vast majority will have an opinion about him (which doesn't mean they're fanatical). A strong judge who takes a hard line to avoid the possibility of unlimited challenges for cause against jurors would risk providing potential grounds for a mistrial.
I don't think sequestering a jury is likely either. That's done increasingly rarely and attempting it in this case would be bound to be seen as a political statement given that the case will essentially not be about what the facts are, but the interpretation put upon those. There's also the practical consideration that a trial would probably end up being very lengthy (I could easily see it going over a year) and maintaining genuine sequestration over such a period is very difficult (and would contribute to the problem of selecting a jury in the first place).
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/01/upshot/why-markets-boomed-2020.html?utm_source=pocket-newtab
The author presents it as if the economic blow wasn't that bad, but whenever they go into specifics, it's a really dark indictment of just how ugly and miserable the pandemic has been. The folks who lost out the most were low-wage folks, and the upsides of the pandemic were largely soaked up by folks who were already rich.
They have this bizarre infographic that supposedly shows that income went up during the pandemic... but look at where that money comes from.
The main reason overall personal income went up is because of government spending and stimulus! And the other big chunk of that increase is mysteriously labeled as "all other income"--is that just stock growth and other passive income? Because that's more a measure of how the wealthy are doing than anything else.
It's another representation of how the pandemic has shifted money away from the poor and towards the wealthy, and another demonstration of just how important it has been for the government to shell out money to people that the free market had completely abandoned.
I've said this a few times, maybe not here, but Trump is "fake it until you make it" gone way too far. Normally, someone can fake something but if they get caught, they stop with the lie. Trump keeps going no matter what and he's been able to get away with it because he's a rich businessman. He goes so far that he gaslights you and you start to doubt yourself reality.
His niece says he is the only person she knows who can gaslight himself. He's an actor who commits to these lies so much that he at least sounds like he really believes it. He keeps up these lies day after day, month after month if needed. If he thinks of a better lie in the meantime, he often latches on to that, and discards the previous lie. He fully commits to the new "reality" he's trying to maintain. That's why you can look back and see he's so inconsistent about some things.
First - We shouldnt gloss over the fact that Trump coerced and threatened the GA SoS will legal action for not manufacturing 11000 votes. That's text book coercion, and a clear abuse of power.
Second - He (almost certainly) fallaciously suggests that several other states were about to flip their electoral votes to Trump. While I have almost no doubt that that is just his profound desperation speaking - it does suggest he is and has been in contact with other elected officials about trying to overturn the election.
Thirdly - At one point, Trump essentially says that they want the 11000 votes, but they dont need them. That he has other options, but he'd rather not go that route being it would "Turn the world upside down". Presumably, he's talking about martial law... but still, for him to dangle that kind of threat out in the open on a conversation that he knows has half a dozen people on it (Including more than one person from the Ga SoS's side) is stunning.
Add all of that on top of the fact that he clearly believes this nonsense and he is starting to look dangerously irrational. This is the sort of behavior that keeps people on the edge of their seats as it relates to North Korea doing something dangerous. Now the most powerful person in the world is acting that way too.
January 20th cant get here soon enough...
Alot of people are speculating there is a reason those 10 former Defense Department officials issued that statement over the weekend, including someone I think is basically evil incarnate, Dick Cheney. Which is that what they are hearing from people in the Pentagon is deeply concerning.
this is a problem with the two party system. The Republican party, with only two choices at the ballot box, is too big to fail.
I hope we get past January 6th on to January 20th without too much of the violence that Trump and his standing by Proud Boys are calling for. A violent coup attempt egged on by the loser President Trump kind of seems inevitable at this point.
https://www.post-gazette.com/news/politics-state/2021/01/05/Pa-Senate-refuses-to-seat-McKeesport-s-Brewster-in-contentious-swearing-in-ceremony/stories/202101050125
Edit: Barring some sort of earth-shaking change in what we're seeing so far, Mitch McConnell is going to be the Minority Leader in the Senate. Which is nearly as celebration-worthy as Trump losing. They hitched themselves to the wrong wagon:
By the way close to 200k voters were illegally purged in Georgia. The last election Democrats won by around 11,000 votes.
https://www.democracynow.org/2021/1/5/greg_palast_georgia
I really hate the GOP they're terrible for America. Why do people keep voting for them? They deserve zero votes, zero. I don't get it.
I mean they keep cheating, lying, stealing, commiting crimes. They're just the worst.
Right now, Wornack should win by about 1.1% and Ossoff will likely be a few tenths of a percent below him. It's of course conceivable that EVERY pattern seen through over 50% of the vote totals could flip on it's head, but that typically does not happen:
Wasserman just called Wornack's race in favor in the Democrat. Ossoff's race is still too close for him to call.
Loeffler was deeply unpopular and even though GA tends to be a conservative state she was always vulnerable to defeat ever since the news of her engaging in insider trading came out shortly after the pandemic's emergence back in March.
Perdue's not particularly well liked, but he's established and not quite as vulnerable or hated as she was. So that race could be closer.
Dude's an insider trader and a coward. Hiding and refusing to debate Ossoff. Ossoff shredded him in the one debate they had and Perdue hid and hopes to coast into the Senate. He's pathetic. This is a guy GOP voters are voting for.