monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Is anyone else very curious regarding whatever might be going on in georgeob's noggin today?

Cleta Mitchell was in on the call.




Most of you will be familiar with the Bradley and Scaife foundations. Both have been funding and organizing within the Koch umbrella for many decades. These are the entities/persons who have effectively taken over the GOP and turned it into the extremist, corrupt and criminal enterprise it now is.

Reporters are still dancing around with bland words like 'persuade' when they should say threaten. The orange sob is robbing us blind while we watch as if we have no say in the matter. This might be our lowest moment, however, after 20 January I fear we will learn of things more obscene than just Trump thinking he's the ultimate ruler.

Ten living former defense secretaries declare election over
in forceful public letter

The letter -- signed by Dick Cheney, James Mattis, Mark Esper, Leon Panetta, Donald Rumsfeld,
William Cohen, Chuck Hagel, Robert Gates, William Perry and Ashton Carter -- amounts to a
remarkable show of force against Trump's subversion efforts just days before Congress is set
to count Electoral College votes.

"Our elections have occurred. Recounts and audits have been conducted. Appropriate challenges
have been addressed by the courts. Governors have certified the results. And the electoral college
has voted. The time for questioning the results has passed; the time for the formal counting of the
electoral college votes, as prescribed in the Constitution and statute, has arrived," the group wrote...

No. Not interested in watching pork sausage being made either.

I don't watch TV news so can't speak to that. But the folks I attend to are definitely not watering down the content and ramifications of the call and related efforts by Trump et al. I'm just listening to the call now.

Good. If America is luckier than I expect, this will fracture the GOP. What happens over the next three days and beyond is not something I'm going to predict. As one fellow I read put it, when impeachment was raised and ongoing, Republicans said that the solution for malfeasance wasn't impeachment but rather it would be the election. But now they are acting in a manner which demonstrates they believe the solution for the election is malfeasance.

It's rather interesting that he doesn't talk about evidence, but rather:

Trump:
- These numbers are going to be repeated on Monday night...along with others that we we going to have by that time (this last sounded rather made up)
- There's nothing wrong with saying that you've recalculated (not that you have recalculated, but saying that you have)


Georgia Republican Secretary of State:
- Well Mr President, the challenge you have is that the data you have is wrong. (no, really, there have been people peddling false information out there????)

Trump:
- Do you think it's possible they shredded ballots in Fulton Country cause that's what the rumour is (ie. I have no evidence and am reduced to relying on rumours)
- And also that Dominion took out the machines (a continuation of his previous sentence...being rumours he wants to hear)...that they are moving fast to get rid of their machinery

Ryan Germany
- no Dominion have not moved any of their machinery out of Fulton County

Trump
- but have they moved the inner parts of the machines (ie. DOH, they didn't move them....oh wait, what about the internals??????????????)
- they are shredding ballots in my opinion (right, opinion based on rumours)
- and they are removing machinery...as fast as they can (shows that he hears only what he wants to hear, having been told they hadn't been moved)
- "I just want to find 11780 votes" ROFLOLOLOLOL...
- Re-examine it with people who want to find answers (says every dictator who ever wanted to rig an election)

Fair enough. But I am very curious.

I'm snood on this one

One of the ways that four years of Trump deeply affected me was it further eroded my already shaky trust in the government powers that be.

It has left the feeling that there’s no one in charge.

From the security clearances that they couldn’t qualify for, to the subpoenas they ignored; from the crony appointments to the constant torrent of lies and misdirections; all the way up to and including this call to Georgia’s Secretary of State trying to coerce them to change their election results by “finding” him more votes.

Time and time again rules, traditions and laws have been trampled on, with no repercussions. Mind you, the hand-wringing and finger-wagging has increased in proportion to the malfeasances. But nothing else has. No checks, no balances, no sense that there’s a hardline of law or authority that will keep this rotten sumbitch in order.

If Trump and no one in Trump’s close circle are ever made to account for the dirt they’ve dealt, this unease about who’s really in charge in this country is going to be worse.

"If Trump and no one in Trump’s close circle are ever made to account for the dirt they’ve dealt, this unease about who’s really in charge in this country is going to be worse."
Definitely. This will be critically important. A tactic Trump seems to be attempting here is threatening to do serious damage of the mob-style sort - "Nice little democracy you have here. It would be a pity of something happened to it". That so many Republican leaders and politicians are supporting him even still is compelling evidence that they themselves will behave similarly wherever that suits their personal purposes.

That's supposed too say "I'm with snood" not "I'm snood"

His behaviour is very in keeping with what I've seen of him prior to his becoming President.

But seriously, if conspiracy theorists cant look at that call and see how Trump himself doesn't believe the conspiracy (offering no evidence, but rather rumour, innuendo, multiple veiled threats, hearing only what he wants to hear, asking to be given 11000 odd votes, then saying they should find people 'who want to find answers' rather than people of integrity) and not understand they've been had, then nothing will convince them otherwise. Not even the constant losses in courts. Basically he could do everything short of outright admitting to trying to rig the election (which this call will fall an nth degree short of in their minds...but is otherwise is obviously ultra clear evidence of who is trying to rig the election), and they'd still believe it was the other side that tried to rig it.

I know. george and I have an unusual bond. Or at least we did until I told him it was broken given his continued support of Trump. But I want to better understand how human minds can make such big mistakes.

I gotcha. Many will continue to support him as happened with Nixon after Watergate and his resignation. Joe McCarthy still has fans. But to see Cheney and Rumsfeld and others come out against him now says something important (though that full story won't be all good). And that follows what has happened over the last four years where so many senior Republicans leaving the party because of Trump and the party's subservience to him. I don't know what's going to happen, of course, but there certainly is a fracturing of the party underway. The negative here is that movement conservatives (by which we can understand here as the John Birch ideologists and the machine they've built since Goldwater in partnership with the religious right and the media entities from talk radio through Fox and now the newer voices) have long sought to gain control of the GOP and have effectively managed to achieve their goal. And this is a very bad bunch.

I managed to listen to the whole hour and six minutes. Trump held the floor for more than 90 percent of the time, repeating and repeating, over-talking all others, making threats and tossing out insults throughout. He made no friends today other than with his lunatic base. I admit, I did not think he'd go this far.

I'm snood.

So Devin Nunes and Jim Jordan are about to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom as was previously bestowed on Rush Limbaugh.

Everything he touches turns to ****.

Now don’t take this too personally, but
I think that trying to find nuance of reason or hidden layers of principle in people’s motivations to support Trump is a fool’s errand.
People’s reasons for supporting Trump are no more profound than the man himself. And he is a shallow thing. A greedy, self-centered white supremacist who does everything out of spite and self aggrandizement.

They support him because - far more than out of any “economic anxiety” -they think he’s the way to preserve America in its purest white paternal capitalistic form, and resist all those things that threaten it (everything that isn’t centered on white make heterosexuals being on top).

It’s not pretty. It doesn’t make for pleasant dinner conversation. There is no reasonable or moral justification for supporting Donald Trump, no matter what ten dollar words or acrobatic sophistry anyone tries to attach it to.

Biden likes to say we are at war for the soul of America. I don’t think he coined the phrase, but I take that deadly seriously.
It’s truth versus lies; light versus dark; and yes, good versus evil.

In my opinion.