The Washington Post published an in-depth report on the January 6th insurrection yesterday, Halloween, which is appropriate because the story is scary as hell. There are new facts in the reporting along with things we already knew, but for me, the real impact is the holistic view it provides of how the insurrection went down and the existential threat to democracy that continues to this day. Here’s an excerpt from editor Sally Buzbee’s letter that accompanies the piece:
Throughout much of this year, a team of 75 Washington Post journalists has been working to produce a definitive account of Jan. 6 — its causes, its costs and its aftermath. The result of that investigation, a three-part series being published today, makes clear that the violence that day was neither a spontaneous act nor an isolated event.
“The Attack: Before, During and After” lays out in striking detail the red flags that went unheeded in advance of Jan. 6, the consequences of Trump’s inaction as his supporters laid siege to the Capitol and the continuing threats to American democracy. It provides intimate accounts of why rioters joined the siege, the unsettling threats faced by local election officials around the country, and the pain and trauma that Capitol Police officers still suffer…
The series’s findings are based on interviews with more than 230 people and thousands of pages of court documents and internal law enforcement reports, along with hundreds of videos, photographs and audio recordings.
The Post also helpfully provided a summary of the main findings here.
One of my takeaways is that FBI Director Wray needs to be hauled before Congress again to explain, in light of these new facts, why his agency ignored so many blinking red lights. For example:
Parler–a right-wing social media site–found the planning for January 6th so legally exposing that they informed the FBI about it. The posts were about killing politicians. They also described kamikaze tactics. The FBI did not act on the warning. https://t.co/JPAddBNmfi pic.twitter.com/gUJrwNU6q7
— Mangy Jay (@magi_jay) October 31, 2021
In addition to suggesting that the authorities who ignored warning signs need to explain why, the story suggests that a whole slew of Trump-affiliated people need to answer urgent questions under oath about their part in fomenting the insurrection. Some of them have been subpoenaed by the January 6th committee, and some have not, at least as far as we know.
That’s not necessarily news around here, but this reporting establishes the links with yarn-and-pushpin clarity, and for me at least, it reemphasizes the need to get answers before the participants have another opportunity to plot an authoritarian coup. If that means the DoJ must ask judges to fast-track decisions on releasing documents or enforcing subpoenas to foil the coup-plotters’ attempt to run out the clock, they should do so. It’s a matter of national security.
The piece highlights the coordinated activities of people like Federalist Society lawyer John Eastman, who provided a shoddy legal justification for the coup. It details the machinations of Trump hangers-on like Bannon and Giuliani and the activities of Trump and his family, sycophantic GOP lawmakers and donors, etc., all of whom lied about the election and otherwise exhorted the rioters, placing everything within the context of the violence committed by the rioters on the ground.
I came to the same conclusion Ms. Jay quoted above reached: it defies credulity to believe the “soft” coup organizers in suits were unaware of the “hard” coup participants’ plans. It’s not enough to lock up rando MAGAs and leave the soft coup plotters at liberty to hone their techniques; they should be thoroughly investigated and prosecuted as appropriate. For example, as we know from a series of emails The Post obtained, Eastman upbraided a Pence staffer while Pence was in hiding during the melee, telling the aide the riot was Pence’s fault for not overturning the election. It’s time to compel Eastman’s sworn testimony.
Speaking of Eastman, can we take a moment to appreciate how thoroughly that crank beclowned the already clownish National Review when he used that publication as a mule to deliver his “coup plotter — who me?” demurral last month? Before The Post obtained the emails that reveal just how seriously Eastman took his own legal justification for subverting the 2020 election, Eastman told NR he [Eastman] should be regarded as a “white knight hero” for talking Trump down from his coup fantasies. Oopsie!
Anyhoo, The Post has done stellar work here, and the reporting should be required reading for everyone involved in trying to hold the Trump gang accountable. If The Post’s reporting lights a few fires under some asses in D.C., the newspaper will have eclipsed its own Watergate standard, IMO. Open thread!
MattF
As was recently written (in a different context) the story of what happened on 1/6 is practically quilted out of red flags. The purported ‘deep state’ was paralyzed.
Professor Bigfoot
They’ve justified my subscription, so I’ll take it.
SiubhanDuinne
I’m normally a pretty fast reader, but I’m going to be taking my time within, which I started yesterday. Thanks for front-paging this important piece of journalism, BC!
polyorchnid octopunch
The elite impunity that these beshitted clowns have enjoyed for their entire lives has to end.
Your republic depends on it.
Faithful Lurker
I hesitate to mention, it because the last time I did the pushback drove me out of the comments for a while, but this is not news. Seth Abramson has been saying these exact same things with names, dates, etc. since the middle of January. Nobody believed him, or at least nobody in the village paid any attention. But congrats to the WaPo for naming names, finally.
Other MJS
Post title FTW!
Ksmiami
Where the fuck is Merrick Garland? He needs to be replaced ASAP
rikyrah
It’s so obvious to me that they fully intended to KILL Pence and Nancy Smash that day. I have no illusions otherwise. And, they should be dealt with accordingly.
They gallows.
They had pipe bombs.
They weren’t going to a picnic.
Matt McIrvin
Paul Campos has basically concluded that we’re completely fucked and there’s nothing we can do to prevent Trump from being forcibly reinstalled as President in 2025, regardless of how anyone votes. I have to admit the whole business makes me feel exhausted and dismayed about conventional electoral politics and there’s a part of me that also thinks that’s the point of it.
Just Chuck
Steve Bannon is still walking around free, isn’t he?
Yep, lots of teeth in that commission.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
It absolutely is. Liberals are easy pickings, and every right winger know it.
Just Chuck
@rikyrah: TBF you couldn’t have hung a turkey on those obviously symbolic gallows without them falling down. Explosives on the other hand … where the fuck are the terrorism charges?
Edmund Dantes
2024 is going to be harrowing. And “just vote harder” won’t be enough to deal with it. We’ll see if anyone actually moves with any steps to actively and forcefully push back.
Garland and Team I am sure getting their ducks perfectly in a row to make sure this is all taken care of.
I won’t be holding my breath.
Betty
I see no reason why a special prosecutor cannot be put in place immediately, one with real subpoena power and the ability to move faster on criminal charges. The House Commission is limited to sorting out the facts and requesting DOJ action.
schrodingers_cat
@Matt McIrvin: Who is Paul Campos and why should anyone treat his predictions like the word of God.
laura
I’m listening to oral arguments and whoo wee is Neil Gorsuch a pile of glossy mayonnaise and super ego.
Kay
@Faithful Lurker:
It’s true. It’s been screaming lights and sirens for a long time. I wonder if that helps though- there seems to be real resistence to admitting it’s a real threat. It lets people take it in more slowly.
It doesn’t mean you have to give up but it DOES mean that thinking we can somehow avoid facing it with the foolproof defense of Democrats remaining in the majority forever is probably not a real plan.
That certainly would work but it’s a pretty flimsy safe harbor. If your argument is democracy dies if Republicans take power again then it’s already dead. They whole idea is it survives no matter who is in power. That’s the guarantee. What that is is a much LOWER standard. Accepting the lower standard is not the way to raise standards.
Mike in NC
What I took away from reading “The Attack” was the profiles of so many 30-something losers who still live with their parents and can’t hold down a steady job. No doubt a certain number are mentally not all there, but were happy to grab their Trump banners and rally at the Capitol.
Chief Oshkosh
@Just Chuck: Careful, Chuck. It’s reminders like that that disconcert the (BJ) masses…
Baud
@Kay:
It does on the internet.
Kay
It seems to me the issue is not so much the AG but the FBI. Surely we can replace law enforcement leadership if they don’t do the job. They’re supposed to be experts on threats. They missed one that was right under their fucking noses. How is this even mediocre police work? They did a bad job. Or what about our giant, bloated Homeland Security apparatus? Multi-BILLION dollar agency and they lavish more funding on them every year. They can’t manage to mitigate the threat of 300 Proud Boys and their congressional allies?
Baud
@Kay: Too busy looking for BLM.
Chief Oshkosh
@Ksmiami: Ruben Gallego and Adam Schiff, to name two, have questions, too.
Betty Cracker
Another nugget from The Post:
How much money have we poured down the Dept. of Homeland Security rathole over the past two decades? Wasn’t the entire point to ensure coordination across disparate agencies?
Chief Oshkosh
@Kay: I completely agree. I am beginning to doubt that the deep state even exists!
Kidding aside, yes, why can’t we just can the underperformers? Do FBI agents have wacko unions like some other LEOs? And even if that’s the case and it’s difficult to fire them, don’t we have stations that the bad apples can be sent to, ones where they may be as inept as they want, but cause less damage?
Humdog
I go back and forth on how big business deals with impending democratic backsliding. They’ve enjoyed running everything for decades and they figured they had government sufficiently cowed to continue allowing them to grow ever larger and control more politicians. They beat back government efforts to level the playing field and have the last few unions under their boots. But they also saw how uncertain having an insane dummy declaring tariffs and casually floating abrogating our treasury commitments can be. A few billionaires may be funding the psychological warfare happening on social media, but do they really want to be like Putin’s Russia, where they can lose everything when the dude in charge wants their stuff?
Omnes Omnibus
@Edmund Dantes: While “just vote harder” won’t be enough, it is a part of it. It is one of the things that ordinary citizens can do, and it is necessary.
Brantl
What makes you think those clowns understand rudimentary carpentry & physics any better than they understand the Constitution?
Citizen Alan
@Kay: I don’t think they missed it at all. Why should the D.C. FBI office be any less corrupt than the NYC office, the one that’s so in bed with the Russian Mob that they blackmailed James Comey (spit!) into sabotaging Hillary on the eve of the elections. The FBI at this point is the closest thing America has ever had to the Gestapo.
Kay
@Baud:
Because “Balloon Juice” can’t decide whether Balloon Juice is an organizing site or a politics site. If it’s an organizing site of course one would object to pessimistic chatter- it’s like going into a physical GOTV site and saying “I’d like to talk about the January 6th committee”. Excuse me?
You’re not wrong, you’re just in the wrong place. But Betty’s POST is about January 6th, so in this instance the GOTV people would be in the wrong place to talk about GOTV.
H.E.Wolf
All here who are rightly concerned about the threats to our democratic republic, come on down to the previous thread and support Native Americans who are successfully getting out the Native vote in swing states.
There’s a double (triple?) matching-funds grant going on. It’s a great chance to put our money where our mouths are. Figuratively speaking, of course. :)
Baud
@Kay:
I’m not talking about GOTV here. I can oppose a political point of view in a “politics” post. IMHO, the internet cynicism culture does more damage to our cause than the pace of congressional or DOJ investigations. YMMV.
Kay
@Citizen Alan:
I think it’s wrong headed to believe that “the institution” can be protected without basing that on the work. It’s just the work. It’s an idea, not a thing or place or specific people. They can say anything they want about “the institution”. I’m looking at their work. If it doesn’t hold up the institution won’t either and that’s not a tragedy. It shouldn’t. Don’t prop it up. It has to stand without a romantic, idealized narrative.
Betty Cracker
@Humdog: I wondered the same thing — especially early this year. But there hasn’t been anything near the level of pushback you’d expect if big business had collectively concluded that Putinism would harm their bottom line and resolved to fight it.
Some made a show of defunding elected Republicans who voted against certifying the election, then quietly walked it back when it became clear to them Trump still owned the party. It seems like either they aren’t facing reality (a lot of that going around, to be fair), or they’ve decided to see which way the wind will blow rather than being an active participant.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: FWIW I agree with you.
H.E.Wolf
@Kay: “You’re not wrong, you’re just in the wrong place. But Betty’s POST is about January 6th, so in this instance the GOTV people would be in the wrong place to talk about GOTV.”
You make a very good point! For me personally, I address my worries about the direness of the political situation by working on GOTV issues – but I can see that it could also register as annoyingly out-of-place.
So for the annoyance and the out-of-place-ness, I apologize… especially as my GOTV comment posted directly after your comment about that very thing!
Elizabelle
@Matt McIrvin: Paul Campos also thought Colin Powell had not been vaccinated.
Fuck Paul Campos. Leave his shit over at LGM, please. If we wanted to read it, we could be over there. Thank you.
rikyrah
@Kay:
these were WHITE people.
We need to stop walking around this.
Because, if they had seen thousands of Black people storming the Capitol…first of all, there would never have been any order to ‘Hold Fire’. It would have been OPEN FIRE, and dead bodies would have been all around the steps to the Capitol.
Wouldn’t have taken 90 minutes for approval for the National Guard.
Go home afterwards?
Are you phucking kidding me? There would have been bus upon bus waiting to load them ALL ON THEM and take them to whatever jail they could find for them.
Kay
@Citizen Alan:
The Institutions didn’t accept any responsibility for their inability to respond to Trump. Instead the public were told the fault was in them. The Institutions can’t fail, they can only be failed. It’s bad thinking. It won’t get us where we need to go. They have to think more deeply about what happened and how they responded. It isn’t good enough.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: Oddly, an important part of politics is organizing. Also, an engaged population is necessary for democracy to survive. The primary way the population shows its engagement is by voting. We have a weak democracy right now. It, at the moment, is dependent on keeping the GOP out of office. IMO it can be strengthened, but for that happen Democrats need to win elections.
MagdaInBlack
@Betty Cracker: I suspect they’ve hedged their bets and feel they are insulated enough financially they’ll be fine and make money no matter which way the wind blows. Whether that is true remains to be seen, but that’s what they believe.
Eta: hedged their bets = bought enough politicians.
Kay
@rikyrah:
I think about that with the school board meetings. Woo boy there would be a lot of black people arrested on disorderly if they were storming schools. All of a sudden we would find the petty crime sheet we misplaced.
germy
@Chief Oshkosh:
https://fbiaa.org/
Baud
@rikyrah:
I agree. I think a lot of white people don’t know how to react to white people who engage in the type of behavior they have always told themselves black and brown people engage in.
Elizabelle
I’ve not had time to read the WaPost series yet. I realize a lot of the points they make have been made elsewhere, previously. But it is huge to have probably the United States’ best national newspaper come out with this, and name names.
It should help move the conversation. I am hoping that it is too big to bury.
Parochially, I am hoping it might have reminded a few more Virginians to vote Democratic tomorrow. Don’t reward this behavior.
And: that ridiculous fired police officer straight outta Rocky Mount, VA, is up for a bail hearing today. He who purchased, what, 34 firearms while he was out on personal recognizance.
I feel pretty sure that the judge read the WaPost series. Avidly. ;-)
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
I’m just going to let the spite that comforts and guides me fuel my actions….
schrodingers_cat
Just because one doesn’t write comments that belabor the obvious. Keep insisting that they alone can understand the situation we are in. Or write blog posts with five exclamation points does not mean that they don’t understand the precarious situation we are in.
Also, in a real crisis having a cool head is more important than yelling at all and sundry
Also saying that elections won’t matter and your vote doesn’t matter is voter suppression pure and simple.
Baud
We’ve lost out democracy before. That’s what the end of Reconstruction was.
Humdog
@rikyrah: I thought Secret Service would have had snipers on top of the capitol given the number of protecteds inside. One or two shots from a sniper before the bike gates were overrun would maybe have stopped further storming. But no. I’d worry the SS could be compromised, but I don’t know enough to be certain
UncleEbeneezer
Can somebody copy/paste the main findings from the second link for those of us w/out WaPo subscriptions?
Kay
@Elizabelle:
They’ll contest VA if it’s close so we’re about to get a preview. Which would be helpful, actually.
It doesn’t “scare” me. I lost sleep during the months they were attempting to overturn but you get past that, because you have to if you don’t intend to give up and I don’t intend to give up.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Yes. We also had a Civil War. The bipartisan consensus in Washington was a Cold War relic.
Humdog
@Betty Cracker: It does seem like they have backed down. But then they have the ongoing lesson from evil governors of Texas and Florida, telling them what they can and cannot do regarding their employees.
I am out looking to big biz for a savior, but I keep being surprised by people clearly acting against their own interests.
Humdog
@UncleEbeneezer:
BEFORE THE ATTACK
Law enforcement officials did not respond with urgency to a cascade of warnings about violence on Jan. 6
Pentagon leaders had acute fears about widespread violence, and some feared Trump could misuse the National Guard to remain in power
The Capitol Police was disorganized and unprepared
Trump’s election lies radicalized his supporters in real time
thee is more.
Humdog
@Humdog:
DURING THE ATTACK
Escalating danger signs were in full view hours before the Capitol attack but did not trigger a stepped-up security response
Trump had direct warnings of the risks but stood by for 187 minutes before telling his supporters to go home
His allies pressured Pence to reject the election results even after the Capitol siege
The FBI was forced to improvise a plan to help take back control of the Capitol
one more
UncleEbeneezer
@Humdog: Thanks!
Humdog
@Humdog:
AFTER THE ATTACK
Republican efforts to undermine the 2020 election restarted immediately after the Capitol attack
False election claims by Trump that spurred the Capitol attack have become a driving force in the Republican Party
Trump’s attacks have led to escalating threats of violence
First responders are struggling with deep trauma
last of their recap points. I hope this isn’t too much.
Omnes Omnibus
@H.E.Wolf: I am sorry, but it is all interrelated. We know many of the things that need to be done to protect our democracy, but, as a practical matter, doing them requires Dems to win.
Ruckus
@Kay:
Did they miss it?
Or skip right over it?
They are fancy cops and as we all know, not all cops are the nice, clean, non-racist, law abiding, honest, forthright, upstanding citizens, democracy loving bastions of right and wrong, that they want us to believe.
kindness
Republicans have created a hoard of zombies living in their own mind’s world. They tell the zombies they need to overthrow elections and kill us but expect the media and Democrats to be too polite to point this out. They were right about the media part sadly.
The folks funding this all know these are lies but are trying to buy their own government, ours, for themselves. All too close to fascism for me. Those who fund it all are the one’s we need to out and be wary of.
Kay
@Humdog:
This is the real threat. The mob were scary and shocking and probably individually dangerous, but they are the least important part.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@schrodingers_cat:
Hot Take – we fucked up by winning the Cold War. When a motivated ideological opponent was capable of showing the less developed portions of the world what a shitshow we were internally, we were much rivaled to act better.
germy
Anecdotal, but I know many people of all ages who in 2015 called themselves “apolitical” (rarely voted, didn’t think it was worth the effort, didn’t pay attention, Hillary will obviously win, etc.) and nowadays they’re extremely politically engaged.
I don’t think there’s any turning back.Young people are voting in record numbers. They’re standing in long lines in neighborhoods where the GOP has tried to reduce turnout.
The RW wackos are being provoked and motivated by CRT and vaccine mandates, but we outnumber them. I’m optimistic for election day, and for 2022 and beyond.
Elizabelle
@Humdog: The Secret Service is/was compromised.
Recall that President-Elect Biden insisted on selecting his own agents. Agents he trusted.
A lot of housecleaning needed. In numerous agencies. Particularly those associated with law enforcement.
Betty Cracker
@H.E.Wolf: It’s an open thread, so it’s all good! :)
FWIW, I agree with Kay’s general point that some folks seem confused about what this blog is for, i.e., a hub for organization vs. a place to discuss politics (and pets, food, TV, film, etc.). Personally, I think it’s all of those things and don’t see any inherent conflict in being multipurpose. But I know that’s not a universally shared view because I see (and have been on the receiving end of) scoldy comments about negative content, some justified, some not so much.
Kay
@Ruckus:
During that period, Chris Hayes kept asking why there was no statement from law enforcement- it was and is bizarre. It was like they were waiting to see how it turned out. It’s just a standard part of an event like that, and they were just…waiting like the rest of us.
germy
@Elizabelle:
I think there are more than a few trump appointees still haunting the DOJ. Am I right?
artem1s
Now more than ever I am grateful that Nancy Smash insisted on holding the second impeachment trial despite knowing it wouldn’t result in keeping TFG from running again. It likely means the insurrection won’t just go down the memory hole and was necessary to set up these hearings – I expect there is a chance the full Mueller report may finally be released too – which goes back to the first impeachment hearings. I don’t see these as isolated actions by the House – they seem to be a setting up for appointing a full blown prosecutor.
There will be plenty of time to nail Garland to a cross when he doesn’t produce enough kangaroo court convictions around 1/6 to satisfy the DeFarge brigade on Twitter. There is a bigger, more important picture to keep in mind. It’s important to recognize and acknowledge that there have been many pieces to the Olympian task of dragging the 5-6 year long conspiracy by the alt-right out into the daylight – including two impeachment hearings. The conspiracy to insight violence and coordination with Alt Right organizations on behalf of TFG goes back a ways. They are all pieces of a bigger picture that could take a decade to reveal and prosecute.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/25/us/charlottesville-unite-the-right-rally-civil-trial/index.html
I for one am not going to be satisfied just to see a couple of small fish like Gym Jordan thrown under the bus the way Scooter Libbey took the blame (and pardon) so Cheney or Rove wouldn’t have to testify. Someone has been astroturf funding TFG and the plan to put a White authoritarian government in place going back at least until the GQP convention in 2016.
Tony Gerace
@polyorchnid octopunch: Driving While Black is a serious felony. Violent fascist coup attempt? No big deal.
Professor Bigfoot
@rikyrah: This is the part that white people just aren’t ready to address.
Neither on the “left” and certainly not on the “right.”
Even the symbolism of the Confederate Battle Flag in the Capitol of the United States doesn’t seem to register as white people attacking the United States because “illegitimate voting” by Black people.
Kay
@germy:
That’s good. I always think I will win, delusionally perhaps.
It takes adjustment and to adjust you have to look at the thing, IMO.
I’m pollworking tommorrow after a long hiatus and the fact is the GOP base is radicalized. I went to training with them. They 100% believe elections are riddled with fraud and invalid. They’re going to act on that.
Chief Oshkosh
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: It’s worked for the Republicans so far.
Elizabelle
@Kay: I know. I hope that Terry McAuliffe pulls off an overwhelming, or at least incontestable, victory.
A lot of Republicans are “going home” on this one, since Youngkin is smoother than Trump. But I have to think we have a lot of smart Democrats and actual Independents in Virginia.
This might be like the Mark Warner senate election, which was close.
(Leaving out the “Independents” who are actually Republicans but think that claiming to be independent makes them edgier. No.)
Governor Ralph Northam outperformed his polling in 2013. It could happen again. Masks and vaccines are actually the more popular stance, by sizeable majorities. I think a lot of parents are more concerned about Covid than CRT. To find out.
It’s laughable. Having to manufacture a fake ass issue — Critical Race Theory in our elementary schools! — in the midst of a pandemic.
And: January 6th. And all the Republican government shutdown threats.
Come on Virginia. Stay blue. Stay sane.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
All those agencies do seem to be coordinated.
Of course not in the direction that many of us think they should be…..
The whole concept of the Homeland Security rathole is to make a stronger organization to control the citizens and make the concept that the US is a heaven for immigrants go completely away. The republican concept of governing is based upon this, to make it more profitable to those who value money above every else, like life and liberty. IOW they are not interested in the US as a democracy but as their personal bank account.
I don’t think they misunderstand trump, I think they believe that he stands for exactly what they want – everything, as long as they don’t have to actually earn it.
Bill Arnold
@Matt McIrvin:
Well, then, Paul Campos is on team Trump. and can FOAD.
Also, he’s showing signs of being a bit stupid and arrogant. It’s all in play, and Trump is in a clear decline at the moment, both personally and politically, and his delusions are waxing.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@schrodingers_cat: And there was also the Business Plot of 1933. There’s no guarantee that the “opposition” will be “loyal”.
Elizabelle
@Kay:
We really need to regulate fucking Fox News and OAN and all the rightwing propaganda machines off the air and internet.
Their lies are not compatible with democracy. They also have a body count in the hundreds of thousands.
And they do make elections much scarier times. I got screamed at, about the border, at a door I knocked on Saturday. My voter’s dad, who was incensed. He moved toward me quickly, and for a moment I thought he might strike me. I could see him catch himself and move a step backward.
Maybe 45 year old white guy, in an expensive house. This did not used to happen.
We regulated tobacco. We can regulate the rightwing media too. It will take time and effort, but their ilk is not allowed in other countries, and should not be given the green light here.
Chief Oshkosh
@artem1s:
Translation, please? Not all of us are aware of all Intertoobes Protocols. Thanks.
Kay
@Elizabelle:
Oh, I hope so. I don’t blame McAuliffee. It’s really hard to stay ahead of them. X number of races they’ll win Y.
I saw they’re in Colorado next. I would have said Michigan, but it’s targeted at white wealthy districts in suburbs and Colorado might be more fruitful for that.
Professor Bigfoot
From your keyboard to God’s monitor, please, O Lord, let it be so.
Elizabelle
@artem1s: I appreciate your comments.
I am not sure we have a decade, but yes, I think a lot of investigations preparatory to prosecution are underway.
OT. Am wondering why Letitia James decided to throw in for Governor, FWIW. She is just going to hand off her work so far? And get slammed even harder for it being a political stunt? I am not a fan of her timing. At all. Especially since Kathy Hochul seems like a solid governor.
Kay
This is for Betty:
Our History
If you’re a teacher wouldn’t you be very grateful you have a union right about now? :)
Cameron
@Betty Cracker: That’s really unfair. They probably did take a look, and didn’t find a single 18-year-old pregnant Honduran refugee. Mission accomplished – what else did you want them to do?
Elizabelle
@Humdog: Thank you for posting the bullet points. Will be very helpful to those without a WaPost sub.
Subsole
@Humdog: Even rich people can suffer the delusion of invincibility.
S’why so many are shitmouth libertarians.
Also, recall the Thieves’ Code: “Today you, tomorrow me.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker: As one who has made some of the scolding comments, I just say that one of the biggest dangers we face is hopelessness or, as Baud has said more accurately, cynicism. I know I have been trying to push back against that for a while with different methods, some unsuccessful and some less effective than that. Personally, it isn’t that I don’t see the dangers from the right, but that I believe those can be countered. OTOH, if the cynical view takes hold, then the GOP actions won’t be countered. And then we are fucked, well and truly.
Mike in NC
The article noted that the Capitol Police were ill-equipped to stand up to a large gang of angry white middle class men. What a surprise that wasn’t.
eclare
@Humdog: Didn’t I read a while ago that Biden replaced several people on his Secret Service team? If so, there had to be a reason.
Subsole
@Kay: So should they request a separate action thread? Or should it be SOP to generate an action thread with bombshells like this?
Not looking for a fight. Just wondering how to make it run smoother.
Subsole
@Betty Cracker: These are, by and large, the same sorts of people who thought handing France to Hitler in 1940 was a savvy business move…better than the leftists, eh?
Betty Cracker
@Kay: They’ve got their work cut out for them!
Elizabelle
@Omnes Omnibus: Agreed.
Cynicism is so damn cheap, and self-defeating.
Subsole
@MagdaInBlack:
They should go ask Albert Speer how that works out.
Kay
@Subsole:
Oh I don’t care. It’s always been chaos. I’m comfortable with that.
This is the site that had Freddie deBoer as a front pager. It doesn’t have a thematic mission :)
Cacti
This, this, this!
If it was a crowd of mostly non-white protesters, the bodies would have been piled three deep before they reached the Capitol steps.
Martin
@schrodingers_cat: I disagree. This is a byproduct of culture war. This is the death of white christianity deciding every facet of US culture, because they’ve fallen into the minority. Not everyone in that coalition is a white christian, but they are fellow travelers.
The anti-science isn’t anti-science. It’s an opposition to who gets to set the norms, and they work backward to justify it. It’s why flat earth took off for a while. It’s why QAnon became a thing. It’s why gun culture is what it is. They’re all part of this same phenomena. Trump put the whole exercise into overdrive because he explicitly campaigned on protecting it. Other GOPers leaned into it, but most wouldn’t cast it as a life or death clash of civilizations – but Trump did. He explicitly validated it and said it was worth defending at all costs.
And to be clear, the civil war was a similar conflict. That’s why it’s viewed so differently in the south. Yes it was about slavery, but it was about more than that – it was about their cultural authority, and the loss of it. Slavery was part of that authority. Sure, it’s all kinds of fucked up that they put their cultural needs ahead of the ownership of other people, but that’s where they were, and still are.
The civil war happened when their slavery views fell into the minority and they could no longer preserve it politically, so they resorted to preserve it violently. Same dynamic now.
Ruckus
@Humdog:
That’s why conservative billionaires want TFG in office. He’s too stupid and corrupt to win over with any words, but he’s cheap and brings on the hordes of racists with guns, to make our lives less – which gives them control, to focus attentions away from their money grubbing and on to him. And they can’t get that if we have fair voting, because enough of us are not that stupid.
I call them the background rich. They don’t really produce anything, like Elon does, their product is growing their personal wealth.
Elizabelle
@Martin: Good comment, Martin. Also the reminder that slavery was not purely economic; it was a cultural marker too.
The South seems to have always been about exploiting labor and doing things on the cheap. It is a country within a country.
Jeffro
better hurry up, Dems…better hurry up, DOJ…last time they nearly ran a bus of ours off the road in Texas, almost kidnapped/killed the Governor of Michigan, and dropped off pipe bombs off at the DNC/RNC to distract from the attack on the Capitol. They’ll have their shit together next time.
Kay
@Martin:
Their kids really were coming home saying “I never thought about black people before”, I imagine. That did happen. We had a small, hardy band of high school BLM picketers here. I think they were also doing their math. They only let them out like 10 minutes.
jeepers
Wray appears to be in on it, at least passively. Garland seems too timid and beholden to gop daddies to do what needs to be done. The political arm of the gop will just steal elections outright going forward while the terrorist arm ramps up their violence with impunity.
It’s over, folks.
Kay
@Martin:
The “tell” for me with both CRT panic and anti cancel culture panic was the timing. They were terrified of BLM. There’s a whole anti-cancel culture group who also fearmonger on crime. I mean, they’re just conservatives. They should just be conservatives.
Betty Cracker
@Omnes Omnibus: Maybe we need firmer definitions of what constitutes vote-suppressing cynicism. Does my post above fall into that category since it suggests the feds need to do more and faster to address the danger?
I see comments here and there that could be rightly classified as expressing hopelessness or despair [ETA: see #101!], but is that so contagious that it must be suppressed in turn? Can’t commenters vent and then be vented to in response when they’re off base?
How about posts critical of Senators Manchin and Sinema or expressing annoyance at the making of the sausage? Could that suppress votes?
Just wondering where we draw the line because if there’s a bunch of front page posts and lots of comments that say voting doesn’t matter and/or all is lost, I’ve missed them somehow. Maybe I’m writing them and just don’t realize it…
lowtechcyclist
From the WaPo:
The thing that surprised me that day was the lack of protection for the Capitol.
Early that morning, my wife and I were talking about the protest that was clearly about to happen. She was worried, but I reassured her that they’d have a couple thousand law enforcement officers waiting for the protesters at the Capitol, and that would suffice to keep the protesters from doing any harm.
In retrospect, even a couple thousand might not have been enough, but they’d have stood a better chance than the few hundred who were actually present. But they need to find out (among many other things, of course) how high up the orders came from that left the Capitol so lightly defended that day.
Martin
@Ruckus: The problem with counting on the FBI or any US agency to properly investigate this is that it overlooks that they are not immune to the movement they are investigating. You see the same thing in the Capitol police – there were sympathizers inside the police. It’s clear there were sympathizers inside the secret service which is why Biden replaced his detail with agents he had previous worked with.
It’s reasonable to expect that these agencies be free from sympathizers to external threats, but it’s not possible to rid them of sympathizers to internal ones – especially if you support civil service protections. Sure, you’ll get partisans appointed to political positions, but you’ll naturally get supporters among the non-political professional class, and you need to have active measures inside the organization to keep reminding these people of their oath, treating small deviations from that oath seriously.
And it’s *really* hard to prevent management from organizing sympathetic offices, as the NY office of the FBI seems to be. Essentially you need to treat politicization within the agency as a performance issue, which is a fraught problem.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
I think those business leaders might actually like Putinism. For them they can get rich easier and have a much higher standard of living than the hoi polloi.
Putin makes money, he’s very wealthy and his cadre of top end supporters and enablers seemingly do pretty well. Which is the way a government like his works. Those that support the person, rather than the populace do well financially. And that looks an awful lot like what I see in this country as well. Russia is just far more used to it and doesn’t have a large segment of the population that thinks it should be the way the words we say describing it should be to actually matter.
Cameron
I guess this is more or less on topic: anybody know where voting rights legislation stands? Getting even the Manchin version in would help. Getting out the vote doesn’t mean doodly-squat if the vote counters can nullify the results.
Kay
The lawyer for Texas admitted states could nullify the 2nd amendment under the conservative legal theory. So they asked you-alls question and you were right. Woo boy. They are just radical as it comes. They’re not overturning Roe. They’re overturning the Civil War.
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker: I am just offering my opinion here. As I said, I am trying to figure out how to push back against cynicism and despair without interfering with people’s need to vent. As I said, I obviously have not been particularly successful.
lowtechcyclist
@Humdog:
I want a minute-by-minute account of his day between the time he left the rally to the time he told his supporters to go home.
My assumption is that, after returning to the White House, he spent his time drooling over the TV news coverage of the attack on the Capitol. My hope is that, if so, Pelosi will impeach him yet again for his failure to act as the mob invaded the Capitol. The point being to deny him the right to become President again.
If Republicans, presented with that evidence, want to acquit, then at least the voters will know this about them. Whatever doubt or excuse there might have been in February will have been removed.
Ksmiami
@Betty Cracker: I want the straight truth so I can fight. Omnes wants smoke blown up his @ss because he wants to deny the ugly reality that lies ahead of us. And I vote in every election but if we don’t change the trajectory that won’t matter.
rikyrah
@Humdog:
Thank you for these posts.
Martin
@Elizabelle: I think the left discounts the culture war. We see it as a umbrella term for a bunch of social policies, but the right sees it as a war. I don’t see abortion as a cultural issue – it’s a public health issue, but they definitely see it as who gets to set the rules. Mask mandates are who gets to set the rules. Climate change is who gets to set the rules. Transgender rights are who gets to set the rules. And they cannot tolerate white christians not setting the rules. Pre-Obama, the Democratic party was still white christians setting the rules. They might disagree with Biden, but he’s still of their camp. Obama wasn’t. Harris isn’t. Stacy Abrams isn’t. All of these firsts in cabinet appointments only drive another nail in the white christian coffin (which is naturally patriarchal in addition).
They’ve never had to actually win popular support for their ideas – it was always gifted to them due to demographics. Just thump on a Bible or run some ads to reinforce stereotypes of black people being violent and you’ll probably win. It’s why they ran gay marriage initiatives as GOTV efforts, because it worked. And now it doesn’t. And rather than do the work, which has become impossible as they’ve run right to keep their base turning out, they’ve determined that their only option is to hold power by undermining democratic institutions.
Chief Oshkosh
@Martin: I agree, but it appears that we’re well beyond small deviations from the oath. We’re well into a time when Biden would be fully justified to reach in, as the chief executive, and cut heads off, figuratively, but with great emphasis. Instead, we continue to to see deference, timidity, and willful ignorance.
To be clear, I am in awe of what Uncle Joe has done with so little so far. But, there are some areas that need tightening up toot sweet. How DOJ and FBI get clean is one of those areas. I don’t know the solution(s), but I do observe, having served in the federal government for some time, that small but public examples go a long, long way.
Martin
@Kay: Texas will lose their case, but Mississippi will win theirs. Don’t take too much hope out of the Texas case. It’s supposed to fail at this point so Mississippi can prevail.
Ksmiami
On a final note, next time our incarnation of General Sherman needs to leave nothing but ash in his/her wake.
hueyplong
@Ksmiami: One thing we can all depend on in these urine exchanges is that the participants are absolutely sure they’re the “realists,” whereas the doomers/panglossians are being willfully blind.
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
Don’t think so. American plutocrats already live well. And live in a more stable society. Russian oligarchs include ignorant thieves who depend on raw exercise of power and intimidation in order to hold onto their goodies. Who knows what will happen when Putin dies or is deposed.
China has more billionaires and they contribute more to society. They also fear the government, which picks a few of them to slap down now and again to show who is boss. This is also unstable in the long run, but that is a topic for another time.
West of the Rockies
@germy:
We’re doomed. Doomed, I tell you!//
Omnes Omnibus
@Ksmiami: Come on, this is Balloon Juice where you can use the word ass.
As it happens, you are a perfect example. I have no hope or even interest in convincing you of anything. Your mind is made up. Others might not share your view and might welcome a different take.
Ruckus
@Kay:
I know you know this but I’m putting it here because I think it’s part of the discussion, or should be.
Most any system that has power over life and death has structure. The military, law enforcement, the courts, and I’m sure others.
That structure is that everyone acts upon orders. Yes there is the seeing laws broken right in front of you concept that you stop egregious law breaking. But the bigger the crowds, the more violence the more the response has to be bigger and coordinated. That coordination was purposely not done on January 6th, even though the evidence was obvious that there was going to be violence and law breaking. And that comes from the top, in this case the presidential level seems to have been blocking any response. Mostly it seemed like it was the Capitol Police that responded as if it was an actual attack because for them it was, and really no one else in a timely fashion.
Betty Cracker
@Omnes Omnibus: No worries! I’m just offering my thoughts in response, not trying to shut down your or anyone else’s efforts. I’ve seen so much angst about negativity and despair and hopelessness and the potential electoral consequences thereof that it makes me wonder if we’re all working from the same definitions of those words.
I just don’t see despair and negativity as a big force for vote suppression here on this blog, at least not in a quantity that would justify the local angst about it. I’m more concerned about complacency, tbh. But I’m very often wrong, so maybe I am about this too!
Kay
So true it made me laugh out loud. They’ll say it too! “Why don’t you go after the REAL criminals?”
Barry
@Humdog:
“A few billionaires may be funding the psychological warfare happening on social media, but do they really want to be like Putin’s Russia, where they can lose everything when the dude in charge wants their stuff?”
My bets are:
1) These guys have exploited the system very successfully, and it’s always been there to exploit more.
2) Bad things just don’t happen to US.
3) Supporting the Right, no matter how horribly, has always paid off to the order of hundreds of billions?
4) Do We really need a liberal party? Think of what an unrestrained Right could do for us!
bemused senior
@Martin: you often post insightful comments but not when it comes to race. You’re wrong to subsume defense of slavery into some amorphous pursuit of Southern culture. Especially in a historical context as in this comment.
Woodrow/asim
FWIW, I agree. This is all about allowing states — all states, not just the South — to re-elevate the Plantation Owner, and his coterie, back into the positions of Authoritarian power they had pre-Civil War, and during Jim Crow. To go back to a clear and present hierarchy of power-over.
They may not articulate it, all of them. To be certain, the rank-and-file don’t get it. That message, that goal, is muddled after generations of playing telephone, and having to hide it behind everything from “lost causes” to whatever bullshit version of “States rights” they could bang out. Hell, I fell for it for longer than I care to admit!
But it’s now real damn clear.
Martin
@Chief Oshkosh: Sort of. There’s a judgement of which death threats are serious and which are hyperbole (‘and cut heads off’).
One of the real problems of social media is that it’s taken local speech issues that might be handled by local police, and both moved all of it to the federal level and increased it’s volume by orders of magnitude. The FBI cannot possibly manage it, so it hasn’t. It’s a negative feedback loop – the social media companies don’t want to pay to moderate their platforms, so as things escalate to criminal levels overwhelming the agencies that would investigate, they have no choice but to dismiss it all, which only empowers more of it to happen. We need legislation that turns it into a positive feedback loop – taxing the social media companies based on the number of cases the FBI needs to take up on their behalf.
Ksmiami
@Jeffro: exactly- our anxiety is not cynicism it’s despair and fear of Rt wing goons and it’s perfectly justified. Garland needs to either step it up or step down to be with his family. Justice cannot wait
Chief Oshkosh
@Kay: Seems like they’d be overturning Marbury v Madison.
jeepers
@Betty Cracker:
That was me at 101. I agree it appears I’ve given up in despair. I haven’t. I’m angry and I’m doing something about it. For example I have urged my (blue) state legislators to gerrymander our state to insure a maximum number of democrats are elected to the House. I intend to contact my rep and senators today to tell them to urge the president to light a fire under the FBI and DoJ.
I sometimes make the sort of comment I did because I think more of us need to be angry about what is happening and we need to encourage a bit more anger and sense of urgency among our democratic leaders.
Mike in NC
Voting for the local town council tomorrow. Most candidates list themselves as unaffiliated. One guy identified as a Republican. He’s a retired cop. I would guess 90% of white males in law enforcement vote GOP.
KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager))
@Brantl: There are times I really wish we had a “like” button…
Brachiator
@lowtechcyclist:
Voters know. This is why there was strong turnout in 2020.
Little has changed since then. Democrats are on the side of democracy.
There are insane Trump supporters who think that they can have a stable government based on white supremacy and populist authoritarian ideas.
And then you have the craven McConnell crowd who will do anything to regain power for the Republicans, and who still believe that white Deplorables can be controlled, or at least kept docile if fed a few liberals every now and then.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Brachiator:
I’d actually be interested to hear more about this
Elizabelle
@Omnes Omnibus: I’ve had ksmiami in my pie filter for ages, but do toggle from time to time to see what ks is hyperventilating about, now.
I guess you and I and the others are too stupid to perceive the threat the US faces from within (and maybe from without, working via within).
Sucks to be us. Unlike the hair on fire woke.
Ksmiami
@hueyplong: nice Candide reference…
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Brachiator:
Sounds eerily familiar. I guess history at least rhymes
Kay
@Martin:
I don’t have any faith in the SCOTUS, Martin. The US is backwards on women’s rights. There’s a reason they all reach for Afghanistan for comparisons. We’re behind just about everyone else in our “rich” category. It’s just a fact. They beat us, because we were standing still.
Omnes Omnibus
@jeepers: But how is a reader to take your comment? One can’t always tell the difference between a venting post and a despairing one. As a result, the venting post can result in pushback or suggestions of thing that you could do to help, etc.
Ksmiami
@Elizabelle: never said you were stupid… it’s just people have a hard time thinking the worst can happen and then when it does, they’re SOL. Me, I’ve done pretty well envisioning the worst case scenarios and mitigation. ..
rikyrah
@Kay:
Colorado?
Isn’t Colorado in 2022?
hueyplong
@Ksmiami: For all I know I got it from you and repressed the memory.
KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager))
Do you mean 2017? That he did, by quite a lot. That’s what I’m counting on (fingers crossed) for Terry. If it’s true, as I read this morning, that he leads vaccinated registered voters by 14%, and vaccinated people account for 80% of registered voters, I don’t see how he can lose. But those are just numbers to soothe myself until the votes come in from NoVa late tomorrow night or Wednesday morning.
Fair Economist
@Kay: The CRT panic is, I think, more about the Tulsa massacre and related incidents like Rosewood, Wilmington, and the North Carolina statehouse coup. BLM they can memoryhole. But having kids learn about these brutal racial massacres in detail scares them, because not only are they horrifying, if you get into details it rapidly becomes clear media and corrupt law enforcement actively incited them. Those systems are key to current conservative power and they are terrified kids may learn to identify the manipulation because kids will see it being used against CRT and BLM and they will become as furious as we are.
PJ
@Elizabelle: Tish James is running for Governor because she is an ambitious politician who wants to be Governor. AG was always a stepping stone to something bigger for her.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ksmiami: Yes, you have imagined those worst case situations. And you have also apparently decided that they are inevitable. What makes you think that others haven’t imagined as you did but come to a different conclusion as to inevitability?
Kay
@Woodrow/asim:
The school thing is interesting rhough because it’s created a split in what is a a Right-leaning mainstream education activist group, and the split is “AA’s and everyone else”
This is Juan Williams. He’s Right on education, or was. He’s bailing over the CRT panic. There’s a lot of that. They can’t ignore the history here. There is a long, long line of white parents screaming about black kids in schools and it’s an ugly thing. To think they could just say “well, not THIS time, this is about Marxism!” is just delusional. It was never “about” race, supposedly. But it always was.
Elizabelle
@KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager)): 2017 indeed.
I have 2013 on the brain, because it was the previous Terry Mac election, and it was pretty close, against a whackjob. (Ken Cuccinelli.)
RedDirtGirl
@rikyrah: This, a thousand times!!!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@rikyrah: I heard teh same thing, I think on the O’Bros most recent podcast, that the R’s think they can take a run at Bennet’s Senate seat
Ksmiami
@Omnes Omnibus: not inevitable just in the realm of the possible… which makes them something to plan for. Theres Rt now at least a 33 percent chance we become an authoritarian state with packs of armed militias roaming thru cities victimizing “enemies…” I’d rather face this fact and have a plan, or at least warn others
Woodrow/asim
To the point of the discussion — I think a lot of this disconnect is because people are trying to encourage engagement…and doing so by saying “get angry”.
Emotion matters. Anger matters.
Yet: what comes after you get angry? If you say things to make people angry, to motivate — yet don’t provide them either a framework to understand why they should be angry, and/or how best to direct said anger? That anger risks being wasted– or worse, misdirected.
I’m not saying people shouldn’t express anger. Yet if that’s all someone reads in a thread like this, how are we to help each other direct energy to make change — much less the larger communities and governments we’re part of?
I do not believe things are hopeless. I do believe there are plenty of ways to direct anger to solve issues, and those are great discussions — not the only ones that need to happen, yet a crucial one.
I also believe many people want to see their work directly make change happen…and that’s not how these efforts work. These current efforts took the Conservative movement decades and dollars to get in place, and they worked hand-in-hand, loosely and tightly, to do it. We’re not going, sadly, to revert it, much less defang them, without putting in the work.
Kay
@Fair Economist:
There was a private school teacher on Twitter who has been covering those for 30 years – without incident or attention, because there was no screeching panic – and he wrote that the most prevalent feedback he gets from students is anger. They are mad they were lied to.
Kids are, IMO, the fairness police. If they had a banner they marched under it would read “fair”. They have elaborate fairness codes. Norms. “I pushed her but she’s bigger”. Proportional force, right? Then the mitigating factors “but her dad just died so she’s upset”.
They recognize unfairness in a really clean, uncluttered way.
Brachiator
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Google stories about Jack Ma.
Elizabelle
@Fair Economist: Perceptive comment, particularly about the media, law enforcement and “elites” ensuring the massacres/other incidents and crimes occurred, and went unpunished.
Long time waiting for a reckoning.
@PJ: Yeah, but Cuomo is no longer in office; Kathy Hochul is, and James is in charge of an enormously complicated case against a (possibly; not yet proven) criminal former president.
I get the ambition. I do not get the timing.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kay:
I’d love to ask these anti-CRT people how this panic isn’t “cancel culture”, trying to actually ban real history.
I’m sure it would turn out the same as when I asked an anti-cancel culture proponent how trying to stifle the NFL player protests from a few years back and blackballing Colin Kapernick from football wasn’t also cancel culture
The reply? It’s sports and “ordinary people” don’t want that shoved in their faces when they just want to watch some football. Oh, and a few black people in some video are against cancel culture, so there!
Woodrow/asim
@Kay: Yeah — my Mom switched to the GOP over “school choice” in a Jane Doe-esqe move (minus the money). Back then, they were able to hide the racist roots enough to draw Black folx like her in; er she was still alive, I’m damn sure she’d be siding with Williams, now (if not years before).
I’d laugh, if it wasn’t so horrific.
PJ
@Woodrow/asim: I think the rank and file MAGA supporters do get it, loud and clear. If non-white people actually have the same rights and opportunities as white people, then there is a good chance there is no one beneath them that they can look down on. As long as non-white people have fewer rights and opportunities, no matter how low a white person sinks economically or socially, they can always think of themselves as superior to someone. Take away the privileges attached to color, and they are just angry losers.
I’m sure most of them don’t get the bigger picture – that restricting rights to certain groups of people allows the wealthy to keep and expand their wealth and power, but I don’t think they’d mind if they did know, so long as they can still blame their loser-dom on “those people” and Democrats.
Mallard Filmore
@Chief Oshkosh:
Are you sure it was union level personnel that went AWOL on this? The big decisions are up at management level.
Starfish
@Baud: This is not internet cynicism culture. These are people truly afraid that Democrats are about to be a permanent minority party representing the majority of the people in this country, and that every right we have is about to be yanked away. People are scared that the schools are going to be destroyed, so our children don’t get an education, that we do not take climate change seriously enough for our children to live out full lives, etc.
Some people do not feel the more immediate threats happening now and do not have to think about the longer-term consequences of this, but some people do.
The Republican Party is looking for the most ignorant Bubba to put in charge of everything, and we have seen how that works out in a pandemic. Now think about how that works out for FEMA with an increasing number of climate disasters.
All it takes is a few conservative gerrymanders to get us there, and no one seems to care about voters choosing their representatives.
Some people are talking about not having tree larceny be a disenfranchising crime in Mississippi, but not enough people are talking about it.
Martin
@bemused senior: The vast majority of white people in the south at the time of the civil war didn’t own slaves. Why on earth did they support the war if they had no direct benefit from slavery or ending it?
I’m not speaking of culture as ‘how we dress for holidays’ or NASCAR. I’m speaking of it as the set of unwritten laws big and small that we collectively define and enforce. Even after slavery was abolished, the very same people erected a new framework (Jim Crow) to discriminate against the same target. Underlying both was the same set of cultural rules – that black people are inherently inferior to white people. The formal laws changed, but the cultural ones didn’t shift at all due to the war. Slavery was an implementation of that culture. I’m not diminishing the evils of slavery, I’m saying that preservation of cultural authority enables great sins to be committed. You see it everywhere.
And it’s not limited to race – it applies to women’s bodies should be regulated by men, certain religions are less valid than others. They’re all a part of the same cultural rules.
jeepers
@Omnes Omnibus:
I didn’t intend to discourage anyone. I should have left off the “It’s over, folks” tagline.
I fervently hope that there’s more going on behind the scenes because what is visible doesn’t seem adequate to the task.
LivinginExile
IIRC Mussolini defined fascism.as the marriage of corporate and state. I don’t expect any help from corporations.
zhena gogolia
Does anyone here actually have information about steps that AG Garland has or has not taken in this matter? I haven’t seen any specific evidence one way or the other. I’d be happy to be enlightened.
Old School
Everyone’s favorite Senator:
Kay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Because anti cancel culture was poorly thought out. They simply didn’t consider how it was supposed to work. Of course it immediately boomeranged and left them defending state laws that ban books and ban speech. It’s just gearing up, too. It will be increasingly ridiculous and indefensible before it burns out.
eclare
@Omnes Omnibus: How was Last Night in Soho?
Elizabelle
@jeepers:
Ya think? Anyway, thank you for explaining further.
hueyplong
@Old School: Not sure why Manchin was so verbose when a simple “Fuck You” would have sufficed.
The best spin I can put on it is that he was trying to give McConnell a heart-attack inducing orgasm.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Ksmiami:
Not cool on Blasting OO. He’s a lot more optimistic about institutions and the judiciary than I am (I don’t think they’re capable of moving with alacrity to help anyone other than RWNJs), but his heart’s in the right place.
Fair Economist
@Old School: If Manchin is saying he wants the BIF voted on because it won’t influence his vote on BBB, it means it IS influencing his vote and he is desperate to be free of the pressure.
O. Felix Culpa
@rikyrah: No lie told.
Omnes Omnibus
@eclare: Wow!
hueyplong
@Fair Economist: That seems spot on.
eclare
@Omnes Omnibus: Great! House of Gucci may be able to lure me back to the theater since I saw Little Women. I think that was winter, 2019?
Martin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Because some things ‘deserve’ to be banned, while others don’t. It’s not a war of ideas. Some ideas are more virtuous than others, for reasons.
Similarly, democracy is great until it produces undesirable outcomes, at which point it needs to be destroyed.
You’re assuming a certain moral foundation that doesn’t exist with them. Bottom line, facts are subservient to outcomes. If the facts don’t support the desired outcome, you rearrange them until they do.
The real dynamic here is that there’s an outcome that to them *must* arrive. It’s so important that all other things can be sacrificed, including democracy, including the lives of their fellow Americans. Effectively, America itself can be sacrificed. This is ‘forcing the end’ – the outcome is inevitable, yet they’re surrounded by all of this evidence that it’s not coming, so rather than sit on the sidelines for this inevitable outcome, they become an agent to bring it about. And they’re in this process of rearranging the facts to justify the actions that are needed to ensure the outcome is met. You cannot reason with them on the facts, because those are just details. You need to engage with them on the outcome. Why is it necessary that a white christian dominant culture be preserved? Because all of this other stuff is just working in support of that. They don’t care about any of it, obviously, because they’re willing to sacrifice the truth about it to achieve the outcome.
The more we focus on the facts, the more we fail to engage with the real problem – why they believe the outcome is necessary and inevitable.
Betty Cracker
@Old School: Oh, it’s worse than that:
Kay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
“Brian Schatz
@brianschatz
No snark, I would like to ask the anti cancel culture people on this website and substack that consider themselves center right or center left to write at least a tweet, and preferably a few opinion pieces, about this government infringement on the first amendment.”
They have to square it. If they want to write big, self important proclamations about free speech and make themselves the authority then they have to write an explanation why none of this hangs together.
It’s crap. It didn’t hold up even for a year. They have to start over and put some effort into it this time. Being super cranky isn’t a theory.
Ruckus
@Martin:
Agreed. This comment was not aimed in that direction but yes I agree that police organizations every where in this country have members, likely in significant numbers that are current day conservatives, they have more power than civilians and over civilians and they think they should be able to use it at their will and in the direction of political action they desire.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
It’s always been about killing BBB. They refuse to raise taxes. That’s how they “reached agreement” on infrastructure. They didn’t fucking pay for it.
I am sorry though. It’ll enrage our base.
Ksmiami
And Joe Manchin once again fucks us all over… not surprised
Martin
@Starfish: Yeah. Elections are the last institution to act as a check against corruption. Every other check failed leading into 2020. Two impeachments failed to check the corruption. Federal agencies failed to check it. DOJ failed. USAs failed. IG failed. The courts failed. Congress failed. Bar associations and other professional groups failed. The military even failed as they acceded to the demands to stand down the National Guard on Jan 6. Eastman is still a lawyer and professor in good standing. Only the election held.
If elections fail, and I’m not talking about voter suppression, but votes failing to inform which electors are accepted, or how the election is certified, then there’s nothing left but violence. There are no more agents of government left to appeal to.
It’s not enough for Congress to shore up the election process. They need to shore up these other institutions as well. Ideally none of them would fail, but realistically some will. Right now we’re hanging by a single thread.
lowtechcyclist
@Betty Cracker: So after all those negotiations, Manchin’s saying everyone he was negotiating with was wasting their time.
What a fuckhead.
Kay
@Ksmiami:
Ooof. Poor Biden. The West Virginia Right winger sticks the knife in.
Ksmiami
@lowtechcyclist: just a colossal dick. Fuck him
O. Felix Culpa
@Omnes Omnibus:
[Raises hand.]
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
Hey I didn’t say all the wealthy but the conservative wealthy.
They want an authoritarian government, they think they can get wealthier.
And China and Russia are a lot different countries. Their governments do not operate the same. Not for some time, not any longer. Not saying China’s government is great, just a lot better than Russia’s. A lot of Chinese people are getting to have a life, just look at how they’ve handled Covid against how Russia has handled it. Authoritarian but trying to keep the population alive. Russia not so much.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: I think Biden’s gambit was to sort of declare a fait accompli before going to Europe and dare Sinemanchin to blow it up. It wasn’t a bad strategy because there weren’t really any other options. But it seems like it’s not going to work after all.
I wonder if the progressive caucus will supply the necessary votes to pass the infrastructure bill in light of this. If they don’t, I wouldn’t blame them. This kind of bad-faith bullshit is intolerable.
But yeah, it will enrage the base. Nice of Manchin to wait until the voting in VA is done before dropping this bombshell. Oh wait…
Baud
@Betty Cracker: Agreed on Biden’s gambit. It had to be tried. Really too bad though, but like Biden said, every Senator is a president when there are only 50 Dems.
germy
Baud
@germy: Was that before Manchin’s statement?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@germy:
Was that before or after Manchin basically torpedoed it today, saying he needs more “clarity”
ETA: Maybe we’re all overreacting. Perhaps he just needs to be corrected like he reportedly was on family leave
germy
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
She retweeted Andrea Mitchell’s tweet two hours ago.
Old School
@Betty Cracker: As I understand it, the reconciliation bill needs to be scored by the CBO, so Manchin will have that information before it comes to a vote.
hueyplong
Unless he’s totally acting in bad faith and has done so throughout (admittedly a pretty good possibility), today’s Manchin statement might be a “take it or leave it” as to whatever his behind closed doors last offer is.
I like that a little better than “it’s all over we’re fucked.”
Baud
@Old School: So he’s saying he’s waiting for the CBO analysis? Who cares then? What kind of game is he playing?
Baud
@hueyplong: Yeah, that’s a possibility.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Manchin is a liar. I suppose he was always one but no one paid attention before, but he is unequovically a dishonest person. At no stage of this has he operated in good faith and he is still not. He never intended to support that bill for one reason and one reason only- because it raises taxes.
I don’t think it matters if progressives vote for infrastructure. Reconciliation is Biden’s agenda. If Manchin kills it it’s dead and they are going to get creamed in the midterms. Their one shot was pass both. They may as well vote for infrastructure. At least that pins the blame for killing Biden’s agenda squarely on the Right side of the Party. Progressives can save themselves, but they can’t save centrists without reconciliation.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@germy:
So Manchin’s statement came after Jayapal said that. Interesting
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker:
I know. I am livid at him. Wish he could shut his whingeing piehole.
The WaPost has an aggravating article up about how some Virginia Democrats are wondering why they should vote since Democrats have not delivered. The voter they lead off with is … a bit of a simpleton, sad to say.
This from a nursing assistant. Lord save us.
But three of the maybe seven voters interviewed bring up Manchin and Sinema and their obstruction, and Democrats fighting Democrats. So why vote for them?
Again, I wish Joe Manchin would just shut the fuck up. And I hope, in our lifetimes, we find out what actually was behind him and Sinema.
I am also tired of the WaPost and other papers talking about how unpopular Biden is; reminding us all of his failure in Afghanistan. Never putting that in any context. History is going to be kind to Biden, and perhaps someone could remind our press corpse of all the people who were airlifted out of that situation.
Not gonna link, cuz it’s a shitty article. But you can find it on their website.
Omnes Omnibus
It isn’t fucking done yet. They are still sausage making. And, yes, Manchin is an asshole.
hueyplong
@Omnes Omnibus: I guess one positive result of all this is that many jackals will give up eating sausage.
WaterGirl
@jeepers:
Statement’s like “it’s over, folks” doesn’t indicate “anger” to me. It’s giving up, It’s a message that it doesn’t matter what we do, the outcome is already assured. What else can “it’s over” mean?
To think that someone who is promoting political action rather than despair doesn’t understand exactly how grim our situation is crazy. It’s an idea turned on its head.
There are many ways of channeling anger, rage, frustration, fear about the current state of our democracy. Political action is one of those ways.
Cameron
@Betty Cracker: If I translate Manchin dialect correctly, he’s saying he won’t vote for it. Period.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus: I didn’t see Manchin’s statement live. Do you have a sense of what he’s saying?
Professor Bigfoot
@jeepers: yeah, that’s another white-guy response.
Black folks don’t have the luxury of giving TF up.
We’ve been through a metric shit ton more than you or your people ever will; and we aren’t giving up.
germy
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
For me, progressives fought and that matters. They tried everything. I knew we wouldn’t get paid leave -this is a backwards country- but at the same time I appreciate Gillibrand fighting for it.
But Normies won’t see any of that. They just see up or down.
ian
@Ksmiami:
It will wait as long as it needs to be properly convict people. Or do we want kangaroo courts and ad hoc trials? You can have fast justice, or you can have thorough justice. I don’t want to live in the society that prioritizes getting a quickie in revenge.
And while we are on the topic, have you thought about those of us who happen to live in red areas when you encourage a new General Sherman to burn it all to ash? Seems justice isn’t playing too large a role in your thought process there.
Elizabelle
@Professor Bigfoot: Thank you. That was an idiotic comment. “It’s over, folks.” GTFO. Who needs shit like that? Although the commenter did walk it back, so there is that …
germy
Here’s video:
Kay
@Elizabelle:
He’s been incredibly damaging to Democrats and the Biden Presidency. I think Biden has a temper, just something I suspect. I wonder if we’ll see it.
Ksmiami
@Kay: how fucking dare he act like he can set the schedule jfc die already
Kay
@germy:
With tax increases. The man’s a liar. His word is no good.
Ksmiami
@Cameron: yep
Baud
@germy: Ok, in that clip, he kind of says nothing. Also, he sounds super nervous.
Kay
@Ksmiami:
Certain people behave very poorly when they have power, and he is one of them. He’s vain.
hueyplong
@Ksmiami: the only helpful senatorial demises are ones in states in which there is a Democratic governor permitted to appoint a Democratic replacement.
And, of course, where the senator joining the choir invisible isn’t already on board with the pending legislation.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: No, I did not. But until the a bill is either voted on or withdrawn by Biden, I see sausage making. Dickish sausage making, but still…
trollhattan
@Ruckus: At the Capitol they were undermanned, under-equipped and the place itself, under-fenced. That was clear from video cutaways there while the speechifying was still going on and before the traitors began moving that direction.
I was gobsmacked that morning at the compare/contrast with the LEO response to the summertime protests. Anybody with a pair of eyes knew it was an uh-oh moment.
And then, the way frantic requests for National Guard help were first ignored, then slow-walked by the Pentagon brass told us the rest of the story: the military as well as federal law enforcement were cooperating with the coup attempt, at a minimum by their passive response and perhaps something much more sinister.
Omnes Omnibus
@Professor Bigfoot: White guy here, but I ain’t giving up until you guys do.
Kay
It really does start to look like deliberate sabotage. Even the ACA whiners didn’t go out of their way to discredit and humiliate Obama.
trollhattan
@germy:
“Greater clarity?” Somebody clean the senator’s glasses for him.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Omnes Omnibus:
But he keeps moving the goal posts. I can’t help but think he doesn’t want this reconciliation bill to pass based on his actual behavior
Ksmiami
@ian: I live in a red state but if Sherman came, I’d point him to my gop neighbors without a second thought
trollhattan
@Elizabelle: “a vaccine?” Lucky for her she has a choice of not two, but THREE vaccine alternatives. Problem solved. Or, travel to Europe and get #s 4, 5 or 6. Gotta love choices.
hueyplong
I’ll give up when Manchin casts a NO vote or speaks in such a way that the Dems decide not to hold a vote at all.
Until then it’s performative assholery, at which he is admittedly an artist.
Ksmiami
@Kay: I hate him so fucking much. Just pull it all and let West Virginia enjoy endless poverty I don’t fucking care
Ksmiami
@Kay: he’s a horrible excuse for a senator and human so foad
Elizabelle
@Kay:
I do think that is true, WRT Manchin and Sinema. However, it is not over before it is over.
I can just hear Biden. “Man! What are you saying?”
Omnes Omnibus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): He could just say a firm no if he doesn’t want anything to pass. He is still negotiating.
Omnes Omnibus
@hueyplong: Agreed.
germy
@trollhattan:
I’ll spit, he can wipe.
Elizabelle
@trollhattan: It was a dreadful article; several of the voters interviewed had more on the ball than the woman they led off with.
I really, really do not like this new editor, Sally Buzbee.
I hope a lot of people have to eat crow tomorrow about the comeback kid, Terry McAuliffe.
Who — and this might be news — has never been behind in the polls. He’s always had a small lead, which may be diminishing, except for a Fox News poll and maybe another outlier.
I agree with Eric Boehlert: the media has its thumb on the scale for Republicans — surging!! — in this one. They are not merely reporters/stenographers. They are actors, too. I hope they all have to eat crow, or something even less delectable.
I guess this comment more properly belongs in the new thread …
Kay
@Elizabelle:
The constant bashing of the bill and really disrespectful undercutting Biden at every turn is new for the Right wing of the Party. He’s not fighting with progressives. He’s trying to destroy Biden’s Presidency.
I don’t think Schumer has any influence, which is a shame. He was weak during Trump too. You have to hold them together and not let one or two run away with it. That’s the job. It’s a hard job but is the job.
Old School
@Baud:
It’s Manchin, so who knows? I’ve seen some speculation that he’s trying to have it voted down in the House, so that it isn’t his responsibility.
My theory is he’s just trolling Omnes at this point.
Chris Johnson
@Ksmiami:
Yeah, but you’re fucking fighting US so that does not help.
That feel when you learn what all the right wing terrorists are doing so you’re frantic to run out and kill- fucking Merrick Garland. Because reasons.
You might as well be chanting ‘lock her up’ at Hillary for all the difference it would make. Looks like you have a little tribe of cohorts for THIS thread. Have your fun but I don’t believe for a second you’re a real leftist much less a Dem. You’re something else. What that is, damn if I know, but you’re sure something else.
Baud
@Old School:
He’s not that honorable.
Ksmiami
@Kay: Schumer should just move his office to the latrine. Let him switch parties and be known as a traitor for eternity. Enough
Omnes Omnibus
@Old School: Damn. What did I ever do to him? Was it the WV jokes when I lived in Ohio? I’ll apologize.
Ksmiami
@Chris Johnson: hunh? You’re way off here… I’ve been a loyal Dem for years but the flashing danger lights are pretty hard to ignore. I’d rather not live in a pre enlightenment theocracy so…
Denali
What Martin said. People react, and vote for cultural reasons, not in their economic interest. They feel threatened by the loss of white power, and nothing is going to stop them from fighting to retain it. I grew up in the South. I know these people.
Chris Johnson
@Ksmiami: You’re a dem like the Twitter folks with numbers after their names who are ‘I am a lifelong loyal Dem BUT’.
There’s a fuckload of people in these threads who can be counted upon to put in their hours repeating ‘it’s over folks’ and insisting that everyone accept that we have nothing left but open civil war for as long as we shall live. That the wingnuts are innumerable and will march on a road of bones, and the only thing we can possibly do is abandon all law, all institutions, and march on our own road of bones opposing them. Why pretend? Just let’s kill everyone.
I call that terrorism and I earnestly believe it is being fed out of Russia by hardworking trolls. if you’re not one, then you’re damn gullible: and I worked for Bernie and talked up a lefty storm under the name Applejinx here and I am still not that gullible. So which are you?
japa21
@Ksmiami: Who doesn’t think the worst can happen? Quite obviously, Omnes does. A person can be an optimistic realist.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Biden said when you have 50 senators you have 50 presidents, and he’s right, but yeah, it’s disrespectful to jerk the actual president around like this. If you look at Jayapal’s comments from last week, when she expressed so much optimism about getting this wrapped up, it was because Biden had assured her all 50 senators were on board for $1.75T. I don’t think Biden would tell her that if he didn’t believe it himself. Someone lied, and it wasn’t Biden or Jayapal.
The Moar You Know
@Chris Johnson: warmer….
The Moar You Know
@Chris Johnson: Damn, I remember you. And yeah you were as annoying as fuck but not in the same league as this clown.
Chief Oshkosh
@Mallard Filmore: Sorry, I wasn’t clear. My question arose from wondering why specific FBI agents hadn’t already been demoted, dismissed, or otherwise fucked with. They’re clearly, dangerously incompetent, so are they not being fucked with because they have a union? That was what I was asking.
Martin
I have more faith in Jayapal than lack of faith in Manchin. She’s been fantastic through this – the whole progressive caucus has been. Let’s see what they come up with.
Ksmiami
@Chris Johnson: Eh wrong again but institutions and societies fail. Ours is on a downward slope
Ksmiami
@The Moar You Know: and I worked my ass off for Biden, Democratic senators, Obama, Gore and both Clinton’s…
Professor Bigfoot
@Martin: I have long thought that the great divide in this country is between those who agree that Black people are fully human and FULL citizens, with ALL the rights that entails… and those who don’t.
That’s the core of the “culture war.” Black people, brown people, differently gendered people, anyone who is not straight, white and Christian are, in the eyes of these “conservatives”, not legitimate Americans.
Elizabelle
@Ksmiami: So you tell us.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: I agree.
Martin
@Ksmiami: I don’t think so. I mean, yes, this is something of a low point in terms of politics, but it’s brought about by a greater acknowledgement of the structural harm brought to various populations, greater voting influence and representation by those groups, and ultimately a fairer and more inclusive society. I cannot see that as anything other being on an upward slope with perhaps some hurdles along the way.
WaterGirl
@Ksmiami: You may be a loyal Dem, but if you think what you just said would be a good idea and wouldn’t immediately stop all possibility of Dems accomplishing anything…
…, that would make you a foolish Dem. A very foolish Dem.
J R in WV
@Citizen Alan:
I don’t think you can compare the Nazi SS or Gestapo with the FBI — after all, the SS and the Gestapo were competent, the FBI can’t perform at a minimally acceptable level. No comparison possible at all.
How long did it take the FBI to catch its own internal spies, working for Russia or Israel? They seemed to rely on routinely scheduled polygraph tests, while anyone who reads up on that “technology” knows it’s hand-waving and magic, not science.
It’s quite possible to learn to control the body’s reflexes. I can get my blood pressure down from “scary” level numbers to very desirable numbers like 128/72 in just a few moments of meditation and deep breathing. And I’m not trained by an intelligence agency on how to do that.
If the FBI can’t catch agents inside the agency, why should we expect them to catch insurrectionists attempting to overthrow democracy? How many employees of the FBI support Trumpism and the overthrow? Far more than those who support actual democracy is my guess.
Chris Johnson
@The Moar You Know: I was wrong. I got better. I also saw some of my super-lefty cohorts getting more and more cozy with Putin and actively subverting the Dems and talking about how they’d maybe get better justice out of Trump.
It did not make me think they were idiots. It made me think I was hanging around with a bunch of wolves in sheep’s clothing, and I was outta there with bitterness in my heart, and a sort of PTSD about that kind of messaging.
My errors these days are in thinking every damn person is that kind of operative, rather than just a plain old idiot. And I’d been the plain old idiot (with who I trusted to inform me) so I shouldn’t discount the possibility of other idiots. In particular if you’re still on Twitter or Facebook you’re basically signing up to be run by foreign intelligence operatives managing networks of trolls. Anybody still doing that is in a world of hurt, by design… and lots of people are still doing that.
J R in WV
@germy:
I don’t think appointees are the real problem — everyone knows who appointed those RWNJs and that they can’t be trusted as far as my grandmother could throw them! (not far at all, she is long gone away now…)
The high-ranking employees those appointees hired, on the other hand, those guys are the sleeper wurms, burrowing into our defense agencies to help the fascists over throw our way of life. They need to be rounded up and dropped off at Gitmo, or points further away, to await trial.
UncleEbeneezer
@Professor Bigfoot: THIS. Add women, muslims, Latinx, LGBTQ etc. The Soul Of A Nation framing is not hyperbole, imo. 2016 was a clear cut decision over Hillary who was literally running on Stronger Together and continuing the advances for Equality for every marginalized group and Trump who blatantly ran on Fuck Those People. This is what ALL of this shit is about, and it’s a fight that continues today and will continue for awhile sadly.
Geminid
@ian: Kangaroo court? Instead we could bring back the Star Chamber in a modern televised format: “Chamber of the Stars!”
J R in WV
From the WaPo summary:
1: Everyone who helped close the cases, who ignored the many warnings, they all should be posted to Utqiaġvik, formerly known as Barrow, Alaska, permanently. Everyone.
We know these people are one of two things, completely incompetent, or hopelessly corrupt. Either way they need to first thing be put somewhere they can do no more harm while being investigated. I’m sure some digging into their professional and private background will uncover a writhing mass of worms and corrupt rot.
trnc
Campos is not at all on Team Trump. His posts are sometimes overwrought, but he does provide useful insight sometimes. I suspect some of the hysteria is intended to be a wake up call, although his audience is pretty well set and likely as awake as they will ever be. Which is often wide awake, so that’s not intended as a dig.
Anyhoo, I understand the apocalyptic thinking sometimes when I see that the media has continued its assault on Biden that it started with the Afghanistan evacuation. McAuliffe is not what I consider an awesome candidate, but Youngkin wouldn’t even be in the same ballpark if it wasn’t for the “why aren’t the democrats getting anything done” narrative.
Ksmiami
@WaterGirl: eh he’s actively torpedoing Biden and the Dems- better to just cauterize the infection and be clear about who’s the asshole
Martin
@J R in WV: I get your reasoning, but disagree with your conclusions.
Internal investigations are always tricky. In order to not be a complete nutjob, you need to trust someone, and there’s always an inherent trust inside your organization. You trust the people you work with, the processes that keep them in the job, and the process that hired them. Maybe not unilaterally, but you’re going to give the benefit of the doubt to those inside over those outside, because you have to. Without that you can’t hold an organization together.
This is why it’s important to have independent investigatory units within an organization – an IG, etc. They still trust their subunit, but are tasked with basically not trusting the larger organization. And they exist because it’s organizational management 101 to resist investigations into yourself.
Yes, the FBI will have sympathizers in it. There may be field offices where sympathizers are the majority or control the local culture. But I doubt they’re the overall majority. In a way, it doesn’t necessarily matter because there’s no benefit to policing the politics of your employees. That’s a race to the bottom. Instead, you have to police the decisions that employees make and whether politics influenced those decisions, and frankly, there was nothing there until Jan 6. Before that it was talk without action. Jan 6 was the action that allows accountability for the decision making.
And to a lesser degree the FBI will trust others in government. Being deferential to elected officials is a feature, not a bug. It is, after all, the job of Congress to hold their members to account, and to serve as a check against the executive. And I think many members of Congress admit they were too deferential to colleagues before 1/6. I don’t think it’s fair to lay all of that on the feet of the FBI. A lot of things had to go wrong to get us to where we are.
Chris Johnson
@Ksmiami: YOU say ‘he is a traitor actively sabotaging the Dems’ and YOU say ‘and so we should purge him and everyone who is going to fail us anyway and then we should just lose and be at civil war until we are all shot down like dogs’ blah blah blah.
Cauterizing the infection is not at all the same thing as ‘let’s do various self-sabotaging things and then just lose! and die!’
Days like this are the days when I can’t believe you’re anything real. You are SO DEDICATED to always supporting the cause of us first removing our shittiest allies, and then losing, and then… ???
But instead of ‘profit’, it is ‘sharpen blades and mix chemicals’, which means ‘become terrorists and make bombs ourselves’.
So yeah: fuck you, fuck you so much. Go eat your bomb-making chemicals. I don’t think you’re real, brah.
topclimber
@Betty Cracker: LAF but is he just saying he wants CBO analysis as figleaf?
topclimber
@Betty Cracker: Biden saying he won’t sign only one bill without the other is also a message. I hope he has made that clear.
A veto threat is just the type of macho malarkey pundits worship.
Professor Bigfoot
@Martin:
That’s a damned good question; and if you answer it, you’ll understand today’s “conservatism.”
It’s the same goddamn thing— white supremacy
NickM
@Betty Cracker: Regarding business and civil unrest: if you think there’s supply chain issues now…I can’t understand Why they can’t see this.
stinger
@Kay:
Yes, it’s become an issue now. To be reintroduced and fought for, and eventually won. That’s how change happens, if too slowly for many.
Ruckus
@ian:
There is a thought process there?
I’ll be damned, I can’t see one.
Ruckus
@Martin:
And a lot of things will go wrong, we are human beings after all. Used to be an often used phrase – “Two steps forward, one step back.” Right now I think that needs to be expanded slightly – “Two steps forward, 1 1/2 sideways and one back.” Life does get more complicated as you add in more roadblocks, which we know as humans.
J R in WV
@Mike in NC:
Going to vote, but:
Check their FEC data. All federal campaign contributions are listed by name and address, see if they’re giving $50 to a R candidate or not. I’m in there, I get calls from people who want to run as Democratic candidates and need grassroots donors. All my donations are to Democratic candidates !!
debbie
@Elizabelle:
Seconded.
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
I can’t tell you how many times I walked up to the polling machine filled with despair and resignation (esp. in the 1980s). Never stopped me from voting my conscience, though.
jackmac
Late to this but I wanted to comment anyway. The WaPo report is both riveting and revolting. In another time, this might have changed some views and even embarrassed the subjects enough that they’d never try another insurrection. Not these days. The current batch of right wing yahoos — who deserve to have the book thrown at them — are already calling the report “fake news” as some likely plot the next civil unrest.
Chris T.
Somehow my eyeball scan replaced “sycophantic” with “syphilitic” on the first pass.
J R in WV
@zhena gogolia:
We won’t know anything about what the DoJ is doing until Grand Jury indictments are handed up at the very end of their work. By statute and necessity the work of law enforcement is secret. I hate that too, but there it is. We have to trust that the AG IS actually doing his work.