The Committee plotted with JPMorgan and its lawyer, former Obama AG Loretta Lynch, to obtain a citizen's financial records with no possibility of judicial review.
Aha! A most clever and cunning reply, guvna, evident immediately from the introductory, push-of-the-glasses-back-on-the-nose "akshully!"
I should have expected no less from the genius Scotland Yard once likened to Nathan Leopold (because of the 200 IQ, of course, not the sociopathy no no perish the thought). Though your riposte was near-perfect in every way--and equally persuasive--I shall offer up the rejoinder of "Actually, it is the right answer," and await with baited breath your next Kasparov-like move on the intellectual chess board. The game is afoot!
Ahh, a virtue voter. Tell me, what good would it do to vote third party when there is zero shot that they will win? Last time you had a mass third party was in 1912 when Wilson won the election because of Teddy Roosevelt's arrogance. Think what you want of Taft, however he would not have segregated the federal government, nor allowed the KKK to air a film in the WH.
I believe that the right answer is to vote to prevent either party from controlling both the legislature and the executive branch. If that requires voting with extreme distaste for either party (at least per my tastes), then it is the only way I can think of to prevent either of two parties that have become equally extremist in their own ways from destroying what legal protections exist.
About the only reason things aren't worse is best summed up in the last paragraph of that article:
"This is why Americans cling to their guns. It has nothing to do with hunting. It has nothing to do with self-defense against the common criminal. We cling to our guns so that, when our neighbors show up and say, “We’re going to take you to the camps now, because you’re a danger to society,” we can look back at them and say, “Like hell you will.”"
Ha! That pesky 2nd sure makes lions out of sheep, doesn't it. Here, 234 years later its still working as planned, putting the fear of the People in every Statist's rotten, quaking heart.
The enemy of the rapacious State is the armed Peeps. No other issue comes close to defining this eternal and necessary state of affairs. By default, we are grovelling, powerless slaves without the 2nd. And I do not need to own a gun. All I need is the right, which I claim, even without a Constitution (It sure looks nice, though, framed on my wall. Let's my guests, polite or not, invited or not, peg me with precision.)
A little history about firearms and overreaching government. In 1971 in Corona, Queens, NYC, a small group of 69 homeowners was scheduled to have their homes knocked down to provide a ballfield for a local high school. They were Italian Americans and were represented by Mario Cuomo, a young lawyer trying to make a name for himself, which he did. He was not the reason that the homeowners won, however. They grouped together and sat on their porches with shot guns when the bull dozers approached their homes on the scheduled day for demolition, The NYC police were called in to deal with the uprising but refused to attempt to use force against the homeowners. Needless to say, an agreement to let the homes remain in place was soon reached, and Mario Cuomo, of all people, had cemented a reputation as a defender of common people, especially Italian Americans, in a city of former immigrants and working people.
As long as local policing is not federalized, we are our own masters. As my Russian Grandfather used to say, when they send the Cossacks into your village, it's too late.
Nope. That just results in landslide Democrat (read: Statist) victory.
There are only 2 (two) solutions to (Statist) rigged elections:
Massive, overwhelming, voting for whichever Party is CURRENTLY opposing the insidious and ever-creeping Authoritarian Socialism of the Party CURRENTLY controlling the State. Sometimes over and over again until the over-bearing State is beat down and forced back into its Constitutional corral.
A popular (and must I mention bloody?) uprising.
If voters follow your advice and throw up their hands, the latter is inevitable. Is that what you really want, M. Basil?
I think you make a compelling case there, Tim. Though I am quite sympathetic (empathetic, even) to Basil's disdain for both parties and what I read as a certain black-pilled sense of futility in participating in a rigged-game, lesser-of-two-evils, Gozer-esque "Choose your destroyer" dilemma.
I am genuinely curious if our friend Basil has a practical, third alternative to those you presented to get us out of this mess. For example, I respected Bret Weinstein for at least proposing his Dark Horse, Unity ticket, so I am all ears for novel solutions--not so much for any proposal that basically advises those of us who enjoy luxuries like free thought just to pack our bags and wait for the next train to the gulag.
OK, regarding Tim's stupid anti-vax link, I suggest that everyone listen to This Week in Virology (at microbe.tv/twiv), watch Vincent Racaniello's Columbia University virology lectures and his live stream at his youtube channel.
Anti-vaxxers are stupid people and stupid people are THE problem in this country as a democracy demands an enlightened electorate and that we have so many ill informed and openly conspiracy theory informed people has made this mess. I think that it's more the nature of people, but if enough Americans actually educated themselves, then we could dig our way out fo this mess.
I am 1) extremely PRO-vaccine, 2) extremely PRO-science, and, most importantly of all possible worlds, 3) extremely ANTI-public-mandate-including-and-especially-those-that-involve-the-bodily-integrity-of-the-individual.
OK, I'll bite. You stated that people should vote GOP to fight the Nazi Democrats ("The Nazi Next Door" opinion piece) who are pro-vaccine and mask mandates. So, you think that the party who politicized the pandemic and ultimately is responsible for many of those >850,000 American deaths from Covid-19 is a better choice than the party that didn't and tried to enact certain mandates to reduce those deaths?
The fact is that zero public official, Democrat or Republican, had any understanding of the facts as discussed on TWiV and the myriad research papers that they discussed and so we ended up with an incoherent mess due primarily to the GOP and their anti-science and politization of the pandemic.
As supported by the information presented on TWiV, mandates are unnecessary because we have vaccines that work, so we need to move on. This is based on solid, objective information that the GOP has never accepted, they argued only for "freedom" and "liberty", while the Democrats erred on the side of overzealous safety. The GOP has not listened to any science by choice and fucked up the system such that so many Americans don't either.
LOL! The GOP is actively suppressing the vote. The GOP is openly anti-fact, as in their politicization of Covid-19 proves. The GOP actively suppresses local authorities to act, such as in making mask mandates or solar panel installations illegal at the state level.
Great conspiracy site. Anyone who questions the vaccines' efficacy and safety are stupid people, period. People like that are THE problem in this country, stupid, anti-intellectuals. A democracy requires an enlightened electorate, not idiots.
Thank you, Jeffery; this post reminded me I wanted to write an article called "Shitlib Mad Libs," where you fill in the blanks with vapid buzzwords (definitions updated daily!) like "anti-vaxxer" and "conspiracy theory" (prior to your edits), while blithely shilling for lawsuit-loss-leader Pfizer and the Shitlibs' beloved Trump's "Operation: Warp Speed." Of course, they will all start with "LOL!" rivaling even "Actually..." as the hallmark of a true sophisticate.
The primary is what will end Liz Cheney's political career. The polling in Wyoming shows 20% of Republicans would back her...in a state that is 70% Republican.
If she were to run as an independent, combining that 20% along with every independent and democrat vote, the best she could possibly do is get 44% of the vote. Of course, she could retain power if there were enough moronic virtue voters out there though I doubt it given the political climate in Wyoming.
It's January, and the primary is in August. In that window of time, there is no candidate in the world who cannot be defeated by the Establishment spin machine in concert with low-information voters.
Why thank you, Timothy. And wonderful to see you here again! It seems like ages--I, too, have been away--but I always appreciate the kind words and support, and I look forward to reading more of your insightful commentary (and hopefully finally updating my own Substack again finally haha)
uni...i don't know, but McCarthy went south thru the Media hounds. As things turned out, once we could see the Soviets files, McCarthy was right on the money, so says the recent books on the subject.
Janine...not sure here, since the Dem party has been in control at the start of most US wars. but Lizzy could be a Dem, but she is going south, no leader what-so-ever. thanks
Uh huh--god the Jedi mind tricks of leftists--don't vote for either of them! It's just an operative trying to suppress conservatives and libertarians from voting against the totalitarian ambitions of the democrat left and their puppet masters like Soros. Vote for =whoever= will staunch the flow of totalitarian socialist dictatorship, even that f'ing bitch Liz Cheney if your alternative was AOC.
The "we are empire now" instigators at the root of this sh*t are simply never going to just fold up tents and admit, red-faced, "we goofed!" We must face it. These are the *actual* killers of democracy, bit by bit, going on for two decades now, and they play the game very, very well.
Question is, what do we think they're capable of -- and how do we really prepare, beyond just talking about? The Jan 6 participants certainly found out how *not* to ask for "a redress of grievances" in the 2020s.
Why "eventually"? These ass hats just asserted unlimited power, independent and irrespective of the Constitution. That means that they recognize zero legal constraints on their power - they have declared it to be absolute. How long do you think the "corrupts absolutely" part takes? I would guess it follows almost immediately.
Agreed about their chutzpah and sociopathy. They're certainly there mentally now, and have been for a long time. My point is simply that they still need to apply more creativity to justify actual "gulags" and "firing squads" without waking people up.
They have already started with classifying points of view they deem threatening to their power as subversive and anti-American. This give them justification. They also created a Domestic Terrorism Task Force as an enforcement arm! And if they deem you a Domestic Terrorist will they ship you to Gitmo?
For me, it does not take much of a stretch of imagination to see where this could end...
Of course, gulags and firing squads (like, "God and guns") is a bit of hyperbole. But the nonchalant and self-satisfied manner in which the billionaire said "nobody cares about the Uyghurs, okay," sort of gives me a cold chill.
2.3 million Americans are in cages. That's higher by rate, and numerically, then any regime in history, including Stalin.
Most of them are poor, POCs or both. The conditions in these prisons are utterly brutal. More men are raped in America than women. That's applauded too. Shower jokes are perfectly acceptable discourse.
Just a quibble about the "rate" there. Our "rate" of imprisonment is artificially inflated by our squeamishness wrt just flat-out murdering political opponents. Thus far.
Give the Dems their head and that imprisonment rate will come down. Though our "imprisoned or buried" rate will probably stay pretty high.
The real sociopathy and psychopathy concentrates at the top -- but especially, out of sight. Only the congressional long-termers are potentially such.
In terms of maintaining loyal constituencies, the members of The Squad, and The Squad as a group, are powerful. Are they sociopaths? Same with Trump. He is still powerful. He is certainly a narcissist, but is he a sociopath? I'd argue none of them are.
Hillary, Bill, Biden, McConnell, Schumer, Pelosi, etc., on the other hand, long ago joined the true Big Club. It works just as Larry Summers warned Elizabeth Warren, about making the necessary Faustian (i.e. sociopathic) bargain.
Agreed. That's why we need to be extremely creative and careful with what we do as much as we can.
Jan 6 was a trap. This was obvious from the weirdly specific and wordy assertions of "insurrection" given out *that day*, well before it was possible to have contemplated enough evidence -- much less gathered it -- to characterize it as anything but a spontaneous riot. That was a tip-off for me.
A parallel thing happened in the discourse on 9/11. (I say that while still recognizing that these were far more serious events, to put it mildly.)
Ironically when I first saw the news when Jan 6th was going on, I said "Damn idiots, you've shot yourselves in the foot and are playing right into left's talking points."
One of the biggest problems with media (which as we know is now fully owned by the totalitarian/Leninist "Left") is that its second-millenium, daily-cycle, story-based format is wholly unsuited today to educating the public about the nature of the world, as its MO is making the specific general. So, one's POV, if not agenda, always drives which specifics become "representative" of the world. Showcase the Right's idiots, ignore the Left's idiots, and ... voila!
Yet with today's computing, networking, and big data, it is totally possible to make a far more representative map of the world, and learn how to use it ... if TPTB would permit it.
Aye, the media runs based on ratings and to further their own interests, they bend the truth, pull facts out of thin air and more and more frequently, outright lie. To keep the ratings high, they beat the same drum all the time...and people wonder why politicization has increased...
By Jove, you've done it! Well played haha that is indeed the quote. I think I actually came across it secondhand, I must confess, so it's great to see where it actually originated.
As I am fond of pointing out, when Democrats and the American "mainstream" media (but I repeat myself) say "democracy" , they do not mean rule by the δῆμος, they mean rule by Democrats.
They don’t even mean that, shitty as it would be — they mean that literally the only legitimate government is a Democratic one, that’s why President Dumbfuck was going on about how 2022 elections won’t be legitimate (if they lose of course).
To your point about the increasing warnings from Democrats about "22 and '24, they were knocked for a loop by the minor uprising concerning Democrat malfeasance in '20, decided to adopt the charges as a tactic, and are laying the groundwork to cancel certain elections.
'22 and '24 BETTER be Republican landslides, or we're in for a Dem "stealth" coup.
Which right now looks bad, since it looks like the replacement is a fascist technocracy, but could be good: we could go back to being a constitutional republic, instead of a democracy.
The Voting "correctly" bill would further nationalize elections and end the last vestiges of federalism, denuding States of ANY differentiation, and making them nothing more than administrative districts.
On the other hand, here's what Mr. McConnell SHOULD have told Bret Baier that Republicans are FOR, refuting the absurd rhetoric of our POTUS:
1) Rescind the 17th Amendment which democratized Senator selection, took the "re" out of "republic," and gave us a stealth UNI-cameral legislature (yes, we do still have a "double-vote" hurdle/check).
2) Take the 10th Amendment seriously, finally.
3) Stop abusing the Commerce Clause.
Look, I smoke good shit, but these are NOT pipe dreams. They are attainable by a free and determined People, now that an un-capturable (even if un-aware) outsider has exposed the Party establishments (neolib AND neocon Statists alike). The Republican party is slowly changing, and starting to listen to its Classical Liberal, but historically quiet, base.
Meanwhile, the Democrats are doubling down on their Authoritarian Socialism (what a nice term for Fascism/Communism).
Well, I think your hopes, re: the Republicans, are a bit optimistic...but who cares? The Dems HAVE to pay for their frightening overreach, and if the Repubs show themselves to be the avaricious amoral cowards they have been in the past, well...that will be a problem for another day, eh?
It's as Mencken said of capital punishment:
"Some would argue that the death penalty does not deter others from similar crime. Well what of it? At least the first is well disposed of."
You may be right about the Republican Party, and you certainly have much more historical evidence on your side, than I have on mine (one could say I bitter-cling my hopes; they will be the last to die, as they say), but let me add two comments:
1) That I am a "lesser-of-two-evils" voter should be enough, I think, to explain my voting record (Reagan, Reagan, Bush, Bush, Dole, Bush, Bush, McCain, Romney, Trump, Trump). I apologize for nauseating my fellow Classical Liberals in this most wonderful of all forums here (as only one of those candidates even came close to qualifying, and he had the audacity to name Mr. "Voo-doo Economics" as VP), but at least I hope (there's that word again) those that have come to know me a bit with my over-posting would understand how much my nose hurts from holding it in the voting booth over the decades, and that I would vote (and would have voted) Democrat in a freedom-loving heartbeat IF.... And,
2) As I have posted elsewhere, would that Henry Louis Mencken be alive to Substack today. (Shade NOT thrown to others, including, of course, our host, who I consider to be today's pre-eminent Classical Liberal, uniting the lost strands from both sides of the political axis that have been torn asunder for 2 (two) centuries by Statist double-speak, democrats, and Democrats.)
Let’s call it what it is - America has become a police state with political prisoners. There are no consequences for government misconduct/overreach - say anything and do anything and get away with it.
Adam Schiff is a classic example of how untouchable our politicians have become - he pushed a Russia-gate narrative that never existed - now he’s at the front of the line again.
"Adam Schiff is a classic example of how untouchable our politicians have become - he pushed a Russia-gate narrative that never existed - now he’s at the front of the line again."
Exactly. Just like the neocons who pushed and ran the Iraq War, and now beat the war drums for provoking Russia re Ukraine (and, perpetually, a dozen other things).
And, for God's sake -- Henry Effing Kissinger is Hillary's pal!
Colbert used to have great commentary on Iraq. These days he would ride the bomb over Russia like in Dr. Strangelove. Incredible how they turned supposed liberals into warmongers.
Well said. Always up for a Kubrick ref, and I felt it in my bones when Jimmy Dore lamented, "I cannot think of a bigger letdown in my life than Stephen Colbert." Haha
You and me. Would that I knew then what I know now. Perhaps we represent the best change of all: my sense is that not only are we not alone, but that our numbers are growing. The peeps seem to be waking up from a woke nightmare, albeit at sloth-like speed (hey, 100+ years of creeping, and creepy, Statism can't disappear without a hell of a long struggle).
Will the Republican Party purge its neocon warmongers? Will the Democrats be denied their dream police State enforcing wealth-destroying "equity"?
I say they will, even if not on my watch.
And I've thought for decades that things would have to get worse for enough peeps to wake up and firmly demand their Constitutionally-affirmed birthright of freedom from an over-bearing, wealth-destroying State.
Maybe I was right, and the "quickening" has begun.
Neo-libs, NOT classical liberals. Classical Liberals know, and have ALWAYS known, the true definition of liberty. (Hint: just like rights, only INDIVIDUALS should have it/them.)
They adopted the term 'liberal' much as they adopted the term 'progressive'. They are neither liberal nor progressive, instead being regressive, statist authoritarians.
His very first week, as I recall, was fearless. Now, (and it's a massive understatement to say) ... not so much. I'd love to get my hands on recordings -- I doubt they're published.
Assuming he can write without staffers or a ghost writer. That makes it even better, less rot for the population to deal with. Leave Schiff in jail with a muzzle on.
And look at what we did in the 90s under Clinton. IT IS A UNIPARTY. That's why they hated Trump so much, because he was not part of it. Sure, he is a hatable guy, and a dumbass (look how he let them play him on Russia-collusion narrative), but he got the joke that most Americans (or at least a great many) are sick of global wars, constant special interest capture of the Uniparty, constant massive military budgets, etc, etc.
Trump was our only hope, no one else seems to fight the neo-cons. I believe he could've begun to kick some ass if he'd had that second term and didn't have to worry about getting elected. At least we would've gone four more years w/out a damn war. And we'd still have cheap oil and I'm certain he wouldn't have let the supply chain get that way.
Sadly, there are too few Republicans in congress whom have spines to fight against this garbage, and almost none of them have new ideas, whether economic proposals, foreign policy or energy which could both lead to actual change and lead to party growth by absorbing those whom abandoned the dems because they have gone too far.
Absolutely agreed. One might look first at General Clark's "We're going to take out seven countries in five years", which was first told to him by neocon Paul Wolfowitz in 1991 (although not stated openly by Clark until 2007).
It's not just the ones always in the headlines. The moron whom spoke of Guam tipping over and capsizing a decade ago is still in congress. Apparently he failed preschool geography, you know, when you make mounds of mud in a puddle and thereby create islands.
People like this are put into place by TPTB as our election "choices" because they can be more easily captured when in Congress. A few of them, like this one, don't know they need to keep their mouths shut while doing their masters' bidding.
I know there are a number of contenders to be the dumbest person in Congress, but I think he wins and has remained the winner for the past eleven years.
Don't forget that he is elected. The idiots that vote for him, term after term, decade after decade, should also be held to account. Kick California out of the U.S.!
Unfortunately they hate Trump enough to disregard any illegalities the government engages in.. They simply look at it as Trump and his followers are getting their just desserts.
Anarcho-tyranny. A summer of destructive riots with material support from the political and media establishment. Meanwhile disgruntled parents at school board meetings are put onto terrorist watch lists.
"If you are authoritarian, you have to have a system supporting you. You cannot just be an authoritarian by yourself. But certainly, in the United States, with today’s condition, you can easily have an authoritarian."
"In many ways, you’re already in the authoritarian state," he said. "You just don’t know it."
"Many things happening today in U.S. can be compared to Cultural Revolution in China. Like people trying to be unified in a certain political correctness. That is very dangerous."
Oh, the Russia-gate *narrative* existed alright. We were subjected to four plus years of it. But that's all it was, a narrative, like a novel or a screenplay is a narrative, but with real-world consequences because too many dupes believed it was true, even after Trump essentially proved he wasn't a Russian asset by standing in the way of Nord Stream 2 and sending actual military aid to Ukraine.
This is all being done to thwart another Trump presidency. The committee’s goal is to scare the hell out of anyone who wants to support Trump’s candidacy. By attacking and intimidating private citizens who were either there on 1/6 or even contemplated or posted about the need to support it, they are saying, “See? This is what we’ll do to you if you stand up for Trump.”
I know someone who was not in DC on 1/6, but posted about it in a favorable way on Facebook. The FBI paid him a visit and questioned him about his beliefs. It’s crazy that this could happen in America.
Trump is the dam not the river. This isn't so much (imo) about Trump as it is about the elites being emboldened to exercise their innate tyrannical natures.
It is about Trump as he has things that most others do not. He has such a fortune that threats to withhold donations to his fundraisers fall on deaf ears, and attempts to bribe him would be dismissed angary as insultingly low. They lack the leverage with Trump that they do with most others as a result, although he is not completely beyond their reach.
Edit: Not completely beyond their reach as in his banning from social media...however he has the resources to create his own social media company, hence why he is hated so.
I agree with you but what interests me is that Trump is not particularly ideological. So it must be his independence that threatens them, which tells me that they are motivated by an agenda to which he would present an obstacle. The want "their" people, those who will carry out whatever their plan is. Given their methodology, it seems immanently wise to obstruct their agenda by any means possible. If that means Trump, then yes let it be Trump.
Ironically, Trump moved the GOP into more of a center position involving Gay Rights, Trade and international relations....yet all the legacy press does is claim the right wing is moving further and further right.
Well based on the comments of George Soros over the years, he has a nonsensical plan, typical of a megalomaniac, that purports that ‘world peace’ can be achieved by bringing down the USA ‘a few notches’ and spreading the wealth to third-world countries—all managed by elites like the Soros family. Perhaps some Democrats bought into that idea, but the Soros Foundation alone funded over 750 Democrats in the last ten years who are furthering his agenda whether they agree with it or not. That includes the DAs allowing and encouraging massive crime waves in big cities. It was Soros’s father who had a dream of ‘one world’. Democrats may think they are taking advantage of Soros by accepting his campaign funding, and Soros may think he’s fooled Democrats into furthering his destructive and unrealistic (and possible criminal) agenda. Either way, all Americans, and the world even, will suffer if we continue on this path.
But things are nowhere near static. Soros has been exposed. His DAs face certain recall, and I don't think their type will be elected/installed as easily. The young, foolish, deluded woke rioters are maturing, and the danger their pseudo-anarchy poses to Western Civilization is now in the minds of millions of shocked witnesses. The Party establishments better respond appropriately to our demands, or we will unleash another un-capturable DJT/DJT-like destroyer on them. It sounds like a comic-book narrative, but it HAPPENED, and it scared the shit out of the Statists, overt and covert, Democrat and Republican alike.
Those deplorable "Great Resetters," those race-baiting, CRT 1619ers, those Man-is-a-parasite enviro-freaks, those public school apparachiks and their real-parasite unions, those single-payer Communists, those Harrison Bergeron equity outcomers who want spritual beings to become hive insects, hooked up to State teat....I'd go on, but you all can easily add your own descriptions of those who deny the supremacy of the Human individual and his ultimate agency in improving his own lot, unencumbered by guilt: they are exposed with more Glenn Greenwalds every day.
The point is, exposure is finally killing them, slowly, but maybe slowly is better, and will lead to a more lasting renaissance, before we are called on to awake and beat them down once again.
I'd love to see him win over 55% of the popular vote in 2024, if for nothing else than to see them all melt down as they could not spin their way out of that. Even Psaki would be torn apart by centrifugal forces before she could spin that fast.
It would be an extraordinary thing if the GOP would find a message that the majority of Americans would support.
The GOP has not won the popular vote in 17 years and has one of the last 8 elections.
Most of our problems as a republic are due to the GOP trying to desperately wring power out of a declining demographic. I sincerely would like to see the end of that. What would the GOP have to change to be a Big Tent party again, like in the days of Reagan?
I would love it and I have spent over a year trying to get such messages or rather proposals out (which I now have on here), as new ideas are needed and not simply 'the opposite of the dems.' I hate mentioning my own work on Glenn's page, even multi-layer discussions as I pay to read the stories he breaks, not pay to advertise.
Having watched the extensive videos of Ray Epps giving speeches and inciting people to enter the Capitol for 2 days (1/5 and 1/6), as well as directing his 4 other accomplices to remove all the temporary fencing, I'm convinced that it could be reasonable argued that there would have been no trespassing/rioting without his involvement. The 1/6 Committee issued a terse "we've talked to Epps and he's committed no crimes". Clearly, if anybody committed seditious conspiracy it was him.
So, based on the blow-off from the Committee, I'm assuming at this point that Epps was working on behalf of the feds. Let's call it what it really was, a "fedsurrection".
I agree about Epps. He is close to Stewart Rhodes, the President of the Oath Keepers, who was just arrested for sedition. I believe Epps was head of the AZ chapter of Oath Keepers. Rhodes was atop a media tower with a bull horn telling people to go into the Capitol and Epps was at the base of the tower directing people. I saw the pictures in Revolver News' story about 1/6. Why was Epps removed from the FBI wanted list and why wasn't he arrested with Rhodes and others??
I have my doubts also about all the Trumpers we see who now "regret" their beliefs/actions and "spill their guts" to "journalists". Who are they, really? (At the same time, one can always find *someone* who will change their minds. It's how media works: Cherry-pick anecdotes/specific cases to give the illusion of representativeness.)
Don't be surprised that if that happens, Epps becomes Eppstein, having everything that can go wrong involving holding him for such testimony and having him mysteriously die during the process.
Right but they also said Clay Shaw never worked for the government, at trial.
Richard Helms, former Director of the CIA, then later testified, under oath, that Shaw had been a part-time contact of the Domestic Contact Service (DCS) of the CIA, where Shaw volunteered information from his travels abroad, mostly to Latin America
First it was Antifa that actually was the 1/6 protestors. When people realized that a bunch of 50 year old White guys are probably not members of Anita, it was a "walk in the park."
When it turned out that 140 police officers were injured, now you claim that it was all Ray Epps.
Just admit that those who tried to overturn the election results were a bunch of assholes and wrong and move on.
Why can't you admit that the people that won the election are a bunch of 60+ year old assholes that have zero regard for your bias towards them?
The 1/6 protestors were protesting a bogus candidate, a puppet. Our President, THE President of the United States of America is a fucking puppet.
Now run along and congratulate the racists posing as anti racists, the fascists posing as anti fascists and the totalitarians posing as democrats.
Quit being so addled.
Once you wake up, you'll see 1. why those people were protesting 2. why they were no threat to "democracy" and 3. why (as shown in the article as an example) the people they were protesting are the actual threats to democracy.
That makes him no less of a senile, unintelligent puppet who can't be bothered to do more than meander through a press conference while committing so many gaffes that his staff had to send diplomats around the world and his media personnel to Fox News of all places to try to stauch the flow of blood.
Biden won because of big tech and legacy press censorship. It was a 'free but not fair' election regarding that interference. The truly sad thing is that you still have so many fussing over Russia spending $100,000.00 on Facebook...which is like a drop of water in an Olympic swimming pool in comparison.
Well, yes, he "won" at this point, because certainly we aren't going to remove him and install DJT.
And getting over it will be a 2 (two) part process that I like to call '22 and '24. I don't think your side is going to get away with it again. Just my opine, o' course.
No serious person thinks that 7M fake votes were manufactured for Biden. Were you one of this proclaiming that we would never have another election again if Biden was allowed to be installed as President?
Saw that show “The Mighty Ira” and Ira’s interview with Joe Rogan on free speech. He was a principled guy and surely would have sought to protect the citizens who’s right are being violated. ACLU is infested with the woke.
Gotta give credit to ol' Chomsky on this front, too. Along with his classic "Goebbels was in favor of speech that he liked..." admonition, I always respected his take as expressed below:
"Among people who have learned something from the 18th century (say, Voltaire) it is a truism, hardly deserving discussion, that the defense of the right of free expression is not restricted to ideas one approves of, and that it is precisely in the case of ideas found most offensive that these rights must be most vigorously defended. Advocacy of the right to express ideas that are generally approved is, quite obviously, a matter of no significance. All of this is well-understood in the United States..."
If only that last part was as true today as it was during the Faurisson Affair.
Imagine having to give someone credit for defending free speech. All of this is no longer well-understood in the United States. It's mind-boggling how easily liberals turned into authoritarians (i.e., "progressives") with respect to free speech. Glasser is a dinosaur now, and the same goes for Chomsky.
Free speech has almost never been popular in the United States. Censorship has been far more common and frequently people have been jailed for expressing unpopular opinions.
The ACLU has been taken over by regressive left activists who believe that speech is violence because the white male patriarchy is oppressing vulnerable people. They called for the burning of Abigail Shrier's book "Irreversible Damage The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters" because it is "transphobic" to oppose transition hormones and surgery for minors who are too young to understand what is happening to them. The regressive left is basically a religious movement with Trump viewed as a white male patriarchal devil. If Trump was not there, it would be someone else.
Correct...and ironically in other areas they have done us a favor....I mean the 'Lincoln Project' pedophiles both detached from the GOP and exposed for the deranged perverts that they are.
Regarding the ACLU, they sank a ship that was taking on water as it had been going down for some time.
The ACLU called for that? That is not how it went. Do you believe that the ACLU formally took a position that Abigail's book should be burned? Because if you do, you are confused on the facts.
The truth is bad enough. One staffer at the ACLU called for it to be pulled from the shelves and a Prof at UC Berkeley called for the book to be burned.
This is what the WSJ reported, and I believe them, not you.
"You read that right: Some in today’s ACLU favor book banning. "
Were you just being hyperbolic or did actually believe what you posted?
"It is nothing short of horrifying, but sadly also completely unsurprising, to see an ACLU lawyer proclaim his devotion to “stopping the circulation of [a] book” because he regards its ideas as wrong and dangerous. There are, always have been, and always will be people who want to stop books from being circulated: by banning them, burning them, pressuring publishing houses to rescind publishing contracts or demanding corporations refuse to sell them. But why would someone with such censorious attitudes, with a goal of suppressing ideas with which they disagree, choose to go to work for the ACLU of all places?"
And why would the ACLU hire someone who does not believe in free speech and the first amendment?
My understanding is that he religious belief that certain speech is "violence" is taking over many left-leaning institutions including the ACLU.
It's an ACLU lawyer, not the ACLU. I work for a tech company, but if I say something it doesn't mean I represent them.
It is definitely problematic that they would hire such a censorious person and worse that they would not be disciplined afterwards, but it's not the official statement of the ACLU.
What are your sources for information about the world? The WSJ has its obvious pro-free trade and pro-capitalist bias but is generally accurate on the facts of an issue and far less full of propaganda laden buzz words than most MSM publications.
The WSJ is behind a paywall, and as such I could care less about what they write about. Also, the ACLU has taken the official position that biological males who are bigger and stronger than real females should be allowed to easily defeat real females in athletic events if they transition first. This is effectively the end of women being able to win athletic events. There is more than just their failure to fire one lawyer who has used their platform to call for the burning a book. The "speech is violence" and "trans women are women" crowd has taken over the ACLU and as such people to care about women's rights and free speech should not give them money.
If you'll forgive the interjectory inquisition, just curious about the works cited request: didn't Alicia link you to a source already in her previous post.. and it was the same Substack you are currently posting on?
It happened well before Trump. I believe it was in the 80's that they refused to help pro-Lifers who were standing on public sidewalks protesting. I remember it, just can't remember the dates. They peaked and since then have declined to the farcical organization of today.
I know a couple of friends that came very close to going to DC to protest what they thought was a very suspicious election. Mostly, they were just working class and huge Trump supporters who previously didn't really follow politics. They loved what he did for the country, and felt their lives were much improved during his term. They both felt he really cared about the common man. They lived quite far from DC and very luckily were not able to get hotel reservations to stay over so the plans fell apart. I could see them getting swept up in the crowd of folks that streamed into the capital where it appeared the capitol police were holding the doors open for them. They were both the type that would have excitedly posted selfies on Facebook. They might be in jail right now! When I read a story like this my heart breaks because many of these people just committed a crime of being Trump supporters, and had no bad intentions and didn't do anything violent. It also infuriates me and makes me ask why no one in authority has the courage it seems to question the treatment of these folks and the unbelievable abuses of power such as what is described in this article. It almost makes me want to give up on being informed and stop paying attention because it is all too painful to watch what is happening to our once just system.
If Trump or DeSantis wins in '24, let us hope the vast majority of them will be pardoned, and the crooked judges, FBI officials, and that joke of a mayor will be subpoenaed and prosecuted. Particularly the thug cop who shot Ashli Babbitt (who was trying to stop the violence, according to the latest reports and videos).
The only way to stop similar investigations is for Republicans to conduct some investigations using the newly expanded powers against Democrats. As soon as Democrats start to suffer, there will be all sorts of court rulings limiting the power of Congressional subpoenas. To start out, investigate the complicity of local and state governments in Antifa/BLM riots. Bank records that expose how the riots were funded, and who paid for bail, will be quite interesting. Orders for police to stand down and allow businesses to be destroyed should be quite embarrassing for Democrats. Let's see how far we can get before the courts rediscover the limits of Congressional investigations and subpoenas.
I see rather big differences between the sides. Republicans support the Constitution and the rule of law. Democrats support the rule of "experts," censorship, and The Science (TM), which changes to whatever suits their fancy at the moment. One might argue that Republicans lack the courage of their convictions, but we'll have to do the experiment to see. To say Trump is just like Biden is ludicrous. Trump is relatively competent. Biden has the manure touch. Everything Biden touches turns to manure. However, things are ever so much better without rude tweets, right?
The lack of consequences for lying to the FISA court on the Carter Page warrant applications means that the Patriot Act needs at least major revisions, if not repeal.
This is the problem with politicians writing laws which can be interpreted broadly, as they invite abuse. One needs to write laws as narrowly as possible to avoid such abuse.
A lot has changed in 20 years, M. Phisto. For one, there are now millions of Republicans who have righteous hatred for the neo-cons in our midst. History will clearly (to me, anyway) not hold the Bushes, Cheneys, McCains, etc. in high regard. I hardly think we will allow the egregiously wrong Patriot Act to continue for long, or allow another similar mis-creant.
Do you believe in redemption? Will you allow us to learn from our errors, especially the most egregious.
The danger here is similar to babies and bathwater. I see the Republicans as the babies, now 20 years the wiser, as babies do if allowed.
The Democrats? They can't be shown the drain fast enough.
Best formulation I’ve seen yet is the Uniparty and everyone else. Who is the Uniparty? Track whomever has supported the shredding of national values, whether that’s the Patriot Act or the 1/6 Commission.
Sorry, but I disagree that Republicans support the Constitution and the rule of law. Simply go read Glenn's body of work for abundant evidence to the contrary. Do I agree that, currently, Ds on the whole are worse than Rs? Yes. But why do we have to continue to support choosing between only 2 parties? Where does the Constitution say that? Why are we comparing Trump to Biden? Trump is gone and good riddance. Now let's get rid of Biden and all the other old, career politicians.
I'm afraid I need more specific examples of Republican maelfeasance to answer your argument, or even accept it as rational. Who censors the news and social media? Who spent 4 years trying to remove a duly elected president based entirely in lies and inadmissible evidence? Please make your case.
As I remember it, Congress didn't declare war on North Korea or Vietnam either. I think both parties are equal offenders on that particular item. Congress did vote to fund all of those wars, so they did consent, if not formally.
The examples are endless. Go research them yourself if you don't believe me. If you prefer to simply believe "that Republicans support the Constitution and the rule of law" feel free.
Here's the difference right now. Republicans don't believe that the Constitution is prima facie invalid because it is the product of western civilization. Democrats do. Or at least they kowtow to the idiots within their midst that believe such garbage.
All the members of the January 6 Select Committee were appointed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi. This includes the two RINOs on the committee, Cheney and Kinzinger. When the committee was first formed, Pelosi rejected two of the Minority Leader's picks, including the ranking member. Minority Leader McCarthy then withdrew all his picks.
Which makes the committee's "work" all the more interesting, since the select committee is not constituted according to the resolution of the House of Representatives which created it: it was supposed to have 6 Democrats and 5 Republicans, the latter chosen by the minority leadership. I am actually surprised that no one has responded to a subpoena from the committee by mounting a court challenge to its legitimacy on the basis that the body issuing it has no authority, since, not being constituted according to a resolution of the House, it lacks Congressional subpoena power.
Of course, they couldn't let any pro-Trump GOP (or anti-security-state) members on it, since they'd demand to interview Ray Epps in public and present video of his activities, demand FBI records and things like that which wouldn't support the "narrative".
I have wondered the same thing, but I haven't been able to find out from the coverage whether the committee's illegitimacy has been argued, and if it has whether the courts have rejected it.
This is a fascinating mirror image to the current practice of leaving the legislating in large part to the executive. Both branches seem to believe that, because their own designated duties come attached with restrictions and enumerated powers, they’re free from limits when moonlighting in each other’s role.
Good comment. Legislators leave the details of law-making to the unelected minions of the executive branch to avoid being held accountable by the voters. This practice is one way the so-called administrative state wields power. And while the practice is dysfunctional, it's understandable. When the legislative takes on the police powers of the executive there can only be one reason : smash-mouth politics.
This is far worse than I had feared. I knew that the 1/6 committee was engaging in questionable legal practices, but to the extent they are amassing power is alarming on multiple levels.
This may sound conspiratorial--and I half think it is a conspiracy theory--but this unchecked power and abuse of it, along with Ray Epps and the unidentified pipe bomber and the second impeachment of Trump over 'creating a riot' against the backdrop of pardoning Assange and Snowden seems like one giant racket. I say this as someone whom previously thought Snowden should be tried for treason (though not Assange as he simply distributed information).
Something needs to be done, but what? The legacy press will do all they can to support the committee while the tech titans will censor stories critical of it. That leaves you, Mr Greenwald with just Substack and Fox News as outlets and the rest of us here have no real voice to try to inform the world. What to do? I cannot answer that and I doubt you can either, but something needs to be attempted, especially with the DNC and legacy press already planting seeds of doubt of the validity of the mid-term elections in which they are expected to loose power.
Ai Weiwei was right, and if the Rasmussen poll is correct, not only is the DNC on the route to authoritarianism , but a significant number of democrat voters:
Someone needs to see that this gets in front of SCOTUS as expeditiously as possible. I have little doubt that the Constitutional separation of powers restrictions would be confirmed there. If the Congress and the 1/6 committee then chose to disregard the authority of the Supreme Court, we would at least know precisely where we stand, and the next necessary steps, no matter how unpleasant, would become obvious. Even that cowardly fraud Claire Wolfe might need to concede that the "time" had come. I do have more questions, however. Where the FUCK are the Republicans in Congress? Why aren't they denouncing this blatantly unconstitutional arrogation of power so loudly as to make the hills ring? Where, for that matter, are all of our so-called Consitution-supporting columnists other than Glenn? Jon Turley, for example? I think this may the most serious Constitutional crisis of my lifetime, and I'm far from young. It certainly makes Watergate look like a kindergarden game.
"Someone needs to see that this gets in front of SCOTUS as expeditiously as possible."
The problem is that takes months...and while I have faith that the court would strike the 1/6 committee down, that still means months more of ever increasing power and damage on their part.
"Where the FUCK are the Republicans in Congress?"
Either too afraid of the urban elites and press...or in bed with them.
SCOTUS just ruled against Trump. From Newsmax: "The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected former President Donald Trump's request to block the release of White House records sought by the Democrat-led congressional panel investigating last year's deadly attack on the Capitol by protesters seeking to nullify the presidential election's results.
The decision means the documents, held by a federal agency that stores government and historical records, can be disclosed even as litigation over the matter continues in lower courts."
I'd run for congress if I had money and recognition, as I proposed solutions (which I write about), yet I have neither. I am willing to bet dozens if not hundreds of people subscribing to Greenwald would do the same. The problem is we have no money and recognition, and having Greenwald run for congress would be detrimental, as he provides everyone a far greater service through exposing this rot than he would in elected office.
AOC had no recognition until she won her primary. But she had "rebel" PAC organizations (e.g. Brand New Congress, others I don't recall the names of) who provided funding and other resources. Without debating the merits or transparency of particular "grass-roots supporting" PACs here, my point is there are sources to investigate if you're interested.
As far as upping our game, however, I am afraid that's not likely going to win the war. You wouldn't make it to the finish line and in Congress without making soul-killing Faustian deals. We will need to be more creative.
AOC ran on what the urban elite stand for, so it's no wonder someone with deep pockets came to finance her. The urban elite, however, have no desire to give money to people whom not only go against their way of thinking but whom have counter proposals to those ideas.
Regarding running for congress...that is the problem. Everyone thinks that something needs to be done, but that someone else will end up doing it. People have to be that 'someone else' or else nothing happens. I am aware of the mess of politics, however doing nothing is worse than making a handful of bad deals to do something. After all, Schindler had to bribe the Nazi authorities to save lives, that bribing was a deal with the devil, but would you say it wasn't worth it?
I am in AOC's district, and watched her rise from being a nobody. You know what she did before the primary? *Everything* she possibly could. Joe Crowley was doing nothing (as usual). So I'm confident it went well beyond her supposed policy "match" with (most) urban progressives...in her case, I believe it was purely (1) firebrand personality, and (2) energetic young people she/they recruited to go literally door-to-door. If she wasn't there, then Crowley, as the #4 house member, would have continued to serve the "progressives", that is, the ones *who matter*, just as well for them to suck it up and go along with minimal grumbling.
It's worse than that -- the anti-Iraq War street protests in 2003 were little reported on. At the *Democratic* Party convention of 2004, protesting was relegated to a "free speech zone".
Yeah. Maybe Antifa and those White Nationalists (whatever mountain hideout those tens of deplorables are holing up in these days), not to mention the 1/6ers, are just doing a public service, reminding the People of the value of a little REAL street protesting.
But don't let my sarcasm fool you, I agree with you and M. Iconoclast here.
"This may sound conspiratorial--and I half think it is a conspiracy theory"
Stop apologizing for hypothesizing a conspiracy! ... and whenever justified, developing a theory about it that calls for investigation. Conspiracies are, in part, exactly how the world works. Getting to the bottom of them is exactly how democracy, with a functional free press, is supposed to work. It's why laws like RICO exist. Russia collusion was a conspiracy theory. Watergate was an eventually well-proven conspiracy. You know I could go on...
I once believed that there was an international conspiracy to hide crashed UFOs and alien bodies from the rest of the world...then realized the fallacy of that in how much fame and fortune a whistle blower would attain, and given how many countries are out and out enemies of each other. I am not one whom rashly jumps to conclusions, though I never believed in Russiagate, nor did I believe in birthers, truthers and the Vaccine DNA alteration conspiracy...or for that matter, CRT or the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. They are all garbage.
I follow Carl Sagan's line "Extraordinary Claims require Extraordinary Evidence" and will not believe something is true until such evidence surfaces. It appears to be surfacing, though I'd rather be safe than sorry.
Which of Glenn's assertions about the powers that the 1/6 committee claims for itself would you question? They seem to be well documented, and undisputed by the committee members themselves. The scope and conclusions of his essay beyond those facts consists strictly of deductive logic.
I do not discount anything he has presented, however it would require either the Michigan case to be dismissed due to agents driving the plot rather than following it, or someone to either leak or acquire info from a FOIA showing Epps was working with the feds.
In the latter case though, Epps would end up as Eppstein--having everything that could go wrong go wrong while he was investigated and somehow dying under suspicious circumstances.
Alien UFOs, flat earth, moon landing hoax ... these more far-fetched versions of reality that emerged in recent years are, IMO, are likely IC-instigated black-box efforts *specifically* to defame theorizing about far more plausible conspiracies.
That is a valid point to push aside the 'outlandish' conspiracy theories. While on the subject of conspiracy theories, CRT has all of the hallmarks of an outlandish conspiracy theory. It also has stark parallels with the pseudo-historic narratives used by despots ranging from Nazis, Fascists and Communists to push for 'correction of past traumas'. Looking at three conspiracy theories and CRT, it is hard to believe that any of them have any truth to them.
Take your pick of The Protocol of the Elders of Zion, White Genocide or QAnon. All three begin with a premise of a supposed, but un-provable malevolent entity which exists solely to exploit others. Much like the 'Jewish Elite' for the Elders of Zion, the 'Self-hating Leftist Elite' for White Genocide and the international group of 'Satanic Pedophiles' for QAnon, CRT has the equally foggy 'White Supremacist Establishment'. In all cases, the rationale behind the conspiracy theory is the misreading and misunderstanding of actual history. Also, in all cases, the evidence provided is at best hypothetical, but in most cases, simply amounts to one or two things going the way the conspiracy theorists predict it would, all while ignoring that the majority of the evidence does not favor the conspiracy theory in question. For CRT, the evidence that doesn't favor the conspiracy theory are the achievements of direct immigrants from Africa relative to the 'native' population of African descent, the success of East and South Asians as well as Jews (whom I consider just as 'white' as anyone else of European ancestry, though apparently the 'Woke' crowd, along with neo-nazis, disagree). Also, in all cases, one must devote themselves with a near cult-like fervor to oppose the un-provable malevolent entity or else be considered a part of it or doing it's bidding.
Another aspect of CRT is that it has the same kind of 'trauma' trigger that was used by the Nazis, Fascists and Communists. For CRT, it was the existence of slavery, for the Nazis, it was the idiotically drawn Treaty of Versailles, while for the Italians, it was the Paris Peace conference which did not honor the Treaty of London, while for Red China, it was the century of humiliation. For both the actual Nazis and Fascists as well as Communists, these traumas resulted in the falsification of history, of shoving all events related to these episodes into life every day and into creating a sense of combined fear and possible salvation. With CRT, things like the 1619 project--which was denounced by the foremost historians in both the American Revolution and the Civil War--serves as a prime example of the falsification of history, the press looking at everything through the leans of race every day places it into everyone's daily life, not to mention lying about the number of unarmed people shot by police, and the 'solutions' of 'anti-racism' create the sense of combined fear and salvation.
This is particularly frightening given that unlike QAnon and White Genocide, CRT has made it into academia, primary education, the business community and the press. The Protocols did as well in pre WWII Europe and have caused insurmountable damage that continues to this day, both in that people still believe that rot, and that it is being spread in the Muslim World to justify hatred of Israel. I am not suggesting that CRT will end up causing the deaths of millions, however the hatred being sowed is dangerous on multiple levels, as is the cult-like following. Think what you want of Thomas Sowell (whom I greatly admire), but he seems spot on:
“Ours may become the first civilization destroyed, not by the power of our enemies, but by the ignorance of our teachers and the dangerous nonsense they are teaching our children. In an age of artificial intelligence, they are creating artificial stupidity.”
It doesn't matter what the "conspiracy theory" is. Powerful actors operating in secret contrary to their public pronouncements is not only plausible, it's in fact simply how the world often works, whether through so-called noble lies or sociopathic malfeasance. Dismissing a hypothesis out of hand based on its supposed universally-recognized outlandishness is an error, not just of social intelligence but too often analytically as well.
One can certainly have a gut reaction to what appears to be, or even manifestly is, inferior logic, and have emotional responses to such. But without always performing the explicit due diligence, and, especially, *permanently* laying out the results easily available for other to both learn from and for opponents to respond to, we are regressing. Media organizations hardly help with this at all these days, and too often actively, if not consciously, work against it, for profit motive. As always, one must permit "Cui bono?" -- *especially* of those who construct a story.
One recent example of the wide-scale shift that illustrates our capacity for error is the priest molestation scandal. You would have been hard pressed to find anyone giving that any credence whatsoever in the 1970s or any time prior. Or, prior to the 1990s, the idea that psychiatric problems are, in part, very often caused by physical problems -- their existence was suppressed by those whose livelihoods were threatened. So too the Iraq WMD argument in 2002-03, later soundly debunked. As you know there are many notorious cases in all fields of life, as well as volumes of uncelebrated ones. But that's part of society's evolution.
Just as they build a barrier around the capitol but ignore the southern border...and demand that every other police department is defunded. "Security for me but not to thee" would be a fitting motto for the urban elite.
This is clearly a fishing expedition; they have no evidence of a conspiracy, so they are just using their power to bully private citizens, to justify their own existence and maintain the illusion that they are investigating a real threat.
The people on this committee should themselves be prosecuted for gross abuse of power, and at a minimum, barred from public office.
The fact that Democrats are so blasé about this ridiculous overreach is itself quite frightening. We have a major political party that does not honor or respect the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and will do anything to hold onto power including Soviet style tactics that a generation ago would have been shocking to many Americans.
In the realm of government power, there's nothing you can do to other people without doing it to yourself. Of course, if Democrats -- or Democrats plus Liz Cheney, I guess -- establish that they can form a select committee with unlimited power to obtain the private financial records and communications of anyone, for any reason, without limit, then Jim Jordan will probably have the same power next year. It's comparable to the wisdom of demanding that the Senate eliminate the filibuster. Trying to repress X, the January 6 committee is empowering tomorrow's X. It's suicide wearing the mask of murder.
I understand the temptation to go tit-for-tat, but the buck has to stop somewhere, or we're all going to hell. Having principles does not make one a chump. Better to take the high road before we end up like the Hutus and the Tutsis, rather than after.
If we merely seek revenge and put the screws to whichever side is not in power at the time, where else will it ultimately lead but to our dissolution as a state? The example of the Hutus and the Tutsis is one of the most devastating and tragic in modern history. We human beings are capable of great things and horrific things. Our choice.
If the right and the left view each other as mortal enemies, the country will fail. Violence spreads easily in countries where people demonize one another. We have enough examples from history to know that neighbors will turn on each other overnight if malice is allowed to fester. Human beings are tribal at our core, and tribal instincts can always be exploited by cynical people in power. As we speak, folks on both the right and on the left are heavily armed. In response to white supremacist groups, there are now well-armed Black militias and a pro-Second Amendment Black constituency that includes some very intelligent and influential people. I neither condemn nor support this, I'm simply stating the facts. Antifa is also well armed. Guns are everywhere and they're not going away, they're baked into our culture. So we had better learn to work around them, and create a society where we respect each others' differences, preserve and protect civil liberties to the utmost, and cherish the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. If expressing patriotism and valuing the principles upon which this country was founded is now conflated with right-wing extremism, we have a very serious problem.
This is my opinion. Maybe I'm off my rocker. I don't know what else to say.
It’s too bad we have to wait 9 months until the midterms to finally throw these contemptible people out of power. God knows how much more damage they will inflict, not only on the country, but on individual citizens, in the mean time. I have never seen such a pack of corrupt, lying, power hungry troglodytes in my life, and they can’t be gone soon enough.
Um, are you really suggesting the previous Trump Regime was or the future one will be less corrupt, lying, power-hungry, etc?
I mean, Glenn's article is dead on accurate as is frequently the case, but he has too narrow a focus for my taste. From a previous posting, the purpose of journalism is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. I fail to see how the Trump Regime members are less afflicted than the Bidenistas.
If I understand you correctly, I would say that Glen frequently fields this type of criticism on Twitter, and a couple times in the comments. When it comes to Trump, or conservative politics in general, we have just about every other MSM outlet for that. There are plenty of people scrutinizing every move of Trump, et all. There are very few (uncensored) voices bringing any of this stuff up.
You do have both my issue and Glenn's reply correct. But he's not writing to the Democratically oriented MSM but an arm of the GOP and feeding their - to a considerable extent justified - anger. And he seems to have taken exception to what some of his readers consider inappropriate use of "liberal" while not doing reality checks on comments such as misunderstanding VAERS in concluding the vaccine kills more people than covid.
Glenn's shown considerable personal bravery; I just wish he'd use his forums the way Chomsky did many years ago when he told listeners in Pakistan that the Indian press and government had some legitimate points and proceeded (if I've the order right) to go to India and tell audiences there the Pakistani press and government similarly had some of it right.
All while the democrats keep lamenting "the end of democracy".
Ya jus can't make this shit up
The Elites literally project with their accusations - whatever they claim their enemies are doing . . .THEY are doing.
And the elites are both Democrats and Republicans. Both wings of the Business Party are thoroughly reprehensible. Don't vote for either.
No. Vote Republican to counter the Fascism of the Democrat lay voter.
https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/18/the-nazi-next-door/
Right now, this is the correct answer.
Actually, it's the wrong answer.
Aha! A most clever and cunning reply, guvna, evident immediately from the introductory, push-of-the-glasses-back-on-the-nose "akshully!"
I should have expected no less from the genius Scotland Yard once likened to Nathan Leopold (because of the 200 IQ, of course, not the sociopathy no no perish the thought). Though your riposte was near-perfect in every way--and equally persuasive--I shall offer up the rejoinder of "Actually, it is the right answer," and await with baited breath your next Kasparov-like move on the intellectual chess board. The game is afoot!
Ahh, a virtue voter. Tell me, what good would it do to vote third party when there is zero shot that they will win? Last time you had a mass third party was in 1912 when Wilson won the election because of Teddy Roosevelt's arrogance. Think what you want of Taft, however he would not have segregated the federal government, nor allowed the KKK to air a film in the WH.
I believe that the right answer is to vote to prevent either party from controlling both the legislature and the executive branch. If that requires voting with extreme distaste for either party (at least per my tastes), then it is the only way I can think of to prevent either of two parties that have become equally extremist in their own ways from destroying what legal protections exist.
A vote for a third party is a vote for Democrats. I remember this logic from somewhere…
What's the right answer?
If you ask me, and perhaps you haven't, it has always been and always shall be act on your conscience.
That can be left, right, third party, Bongo the Clown, or not at all.
Sorry that I just tell you this but you are an idiot.
Thx for sharing . Its agreat article
About the only reason things aren't worse is best summed up in the last paragraph of that article:
"This is why Americans cling to their guns. It has nothing to do with hunting. It has nothing to do with self-defense against the common criminal. We cling to our guns so that, when our neighbors show up and say, “We’re going to take you to the camps now, because you’re a danger to society,” we can look back at them and say, “Like hell you will.”"
Ha! That pesky 2nd sure makes lions out of sheep, doesn't it. Here, 234 years later its still working as planned, putting the fear of the People in every Statist's rotten, quaking heart.
The enemy of the rapacious State is the armed Peeps. No other issue comes close to defining this eternal and necessary state of affairs. By default, we are grovelling, powerless slaves without the 2nd. And I do not need to own a gun. All I need is the right, which I claim, even without a Constitution (It sure looks nice, though, framed on my wall. Let's my guests, polite or not, invited or not, peg me with precision.)
I love this. Yes. So true. (Also why our boys know where the flanking positions are.)
A little history about firearms and overreaching government. In 1971 in Corona, Queens, NYC, a small group of 69 homeowners was scheduled to have their homes knocked down to provide a ballfield for a local high school. They were Italian Americans and were represented by Mario Cuomo, a young lawyer trying to make a name for himself, which he did. He was not the reason that the homeowners won, however. They grouped together and sat on their porches with shot guns when the bull dozers approached their homes on the scheduled day for demolition, The NYC police were called in to deal with the uprising but refused to attempt to use force against the homeowners. Needless to say, an agreement to let the homes remain in place was soon reached, and Mario Cuomo, of all people, had cemented a reputation as a defender of common people, especially Italian Americans, in a city of former immigrants and working people.
As long as local policing is not federalized, we are our own masters. As my Russian Grandfather used to say, when they send the Cossacks into your village, it's too late.
If you want to counter fascism, vote neither D nor R. Nothing meaningful will ever again be achieved at the rigged ballot box.
Must I repost?: https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/18/the-nazi-next-door/
When it comes to Fascism, Republicans are pikers by comparison.
So you are down to defending facists against facists huh?
Ideology is blinding you.
Nope. That just results in landslide Democrat (read: Statist) victory.
There are only 2 (two) solutions to (Statist) rigged elections:
Massive, overwhelming, voting for whichever Party is CURRENTLY opposing the insidious and ever-creeping Authoritarian Socialism of the Party CURRENTLY controlling the State. Sometimes over and over again until the over-bearing State is beat down and forced back into its Constitutional corral.
A popular (and must I mention bloody?) uprising.
If voters follow your advice and throw up their hands, the latter is inevitable. Is that what you really want, M. Basil?
I think you make a compelling case there, Tim. Though I am quite sympathetic (empathetic, even) to Basil's disdain for both parties and what I read as a certain black-pilled sense of futility in participating in a rigged-game, lesser-of-two-evils, Gozer-esque "Choose your destroyer" dilemma.
I am genuinely curious if our friend Basil has a practical, third alternative to those you presented to get us out of this mess. For example, I respected Bret Weinstein for at least proposing his Dark Horse, Unity ticket, so I am all ears for novel solutions--not so much for any proposal that basically advises those of us who enjoy luxuries like free thought just to pack our bags and wait for the next train to the gulag.
No, they BOTH run these games on you.
Wake up already.
OK, regarding Tim's stupid anti-vax link, I suggest that everyone listen to This Week in Virology (at microbe.tv/twiv), watch Vincent Racaniello's Columbia University virology lectures and his live stream at his youtube channel.
Anti-vaxxers are stupid people and stupid people are THE problem in this country as a democracy demands an enlightened electorate and that we have so many ill informed and openly conspiracy theory informed people has made this mess. I think that it's more the nature of people, but if enough Americans actually educated themselves, then we could dig our way out fo this mess.
For the umpteenth-millionth time:
I am 1) extremely PRO-vaccine, 2) extremely PRO-science, and, most importantly of all possible worlds, 3) extremely ANTI-public-mandate-including-and-especially-those-that-involve-the-bodily-integrity-of-the-individual.
OK, I'll bite. You stated that people should vote GOP to fight the Nazi Democrats ("The Nazi Next Door" opinion piece) who are pro-vaccine and mask mandates. So, you think that the party who politicized the pandemic and ultimately is responsible for many of those >850,000 American deaths from Covid-19 is a better choice than the party that didn't and tried to enact certain mandates to reduce those deaths?
The fact is that zero public official, Democrat or Republican, had any understanding of the facts as discussed on TWiV and the myriad research papers that they discussed and so we ended up with an incoherent mess due primarily to the GOP and their anti-science and politization of the pandemic.
As supported by the information presented on TWiV, mandates are unnecessary because we have vaccines that work, so we need to move on. This is based on solid, objective information that the GOP has never accepted, they argued only for "freedom" and "liberty", while the Democrats erred on the side of overzealous safety. The GOP has not listened to any science by choice and fucked up the system such that so many Americans don't either.
LOL! The GOP is actively suppressing the vote. The GOP is openly anti-fact, as in their politicization of Covid-19 proves. The GOP actively suppresses local authorities to act, such as in making mask mandates or solar panel installations illegal at the state level.
Great conspiracy site. Anyone who questions the vaccines' efficacy and safety are stupid people, period. People like that are THE problem in this country, stupid, anti-intellectuals. A democracy requires an enlightened electorate, not idiots.
Thank you, Jeffery; this post reminded me I wanted to write an article called "Shitlib Mad Libs," where you fill in the blanks with vapid buzzwords (definitions updated daily!) like "anti-vaxxer" and "conspiracy theory" (prior to your edits), while blithely shilling for lawsuit-loss-leader Pfizer and the Shitlibs' beloved Trump's "Operation: Warp Speed." Of course, they will all start with "LOL!" rivaling even "Actually..." as the hallmark of a true sophisticate.
So, you have nothing to refute my post. Don't bother posting if you don't.
Vote in the primaries.
My congressman is Dan Crenshaw. I voted for him in the last general election.
Since he was elected, he's let his arrogance show. I'll vote against him in the primary, no matter who's running against him.
If he makes it past the primary, won't vote for him in the general election.
The primary is what will end Liz Cheney's political career. The polling in Wyoming shows 20% of Republicans would back her...in a state that is 70% Republican.
If she were to run as an independent, combining that 20% along with every independent and democrat vote, the best she could possibly do is get 44% of the vote. Of course, she could retain power if there were enough moronic virtue voters out there though I doubt it given the political climate in Wyoming.
Let's trade Ms. Cheney for Ms. Sinema.
(In other words (read: let me spell it out for you), Ms. Sinema should pull a Jumpin' Jim Jeffords.)
It's January, and the primary is in August. In that window of time, there is no candidate in the world who cannot be defeated by the Establishment spin machine in concert with low-information voters.
True. Please continue to help minimize the latter, M. The Anti-Hip.
The uniparty
Elementary, my dear Watson!
Perfect response. Watson, of course, was just a communication device, but he seldom saw the truth.
(Hey, M. Lyre, sorry I've been away, and thanks for subscribing me. I love your writing.)
Why thank you, Timothy. And wonderful to see you here again! It seems like ages--I, too, have been away--but I always appreciate the kind words and support, and I look forward to reading more of your insightful commentary (and hopefully finally updating my own Substack again finally haha)
Thanks back. And no pressure, just fun with words!
Yah...Basil...divide yourself up, then you will really be strong
I say, double team the 1/6 committee, after you bring THEM down, using legality, THEN you go for whatever else you suspect.
They'll need a committee to get rid of the committee, right?
uni...i don't know, but McCarthy went south thru the Media hounds. As things turned out, once we could see the Soviets files, McCarthy was right on the money, so says the recent books on the subject.
In fact, judging by how right he was, either side should think twice before pointing fingers and shouting, "McCarthy-ism!"
You mean the war party -- in which leadership includes Liz & Dick Cheney apparently as far as the Democrats are concerned
Janine...not sure here, since the Dem party has been in control at the start of most US wars. but Lizzy could be a Dem, but she is going south, no leader what-so-ever. thanks
Uh huh--god the Jedi mind tricks of leftists--don't vote for either of them! It's just an operative trying to suppress conservatives and libertarians from voting against the totalitarian ambitions of the democrat left and their puppet masters like Soros. Vote for =whoever= will staunch the flow of totalitarian socialist dictatorship, even that f'ing bitch Liz Cheney if your alternative was AOC.
Exactly. Vote "lesser-of-two-evils-in-your-individual-judgment."
All about accusing others of the thing you're doing first. They are good at that.
Absolute masters of projection. Especially the claim of insurrection.
And Russiagate...never forget (or forgive) the Russiagate...
Uranium One deserved a lot more attention than the fake pee tape
Hell, yeah.
("the" Russia-gate! I love that!)
It's like, for decades (centuries?), they practice so they can use it in phony attack. It's the very definition of insidiousness.
The "we are empire now" instigators at the root of this sh*t are simply never going to just fold up tents and admit, red-faced, "we goofed!" We must face it. These are the *actual* killers of democracy, bit by bit, going on for two decades now, and they play the game very, very well.
Question is, what do we think they're capable of -- and how do we really prepare, beyond just talking about? The Jan 6 participants certainly found out how *not* to ask for "a redress of grievances" in the 2020s.
There is no question in my mind they are capable of gulags and firing squads.
Eventually. Just as Archimedes could move the Earth with a long-enough lever, any story can eventually be walked to any conclusion for any purpose.
Why "eventually"? These ass hats just asserted unlimited power, independent and irrespective of the Constitution. That means that they recognize zero legal constraints on their power - they have declared it to be absolute. How long do you think the "corrupts absolutely" part takes? I would guess it follows almost immediately.
Agreed about their chutzpah and sociopathy. They're certainly there mentally now, and have been for a long time. My point is simply that they still need to apply more creativity to justify actual "gulags" and "firing squads" without waking people up.
They have already started with classifying points of view they deem threatening to their power as subversive and anti-American. This give them justification. They also created a Domestic Terrorism Task Force as an enforcement arm! And if they deem you a Domestic Terrorist will they ship you to Gitmo?
For me, it does not take much of a stretch of imagination to see where this could end...
Of course, gulags and firing squads (like, "God and guns") is a bit of hyperbole. But the nonchalant and self-satisfied manner in which the billionaire said "nobody cares about the Uyghurs, okay," sort of gives me a cold chill.
You might well think that is a limitation, but do they recognize it?
Remember, we're "The Land Of The Free!(R)"!
Because if we don't shred the Constitution, the Bad Guys might win.
They had to destroy the Constitution to save it don’t you see
2.3 million Americans are in cages. That's higher by rate, and numerically, then any regime in history, including Stalin.
Most of them are poor, POCs or both. The conditions in these prisons are utterly brutal. More men are raped in America than women. That's applauded too. Shower jokes are perfectly acceptable discourse.
The gulags happened. That was bipartisan too.
Yes, absolutely, this.
But you also know Cathie's talking about a whole new level on deck, and I agree.
Just a quibble about the "rate" there. Our "rate" of imprisonment is artificially inflated by our squeamishness wrt just flat-out murdering political opponents. Thus far.
Give the Dems their head and that imprisonment rate will come down. Though our "imprisoned or buried" rate will probably stay pretty high.
Anyone in power is. Power knows no ideology or morality.
The real sociopathy and psychopathy concentrates at the top -- but especially, out of sight. Only the congressional long-termers are potentially such.
In terms of maintaining loyal constituencies, the members of The Squad, and The Squad as a group, are powerful. Are they sociopaths? Same with Trump. He is still powerful. He is certainly a narcissist, but is he a sociopath? I'd argue none of them are.
Hillary, Bill, Biden, McConnell, Schumer, Pelosi, etc., on the other hand, long ago joined the true Big Club. It works just as Larry Summers warned Elizabeth Warren, about making the necessary Faustian (i.e. sociopathic) bargain.
Absolutely agree with you.
The... i suspect that the 1/6 participants are Not yet done. This committee is so wrong, Boss Tweed Law-suits will follow.
Agreed. That's why we need to be extremely creative and careful with what we do as much as we can.
Jan 6 was a trap. This was obvious from the weirdly specific and wordy assertions of "insurrection" given out *that day*, well before it was possible to have contemplated enough evidence -- much less gathered it -- to characterize it as anything but a spontaneous riot. That was a tip-off for me.
A parallel thing happened in the discourse on 9/11. (I say that while still recognizing that these were far more serious events, to put it mildly.)
Follow the nonviolent example of MLK and his followers in pushing for Civil Rights legislation in the 1960s.
Ironically when I first saw the news when Jan 6th was going on, I said "Damn idiots, you've shot yourselves in the foot and are playing right into left's talking points."
Yes, and in any group, there are always idiots.
One of the biggest problems with media (which as we know is now fully owned by the totalitarian/Leninist "Left") is that its second-millenium, daily-cycle, story-based format is wholly unsuited today to educating the public about the nature of the world, as its MO is making the specific general. So, one's POV, if not agenda, always drives which specifics become "representative" of the world. Showcase the Right's idiots, ignore the Left's idiots, and ... voila!
Yet with today's computing, networking, and big data, it is totally possible to make a far more representative map of the world, and learn how to use it ... if TPTB would permit it.
Aye, the media runs based on ratings and to further their own interests, they bend the truth, pull facts out of thin air and more and more frequently, outright lie. To keep the ratings high, they beat the same drum all the time...and people wonder why politicization has increased...
The ONLY positive of the Biden presidency has been that I haven't had to consider how lame, amoral and gutless the Republican alternative is.
But I know that the Dems have to be voted out. This is dangerous stuff, and we can worry about the poltroons and quislings in the Repub party.
* +2, used "quislings" and "poltroons" in the same sentence lol.
Remember that Democrats mean Democracy in the same way that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea mean it.
Their complete, unbridled, and totalitarian rule.
Or the National Socialist German Workers' Party! I know, no "democracy" but you get the point.
Or the German Democratic Republic.
I forget who said: "When they say 'our democracy,' they mean their oligarchy."
The wonderful Roger Kimball, I believe.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/10/31/the_january_6_insurrection_hoax_146663.html#!
By Jove, you've done it! Well played haha that is indeed the quote. I think I actually came across it secondhand, I must confess, so it's great to see where it actually originated.
As I am fond of pointing out, when Democrats and the American "mainstream" media (but I repeat myself) say "democracy" , they do not mean rule by the δῆμος, they mean rule by Democrats.
They mean tyranny of the "majority," as if tyranny of the majority (pure democracy) was and is a GOOD thing.
(And they don't HAVE a majority, thus the scare quotes.)
They don’t even mean that, shitty as it would be — they mean that literally the only legitimate government is a Democratic one, that’s why President Dumbfuck was going on about how 2022 elections won’t be legitimate (if they lose of course).
And that's even scarier.
To your point about the increasing warnings from Democrats about "22 and '24, they were knocked for a loop by the minor uprising concerning Democrat malfeasance in '20, decided to adopt the charges as a tactic, and are laying the groundwork to cancel certain elections.
'22 and '24 BETTER be Republican landslides, or we're in for a Dem "stealth" coup.
Just a tip of the cap to DNY, Tim, and Coco because I think this was a really good breakdown.
"We have to spend more money to avoid bankruptcy" Below Average Joe Biden.
Sadly you can't make it up.
Democracy in America is so over.
Which right now looks bad, since it looks like the replacement is a fascist technocracy, but could be good: we could go back to being a constitutional republic, instead of a democracy.
I share your excellent optimism.
The Voting "correctly" bill would further nationalize elections and end the last vestiges of federalism, denuding States of ANY differentiation, and making them nothing more than administrative districts.
On the other hand, here's what Mr. McConnell SHOULD have told Bret Baier that Republicans are FOR, refuting the absurd rhetoric of our POTUS:
1) Rescind the 17th Amendment which democratized Senator selection, took the "re" out of "republic," and gave us a stealth UNI-cameral legislature (yes, we do still have a "double-vote" hurdle/check).
2) Take the 10th Amendment seriously, finally.
3) Stop abusing the Commerce Clause.
Look, I smoke good shit, but these are NOT pipe dreams. They are attainable by a free and determined People, now that an un-capturable (even if un-aware) outsider has exposed the Party establishments (neolib AND neocon Statists alike). The Republican party is slowly changing, and starting to listen to its Classical Liberal, but historically quiet, base.
Meanwhile, the Democrats are doubling down on their Authoritarian Socialism (what a nice term for Fascism/Communism).
The two parties are fakes - https://www.fff.org/2020/12/11/the-national-security-establishment-is-in-charge/
Gee whiz, DJT is just one man.
Well, I think your hopes, re: the Republicans, are a bit optimistic...but who cares? The Dems HAVE to pay for their frightening overreach, and if the Repubs show themselves to be the avaricious amoral cowards they have been in the past, well...that will be a problem for another day, eh?
It's as Mencken said of capital punishment:
"Some would argue that the death penalty does not deter others from similar crime. Well what of it? At least the first is well disposed of."
You may be right about the Republican Party, and you certainly have much more historical evidence on your side, than I have on mine (one could say I bitter-cling my hopes; they will be the last to die, as they say), but let me add two comments:
1) That I am a "lesser-of-two-evils" voter should be enough, I think, to explain my voting record (Reagan, Reagan, Bush, Bush, Dole, Bush, Bush, McCain, Romney, Trump, Trump). I apologize for nauseating my fellow Classical Liberals in this most wonderful of all forums here (as only one of those candidates even came close to qualifying, and he had the audacity to name Mr. "Voo-doo Economics" as VP), but at least I hope (there's that word again) those that have come to know me a bit with my over-posting would understand how much my nose hurts from holding it in the voting booth over the decades, and that I would vote (and would have voted) Democrat in a freedom-loving heartbeat IF.... And,
2) As I have posted elsewhere, would that Henry Louis Mencken be alive to Substack today. (Shade NOT thrown to others, including, of course, our host, who I consider to be today's pre-eminent Classical Liberal, uniting the lost strands from both sides of the political axis that have been torn asunder for 2 (two) centuries by Statist double-speak, democrats, and Democrats.)
Can you also imagine Ayn Rand's Substack?!
It's true that great change can only occur after a great disaster. And you are correct, as it stands now, that change will not be for the 'better'.
It already occurred. See: Covid (never let a good crisis go to waste)
Yes and no. We are now *discovering* it's over. That's a positive thing.
The...strong point
Stop Being...soooo beautiful...for now i am crying. thanks
I never want to hear another f*cking liberal democrat utter the words “civil liberties”.
Or complain about 'oppression.'
Sure, as long as the Republican stop it as well.
Get on the disappointment train.
I never want to hear another duopolist nitwit claiming their side of the one war party is different.
💥
I never want to hear a Republican babbling noise about how their party isn't EXACTLY the same.
Guess we are both going to be disappointed eh?
Well, maybe one at a time, taking turns, faster and faster, like the magnetic field of an electric motor.
Let’s call it what it is - America has become a police state with political prisoners. There are no consequences for government misconduct/overreach - say anything and do anything and get away with it.
Adam Schiff is a classic example of how untouchable our politicians have become - he pushed a Russia-gate narrative that never existed - now he’s at the front of the line again.
"Adam Schiff is a classic example of how untouchable our politicians have become - he pushed a Russia-gate narrative that never existed - now he’s at the front of the line again."
Exactly. Just like the neocons who pushed and ran the Iraq War, and now beat the war drums for provoking Russia re Ukraine (and, perpetually, a dozen other things).
And, for God's sake -- Henry Effing Kissinger is Hillary's pal!
Colbert used to have great commentary on Iraq. These days he would ride the bomb over Russia like in Dr. Strangelove. Incredible how they turned supposed liberals into warmongers.
Well said. Always up for a Kubrick ref, and I felt it in my bones when Jimmy Dore lamented, "I cannot think of a bigger letdown in my life than Stephen Colbert." Haha
gimme a break - almost every member of Congress voted for the Patriot Act, to invade Iraq, etc.
20 years can change many things. A lot of truth can come out, eh?
Indeed it can...and I speak as one whom has had a profound shift in outlook over those 20 years of truth slowly coming out.
You and me. Would that I knew then what I know now. Perhaps we represent the best change of all: my sense is that not only are we not alone, but that our numbers are growing. The peeps seem to be waking up from a woke nightmare, albeit at sloth-like speed (hey, 100+ years of creeping, and creepy, Statism can't disappear without a hell of a long struggle).
Will the Republican Party purge its neocon warmongers? Will the Democrats be denied their dream police State enforcing wealth-destroying "equity"?
I say they will, even if not on my watch.
And I've thought for decades that things would have to get worse for enough peeps to wake up and firmly demand their Constitutionally-affirmed birthright of freedom from an over-bearing, wealth-destroying State.
Maybe I was right, and the "quickening" has begun.
You and me both, Steve!
So what yoiu are saying is that all of them are warmongering fools and corrupt schills fo the MIC.
Yup, good to see I am not the only one who recognises this.
Barbara Lee speaks for me!
Would she have so objected if the POTUS had a D next to the name?
Yes, those neo-cons sure can take advantage of a crisis. Who taught whom this skill?
Of course she would have objected. She objected to Obama's drone strikes and tried to get them declared illegal.
He's talking about the neocon agenda that had an agenda to take out Iraq, but that was just the beginning. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mNr1aaDiNw
Q: How are neo-libs exactly like neo-cons?
A: In their minds, nothing can solve a "situation" like war can.
And here comes.....Ukraine! (Neo excitement is palpable.)
All when there is no reason for one....and no support for one.
Because liberals now have the whip hand.
Neo-libs, NOT classical liberals. Classical Liberals know, and have ALWAYS known, the true definition of liberty. (Hint: just like rights, only INDIVIDUALS should have it/them.)
Classic liberalism is laissez-faire economics.
Learn the meanings of the terminology that you use.
I know. I believe you mis-understand me. Could be my fault. Sorry.
I think the whip is starting to slip, their manifest failure at every turn is taking its toll
I would say that the establishment is forced more and more to rely upon overt coercion.
It's looking that way.
Which should be its ultimate un-doing.
Because they were never truly ‘liberal’ in the first place—they are totalitarian leftists.
They adopted the term 'liberal' much as they adopted the term 'progressive'. They are neither liberal nor progressive, instead being regressive, statist authoritarians.
Statists must engage in doublespeak, constantly coining new terms and stealing old words, to hide their true identity, and fool the suckers anew.
I can actually picture that. He's turned into a caricature of himself!
His very first week, as I recall, was fearless. Now, (and it's a massive understatement to say) ... not so much. I'd love to get my hands on recordings -- I doubt they're published.
I do think he was called to the woodshed within his first month.
Note how none of the people who pushed for the War on Iraq suffered in the slightest, not personally or professionally.
However, those who were not in favor of the war were cast into Outer Darkness, even as the war went more badly than even the naysayers had predicted.
Barbara Lee still does an excellent job representing her Oakland constituents. But she will never be invited into the inner circle.
Somewhat like Ron Paul was.
And - Adam Schiff in his free time wants to write a book about Holocaust.
I hope he will have a lot of free time in jail soon.
Assuming he can write without staffers or a ghost writer. That makes it even better, less rot for the population to deal with. Leave Schiff in jail with a muzzle on.
When you mention the neocons don't just mention Iraq, because they pushed all the other middles eastern wars as well.
And look at what we did in the 90s under Clinton. IT IS A UNIPARTY. That's why they hated Trump so much, because he was not part of it. Sure, he is a hatable guy, and a dumbass (look how he let them play him on Russia-collusion narrative), but he got the joke that most Americans (or at least a great many) are sick of global wars, constant special interest capture of the Uniparty, constant massive military budgets, etc, etc.
This is an interesting discussion with Aaron Mate whom I really like and I think you will find this very interesting. No, when I think of the neocons, who comes to mind is Dick who was signed on to their agenda as was Rumsfeld, and Jeb Bush, not George and many, many others. https://thegrayzone.com/2022/01/06/us-war-lobby-fuels-conflict-in-russia-ukraine-and-syria-ex-pentagon-advisor/
Trump was our only hope, no one else seems to fight the neo-cons. I believe he could've begun to kick some ass if he'd had that second term and didn't have to worry about getting elected. At least we would've gone four more years w/out a damn war. And we'd still have cheap oil and I'm certain he wouldn't have let the supply chain get that way.
As unique as DJT was/is, there will be more of his type (non-capturable, anti-neverending-war, America-first-will-benefit-the-whole-world).
I agree with everything you say here, except the loss of hope, M. Anniekins.
Sadly, there are too few Republicans in congress whom have spines to fight against this garbage, and almost none of them have new ideas, whether economic proposals, foreign policy or energy which could both lead to actual change and lead to party growth by absorbing those whom abandoned the dems because they have gone too far.
Absolutely agreed. One might look first at General Clark's "We're going to take out seven countries in five years", which was first told to him by neocon Paul Wolfowitz in 1991 (although not stated openly by Clark until 2007).
(One quibble; Clark, I believe, was and is a neo-lib, the joined-at-the-Statist-hip twin of neo-cons. He ran for POTUS with a D, didn't he?)
So what he said was a lie?
No, it was the expression of intent, plus a little confidence thrown in.
Didn't "take out" mean Westernize?
It's not just the ones always in the headlines. The moron whom spoke of Guam tipping over and capsizing a decade ago is still in congress. Apparently he failed preschool geography, you know, when you make mounds of mud in a puddle and thereby create islands.
People like this are put into place by TPTB as our election "choices" because they can be more easily captured when in Congress. A few of them, like this one, don't know they need to keep their mouths shut while doing their masters' bidding.
What is TPTB now?
The Powers That Be
Good day Boris! Are you ready for our debate on knowledge?
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-real-disinformation-agents-watch/comment/4035761
YCKMA
BTW -who is that moron? ;-))
Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.
You beat me to it. For what it's worth, here's the exchange:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cesSRfXqS1Q
I know there are a number of contenders to be the dumbest person in Congress, but I think he wins and has remained the winner for the past eleven years.
Astonishing -- a US Congressman...
Thanks !!
Don't forget that he is elected. The idiots that vote for him, term after term, decade after decade, should also be held to account. Kick California out of the U.S.!
Unfortunately they hate Trump enough to disregard any illegalities the government engages in.. They simply look at it as Trump and his followers are getting their just desserts.
Schiff was in office long before Trump—and was suspected of dirty deeds in Los Angeles that evaporated thanks to the MSM propagandists.
Can you please substantiate your accusations?
Thank you.
Anarcho-tyranny. A summer of destructive riots with material support from the political and media establishment. Meanwhile disgruntled parents at school board meetings are put onto terrorist watch lists.
Nah, it’s just a good old totalitarian sponsored Culutral Revolution, comrade
Ai Weiwei agrees:
"If you are authoritarian, you have to have a system supporting you. You cannot just be an authoritarian by yourself. But certainly, in the United States, with today’s condition, you can easily have an authoritarian."
"In many ways, you’re already in the authoritarian state," he said. "You just don’t know it."
"Many things happening today in U.S. can be compared to Cultural Revolution in China. Like people trying to be unified in a certain political correctness. That is very dangerous."
https://cnsnews.com/blog/michael-w-chapman/chinese-activist-weiwei-us-authoritarian-state-you-just-dont-know-it
It's been authoritarian for quite some time - https://www.fff.org/2020/12/11/the-national-security-establishment-is-in-charge/
Ask yourself why the Congress let those behind the attempted soft coup of Trump get away with it?
Oh, the Russia-gate *narrative* existed alright. We were subjected to four plus years of it. But that's all it was, a narrative, like a novel or a screenplay is a narrative, but with real-world consequences because too many dupes believed it was true, even after Trump essentially proved he wasn't a Russian asset by standing in the way of Nord Stream 2 and sending actual military aid to Ukraine.
Gosh, 2 (two) MORE things DJT did for us.
The more Biden I get, the more Trump I want.
This is all being done to thwart another Trump presidency. The committee’s goal is to scare the hell out of anyone who wants to support Trump’s candidacy. By attacking and intimidating private citizens who were either there on 1/6 or even contemplated or posted about the need to support it, they are saying, “See? This is what we’ll do to you if you stand up for Trump.”
I know someone who was not in DC on 1/6, but posted about it in a favorable way on Facebook. The FBI paid him a visit and questioned him about his beliefs. It’s crazy that this could happen in America.
Trump is the dam not the river. This isn't so much (imo) about Trump as it is about the elites being emboldened to exercise their innate tyrannical natures.
I think they are more focused and organized than that, Greg. They have a specific goal and Trump gets in their way.
It is about Trump as he has things that most others do not. He has such a fortune that threats to withhold donations to his fundraisers fall on deaf ears, and attempts to bribe him would be dismissed angary as insultingly low. They lack the leverage with Trump that they do with most others as a result, although he is not completely beyond their reach.
Edit: Not completely beyond their reach as in his banning from social media...however he has the resources to create his own social media company, hence why he is hated so.
I agree with you but what interests me is that Trump is not particularly ideological. So it must be his independence that threatens them, which tells me that they are motivated by an agenda to which he would present an obstacle. The want "their" people, those who will carry out whatever their plan is. Given their methodology, it seems immanently wise to obstruct their agenda by any means possible. If that means Trump, then yes let it be Trump.
Anyone they hate I like
Ironically, Trump moved the GOP into more of a center position involving Gay Rights, Trade and international relations....yet all the legacy press does is claim the right wing is moving further and further right.
Wow! 3 (three) MORE things DJT did for Classical Liberalism. (Sarcasm NOT directed at you, M. Stephen.)
Well based on the comments of George Soros over the years, he has a nonsensical plan, typical of a megalomaniac, that purports that ‘world peace’ can be achieved by bringing down the USA ‘a few notches’ and spreading the wealth to third-world countries—all managed by elites like the Soros family. Perhaps some Democrats bought into that idea, but the Soros Foundation alone funded over 750 Democrats in the last ten years who are furthering his agenda whether they agree with it or not. That includes the DAs allowing and encouraging massive crime waves in big cities. It was Soros’s father who had a dream of ‘one world’. Democrats may think they are taking advantage of Soros by accepting his campaign funding, and Soros may think he’s fooled Democrats into furthering his destructive and unrealistic (and possible criminal) agenda. Either way, all Americans, and the world even, will suffer if we continue on this path.
But things are nowhere near static. Soros has been exposed. His DAs face certain recall, and I don't think their type will be elected/installed as easily. The young, foolish, deluded woke rioters are maturing, and the danger their pseudo-anarchy poses to Western Civilization is now in the minds of millions of shocked witnesses. The Party establishments better respond appropriately to our demands, or we will unleash another un-capturable DJT/DJT-like destroyer on them. It sounds like a comic-book narrative, but it HAPPENED, and it scared the shit out of the Statists, overt and covert, Democrat and Republican alike.
Those deplorable "Great Resetters," those race-baiting, CRT 1619ers, those Man-is-a-parasite enviro-freaks, those public school apparachiks and their real-parasite unions, those single-payer Communists, those Harrison Bergeron equity outcomers who want spritual beings to become hive insects, hooked up to State teat....I'd go on, but you all can easily add your own descriptions of those who deny the supremacy of the Human individual and his ultimate agency in improving his own lot, unencumbered by guilt: they are exposed with more Glenn Greenwalds every day.
The point is, exposure is finally killing them, slowly, but maybe slowly is better, and will lead to a more lasting renaissance, before we are called on to awake and beat them down once again.
For me it has the opposite effect. I want to cram Trump down their throats
I'd love to see him win over 55% of the popular vote in 2024, if for nothing else than to see them all melt down as they could not spin their way out of that. Even Psaki would be torn apart by centrifugal forces before she could spin that fast.
It would be an extraordinary thing if the GOP would find a message that the majority of Americans would support.
The GOP has not won the popular vote in 17 years and has one of the last 8 elections.
Most of our problems as a republic are due to the GOP trying to desperately wring power out of a declining demographic. I sincerely would like to see the end of that. What would the GOP have to change to be a Big Tent party again, like in the days of Reagan?
I would love it and I have spent over a year trying to get such messages or rather proposals out (which I now have on here), as new ideas are needed and not simply 'the opposite of the dems.' I hate mentioning my own work on Glenn's page, even multi-layer discussions as I pay to read the stories he breaks, not pay to advertise.
Do you think that this is a winning electoral message?
Probably not, but the popularity of this sentiment better be kept in mind by BOTH Parties if they want to win in November.
THAT is the real message of M. Madjack's beautiful emoting.
They are out to crush any who stands in the way of their techno-totalitarianism, especially those who helped elect an unauthorized president.
Having watched the extensive videos of Ray Epps giving speeches and inciting people to enter the Capitol for 2 days (1/5 and 1/6), as well as directing his 4 other accomplices to remove all the temporary fencing, I'm convinced that it could be reasonable argued that there would have been no trespassing/rioting without his involvement. The 1/6 Committee issued a terse "we've talked to Epps and he's committed no crimes". Clearly, if anybody committed seditious conspiracy it was him.
So, based on the blow-off from the Committee, I'm assuming at this point that Epps was working on behalf of the feds. Let's call it what it really was, a "fedsurrection".
I agree about Epps. He is close to Stewart Rhodes, the President of the Oath Keepers, who was just arrested for sedition. I believe Epps was head of the AZ chapter of Oath Keepers. Rhodes was atop a media tower with a bull horn telling people to go into the Capitol and Epps was at the base of the tower directing people. I saw the pictures in Revolver News' story about 1/6. Why was Epps removed from the FBI wanted list and why wasn't he arrested with Rhodes and others??
Don't be surprised if Epps emerges to perjure himself as a prosecution witness in Rhodes trial.
I have my doubts also about all the Trumpers we see who now "regret" their beliefs/actions and "spill their guts" to "journalists". Who are they, really? (At the same time, one can always find *someone* who will change their minds. It's how media works: Cherry-pick anecdotes/specific cases to give the illusion of representativeness.)
Don't be surprised that if that happens, Epps becomes Eppstein, having everything that can go wrong involving holding him for such testimony and having him mysteriously die during the process.
Right but they also said Clay Shaw never worked for the government, at trial.
Richard Helms, former Director of the CIA, then later testified, under oath, that Shaw had been a part-time contact of the Domestic Contact Service (DCS) of the CIA, where Shaw volunteered information from his travels abroad, mostly to Latin America
Does the CIA consider mere "sources" to have "never worked for the government."
The Statists use word-play to dissemble.
First it was Antifa that actually was the 1/6 protestors. When people realized that a bunch of 50 year old White guys are probably not members of Anita, it was a "walk in the park."
When it turned out that 140 police officers were injured, now you claim that it was all Ray Epps.
Just admit that those who tried to overturn the election results were a bunch of assholes and wrong and move on.
Why do you try to hard to make excuses for them?
Why can't you admit that the people that won the election are a bunch of 60+ year old assholes that have zero regard for your bias towards them?
The 1/6 protestors were protesting a bogus candidate, a puppet. Our President, THE President of the United States of America is a fucking puppet.
Now run along and congratulate the racists posing as anti racists, the fascists posing as anti fascists and the totalitarians posing as democrats.
Quit being so addled.
Once you wake up, you'll see 1. why those people were protesting 2. why they were no threat to "democracy" and 3. why (as shown in the article as an example) the people they were protesting are the actual threats to democracy.
Sign my name to this. And I'll be "borrowing" this gem, M. neill_here:
"Now run along and congratulate the racists posing as anti racists, the fascists posing as anti fascists and the totalitarians posing as democrats."
Biden won, get over it.
That makes him no less of a senile, unintelligent puppet who can't be bothered to do more than meander through a press conference while committing so many gaffes that his staff had to send diplomats around the world and his media personnel to Fox News of all places to try to stauch the flow of blood.
I agree with this statement completely.
The demented old man, 'biden' is clearly not in charge, and never was. These facts demand the question, "Then who is?"
Biden won because of big tech and legacy press censorship. It was a 'free but not fair' election regarding that interference. The truly sad thing is that you still have so many fussing over Russia spending $100,000.00 on Facebook...which is like a drop of water in an Olympic swimming pool in comparison.
Well, yes, he "won" at this point, because certainly we aren't going to remove him and install DJT.
And getting over it will be a 2 (two) part process that I like to call '22 and '24. I don't think your side is going to get away with it again. Just my opine, o' course.
So, yes, we are in "agreement," M. El Monstro.
No serious person thinks that 7M fake votes were manufactured for Biden. Were you one of this proclaiming that we would never have another election again if Biden was allowed to be installed as President?
No, M. El, and I did not mean to portray myself as such.
Please accept my apology if I did not write my opinion clearly.
I believe it is entirely within the realm of possibility, if not PROBABILITY, that Joe Biden got more votes than Donald Trump.
Also, forgive me if you did not vote for Mr. Biden.
I cannot believe that this is going on in America. Tragic.
The ACLU of old would have been all over this, on the side of the Trumpists. The ACLU of today will gather the firewood for the witch burnings.
Sad but true. I miss the principled days of Mighty Ira.
Saw that show “The Mighty Ira” and Ira’s interview with Joe Rogan on free speech. He was a principled guy and surely would have sought to protect the citizens who’s right are being violated. ACLU is infested with the woke.
My hero, Ira Glasser, is alive and well at 83 and serves as the President of the Board of Directors of the Drug Policy Alliance.
Gotta give credit to ol' Chomsky on this front, too. Along with his classic "Goebbels was in favor of speech that he liked..." admonition, I always respected his take as expressed below:
"Among people who have learned something from the 18th century (say, Voltaire) it is a truism, hardly deserving discussion, that the defense of the right of free expression is not restricted to ideas one approves of, and that it is precisely in the case of ideas found most offensive that these rights must be most vigorously defended. Advocacy of the right to express ideas that are generally approved is, quite obviously, a matter of no significance. All of this is well-understood in the United States..."
If only that last part was as true today as it was during the Faurisson Affair.
Imagine having to give someone credit for defending free speech. All of this is no longer well-understood in the United States. It's mind-boggling how easily liberals turned into authoritarians (i.e., "progressives") with respect to free speech. Glasser is a dinosaur now, and the same goes for Chomsky.
Free speech has almost never been popular in the United States. Censorship has been far more common and frequently people have been jailed for expressing unpopular opinions.
I saw him om Rogan not that long ago. Still a beast.
Those assholes will trample over each other to get to toss in the first match.
Right on.
Because the ACLU of today was swarmed by the never Trumpers...they, in sheer numbers, overtook the organization and bent it to their will.
The ACLU has been taken over by regressive left activists who believe that speech is violence because the white male patriarchy is oppressing vulnerable people. They called for the burning of Abigail Shrier's book "Irreversible Damage The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters" because it is "transphobic" to oppose transition hormones and surgery for minors who are too young to understand what is happening to them. The regressive left is basically a religious movement with Trump viewed as a white male patriarchal devil. If Trump was not there, it would be someone else.
I never claimed they were an honorable group, just that the never Trumpers pushed them over the edge.
By never Trumpers, do you mean people who suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome? TDS pushed a lot of people over the edge.
Correct...and ironically in other areas they have done us a favor....I mean the 'Lincoln Project' pedophiles both detached from the GOP and exposed for the deranged perverts that they are.
Regarding the ACLU, they sank a ship that was taking on water as it had been going down for some time.
When were you an ACLU member?
The ACLU called for that? That is not how it went. Do you believe that the ACLU formally took a position that Abigail's book should be burned? Because if you do, you are confused on the facts.
The truth is bad enough. One staffer at the ACLU called for it to be pulled from the shelves and a Prof at UC Berkeley called for the book to be burned.
This is what the WSJ reported, and I believe them, not you.
"You read that right: Some in today’s ACLU favor book banning. "
Were you just being hyperbolic or did actually believe what you posted?
I do not read the WSJ.
Read this:
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-ongoing-death-of-free-speech
"It is nothing short of horrifying, but sadly also completely unsurprising, to see an ACLU lawyer proclaim his devotion to “stopping the circulation of [a] book” because he regards its ideas as wrong and dangerous. There are, always have been, and always will be people who want to stop books from being circulated: by banning them, burning them, pressuring publishing houses to rescind publishing contracts or demanding corporations refuse to sell them. But why would someone with such censorious attitudes, with a goal of suppressing ideas with which they disagree, choose to go to work for the ACLU of all places?"
And why would the ACLU hire someone who does not believe in free speech and the first amendment?
My understanding is that he religious belief that certain speech is "violence" is taking over many left-leaning institutions including the ACLU.
It's an ACLU lawyer, not the ACLU. I work for a tech company, but if I say something it doesn't mean I represent them.
It is definitely problematic that they would hire such a censorious person and worse that they would not be disciplined afterwards, but it's not the official statement of the ACLU.
What are your sources for information about the world? The WSJ has its obvious pro-free trade and pro-capitalist bias but is generally accurate on the facts of an issue and far less full of propaganda laden buzz words than most MSM publications.
The WSJ is behind a paywall, and as such I could care less about what they write about. Also, the ACLU has taken the official position that biological males who are bigger and stronger than real females should be allowed to easily defeat real females in athletic events if they transition first. This is effectively the end of women being able to win athletic events. There is more than just their failure to fire one lawyer who has used their platform to call for the burning a book. The "speech is violence" and "trans women are women" crowd has taken over the ACLU and as such people to care about women's rights and free speech should not give them money.
If he's not an *ex-ACLU lawyer*, then there is the full force of the ACLU endorsing his/hir/there claims.
If you'll forgive the interjectory inquisition, just curious about the works cited request: didn't Alicia link you to a source already in her previous post.. and it was the same Substack you are currently posting on?
well said!
I'm afraid they were on a voluntary spelunking expedition into the sewers quite a while before Trump was even on the political radar.
It happened well before Trump. I believe it was in the 80's that they refused to help pro-Lifers who were standing on public sidewalks protesting. I remember it, just can't remember the dates. They peaked and since then have declined to the farcical organization of today.
I know a couple of friends that came very close to going to DC to protest what they thought was a very suspicious election. Mostly, they were just working class and huge Trump supporters who previously didn't really follow politics. They loved what he did for the country, and felt their lives were much improved during his term. They both felt he really cared about the common man. They lived quite far from DC and very luckily were not able to get hotel reservations to stay over so the plans fell apart. I could see them getting swept up in the crowd of folks that streamed into the capital where it appeared the capitol police were holding the doors open for them. They were both the type that would have excitedly posted selfies on Facebook. They might be in jail right now! When I read a story like this my heart breaks because many of these people just committed a crime of being Trump supporters, and had no bad intentions and didn't do anything violent. It also infuriates me and makes me ask why no one in authority has the courage it seems to question the treatment of these folks and the unbelievable abuses of power such as what is described in this article. It almost makes me want to give up on being informed and stop paying attention because it is all too painful to watch what is happening to our once just system.
They are investigating people who weren’t even in DC on 1/6. Your friends may be in trouble just for trying to make reservations.
It's a true McCarthyesque witch hunt. They're trying to wipe out right-leaning populists.
If Trump or DeSantis wins in '24, let us hope the vast majority of them will be pardoned, and the crooked judges, FBI officials, and that joke of a mayor will be subpoenaed and prosecuted. Particularly the thug cop who shot Ashli Babbitt (who was trying to stop the violence, according to the latest reports and videos).
The only way to stop similar investigations is for Republicans to conduct some investigations using the newly expanded powers against Democrats. As soon as Democrats start to suffer, there will be all sorts of court rulings limiting the power of Congressional subpoenas. To start out, investigate the complicity of local and state governments in Antifa/BLM riots. Bank records that expose how the riots were funded, and who paid for bail, will be quite interesting. Orders for police to stand down and allow businesses to be destroyed should be quite embarrassing for Democrats. Let's see how far we can get before the courts rediscover the limits of Congressional investigations and subpoenas.
Won’t happen, of course, not when both sides are the same side.
I see rather big differences between the sides. Republicans support the Constitution and the rule of law. Democrats support the rule of "experts," censorship, and The Science (TM), which changes to whatever suits their fancy at the moment. One might argue that Republicans lack the courage of their convictions, but we'll have to do the experiment to see. To say Trump is just like Biden is ludicrous. Trump is relatively competent. Biden has the manure touch. Everything Biden touches turns to manure. However, things are ever so much better without rude tweets, right?
Patriot Act ring a bell?
The lack of consequences for lying to the FISA court on the Carter Page warrant applications means that the Patriot Act needs at least major revisions, if not repeal.
This is the problem with politicians writing laws which can be interpreted broadly, as they invite abuse. One needs to write laws as narrowly as possible to avoid such abuse.
And this is their goal!
Burn it, I say.
Burn THEM, I say. (The Act AND the Court.)
We certainly agree on repealing the Patriot Act! Brought to you in an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote!!
A lot has changed in 20 years, M. Phisto. For one, there are now millions of Republicans who have righteous hatred for the neo-cons in our midst. History will clearly (to me, anyway) not hold the Bushes, Cheneys, McCains, etc. in high regard. I hardly think we will allow the egregiously wrong Patriot Act to continue for long, or allow another similar mis-creant.
Do you believe in redemption? Will you allow us to learn from our errors, especially the most egregious.
The danger here is similar to babies and bathwater. I see the Republicans as the babies, now 20 years the wiser, as babies do if allowed.
The Democrats? They can't be shown the drain fast enough.
There are more than 2 sides to this. Trump does not represent the Republican leadership.
Best formulation I’ve seen yet is the Uniparty and everyone else. Who is the Uniparty? Track whomever has supported the shredding of national values, whether that’s the Patriot Act or the 1/6 Commission.
It’s all the same fuckers.
Sorry, but I disagree that Republicans support the Constitution and the rule of law. Simply go read Glenn's body of work for abundant evidence to the contrary. Do I agree that, currently, Ds on the whole are worse than Rs? Yes. But why do we have to continue to support choosing between only 2 parties? Where does the Constitution say that? Why are we comparing Trump to Biden? Trump is gone and good riddance. Now let's get rid of Biden and all the other old, career politicians.
I'm afraid I need more specific examples of Republican maelfeasance to answer your argument, or even accept it as rational. Who censors the news and social media? Who spent 4 years trying to remove a duly elected president based entirely in lies and inadmissible evidence? Please make your case.
Did Congress ever get around to declaring war on Iraq or Afghanistan?
I seem to remember the Constitution being very specific about that power.
As I remember it, Congress didn't declare war on North Korea or Vietnam either. I think both parties are equal offenders on that particular item. Congress did vote to fund all of those wars, so they did consent, if not formally.
The examples are endless. Go research them yourself if you don't believe me. If you prefer to simply believe "that Republicans support the Constitution and the rule of law" feel free.
Here's the difference right now. Republicans don't believe that the Constitution is prima facie invalid because it is the product of western civilization. Democrats do. Or at least they kowtow to the idiots within their midst that believe such garbage.
It's your argument to make, so make it. Without one or 2 examples, it's an assertion without evidence.
BINGO!
Where are the Republicans??
All the members of the January 6 Select Committee were appointed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi. This includes the two RINOs on the committee, Cheney and Kinzinger. When the committee was first formed, Pelosi rejected two of the Minority Leader's picks, including the ranking member. Minority Leader McCarthy then withdrew all his picks.
Which makes the committee's "work" all the more interesting, since the select committee is not constituted according to the resolution of the House of Representatives which created it: it was supposed to have 6 Democrats and 5 Republicans, the latter chosen by the minority leadership. I am actually surprised that no one has responded to a subpoena from the committee by mounting a court challenge to its legitimacy on the basis that the body issuing it has no authority, since, not being constituted according to a resolution of the House, it lacks Congressional subpoena power.
Of course, they couldn't let any pro-Trump GOP (or anti-security-state) members on it, since they'd demand to interview Ray Epps in public and present video of his activities, demand FBI records and things like that which wouldn't support the "narrative".
I have wondered the same thing, but I haven't been able to find out from the coverage whether the committee's illegitimacy has been argued, and if it has whether the courts have rejected it.
This should all happen in January '23, assuming electoral trends favor GOP as strongly as they seem.
Brilliant!
This is a fascinating mirror image to the current practice of leaving the legislating in large part to the executive. Both branches seem to believe that, because their own designated duties come attached with restrictions and enumerated powers, they’re free from limits when moonlighting in each other’s role.
Good comment. Legislators leave the details of law-making to the unelected minions of the executive branch to avoid being held accountable by the voters. This practice is one way the so-called administrative state wields power. And while the practice is dysfunctional, it's understandable. When the legislative takes on the police powers of the executive there can only be one reason : smash-mouth politics.
This is a very perspicacious observation.
A 13-letter word followed by an eleven. Impressive.
By the way, if anyone is wondering what "perspicacious" means, the best way to remember is that its ANTONYM is.....wait for it......."dull."
Thank you, good sir. I have indeed heard before that I possess a certain predilection for sesquipedalian grandiloquence. : )
Just wow. No, just (25-30 letter word for staring in wonder, if not in mis-pronunciation, ironically the longest word I know).
I thought the committee was supposed to find out why an insurrection occurred, not carry one out. The more you know.
This is far worse than I had feared. I knew that the 1/6 committee was engaging in questionable legal practices, but to the extent they are amassing power is alarming on multiple levels.
This may sound conspiratorial--and I half think it is a conspiracy theory--but this unchecked power and abuse of it, along with Ray Epps and the unidentified pipe bomber and the second impeachment of Trump over 'creating a riot' against the backdrop of pardoning Assange and Snowden seems like one giant racket. I say this as someone whom previously thought Snowden should be tried for treason (though not Assange as he simply distributed information).
Something needs to be done, but what? The legacy press will do all they can to support the committee while the tech titans will censor stories critical of it. That leaves you, Mr Greenwald with just Substack and Fox News as outlets and the rest of us here have no real voice to try to inform the world. What to do? I cannot answer that and I doubt you can either, but something needs to be attempted, especially with the DNC and legacy press already planting seeds of doubt of the validity of the mid-term elections in which they are expected to loose power.
Ai Weiwei was right, and if the Rasmussen poll is correct, not only is the DNC on the route to authoritarianism , but a significant number of democrat voters:
https://cnsnews.com/blog/michael-w-chapman/chinese-activist-weiwei-us-authoritarian-state-you-just-dont-know-it
https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/18/the-nazi-next-door/
"Something needs to be done, but what?"
Bingo. We need to up our game -- and *badly*.
Someone needs to see that this gets in front of SCOTUS as expeditiously as possible. I have little doubt that the Constitutional separation of powers restrictions would be confirmed there. If the Congress and the 1/6 committee then chose to disregard the authority of the Supreme Court, we would at least know precisely where we stand, and the next necessary steps, no matter how unpleasant, would become obvious. Even that cowardly fraud Claire Wolfe might need to concede that the "time" had come. I do have more questions, however. Where the FUCK are the Republicans in Congress? Why aren't they denouncing this blatantly unconstitutional arrogation of power so loudly as to make the hills ring? Where, for that matter, are all of our so-called Consitution-supporting columnists other than Glenn? Jon Turley, for example? I think this may the most serious Constitutional crisis of my lifetime, and I'm far from young. It certainly makes Watergate look like a kindergarden game.
"Someone needs to see that this gets in front of SCOTUS as expeditiously as possible."
The problem is that takes months...and while I have faith that the court would strike the 1/6 committee down, that still means months more of ever increasing power and damage on their part.
"Where the FUCK are the Republicans in Congress?"
Either too afraid of the urban elites and press...or in bed with them.
The vaccine mandates didn't take very long to get there.
Yes -- and I trust you recall how fast they settled 2000 election.
Do you really think the 1/6 commission wouldn't do everything in their power to delay things as long as possible?
in bed with them
SCOTUS just ruled against Trump. From Newsmax: "The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected former President Donald Trump's request to block the release of White House records sought by the Democrat-led congressional panel investigating last year's deadly attack on the Capitol by protesters seeking to nullify the presidential election's results.
The decision means the documents, held by a federal agency that stores government and historical records, can be disclosed even as litigation over the matter continues in lower courts."
What is Trump trying to hide?
That's irrelevant. The committee is obtaining private information on citizens without getting warrants.
He could just be trying to piss off the DNC. He has no shortage of reasons to do just that. As for the court...all I can say is that is sad.
I love the first 2 (two) sentences, M. Stephen, but courts and their decisions can be revisited/reversed/made-moot, so all is not sad!
I'd run for congress if I had money and recognition, as I proposed solutions (which I write about), yet I have neither. I am willing to bet dozens if not hundreds of people subscribing to Greenwald would do the same. The problem is we have no money and recognition, and having Greenwald run for congress would be detrimental, as he provides everyone a far greater service through exposing this rot than he would in elected office.
AOC had no recognition until she won her primary. But she had "rebel" PAC organizations (e.g. Brand New Congress, others I don't recall the names of) who provided funding and other resources. Without debating the merits or transparency of particular "grass-roots supporting" PACs here, my point is there are sources to investigate if you're interested.
As far as upping our game, however, I am afraid that's not likely going to win the war. You wouldn't make it to the finish line and in Congress without making soul-killing Faustian deals. We will need to be more creative.
AOC ran on what the urban elite stand for, so it's no wonder someone with deep pockets came to finance her. The urban elite, however, have no desire to give money to people whom not only go against their way of thinking but whom have counter proposals to those ideas.
Regarding running for congress...that is the problem. Everyone thinks that something needs to be done, but that someone else will end up doing it. People have to be that 'someone else' or else nothing happens. I am aware of the mess of politics, however doing nothing is worse than making a handful of bad deals to do something. After all, Schindler had to bribe the Nazi authorities to save lives, that bribing was a deal with the devil, but would you say it wasn't worth it?
I am in AOC's district, and watched her rise from being a nobody. You know what she did before the primary? *Everything* she possibly could. Joe Crowley was doing nothing (as usual). So I'm confident it went well beyond her supposed policy "match" with (most) urban progressives...in her case, I believe it was purely (1) firebrand personality, and (2) energetic young people she/they recruited to go literally door-to-door. If she wasn't there, then Crowley, as the #4 house member, would have continued to serve the "progressives", that is, the ones *who matter*, just as well for them to suck it up and go along with minimal grumbling.
You should organize a march, in DC, for January 6th next year and see if they approve your permit.
We've got to face it: Street protests are so 1960s.
Or, at least (for us, anyway) so last year.
It's worse than that -- the anti-Iraq War street protests in 2003 were little reported on. At the *Democratic* Party convention of 2004, protesting was relegated to a "free speech zone".
Yeah. Maybe Antifa and those White Nationalists (whatever mountain hideout those tens of deplorables are holing up in these days), not to mention the 1/6ers, are just doing a public service, reminding the People of the value of a little REAL street protesting.
But don't let my sarcasm fool you, I agree with you and M. Iconoclast here.
"This may sound conspiratorial--and I half think it is a conspiracy theory"
Stop apologizing for hypothesizing a conspiracy! ... and whenever justified, developing a theory about it that calls for investigation. Conspiracies are, in part, exactly how the world works. Getting to the bottom of them is exactly how democracy, with a functional free press, is supposed to work. It's why laws like RICO exist. Russia collusion was a conspiracy theory. Watergate was an eventually well-proven conspiracy. You know I could go on...
I once believed that there was an international conspiracy to hide crashed UFOs and alien bodies from the rest of the world...then realized the fallacy of that in how much fame and fortune a whistle blower would attain, and given how many countries are out and out enemies of each other. I am not one whom rashly jumps to conclusions, though I never believed in Russiagate, nor did I believe in birthers, truthers and the Vaccine DNA alteration conspiracy...or for that matter, CRT or the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. They are all garbage.
I follow Carl Sagan's line "Extraordinary Claims require Extraordinary Evidence" and will not believe something is true until such evidence surfaces. It appears to be surfacing, though I'd rather be safe than sorry.
Which of Glenn's assertions about the powers that the 1/6 committee claims for itself would you question? They seem to be well documented, and undisputed by the committee members themselves. The scope and conclusions of his essay beyond those facts consists strictly of deductive logic.
I do not discount anything he has presented, however it would require either the Michigan case to be dismissed due to agents driving the plot rather than following it, or someone to either leak or acquire info from a FOIA showing Epps was working with the feds.
In the latter case though, Epps would end up as Eppstein--having everything that could go wrong go wrong while he was investigated and somehow dying under suspicious circumstances.
Ah, I didn't realize that you were speaking exclusively to those items.
Alien UFOs, flat earth, moon landing hoax ... these more far-fetched versions of reality that emerged in recent years are, IMO, are likely IC-instigated black-box efforts *specifically* to defame theorizing about far more plausible conspiracies.
That is a valid point to push aside the 'outlandish' conspiracy theories. While on the subject of conspiracy theories, CRT has all of the hallmarks of an outlandish conspiracy theory. It also has stark parallels with the pseudo-historic narratives used by despots ranging from Nazis, Fascists and Communists to push for 'correction of past traumas'. Looking at three conspiracy theories and CRT, it is hard to believe that any of them have any truth to them.
Take your pick of The Protocol of the Elders of Zion, White Genocide or QAnon. All three begin with a premise of a supposed, but un-provable malevolent entity which exists solely to exploit others. Much like the 'Jewish Elite' for the Elders of Zion, the 'Self-hating Leftist Elite' for White Genocide and the international group of 'Satanic Pedophiles' for QAnon, CRT has the equally foggy 'White Supremacist Establishment'. In all cases, the rationale behind the conspiracy theory is the misreading and misunderstanding of actual history. Also, in all cases, the evidence provided is at best hypothetical, but in most cases, simply amounts to one or two things going the way the conspiracy theorists predict it would, all while ignoring that the majority of the evidence does not favor the conspiracy theory in question. For CRT, the evidence that doesn't favor the conspiracy theory are the achievements of direct immigrants from Africa relative to the 'native' population of African descent, the success of East and South Asians as well as Jews (whom I consider just as 'white' as anyone else of European ancestry, though apparently the 'Woke' crowd, along with neo-nazis, disagree). Also, in all cases, one must devote themselves with a near cult-like fervor to oppose the un-provable malevolent entity or else be considered a part of it or doing it's bidding.
Another aspect of CRT is that it has the same kind of 'trauma' trigger that was used by the Nazis, Fascists and Communists. For CRT, it was the existence of slavery, for the Nazis, it was the idiotically drawn Treaty of Versailles, while for the Italians, it was the Paris Peace conference which did not honor the Treaty of London, while for Red China, it was the century of humiliation. For both the actual Nazis and Fascists as well as Communists, these traumas resulted in the falsification of history, of shoving all events related to these episodes into life every day and into creating a sense of combined fear and possible salvation. With CRT, things like the 1619 project--which was denounced by the foremost historians in both the American Revolution and the Civil War--serves as a prime example of the falsification of history, the press looking at everything through the leans of race every day places it into everyone's daily life, not to mention lying about the number of unarmed people shot by police, and the 'solutions' of 'anti-racism' create the sense of combined fear and salvation.
This is particularly frightening given that unlike QAnon and White Genocide, CRT has made it into academia, primary education, the business community and the press. The Protocols did as well in pre WWII Europe and have caused insurmountable damage that continues to this day, both in that people still believe that rot, and that it is being spread in the Muslim World to justify hatred of Israel. I am not suggesting that CRT will end up causing the deaths of millions, however the hatred being sowed is dangerous on multiple levels, as is the cult-like following. Think what you want of Thomas Sowell (whom I greatly admire), but he seems spot on:
“Ours may become the first civilization destroyed, not by the power of our enemies, but by the ignorance of our teachers and the dangerous nonsense they are teaching our children. In an age of artificial intelligence, they are creating artificial stupidity.”
It doesn't matter what the "conspiracy theory" is. Powerful actors operating in secret contrary to their public pronouncements is not only plausible, it's in fact simply how the world often works, whether through so-called noble lies or sociopathic malfeasance. Dismissing a hypothesis out of hand based on its supposed universally-recognized outlandishness is an error, not just of social intelligence but too often analytically as well.
One can certainly have a gut reaction to what appears to be, or even manifestly is, inferior logic, and have emotional responses to such. But without always performing the explicit due diligence, and, especially, *permanently* laying out the results easily available for other to both learn from and for opponents to respond to, we are regressing. Media organizations hardly help with this at all these days, and too often actively, if not consciously, work against it, for profit motive. As always, one must permit "Cui bono?" -- *especially* of those who construct a story.
One recent example of the wide-scale shift that illustrates our capacity for error is the priest molestation scandal. You would have been hard pressed to find anyone giving that any credence whatsoever in the 1970s or any time prior. Or, prior to the 1990s, the idea that psychiatric problems are, in part, very often caused by physical problems -- their existence was suppressed by those whose livelihoods were threatened. So too the Iraq WMD argument in 2002-03, later soundly debunked. As you know there are many notorious cases in all fields of life, as well as volumes of uncelebrated ones. But that's part of society's evolution.
Don’t forget the billions they gave to the Capitol Police for domestic anti-terror work.
Just as they build a barrier around the capitol but ignore the southern border...and demand that every other police department is defunded. "Security for me but not to thee" would be a fitting motto for the urban elite.
I wouldn't put Glenn in the camp with Fox News.
"That leaves you, Mr Greenwald with just Substack and Fox News as outlets"
How is that putting Glenn in the same camp as Fox? They have him on regularly, if another station or newspaper does so as well, please let me know.
Edit: I didn't mention Glenn on Twitter given how easily he could be shut down there by the thought police.
Fair point!
This is clearly a fishing expedition; they have no evidence of a conspiracy, so they are just using their power to bully private citizens, to justify their own existence and maintain the illusion that they are investigating a real threat.
The people on this committee should themselves be prosecuted for gross abuse of power, and at a minimum, barred from public office.
The fact that Democrats are so blasé about this ridiculous overreach is itself quite frightening. We have a major political party that does not honor or respect the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and will do anything to hold onto power including Soviet style tactics that a generation ago would have been shocking to many Americans.
In the realm of government power, there's nothing you can do to other people without doing it to yourself. Of course, if Democrats -- or Democrats plus Liz Cheney, I guess -- establish that they can form a select committee with unlimited power to obtain the private financial records and communications of anyone, for any reason, without limit, then Jim Jordan will probably have the same power next year. It's comparable to the wisdom of demanding that the Senate eliminate the filibuster. Trying to repress X, the January 6 committee is empowering tomorrow's X. It's suicide wearing the mask of murder.
I’d prefer not to stoop to their Stalinist tactics, but they deserve whatever they get. These people are pure evil.
I understand the temptation to go tit-for-tat, but the buck has to stop somewhere, or we're all going to hell. Having principles does not make one a chump. Better to take the high road before we end up like the Hutus and the Tutsis, rather than after.
Exactly how will "taking the high road" stop us from ending up like the Hutus and the Tutsis?
If we merely seek revenge and put the screws to whichever side is not in power at the time, where else will it ultimately lead but to our dissolution as a state? The example of the Hutus and the Tutsis is one of the most devastating and tragic in modern history. We human beings are capable of great things and horrific things. Our choice.
If the right and the left view each other as mortal enemies, the country will fail. Violence spreads easily in countries where people demonize one another. We have enough examples from history to know that neighbors will turn on each other overnight if malice is allowed to fester. Human beings are tribal at our core, and tribal instincts can always be exploited by cynical people in power. As we speak, folks on both the right and on the left are heavily armed. In response to white supremacist groups, there are now well-armed Black militias and a pro-Second Amendment Black constituency that includes some very intelligent and influential people. I neither condemn nor support this, I'm simply stating the facts. Antifa is also well armed. Guns are everywhere and they're not going away, they're baked into our culture. So we had better learn to work around them, and create a society where we respect each others' differences, preserve and protect civil liberties to the utmost, and cherish the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. If expressing patriotism and valuing the principles upon which this country was founded is now conflated with right-wing extremism, we have a very serious problem.
This is my opinion. Maybe I'm off my rocker. I don't know what else to say.
"So we had better learn to work around them, and create a society where we respect each others' differences...."
That ship had sailed, esp. with folks like the Cheneys doing their thing, to huge MSM applause.
Who are you kidding Cathie? You would love to open up death camps and exterminate your political enemies.
A little projection?
Upvoted for “suicide wearing the mask of murder”
"Trying to repress X, the January 6 committee is empowering tomorrow's X. It's suicide wearing the mask of murder."
I'd say, instead, that it's a trap.
It’s too bad we have to wait 9 months until the midterms to finally throw these contemptible people out of power. God knows how much more damage they will inflict, not only on the country, but on individual citizens, in the mean time. I have never seen such a pack of corrupt, lying, power hungry troglodytes in my life, and they can’t be gone soon enough.
Um, are you really suggesting the previous Trump Regime was or the future one will be less corrupt, lying, power-hungry, etc?
I mean, Glenn's article is dead on accurate as is frequently the case, but he has too narrow a focus for my taste. From a previous posting, the purpose of journalism is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. I fail to see how the Trump Regime members are less afflicted than the Bidenistas.
If I understand you correctly, I would say that Glen frequently fields this type of criticism on Twitter, and a couple times in the comments. When it comes to Trump, or conservative politics in general, we have just about every other MSM outlet for that. There are plenty of people scrutinizing every move of Trump, et all. There are very few (uncensored) voices bringing any of this stuff up.
You do have both my issue and Glenn's reply correct. But he's not writing to the Democratically oriented MSM but an arm of the GOP and feeding their - to a considerable extent justified - anger. And he seems to have taken exception to what some of his readers consider inappropriate use of "liberal" while not doing reality checks on comments such as misunderstanding VAERS in concluding the vaccine kills more people than covid.
Glenn's shown considerable personal bravery; I just wish he'd use his forums the way Chomsky did many years ago when he told listeners in Pakistan that the Indian press and government had some legitimate points and proceeded (if I've the order right) to go to India and tell audiences there the Pakistani press and government similarly had some of it right.
I’m looking forward to Liz’s commission on the war crimes perpetrated by her father..