A literal presidential coup memo: Not worth covering for the morning or evening national news shows on ABC, CBS, or NBC. https://t.co/lP1c3hFgVh
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) September 22, 2021
We are now officially better at journalism than those sites (or, apparently, the NYTimes).
He misses #7, where the country erupts in bloody civil war. https://t.co/1quAf3trim
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) September 21, 2021
I feel like perhaps there isn't enough alarm that there was an actual memo circulating in the actual presidential administration about How To Stay In Office Despite Losing
have we really normalized bad stuff this much
— Gerry Doyle (@mgerrydoyle) September 20, 2021
1. On the evening of Jan. 6, while the violent mob that drove Congress out of its joint session to count electoral votes still held the U.S. Capitol, Trump lawyer John Eastman was on Steve Bannon's show denouncing Mike Pence. https://t.co/1yJurHaSVE pic.twitter.com/gmqorzOOkQ
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) September 21, 2021
The answer to “Did Team Trump try to stay in power despite losing reelection, with a preconceived plan to use lies about voting results and bad faith manipulations of the Electoral Count Act to disrupt the transition of power on Jan. 6?” is now an incontrovertible, documented yes
— Nicholas Grossman (@NGrossman81) September 21, 2021
re: the memo outlining how to not-certify election results so trump stayed in office https://t.co/qKcI5EH0Z4
— Gerry Doyle (@mgerrydoyle) September 21, 2021
A draft plan to hijack the government is still a plan to hijack the US government and should be treated that way https://t.co/lwfDbv20oz
— Grudgie the Whale (@grudging1) September 21, 2021
Here's what Eastman says is "the full memo."
"We're no longer playing by Queensbury Rules… [if Biden is allowed to take office] we will have ceased to be a self-governing people. The stakes could not be higher." h/t @charliearchy https://t.co/PR8xbQDGWy pic.twitter.com/LJ9S5aXsNr
— Christian Vanderbrouk (@UrbanAchievr) September 22, 2021
Eastman, of course, has priors:
“Trump lawyer John Eastman” doesn’t quite do him justice. He didn’t come up in Trump world. He’s not one of Trump’s array of criminal lawyers.
Eastman was a clerk for Clarence Thomas. He is a Federalist Society leader. He teaches at the Claremont Institute. https://t.co/GGGQG1XvvE
— David “HINDSIGHT IS 2021” Walsh (@DavidAstinWalsh) September 21, 2021
John Eastman, the lawyer who tried to help Trump steal the election, is also the chair of America's largest anti-LGBT hate group.
He has publicly stated that he thinks homosexuality should be a life-sentence crime. Transcript via https://t.co/X8Ftb21KVu
https://t.co/0MgyzSzY1z pic.twitter.com/53uabTphSz— Matthew Sheffield (@mattsheffield) September 22, 2021
Give the Trumpers and the anti-anti-Trumpers credit for message discipline: They summon virtual flash mobs and the Two Minutes Hate over almost anything, but they hunker down over stories like this and know that silence will eventually do its job and everyone moves on. https://t.co/9Q4g1VC3z4
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) September 21, 2021
“Our members have a wide variety of opinions on overthrowing the Republic, featuring an effusive biography should not necessarily be taken as endorsing coups. Coups and excluding citizens from government based on parents’ national origin are matters of personal conscience.”
— ThousandIslandVaccineHat (@Popehat) September 22, 2021
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I am thinking one of the reasons why the “Serious People” can’t process this shit is it’s so ingrained into them that the Republicans are the Serious Daddy Party and this whole thing is just so absurdly stupid it’s at the level of a six year old throwing a hissy fit, I mean it says a lot when your plan is so dumb even fucking Mike “Howling the Moon” Pence can’t buy into it.
Also, why is it no surprise a Federalist Society member came up with something this simultaneously vile and pathetic?
Baud
While I agree wholeheartedly with the criticism of the media coverage (or lack of coverage), I also feel that we tend to focus on that problem rather than the underlying atrocity.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Oh and is the good Mr Eastman for life imprisonment for Anti-Vaccers for spreading Covid, or that completely different from AIDs for reasons, that’s why.
Steeplejack
A.L.:
Sorry if I trod upon your toes with my Eastman tweet downstairs. I couldn’t hold back!
dr. bloor
Given that the MSM would have “covered” the memo by commenting on the ingenuity of Eastman’s strategy followed by a discussion among a panel consisting of three Republicans, I’m kinda glad they ignored it.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Steeplejack: being labeled “One of Trump’s mod lawyers” is about right though. Taking out all the legal language Eastman is hiding behind, Eastman is basically saying “we need Pence to lie for us”.
boatboy_srq
We’re over a decade away from the Mayberry Machiavellis, and yet there are still people who think the GQP is actually a functional political party when it’s turned largely into a massive protection racket.
As for Eastman, he seems very… what’s the word… is it white?
Cermet
We had a coup d’etat attempt and the Justice Dept has silence? Really? Not just this memo but the insurrection Jan 6th and there is no connect the dots? This needs a criminal investigation immediately.
Betty
Deleted as duplicate
Betty
Interesting how often these guys look the part. Perhaps it is a lifetime of such evil-doing that shows in their faces. His reasoning is just specious. It has been established that this was a fair election in all the states.
J.
I’ve known that for years. :-)
Betty Cracker
Maybe it’ll get some coverage now — belatedly. For good or ill (mostly ill), that’s one result of the intersection of social media (especially Twitter) and Beltway reporting. If something is “out there,” i.e., being talked about by accounts they follow, Beltway reporters sometimes feel obligated to cover it.
Mike in NC
Why hasn’t this motherfucker Eastman been strung up by his testicles yet?
germy
Another Scott
Last night I found the NYMag excerpt from Wolff’s book ‘Landslide’. I don’t know how much to trust it, but it mentions them trying to implement a plan like this and all the delusional buffoonery. Worth a click.
Cheers,
Scott.
Steeplejack
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I think the point was that Eastman isn’t just some no-name hack who washed in with the Trump tide and will soon be gone again. He is a prominent Republican lawyer in good standing as the party now stands (fuckin’ crazy!).
germy
There wasn’t enough time for a story. They had to run an inspirational segment instead, about a 90 year old woman whose neighbors gifted her with a car after they saw her walking fifty miles to work every day…
Ken
Am I alone in hoping that someone in the current administration edits the memo to change “VP Pence” to “VP Harris” and make the other obvious replacements, then “leaks” it to the press? It would be two-part test — do they recognize the original, and do they react in the same way — and I suspect most of the press would fail.
Subsole
@Betty: Their photos remind me of pictures I saw once, portraits of NKVD gulag guards.
You could see the hatred for life, stamped on them.
@Mike in NC: ‘Cause we got manners ‘n shit, bro.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
On this one, I don’t think “media coverage” should be the goal. Democrats should read the memo, take it seriously and start thinking about all the possibilities therein and what a prevention and/or response would look like. We don’t have time for people to still be “coming to grips” with this, or whatever they’re doing. They have to get past that. If they’re uncomfortable with it, they can think of it as “what if?” – I think it’s past “what if” but I don’t really care if they see it exactly as I do, as long as they start to really think about it and “really think about it” has to be more than “here is the federal code section” OR “grab your musket, because this means war”. There’s a big space in there.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Steeplejack: Show us how the GOP really stands then; cheese bags with fancy titles. There is nothing cunning or clever about Eastman’s plan and if anything it was doomed to failure
I think Eastman is also weasley enough in his language he would be hard to prosecute – Pence could break the law that Pence didn’t do. Likely the only thing really to do is humiliate the guy publicly so he loses his precious gravitus.
germy
montanareddog
I forget who is the philosopher or political scientist who talks about “soft” authoritarianism (the kind practiced in, say, Hungary or Singapore) where, in general, if you keep your head down, things, on a day to day basis, just carry on normally and confortably.
I get the impression that most beltway journalists are not deep thinkers and they are not attached out of principle to democracy, just to a comfortable and high-status life. And, after a Trump coup, for most of them, if they slightly adjusted their behaviour, it would continue comfortably. They might even get to write that post-coup bestseller “MAGA: Donald Trump and the reinvention of American democracy” or “Sweet Liberal Tears: how Donald Trump won the war of ideas”.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Chovanec’s imaginary number 7 is incorrect. What it would actually say would be “assume any backlash would consist of furiously attended non-violent protests and songs of peace that include giant puppets, pussy hats and drum circles, all of which could be pointed at, giggled over and turned into librul-bashing funny memes while earnest NPR personages, print pundits and news commentators urge calm and respect for process. Law and Order must of course be sacrosanct and honored during these troublesome times …”
germy
“Rob Monster” is too appropriate. What a timeline.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Mike in NC:
I was going to ask why he’s still breathing air, but yours is a perfectly acceptable alternative.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Good points.
Kay
@germy:
They’re basically telegraphing that the next coup attempt runs through the states, before it even gets to the Congress and the VP so reciting the rules the VP has to follow is not sufficient. Doggedly insisting that rule won’t allow a whole different approach is just not creative enough.
They can start by jumping off the Eastman memo and replacing “VP” with some other governmental actors or entities, including the whole state set of actors in each state, depending on the various state laws. There are thousands of possible combinations.
germy
OzarkHillbilly
On the right that is called Cancel Culture and it secures their bona fides as a True American Patriot ™.
germy
@Kay:
They’re not even about policy or governing anymore. They’re all about seizing and holding power. Everything else is irrelevant.
Betty Cracker
@germy: Here’s a quote from the WaPo article linked in the tweet:
So now we know what it takes for platforms to get cut loose by conventional hosts: mass casualty hate crimes and attempted coups. Maybe the standards should be higher? JFC.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cermet: What makes you that there is no criminal investigation taking place?
Chief Oshkosh
@Kay: Agreed. What struck me about the existence of the memo and about the memo content is that this is a parallel to the Texas anti-choice bill. Both of them are wacko, but that sure as shit did not stop the Republican establishment from getting them done.
This is not fringe noodling, this is one of two of our established major political parties. They show us their instruction manuals for how to take-over and to remain in power as fascists. They act on those manuals. Will our elected leaders do anything about it?
terraformer
I don’t know how anyone can look at that memo, and at the new information that the T***p team knew their “election fraud” stance was complete BS – and then see that NEITHER IS BEING COVERED BY THE MAINSTREAM PRESS, and not come to the conclusion that the major press organizations are anything but in the tank for Republicans and their backers. I mean, we kind of knew this given how they still “both sides” decidedly un-both-sides topics and situations, but I just don’t know how to deal with the fact that a majority of outlets representing the Fourth Estate are in on all this, with gusto.
Josie
@germy: Democrats in those states should concentrate on running the most popular person possible for Secretary of State. It would seem to be a must to hold those offices if at all possible.
ETA: Those are state wide elections, so they can’t be gerrymandered, thank goodness.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@germy:
Older white people love inspirational good news. I remember my RWNJ grandmother lamenting all the bad news about racial unrest and persistent failures in managing the Vietnam fuckup.
Citizen Alan
@Josie:
Does it matter how popular a candidate is if they’re a member of “the baby killer party” even even if it’s for a position that has no conceivable relationship to abortion rights?
OzarkHillbilly
If you want the press to cover it you have to engineer a similar scam by DEMs so they can both sides it.
PPCLI
Also it’s crucial to shout out that this memo wasn’t a one-off Hail Mary play. It was the culmination of a systematic plan that had extended well before the 2020 election. Just to pick on one example. The memo refers to “competing slates of electors”. Sensible people say: WTF, each state had only one certified slate, what’s the deal?
Well, of course the Republicans in each of the contested states had gone through this ritual of gathering a bunch of state representatives and holding a vote to choose the Trump electors as a slate. This wasn’t just a cursory gathering of a bunch of backbench hacks in a local Red Roof Inn breakfast room. It was a calculated cosplay. Each one was timed to take place on the same day as the official selection of electors. They went to great lengths to make sure the meeting was in the actual legislative building, when possible. And so on. These things didn’t just happen spontaneously in a bunch of states independently. They were coordinated.
An illustration that would be amusing if the stakes weren’t so serious was the pantomime in Michigan. Because of the various threats and invasions of the state legislature by armed wackjobs, Governor Witmer had sensibly restricted admission to the legislative buildings to just the people authorized to enter. But the self-proclaimed alternate slate of electors gang trooped down to the state legislature anyway and tried to get admitted. They were refused, so they had there little ceremony in the parking lot instead, so they could claim to be on the legislative building grounds.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Kay:
“But we did it according to the law, so it’s OK. You people had better cam down and respect law and order.”
Josie
@Citizen Alan: Obviously, I’m talking about the most popular Democratic candidate here, not just anybody.
ETA: Kay is right that different states have different rules. Here in Texas, the governor appoints the secretary of state, so electing a Democratic governor would be vital.
PPCLI
@Josie: True. But the gerrymandered legislatures can strip the secretary of state of all the powers relevant to the election and transfer the powers to bodies of the legislature’s choosing. And that is happening.
germy
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Inspirational good news stories can be wonderful. But segments on kids selling lemonade to help pay for their siblings chemotherapy, or stories about benevolent wealthy people gifting a community with a rec center usually don’t address the policy failures that make these stories possible.
ABC, NBC & CBS love their “benevolent rich guy” stories, but they never covered the Nabisco strike. A nationwide strike!
Mallard Filmore
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Simply a mantra for keeping the serfs in line.
laura
Let’s not be so hasty in examining this particular shite-bag that we fail to remember that he opined based on a reading of the law that he pulled out of his ass that Senator Kamala Harris was not qualified to run for president because her obvious status as an American citizen was not sufficient despite being born right here in the Bay Area, because her dusky parents hailed from those places.
Just Chuck
Biden should wave the memo around at the next SOTU. Are we even doing those anymore?
jeffreyw
@terraformer:
Not just in the tank, they have reporters working on books that will be published at a date to be determined later. Won’t step on their buddies’ prospects.
lowtechcyclist
@PPCLI:
Hell, in at least one state (NC), the GQP legislature and the lame-duck GQP governor stripped the office of the governor of many of its powers during the lame-duck period before the Dem governor was sworn in.
They don’t give a damn about rules and norms. They’ll happily let the Dems in Congress tie their own hands with them, though.
kindness
Honestly that memo needs to be written into the Senate record and John Eastman needs to be charged with Treason. Today would be nice.
germy
@Josie:
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@germy: or simply “why this person has to walk to work because of no public transit leads and why that exacerbates the shortage of service sector workers?”
Shakti
Kristine
So Politics Twitter made me feel sick, so I checked out Science Twitter for some cheering up.
That didn’t go well.
Baud
@Kristine:
You’re suggesting that’s a bad thing?
PPCLI
@lowtechcyclist: Wisconsin too.
catothedog
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
No. It’s not out of habit. It’s because “Serious People” = Whites; Republicans = White Daddy Party.
Whites are the owners of the property. Ultimately they own it. So what if they are a bit crazy/drunk sometimes? They will snap back and do the right thing. No property owner wants to trash their property.
The other group – apostate whites, newcomers, pretenders, savages – they are just renters. They will never have the same long-term interest in the property as renters. Oh they can complain about the condition of the property, things not working, etc. and some of that problems may be true even. But THEY are NOT the OWNERS.
So eg: when Jake Tapper blasts Trump, he is admitting that the property is mismanaged and calling him out on it. But he is fully invested in the premise that the WHITES are the OWNERS.
Even the Dems are invested in that premise. They will manage the property better; the renters would have less reason to complain. But they also prefer the same line.
Betty Cracker
@Shakti: If they’re smart, FL Republicans will run like a scalded dog from that copycat bill and go with something that’s less obviously unconstitutional and evil to avoid a backlash. But “if” does a lot of heavy lifting in the that sentence, and backlash is conjecture.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Shakti:
Yay – more qui tam bullshit, I suppose with all this coming monetization of suing people who assist with abortions, I can get in on a gravy train and set up a website where people can report the names and addresses of everyone who announces they are preggers or may look to be preggers, and can then be subpoenaed as a witness in piles of John Doe complaints every time a pregnancy doesn’t spit out a baby. Had a miscarriage? It might have been an abortion, so a John Doe suit is coming so we can all discover whether there was an abortion, or conduct which led to problems with the pregnancy so you can nutpick as to whether it was an abortion.
Soprano2
@PPCLI: This is why it’s important for the press to cover this in a responsible manner, so that people know what is happening. If it’s “just Democrats” talking about it, people see it as partisan sniping, and don’t take it that seriously. That’s why I harp on how badly the press is handling this; if they cover it at all, they’re making it sound like it’s just Democrats complaining about Republicans, rather than a real threat to our democratic form of government. I knew that this was happening, but I read this blog. I guarantee you that 95% of the public doesn’t even know that Republicans were deliberately doing this in order to have an alternative slate of “electors” ready.
Kristine
@Baud: it seems a bit harsh
Jess
@Kristine: At this point, I’m thinking this outcome will be a good thing…
Betty Cracker
@Omnes Omnibus: We don’t, but honestly, I found this disheartening, and I admire Adam Schiff a whole helluva lot and am very much aware that he knows lots more about this stuff than I do:
They’re just now getting around to considering recommending that? I get that there’s a lot to be done, but JFC.
Benw
The giant gavel in the room that this awful memo ignores is Nancy Pelosi was not going to let sentient paste tube Mike Pence get away with any of this shit. I expect the less-stupid people around TFG had planned accordingly on Jan 6th.
We CANNOT lose control of Congress in 22!
Soprano2
This is an extremely valuable insight. It’s also why they are obsessed with TFG voters in diners – “Why are the really important voters voting for TFG?” is what they want to know. The press still sees the “default” voter as a white man, and they won’t come off of that. It’s why there are almost no stories about Biden voters – they don’t see Biden voters as the “real” voters.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Shakti: Supposedly the same group in Texas that passed the Bounty Hunter “Harass your granddaughter for fun and profit” law now want to pass making having a miscarriage a capital crime if it can be proved to be negligence, and it’s meet to work with the bounty hunter law. So just double down no matter what happens.
If that goes threw Texas is pretty much inhibaitiable for any woman or just anyone with a family member with a functioning uterus. What are they trying to turn Texas into a gay conservative only stronghold?
Matt McIrvin
@montanareddog:
That’s how it usually works–it depends entirely on who you are and how much you intend to rock the boat. And it extends to features of many societies. In the United States, for instance, white people don’t usually have the experience of living in a dystopian police state, but black people do. Most modern analysts would call the pre-1965 US a “flawed democracy” at best but if you were a white person, you’d probably insist it was thoroughly democratic. And so on.
Cameron
@kindness: Yeah, I’m wondering how this shit isn’t illegal (not a lawyer).
Kay
@Chief Oshkosh:
I’ve been involved in voting rights for 20 years. If you had told me 20 years ago they would gut the VRA I would have thought you were a hair on fire grifter who was ginning up fear to raise money.
I was wrong. I won’t be complacent again or rely on existing laws and rules to end any discussion of possibilities. It’s all possible.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I was thinking about this recently at my book sale. A lady in her late 80s asked me to recommend a book for her middle school grandson and I said WYSMAN was popular because of the handicapped central character. She said she didn’t want to get into that with him.
Another lady said she liked DEEP AS A TOMB, and I said I liked it too but it was my weakest seller, and she asked if that was because of the word “tomb.”
It’s like they think if you don’t talk about handicaps or death or racism or Vietnam, they go away.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Ignoring the obvious contradiction here. Ok, Che, let’s take a ride of this Marxist Train you got going here; Democracies are the creation of the property owners, to protect their wealth from the inbred and stupid upper class and the smelly protalitarte, correct? Why would the bourgeoisies’ propagandist support the destruction of the very institution that protect their control of wealth? After all, as you just said the Dems are just another flavor of the same White Bois property class. This, by Marxist theory, after all, is the reason why all those Santa Clara County Tech Dude Bros and Orange County Middle Managers voted blue in the California Recall. Stupid and too lazy be bothered to think still is the only answer even in those terms.
Philbert
@Betty Cracker: Exactly. What will it take for DOJ? Also will they (ever) enforce Congressional subpoenas? Currently they mean little.
Ksmiami
@OzarkHillbilly: and this is why we need to be unified and more willing to smash shit including Mitch McConnells face- or at least start freezing assets in the red states, defund them etc. No one is afraid of liberals and that needs to change
Ksmiami
@Philbert: Garland is a disgrace in his current role.
piratedan
@Betty Cracker: I commend OO for his faith in the system, but I have to be honest, there are times when I do not share that faith. I understand you have to be quiet when it comes to not letting the bad guys know you’re onto them but it feels like this whole government work thing may be beyond these people…
I cycle back to how a large number of those participating in the events of 1/6/2021 had to be identified by folks outside of LEO and sent on a tip line.
Those folks have been indicted and yet, we have public statements by public officials and wtf are the US Marshalls?
It continues to lead to the divide and perception in this country that it really does matter who you are, there ARE people who do in fact appear to be above the law because sure as shit, the law hasn’t come for them…. yet and as evidenced 9 months after the fact, it STILL hasn’t come for them.
We talk about how much our justice system has too much retribution and too little forgiveness… a good portion of that is fueled by shit like this. We watched an attempted Coup de’tat play out on our TV screens and while many a foot soldier is incarcerated now, none of the other bad actors have suffered an iota of discomfort over it.
It is goddamn infuriating.
Omnes Omnibus
@piratedan: Hold on. Cermet claimed that the DoJ isn’t doing anything. I did not say that they were. I simply asked how they knew this. Most criminal investigations are not public until charges are brought. And we do see people being charged. Might there be more going on? I just was objecting to drawing conclusions based on nothing but cynicism.
gene108
@laura:
That’s Birther “logic” that’s been around since 2008. The Birther argument was that President Obama could not be President, since his father was not a U.S. citizen, and you need both parents to be natural born U.S. citizens to be a natural born U.S. citizen.
It’s one crackpot conspiracy theory conservatives dropped pretty quickly, when their orange ? clown ? savior was nominated in 2016.
But I guess it’s resurfaced in a modified form.
The Utter Dregs
@Betty Cracker: “You must understand, young Hobbit, it takes a long time to say anything in Old Entish. And we never say anything unless it is worth taking a long time to say.”
Chief Oshkosh
@Soprano2: Open question: imagine for a minute that the press does all that we are asking them to do and then imagine that a majority of Americans starting viewing all of this as most BJers on this thread. What happens? I’m not sure. It’s possibly instructive to think about how vaccinations are going. A large majority of Americans understand that they are the best way out of an actual existential crisis and they want everyone vaccinated. Yet here we are. I just don’t see a way out of this (“this” = vax crisis or fascist takeover) that doesn’t involve much more drastic use of political power, likely pretty far beyond what many on the quorum are comfortable with.
Like I started with, this is an open question. I’m not advocating for even MORE executive power being wielded (and who cares what I advocate for anyway), but I don’t see many alternatives given how pressing the issues are wrt to time. What says the Juicers?
…And probably climate change is an even grander issues in this regard…
piratedan
@Omnes Omnibus: fair enough OO… I guess I’m tired of seeing the bad guys still running free and amok.
I guess that’s why I never understood law well enough to see people aiding and abetting sedition by encouraging it, making public statements in support of not just the act but also the actors, would warrant someone in some legal capacity to do something about it. Yet here we are, watching these very same people, still holding public office, making statements on public policy and tendering votes on legislation.
gvg
How come everyone is piling on the mainstream media for “not covering” the coup memo, when the mainstream media is where it was reported, where I read about it etc. They aren’t covering it exclusively and some things they cover seem trivial to me, but they did publish this story.
trollhattan
We truly live in the stupidest of times.
Kay
@gvg:
“Robert Costa
@costareports
ABC: “Sources also said that John Eastman, a lawyer who worked with Trump’s legal team last year, could also be subpoenaed for records and testimony by the committee.” Memo first reported in PERIL, where you can read the in-depth story of Trump’s efforts”
They are saving these stories to put in their books and by doing that they are changing the timeline of when and how they are discussed. Would the period after the election had been different in terms of public perception if events had been timely reported? I don’t know. But I do know their book sideline is changing when the information is received by the public.
It’s hysterical in a way. We have nearly instant reporting- they can transmit news in seconds all over the globe and they have taken us back to waiting for a BOOK to be published. We’d be better off if they were handing out fucking flyers on streetcorners. It’s faster.
They’re creating an 18 month lag between the event and their revelation of the event. A newspaper a hundred years ago would be more timely.
Kay
@gvg:
“Robert Costa
@costareports
ABC: “Sources also said that John Eastman, a lawyer who worked with Trump’s legal team last year, could also be subpoenaed for records and testimony by the committee.” Memo first reported in PERIL, where you can read the in-depth story of Trump’s efforts”
They are saving these stories to put in their books and by doing that they are changing the timeline of when and how they are discussed. Would the period after the election had been different in terms of public perception if events had been timely reported? I don’t know. But I do know their book sideline is changing when the information is received by the public.
It’s hysterical in a way. We have nearly instant reporting- they can transmit news in seconds all over the globe and they have taken us back to waiting for a BOOK to be published. We’d be better off if they were handing out fucking flyers on streetcorners. It’s faster.
They’re creating an 18 month lag between the event and their revelation of the event. A newspaper a hundred years ago would be more timely.
Kay
@gvg:
“Robert Costa
@costareports
ABC: “Sources also said that John Eastman, a lawyer who worked with Trump’s legal team last year, could also be subpoenaed for records and testimony by the committee.” Memo first reported in PERIL, where you can read the in-depth story of Trump’s efforts”
They are saving these stories to put in their books and by doing that they are changing the timeline of when and how they are discussed. Would the period after the election had been different in terms of public perception if events had been timely reported? I don’t know. But I do know their book sideline is changing when the information is received by the public.
It’s hysterical in a way. We have nearly instant reporting- they can transmit news in seconds all over the globe and they have taken us back to waiting for a BOOK to be published. We’d be better off if they were handing out fucking flyers on streetcorners. It’s faster.
They’re creating an 18 month lag between the event and their revelation of the event. A newspaper a hundred years ago would be more timely.
gene108
@Ksmiami:
If liberals engaged in an armed standoff with Federal officers over taxes, like Cliven Bundy did, would there be any media or politicians giving the liberals sympathetic coverage? Hannity was raving about Bundy, until he said some racist stuff a decorum at the time meant to not cover him like a hero anymore.
There are well developed networks for right wing terrorists to get political and media support. They’re probably offshoots of whatever popular support the KKK has had for the last 150 years.
There’s no liberal equivalent. Liberals try to pull the shit conservative terrorists do and everyone will come down on them like a ton of bricks.
ArchTeryx
@The Utter Dregs: Do remember that when they realized just how much Saruman had desecrated and destroyed their own home, all that dithering went straight out the window, they formed a war flock (a war forest?) and goddamned stormed the tower.
What’s it going to take for us to storm the Orthanc that the Republicans have so carefully built to destroy us all?
RaflW
Certainly one part of the GOP campaign against elections is ‘winning.’ Even relatively sane Minnesota is coming under the sway of the epic bullshit/big lie.
Mew StarTribune/Public Raido/Frontline (PBS) poll results:
Do you believe that Joe Biden did or did not legitimately win the 2020 presidential election?
Yes, he did . . . . 60%
No, he did not . . 26%
Not sure . . . . 14%
So 40% of Minnesotans either don’t believe or don’t have sufficient confidence in our elections. We have rock solid voting systems here. Marked paper ballots. Post election audits (not ‘audits’ like AZ). Near-zero claims or cases of voter fraud. Jesus.
Kay
@gene108
That isn’t all she wrote though. She also wrote that liberals could “defund” red states. Now, they can’t and shouldn’t “defund” red states but they can and should make federal funding contingent on certain conditions, which is a valid exercise of federal power and is used all the time in milder forms- highway funding for speed limits, etc.
The extreme position isn’t the end of the discussion but it does start a discussion, so is therefore valuable. We shouldn’t be limited to “what we have always done” OR “voilence!” There’s a whole section in the middle there which could be labeled “things we could try”.
taumaturgo
@catothedog: Love your analogy, rent-seekers vs renters.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: In a different context, the Biden admin did something similar to promote vaccination uptake when they threatened to withhold Medicare and Medicaid dollars from hospitals and other facilities unless they required staff to be vaccinated. Even in states like Florida that have pro-COVID state laws. I wonder what more could be done like that, both to compel states to not allow partisan legislatures to overturn elections AND to finally end a pandemic the Trump crybabies are weaponizing for political gain.
LongHairedWeirdo
When people said “our institutions will protect us,” we now know they protected us from precisely “a specific attempted coup[1], no, really, actually preventing the rightful President from being inaugurated, while remaining in office,” and nothing else.
And let me emphasize: as of yet, they haven’t *quite* protected us from “a coup attempt”. They’ll have done that *only* if there are people going to jail for having taken the slightest part in this plot, who had reason to know what they were doing was wrong (unless those people flip extremely early – in some cases, only if they sing *before* being called in for questioning).
Right now, they only protected us from having people decide to carry out a pathetic plot. And remember, the plot so weak, you could imagine at least a slight majority of Republicans from 40 years ago being furiously opposed to it.
[1]Technically, I’m pretty sure “coup” is incorrect – I believe coup d’état transliterates as (something?) change (something?), and this would be preventing a change. Just like Trump helping Russia, without regard to America’s interests, isn’t Constitutionally treason, unless Trump’s actions could be said to be making war on the US. Russia isn’t a (formal) enemy, so “aid and comfort” doesn’t apply. Thing is, everyone knows a coup is when the wrong person is in office, and it’s only the Constitution that defines treason as “war/aid and comfort” – everywhere else, selling out your nation is treason.
Soprano2
@gvg: Because an attempted coup should be headline news, covered incessantly by all of them, not one of many stories covered for a day or two and then dropped. They’re more obsessed with the infrastructure bills than with a document showing that TFG actually had a plan to invalidate an election! That seems backwards to me. It’s not that they aren’t reporting it; it’s that they’re not giving it the coverage it deserves. They’re treating it like it’s just another silly conspiracy theory, even though there is now a document written by a serious attorney. As I’ve said multiple times, in general they were more outraged at the thought that Hillary Clinton got e-mails on a private server than they are that TFG was actively considering a coup. They aren’t taking it seriously enough.
Subsole
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Eh…the chan-chuds who decide to roll into minority neighborhoods and kick off their long-awaited day of the rope might see things different. The people they tried to victimize would damn sure see it different.
Reminder: it ain’t just white, college-educated that get a say in this.
Subsole
@ArchTeryx: Someone willing to go first.
You up?
J R in WV
@Cermet:
I’m pretty sure DoJ investigations don’t take place out in public… so if there’s a no holds barred investigation of Eastman and Trump and their cure little insurrection, we won’t hear about it until the Grand Jury is ready to hand up the indictments, and the FBI/US Marshalls are deployed to arrest the insurrectionist organizers. I try to be an optimist when I can.
Winston
@Chief Oshkosh: If what you see is inevitable, then the only option is to beat them to it. Right?
LongHairedWeirdo
@Soprano2: That’s partly due to the flinch factor. To accurately describe the Republican Party today, you must use language that is very strong – language that should never need to be uttered in a functional democracy.
That would come with a heavy backlash, and unless you had dozens of people all ready to join the fray, the backlash would scare the other people from speaking up.
There’s also a sense of “why is *this* a step too far?” Honestly, it was a step too far to say Trump was an acceptable candidate – not merely “my party’s chosen leader” but an acceptable candidate, fit for the Presidency. He violated contracts and abused the judicial process; he mocked valid national security concerns; he threatened to jail a political opponent against whom there was no evidence of any criminal behavior; he lied incessantly, and clearly had no idea what he was doing.
It would be a step too far to say more than something like “he is my party’s choice, and my party’s leader, and you know I faithfully vote for the leader of my party every Presidential election (unsaid “…but not this time”).” He really was objectively bad.
It was a step too far to try to cover up the Russia investigation, and to demand its cessation. It was a step too far to allow people, who openly conspired to work with a foreign government, to be a part of the US federal government, and to grant those goddamned fools security clearance. (If they weren’t engaged in criminal misconduct, they were still goddamned fools, too inept to be trusted.)
It was a step too far to excuse the Muslim ban. It was a step too far to excuse family separations. It was a step too far… geez, this could be ten pages just to skim over year *one*. That’s before we come up with how Trump and his administration showed complete dereliction of duty, for some for some duties to protect the people of the United States from a deadly pandemic; incomplete fulfillment of duties in others, and “so you went poopie and wiped your own butt, you’re a grown adult, you can’t expect a cookie!” fulfillment of others, I’m sure.
It’s really hard to explain why all of those things weren’t treated as the absolute, ultimate, “we can’t just let this story die!” story. So why is this one? Why is this the one that won’t end up with a few journalists going into hiding for a bit, due to death threats, while the story withers on the vine?
Denali
@LwongHairedWeirdo:
What you said. CLAP! CLAP! CLAP!