Sound up!
The HoRrOr
This seems…bad.
Self-styled militia members planned on storming the U.S. Capitol days in advance of Jan. 6 attack, court documents say
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/conspiracy-oath-keeper-arrest-capitol-riot/2021/01/19/fb84877a-5a4f-11eb-8bcf-3877871c819d_story.html
Trump impeachment trial set to begin the week of 8 February, Schumer says
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/22/trump-impeachment-trial-articles-sent-house-senate
Sprots! #RIP
Hank Aaron’s greatness and grace were underappreciated and unmatched
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2021/01/22/hank-aaron-greatness-thomas-boswell/
NBC Sports Network to shut down by the end of the year
https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/22/media/nbc-sports-network-shut-down/index.html
Omg
Have a great weekend!
ooo…a tiktok video… apparently italy just blocked tiktok for everyone who isnt properly age verified (how does one properly age verify?…i always thought you just tell the interwebs whatever age and it takes your word for it?)
apparently a ten year old girl died over there after doing the blackout challenge….which seems to be choke yourself till you pass out…
after planking and tidepods apparently we still havent reached the bottom of the pit of stupid challenges on social media
There were kids doing that make-yourself-pass-out shit when I was in 5th grade… 30 years ago. I did it once (because, kids) and it was an awful feeling. I fell over and smacked my head against the wall.
Idiots gonna idiot.
Ya a kid in my 7th grade class did it and sadly passed away. And that was in the late 80s…
Today comes a rumor that Trump and/or those around him are thinking of creating a third party, the Patriot Party. Since this is a Trump trial balloon maybe nothing will come of it, and four years is a lifetime in politics. But what if they did? Would it split or subsume the Republican Party? A split would be nice. Ross Perot and the 19% of the electorate he attracted single-handedly gave the election to Bill Clinton; without him I have no doubt Bush the Elder would have cruised to re-election. It’s possible the Republicans will be in such disarray that they go away altogether, it’s happened before. In the pre-Civil War era four Presidents were Whigs but then the party vanished.
Should this new party get off the ground I propose that its formal name be The National Patriotic American Workers’ Party. It will commonly be known as The National Front, because its official name will be far too much for its electorate to remember.
…I don’t know exactly how it got started but I’m under the impression that in some circles the idea has been being kicked around for a while…certainly jr’s pre-insurrection assertion that it was now “donald trump’s republican party” (which really ought to make it into the lowlight reel for the impeachment hearings) was part of an ongoing effort to try & claim that the votes follow his father & not the party
…so if I had to guess I’d say that for the people who started pushing the idea earliest there’s at least some genuine desire to have a radically-right party of more or less out & out white supremacists exist to validate their hateful bullshit & claim it has a right to a place in the national discourse…the sort of people who don’t grasp how government works (or understand the value of a functional legislative branch) & think people like boebert & greene actually have any business holding office, basically
…but from the perspective of littlefingers the twice impeached himself (or at least the kinds of assholes that try to get him to understand this kind of shit) I’d be inclined to think they want to use it as a threat the same way they undermined the georgia runoff races from a GOP perspective…they want (or indeed arguably need) the party establishment to be terrified of losing the wing nut lunatic votes & to thus be sufficiently beholden to the tangerine man to lack the spine to convict him in the senate & bar him from one of the few sources of cashflow remaining to his debt-riddled ass
…of course the man himself is entirely narcissistic enough to actually think it a workable route to regaining the immunity of being president & all the lucrative avenues it granted him to keep throwing other people’s money into that debt pit of his but that’s largely because he seems to actually think each & every voter who went his way is ride-or-die for his delusional ass & I expect those people “advising” him haven’t the guts to tell him how wrong he is about that
…so if I was betting on an outcome I’d say it would split the votes but fail to subsume the republican party…but what concerns me more is that it might have the desired effect of keeping enough GOP senators spine-free & faithlessly amoral enough to close their eyes to the stunning levels of hypocrisy required & vote to prevent his conviction
…the “tracker” at the washington post has 19 potential GOP senate votes for conviction & I believe 17 is the “magic number” required…& if I’m honest I lack faith that less than two of those votes will evaporate when the chips are down despite what I assume will necessarily be a damning swathe of evidence & arguments presented by those arguing for that conviction?
Even though he’s in the House, McCarthy is already backing off what he said about Trump being responsible for the insurrection. There will be plenty in the Senate who follow suit.
The American political infrastructure is very unforgiving for any new party. Both current ones have offices in every state, networks of staffer, benches of politicians, deep wells of donors, and troves of voter information.
To have a successful presidential run your campaign has to get you on the ballot in all 50 states. Perot built a single campaign to do it, and the Green and Libertarian parties have some infrastructure but they combined for zero seats in federal and state government.
All this means that getting a new party to have a foothold is a herculean task that will take multiple election cycles to bear fruit.
Patience and follow-through are not two of trump’s known virtues, and existing Republicans with a quarter brain know they can’t clear the other hurdles above just by using trump’s name.
It would be funny if Ted Cruz or Josh Hawley realizes that voters look for the R before they look for the name.
Lastly, voter info is the currency now, and I guarantee the party will sue the shit out of anyone who tries to walk out the door with it.
Ideally, a split of the Republican party would have the effect of moving the wholes system leftward. This could happen in two ways:
a) Republicans abandon the far right and begin to compete for center-left Democrat voters. This in turn prompts the Democrats to strengthen their coalition by actively playing to progressives.
b) Progressives now have a legitimate opportunity to form a fourth party, since they would no longer be handing elections to the Republicans by doing so. They either do this, and we see more of a coalition-style government that takes into account the progressive agenda, or the Democrats cave and keep the progressive wing.
In an ideal world, a Republican split is a win-win-win situation.
Probably too much to hope for, but in my little daydream, the combination of noticeable improvement under the Biden-Harris administration, and the fallout of all the previous administration’s corruption and criminal convictions fractures the Republican Party. Back into it’s component parts of white supremacists, religious dominionists, and corporate fluffers. The less horrible join the Democratic party, which grows and splits into a centrist party and progressive party.
Of course, in the four-party scenario you could always wind up with a centrist coalition of Democrats and Republicans, with the far-right and far-left looking in, but that is still better than having actual fascists at the helm in a winner-take-all congress.
[Russian] Patriot Party. FTFY.
Indeed. I hoped so much a Perot-like Independent would run in 2004 to make W a one-termer like his father.
There would first be the Hair Plugs party, and then when Stephen Miller takes over, the Toppik party.
oh also…in unrelated news…as of 9 oclock tonight we are going into lockdown +1
lol…i gets a 9pm curfew..also banned passenger flights from the uk and a few other places
oh and only allowed 1 visitor per day…a rule which i will imediately break as im going to me mums tomorow with my brother for her birthday….assuming his driving doesnt kill us on the way there anyway
im kind of amazed hollywood can make pandemics look exciting….this shit is boring as all hell (yes yes everyone knew that…)
welp…guess ill be pacing around the garden instead of the park for my late night walkabout for a couple weeks (other than that these new rules dont affect me none…supermarkets shut at 8pm nothing else is open…where the fuck am i sposed to go?…other than the park for my walkabout…but its not worth the posibility of a $100 fine to me)
My God, 3 days in and look at all the scandals the new administration has already!
…wow…is it possible that cognitive dissonance is more addictive than crack cocaine?
…basically that’s the only explanation I can come up with to explain the footage they built that montage from
OMG THIS IS EVEN WORSE THAN WHEN THAT KENYAN WORE A TAN SUIT!!!!! argrhslghlkteruhlr
fuck me…. and you want social media to moderate fake news whilst airing this shit on tv?
what the fuck is wrong with yous america…..
(i think the answer is republicans….)
Come on, NYT. There are actual things you can stir up rage about. Stop taking your story ideas from right-wing whingers.
tbh…im not seeing what they are suddenly taking issue with
a rolex? a peleton bike?
ermagerd the president is like pretty rich and has nothing in common with the common people..
yeah….thats never happened before…
also where the fuck was this willingness to condemn everything during turnip?
shit i hate to agree with turnip on anything
but the fucking press might really be our enemy
…I’m thinking it’s not the press so much as people not actually doing the job they claim to be…that & the whole let’s-feed-people-bullshit-&-pat-ourselves-on-the-back routine?
*shrugs*
could be that too
personally im in favour of telling people straight
no headline seeking or trying to sugarcoat shit
just tell me how it is
*sigh*
i have a dream
that one day
news channels will actually report the news
without bias
and we can all sit around the table of just watched the newsedness
and be like…….well shit…that sucks
jeezus fucking christ
oh also in further unrelated news…the missus has lost the plot..she’s been clearly pissed off at me for at least a week now…but refuses to tell me why or even acknowledge the question (or for that matter acknowledge i said anything on any topic often as not) just glares daggers at me…
if i stop posting ive been murdered in my sleep
theres some fucking wierdness going on here that is beyond me
this is like those idiots at work that feel the need to add drama by gossiping and playing people against eachother coz the work day wasnt shitty enough
why make a shit situation worse?
…you’re welcome to all the sympathy I can muster…but I’m sorry there isn’t anything actually constructive I can offer
…fingers crossed we keep hearing from you though…& best of luck weathering this shit in the meantime…shit to deal with at work & at home & other options being locked down is more to deal with than you should have to, I reckon…hang in there?
cheers mate….ill be fine…if i dont get murdered
king of compartimentalizing me….i can ignore the world crumbling around me and remain functional
ill be a fucking mess when it catches up to me and probably have an epic meltdown then…but i should have my own place by then (uhh well…a new my own place)
@farscythe hugs to you. Have fun at your Mother’s tomorrow. And check in with us and let us know that you are okay (a day without farscythe is a day without sunshine.
lol thank you 🙂 and will do and will do
Ugh, that Rolex/Peloton shit is fucking annoying. NYT just loves to be edgy.
Are you FUCKING KIDDING ME?!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/doj-capitol-rioters-charges-debate/2021/01/23/3b0cf112-5d97-11eb-8bcf-3877871c819d_story.html?itid=hp-banner-main-0122
Paywall… What justification are they giving for not charging some of the rioters??
…it seems to boil down to a combination of things & there hasn’t been a decision taken where most potential charges are concerned…but broad strokes it seems roughly along these lines
…some prosecutors are arguing the way you’d expect that everyone should be charged…those people who appear to have no history of illegal acts & for whom there’s no evidence they did anything but follow others into the building once entry had already been forced, didn’t do anything violent while in there & then left could get plea deals requiring them not to get into further trouble for X years or the whole thing comes back to bite them in the ass…but basically their view is that charging all concerned is a necessary statement to make in terms of a deterrent against anything similar happening in future
…the people arguing for a different approach seem to be suggesting one of two things…the “it’s political” argument is alluded to but not spelled out so only guessing but there might be some who are sympathetic to the people who “just got caught up in things on the day” but weren’t instigators or involved in anything premeditated that would rise to the level of sedition…the bit that is spelled out is that in total estimates are that between 700-900 people gained entry to the capitol building & that many cases is around twice the total number the DC federal court managed to handle in a whole year
…so some think that it would swamp the court & that’s bad…& some think it would further harm the reputation of the authorities if they lose cases at trial because they can’t make anything beyond unlawful entry stick…prosecutors having something of a reputation for not liking to try cases that aren’t likely to go their way might explain some of that but I believe it’s actually a formal requirement for a lot of them that a case be strong enough to probably result in a guilty verdict that should be able to overcome an appeal before they’re supposed to proceed so at least part of it may not be as simple as whether or not they “want” to?
…& given that a judge actually already granted bail to one of the people who did get arrested & is on camera with zip-tie handcuffs he was apparently hoping to employ on elected officials (denying the prosecutions arguments & seemingly dismissing the probative value of what seems like fairly damning evidence) the unpleasant truth is that the ones fearing they wouldn’t be able to make the charges stick might be realistic in their assessment…all of which seems like it has no business being true?
Jesus christ they gave bail to zip tie guy?? And I just heard the girl who was going to sell the laptop was released?? They need to get their shit together on this stuff. It’s going to be really important to set a strong message that none of this shit is remotely ok.
Mostly that there are a bunch of them that they figure can only be charged with unlawful entry and so have a better than average chance of losing those cases–especially for the people who have no other criminal record.
There are other people in the JD who are arguing for prosecuting every single one of them (as they damned well should), but who knows at this point. This could be one of those “healing the country” bullshit excuses to let a bunch of wingnuts walk after participating in an insurrection against their own country.
Does anyone have an invite or link to the Discord? I had to hop off it for a little while.
Try this? I don’t know, I haven’t been there since last summer.
https://discord.com/login?redirect_to=%2Fchannels%2F634473020139765780%2F639969650125438986
…I think the “invite” links generally expire after a certain amount of time but I think I could find one & send it you way if you don’t have any luck with lemmy’s
…otherwise adabofoppo mentioned on the brain drain thread that they’d been spending some time on there lately so they ought to be able to generate one for you?