Nicker on 25/9/2021 at 02:13
Apparently the Ninja report was leaked at 10:30 PM, Thursday. At 11 PM (a half hour later) T***p, having missed the leaked documents which showed him losing, (
https://www.forbes.com/sites/markjoyella/2021/09/24/cnns-john-berman-arizona-sham-audit-proves-donald-trump-even-bigger-loser-than-the-first-time/) praised the Cyber Ninjas for delivering victory, in a statement through his Save America PAC.
Quote:
CNN New Day anchor John Berman said Friday that the results of a so-called “election audit” of the 2020 vote in Arizona—a partisan effort carried out by a group called the “Cyber Ninjas”—found that “not only did Donald Trump lose Arizona, he lost by more votes than previously realized. In other words, they found he was an even bigger loser than the first time around.”
The former president appeared to be expecting quite the opposite, releasing a statement Thursday night saying “everybody will be watching Arizona tomorrow to see what the highly respected auditors and Arizona State Senate found out regarding the so-called Election!”
Cipheron on 25/9/2021 at 02:53
Trump saying something that's contradicted by other sources isn't an "oops" it's *deliberate*. It's propaganda. So, it's wrong to see this as Trump just getting something wrong so he has egg on his face. That isn't what's happening.
Here's my theory: Trump *planned* to put out a contradictory statement claiming the report validated his beliefs BEFORE the real report dropped, so that his version of events would percolate through his supporter's social media before the real report did. I'm willing to bet that Trump's team has scienced the exact amount of time before a real announcement to put out your contradictory fake announcement to sow the maximum chaos and have your narrative "over-write" the real story.
But then, the CNN leak happened, so the Trump propaganda was fast-tracked to retake the initiative. Hence, why Trump's team ended up posting his contradictory information a mere 30 minutes after the leak. I think the validation for this theory would be if Trump's team puts out more social media messaging right before the actual report that misrepresents what's in it.
Starker on 25/9/2021 at 20:43
The neocon war hawk Robert Kagan penned an interesting opinion piece in the Washington Post the other day. I snipped out just the beginning, but really, I think it's worth reading in its full length.
Quote:
(
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/09/23/robert-kagan-constitutional-crisis/)
Opinion: Our constitutional crisis is already hereRobert Kagan“Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation.”
— James Madison
The United States is heading into its greatest political and constitutional crisis since the Civil War, with a reasonable chance over the next three to four years of incidents of mass violence, a breakdown of federal authority, and the division of the country into warring red and blue enclaves. The warning signs may be obscured by the distractions of politics, the pandemic, the economy and global crises, and by wishful thinking and denial. But about these things there should be no doubt:
First, Donald Trump will be the Republican candidate for president in 2024. The hope and expectation that he would fade in visibility and influence have been delusional. He enjoys mammoth leads in the polls; he is building a massive campaign war chest; and at this moment the Democratic ticket looks vulnerable. Barring health problems, he is running.
Second, Trump and his Republican allies are actively preparing to ensure his victory by whatever means necessary. Trump's charges of fraud in the 2020 election are now primarily aimed at establishing the predicate to challenge future election results that do not go his way. Some Republican candidates have already begun preparing to declare fraud in 2022, just as Larry Elder tried meekly to do in the California recall contest.
Meanwhile, the amateurish “stop the steal” efforts of 2020 have given way to an organized nationwide campaign to ensure that Trump and his supporters will have the control over state and local election officials that they lacked in 2020. Those recalcitrant Republican state officials who effectively saved the country from calamity by refusing to falsely declare fraud or to “find” more votes for Trump are being systematically removed or hounded from office. Republican legislatures are giving themselves greater control over the election certification process. As of this spring, Republicans have proposed or passed measures in at least 16 states that would shift certain election authorities from the purview of the governor, secretary of state or other executive-branch officers to the legislature. An Arizona bill flatly states that the legislature may “revoke the secretary of state's issuance or certification of a presidential elector's certificate of election” by a simple majority vote. Some state legislatures seek to impose criminal penalties on local election officials alleged to have committed “technical infractions,” including obstructing the view of poll watchers.
The stage is thus being set for chaos. Imagine weeks of competing mass protests across multiple states as lawmakers from both parties claim victory and charge the other with unconstitutional efforts to take power. Partisans on both sides are likely to be better armed and more willing to inflict harm than they were in 2020. Would governors call out the National Guard? Would President Biden nationalize the Guard and place it under his control, invoke the Insurrection Act, and send troops into Pennsylvania or Texas or Wisconsin to quell violent protests? Deploying federal power in the states would be decried as tyranny. Biden would find himself where other presidents have been — where Andrew Jackson was during the nullification crisis, or where Abraham Lincoln was after the South seceded — navigating without rules or precedents, making his own judgments about what constitutional powers he does and doesn't have.
[...]
Cipheron on 25/9/2021 at 21:28
EDIT: fun stuff, recent:
(
https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2021/09/25/lauren-boebert-imeach-biden/)
Quote:
Lauren Boebert's ‘Imeach Biden' campaign backfires due to a missing ‘p'
Republican politician Lauren Boebert, who attempted to make a big splash on Friday, Sept. 24, by introducing articles of impeachment against President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, was mocked on Twitter for her ‘Imeach Biden' campaign.
Not only did the congresswoman's motion not find many supporters, but internet users were quick to blast her for missing a ‘p' while spelling ‘impeach.'
...
'Sending out a mass email with the words “IMEACH BIDEN” is what happens when you go to Qollege, instead of college'
...
Toby Morton, a writer for the comedy series South Park, has apparently bought the website imeachbiden.com, and it redirects users to another site highlighting the politician's beliefs in far-right conspiracy theories.
Inline Image:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FAEdUSWX0AAEnI9?format=jpg&name=smallAlso, not expecting anyone to watch this but man, that perseverance:
A History Teacher Reacts to PragerU Videos for 7 Hours Straight(
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MRw-r8avNQ)
Quote Posted by Starker
The neocon war hawk Robert Kagan penned an interesting opinion piece in the Washington Post the other day. I snipped out just the beginning, but really, I think it's worth reading in its full length.
Truly terrifying. If only the Republicans could contain the coming civil war as an intra-party thing then it would be a sideshow *get the popcorn* moment, but that's like sitting on the sidelines watching the Nazis on the Night Of The Long Knives and feeling any schadenfreude from it.
However, this kind of blatant power grab that's going on at the state level is all or nothing thing: it's a gamble that either catapults one to power or brings the empire crashing down. The thing is, things like gerrymandering and other election-fixing things which are legal have been a slow thing that has been entrenched across *decades*, and is closely tied to the power of economic capital'. Political ideology on the right-wing party is supposed to serve capital. If it no longer serves capital, but is about raw political power and ideology in itself, that's how it becomes regular fascism.
What was propaganda originally becomes ingrained beliefs by the following generation of politicians, if the original ruling elite are toppled from power. My guess is that it's the collapse of the Bush administration which is responsible for this, primarily. That gutted the economic conservative wing of the party, leaving a void there, and with only the right-wing Christian wing still surviving on. So it was only a matter of time before someone worked out how to mobilize that wing for their own goals, and now they're knifing in the back the last remnants of the old style party elite. However the issue here is that it's the old 'establishment' Republicans who built up the political capital in the states over decades to have this much national control.
So you've got what is effectively the American Taliban now coming in and taking over these systems that they barely understand how they work and implementing their own more draconian stuff just tacked on top of the systems. So they're going to outright lie and cheat and rig the following elections, because they actually believe that's how it's done and that it's possible to get away with it and not get caught, because they insanely think *that's how things work*. When it clearly doesn't work like that.
EDIT: let me make a prediction here. It's clear the biggest barrier to this is an independent judiciary. Any sort of radical takeover requires an attack on the independence of the different pillars of government (executive, press and civil service: already targeted). So, I'd see that as a major battlefront if they're trying to subvert various institutions through the main avenue they have left, which is state legislatures. What's the news on that?
lowenz on 26/9/2021 at 08:26
True 'murican 'atriots don't use "p" :D
lowenz on 26/9/2021 at 08:29
Quote Posted by Cipheron
The thing is, things like gerrymandering and other election-fixing things which are legal have been a slow thing that has been entrenched across *decades*, and is closely tied to the power of economic capital'. Political ideology on the right-wing party is supposed to serve capital.
If it no longer serves capital, but is about raw political power and ideology in itself, that's how it becomes regular fascism.
What was propaganda originally becomes ingrained beliefs by the following generation of politicians, if the original ruling elite are toppled from power. My guess is that it's the collapse of the Bush administration which is responsible for this, primarily. That gutted the economic conservative wing of the party, leaving a void there, and with only the right-wing Christian wing still surviving on. So it was only a matter of time before someone worked out how to mobilize that wing for their own goals, and now they're knifing in the back the last remnants of the old style party elite. However the issue here is that it's the old 'establishment' Republicans who built up the political capital in the states over decades to have this much national control.
Exactly. You've nailed the problem/dynamic so well!
They lack - for now - a religious-like "mystic" form needed for the ultimate mutation (Fascism is not a simple "authoritarian" regime, it's political mysticism+idealism with a totalitarian and militaristic setup -
it's why they need white supremastists and their tribal-idealistic racism, to gain the mystic form that pure liberal(istic) conservatism has not )
But I think they want to push this pseudofascism to the extreme only to attract the angry, desperate ones vote.
Cipheron on 26/9/2021 at 09:13
Quote Posted by lowenz
Exactly. You've nailed the problem/dynamic so well!
They lack - for now - a religious-like "mystic" form needed for the ultimate mutation (Fascism is not a simple "authoritarian" regime, it's political mysticism+idealism with a totalitarian and militaristic setup -
it's why they need white supremastists and their tribal-idealistic racism, to gain the mystic form that pure liberal(istic) conservatism has not )
But I think they want to push this pseudofascism to the extreme only to attract the angry, desperate ones vote.
Lack the mystic form? Maybe you haven't considered QAnon for that role. The "Where We Go One We Go All" chanting, and the constant talk of the Great Awakening and the forces of Satan. You can justify just about any means when the enemy is literally Satan. I think the main reason we didn't see this coalescing into the "mystic" form already is because Trump lost the election, thus exploding the mythology that QAnon was creating. Trump losing the election was effectively the only thing that QAnon couldn't survive.
However I think you're right that they *courted* racist votes, but those aren't the surefire vote winners they once were. Even the most racist of pundits now has to couch everything to appear non-racist, so that really diffuses any racial ideology based party. Trump got most of the 2016 votes in the Rust Belt he needed by promising coal and steel jobs would return. They didn't, and he lost. Sure, he tried to shore up a racist reactionary base, but that ultimately didn't work. You can't make it work when you can *outright* say stuff about race. See Tucker Carlson on FOX News who is very racist, but his main BLM angle is that it's not actually black people behind BLM, but white Antifa members, and he dismisses that racism exists and says black and white races get along fine unless people stir the shit. Sure, he's clearly an obsessed racist, but ... you can't build a movement of zealots based on Tucker Carlson's stuff. That's why something like QAnon was critical: it allowed new converts to come into the base without feeling like they were, or needed to become, racists.
lowenz on 26/9/2021 at 11:04
Well, that's for Trump, not the GOP!
Cipheron on 26/9/2021 at 11:51
Quote Posted by lowenz
Well, that's for Trump, not the GOP!
But the hero-worship element is a key part of that fascist mysticism in the first place, so when analyzing elements as to whether they're part of a GOP fascism it doesn't make any sense to distinguish "for Trump" things from GOP things. Like, The Hitler Youth is clearly a part of german fascism "mysticism" as you put it, despite being specifically idol worship of Hitler as a person. Trump is the nexus, so any mysticism had to have him as an element. If Trump had won a second term, QAnon would have survived forever, since only him losing an election would contradict their belief system, and he can only run twice. And in a way, it has survived, if you look at the massive amount of people who claim Trump is still the legit president. THAT is the reality bending mystical belief right there. QAnon got dented, but then the belief just morphed and they jettisoned the problematic parts. In the aftermath, some Qinfluencers have faded while new ones have risen. The MyPillow guy for example.
Other news, the great bamboo hunt of 2021.
(
https://www.verifythis.com/article/news/verify/government-verify/no-evidence-bamboo-fibers-were-in-arizona-2020-presidential-election-ballots/536-e332a1bb-e7a7-403f-ba68-1e083f285712)
It's sad that actual journalists have to debunk racist nonsense being spread by elected officials.
Quote:
Is there any evidence of bamboo fibers in the paper ballots cast in Maricopa County, Arizona, during the 2020 presidential election?
...
On May 5, Dennis Welch, a political journalist based in Phoenix, interviewed an official who claimed he was helping oversee the election audit in Arizona. The official, identified as John Brakey of AUDIT USA, said he was looking for bamboo fibers because of an accusation that 40,000 ballots from Southeast Asia were flown to Arizona and stuffed into the ballot boxes ahead of the 2020 presidential election. In a video posted on Twitter by Welch, Brakey claimed the audit was being conducted because “people in Southeast Asia” use “bamboo in their paper,” while also making it clear that he did not actually believe the claim himself.
...
Kinder Chambers, an independent textiles expert, told VERIFY that while bamboo paper has been made by hand in China for centuries, in the United States, there has never been that much paper made with bamboo. Chambers said the only American-made paper with bamboo was created in 1995 by one manufacturer who apparently made one big batch and never made any more. He says it was never made for commercial use.
“There is no general paper that has some bamboo fibers in the U.S. That kind of quality is for toilet paper - and I don't mean like American quality - more like Europe, in the bathrooms of Europe,” said Chambers. “We don't see any bamboo paper coming out of China. They make clothing, T-shirts, sleep clothing and casual clothing. Bamboo paper stock would be easily recognizable, especially by feel.”
In her letter to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, Arizona Senate President Karen Fann invited the board to attend a meeting at the Arizona State Capitol on Tuesday, May 18, requesting that they bring officials from the elections department who would have knowledge of their elections procedures.
In its response, the Board said: “We will not be attending. We will not be responding to any additional inquiries from your ‘auditors.' Their failure to understand basic election processes is an indication you didn't get the best people to perform in your political theatre. We have wasted enough County resources. People's tax dollars are real, your ‘auditors' are not. We express our united view that your ‘audit,' no matter what your intentions were in the beginning, has become a spectacle that is harming all of us. Our state has become a laughingstock... You are using purple lights and spinning tables. You are hunting for bamboo. These are not things that serious auditors of elections do.”
Another article, this guy is summarizing the roasting of the Arizona state legislature by the Maricopa County board of supervisors. He links the full document which he says is a blast to read.
(
https://www.davisvanguard.org/2021/05/commentary-somebody-please-make-this-stop-arizona-audit-proves-a-farce/)
Quote:
Paul Boyer, a Republican member of the Arizona state Senate responded to this, “It makes us look like idiots.”
Quote:
“In your letter, you state that Maricopa County “has refused to provide passwords necessary to access vote tabulation devices.” However, as we have previously told you, we have produced every password in our custody and control. You, however, accuse us of lying. You state that we could not have conducted our forensic audits without additional passwords, and that ‘it strains credulity' to suggest that our contract with Dominion Voting Systems does not allow us to obtain additional, proprietary passwords belonging to Dominion.”
They write: “The contract is a public record: you could have requested it. Even a cursory review would show there is no contractual provision granting the County the ability to acquire Dominion's proprietary passwords. Instead you call us liars and insult us, when a simple public records request would have helped you avoid such indecent conduct.”
Further they note: “Your chosen ‘auditors,' the Cyber Ninjas, are certainly many things. But ‘accredited by the EAC' is not one of them. Regardless,
we cannot give you a password that we do not possess any more than we can give you the formula for Coca Cola. We do not have it; we have no legal right to acquire it; and so, we cannot give it to you.”
...
"You are photographing ballots contrary to the laws that the Senate helped enact, and you are sending those images to unidentified places and people. You have repeatedly lost control of your twitter account, which has tweeted things that appear to be the rantings of a petulant child—not the serious statements of a serious audit."
Oh god, I love the burns here. Maricopa County insists on putting quotes any time they use the word 'auditors'.