Deal or no deal?
29/1/21 16:05![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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talkpoliticsSo: How many folks here have considered the idea that Trump was offered a deal, perhaps in a private meeting with the acting Attorney General or a few people in the FBI, before he packed up his crap and left office?
"Sir, we take sedition seriously, and we've got enough evidence here to arrest you the instant your term expires, and stick you in a jail cell. And we will do so. Or, you can agree right now to leave quietly, and stay the hell away from the incoming administration, and never run for office again."
An interesting idea. What's your take?
"Sir, we take sedition seriously, and we've got enough evidence here to arrest you the instant your term expires, and stick you in a jail cell. And we will do so. Or, you can agree right now to leave quietly, and stay the hell away from the incoming administration, and never run for office again."
An interesting idea. What's your take?
(no subject)
Date: 30/1/21 00:41 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 30/1/21 00:43 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 30/1/21 08:01 (UTC)PUNS AHOY
Date: 30/1/21 09:51 (UTC)Re: PUNS AHOY
Date: 30/1/21 14:38 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 30/1/21 12:40 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 30/1/21 18:16 (UTC)https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/29/trump-russia-asset-claims-former-kgb-spy-new-book
It's not just the piss tapes that are going to go live. The whole Deutsche Bank financing is going to go live as are a few other things. There is a degree of toxicity about everything the Don has done in office, and folk have a nasty clean-up job to do; basically they have to start again. All the codes and protocols will have been compromised. Uncle Vlad has necessitated that all the previous systems have to be burnt to the ground and rebuilt from the foundations upward. At quite ridiculous costs to the taxpayer, btw. And this is actually necessary.
The Don is a gift that keeps giving.
(no subject)
Date: 30/1/21 18:58 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 31/1/21 18:47 (UTC)https://www.nationalmemo.com/miller-disarmed-national-guard
(no subject)
Date: 31/1/21 21:18 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 31/1/21 21:50 (UTC)You guys do have a tradition for using the National Guard as a home security force that stretches back to the ‘60s; and weirdly in at least some of those engagements the Guard was armed; as the body counts indicate.
And really, after what we’ve seen of late... almost all explanations feel like gaslighting.
(no subject)
Date: 31/1/21 22:50 (UTC)Start from a basic, and very reasonable assumption: America is a military juggernaut. It's massive in arms, soldiers, land, and centers of power. All Americans know that. Let's say a group of ten thousand angry civilians has a loud, belligerent protest outside the White House. Are they actually a threat to the US government? Is taking over the country just a matter of rushing in there and sticking your feet up on the desk?
No. Hell no. And everybody knows that.
To the overwhelming majority of Americans, regardless of what they think of the party in power, seeing their government take arms against their fellow citizens is the worst possible, least acceptable outcome. Oh sure you can find some gross little gang of thugs who say differently if you follow the right breathless newsfeed or go spelunking into some internet sewer, but I guarantee you, those people are a rounding error. The question for the government is not "how do we put down these bastards", it's "how much can we bend the government back out of the way for these people to express themselves without harm". Hence, putting the boys of the National Guard out there to have a bulwark presence, but making damn sure they don't bring in arms, because firing on civilians has no place, wait let me give that some emphasis, NO PLACE in the American government of this era. We are all too interconnected, and too aware of what happened 50 years ago.
That's why the outcry has been about protecting congress, law enforcement, etc. Elected officials; other Americans. Not the government or the party or even, for the most part, the building and property. Hell, the building can be rebuilt in less than a year.
Remember, most of the people in that protest were there because they truly believed that the democratic process had been subverted. It wasn't "we want our strongman in power and damn what the voters think", it was "someone's tampered with the vote."
The people who threatened congress and caused damage, the people who committed violence, those people definitely should be caught and arrested. But gunning down the whole crowd because they dare cross the threshold of the capital without permission? Fuck that. Is that what you were expecting? Hoping for?
(no subject)
Date: 31/1/21 22:03 (UTC)Not allowed riot gear? No helmets or body armour? Er...
(no subject)
Date: 31/1/21 22:58 (UTC)Picture this order going out just before a massive, planned BLM protest. Would you join up with those dickheads on the far right who would crow that the government is "clearly going soft on these Antifa people, who are terrorists?"
(no subject)
Date: 31/1/21 23:15 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 1/2/21 04:57 (UTC)That can't happen at the capitol because of jurisdiction. Or is the comparison between Apples and Oranges?
(no subject)
Date: 1/2/21 05:42 (UTC)https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2020/06/02/which-us-states-have-deployed-the-national-guard-in-response-to-the-protests-infographic/?sh=233247ed7706
(no subject)
Date: 1/2/21 05:50 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 1/2/21 05:51 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 1/2/21 06:06 (UTC)Trump went "law and order" on the Portland protests, and others, as part of his execrable re-election campaign strategy, and attempted to bring the federal hammer down on Portland. Agents from multiple federal agencies repeatedly used excessive force, and - duh - the protests just got worse and worse, as vengeful fringe groups threaded into the peaceful ones, responding to the violence.
Here, read a long summary of the sad, messy timeline of Portland protests last year, which have continued into this year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd_protests_in_Portland,_Oregon
(no subject)
Date: 1/2/21 07:03 (UTC)Well they certainly picked their moment to clean up their act. You do see how this looks, don't you?
To the rest of the world this looks like the most inept self-coup ever attempted; but it was still an attempt. And you are going to let it go. Move past it. Put the past behind you.
And spook-watchers... we are all of the opinion that your Manchurian candidate, combined with our Manchurian candidate, has compromised us all. The current personal blowback against Uncle Vlad appears to have coincided with the Don leaving office. As a consequence I'm expecting InternetWars 3.0 to kick off pretty soon. The plague has given a strange backdrop to all of this.
We were all here and posting madly during the BLM protests; and though old and approaching senility, I'm not quite there yet and I remember lots of it. (No doubt edited by my internal biases.)
(no subject)
Date: 1/2/21 08:09 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 1/2/21 09:25 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 1/2/21 22:49 (UTC)In this case someone might have said "oh no those poor white people might get hurt!" and worked harder on their behalf, but, I don't think anyone would find that surprising.
We all agree over here: It's a pretty inept coup! The questions we're asking here are like "How could these people be so misled by that wanker?"
Uncle Vlad, with no prospects for redemption to Europe or America, has naturally turned to aggressively courting the Chinese. He'a trying hard to sell Russia as an ally against the West, but as far as I can tell, Russia's a battered woman, and China is just another abuser promising safety and delivering plunder and lies. I don't fear Vlad. I pity him. The Chinese government ... now that, I am afraid of.