Bear Pit: now the sole domicile of politics at LuLa

[TechTalk]

If this keeps up, the USA is going to lose its top billing as the world's greatest democracy. 

I've been wondering which is more dangerous, the groups and individuals supporting antigovernment violence or the vastly larger number that try to normalize Trump's ongoing effort to undermine democracy. Violence would create an immediate threat, but one that can be put down fairly quickly or preferably prevented as happened in Michigan. The normalizing of Trump's anti-democracy efforts by his supporters, on the other hand, could carry forward and have a more long-lasting effect in weakening democracy and threatening its longevity.

[LesPalenik]

Speaking of complaining, I have gotten interested in complaining since it has become such a popular pastime lately, and so I looked up why old people complain. Honest to God, the first cause listed for old people complaining is a urinary tract infection (UTI).  Seems in addition to that burning sensation, it alters moods and behaviors. If you don't believe me, google "old people complaining". Maybe the problem is that we have not one, but two pandemics going at the same time: COVID and UTI. So I'm thinking maybe we ought to add some antibiotics to those COVID vaccines, and then move Trump supporters to the front of the line.

We are rounding the corner. As it gets warmer and we get more sunlight, people will complain less about both, Covid and UTI.

[Robert Roaldi]

Democracy is about complaining.  Only in dictatorships can't you complain.

Complain is one thing, threatening armed insurrection because your side lost is something else entirely.

[chez]

If this keeps up, the USA is going to lose its top billing as the world's greatest democracy. 

Really...did the US ever have that top billing?

[Robert Roaldi]

Speaking of complaining, I have gotten interested in complaining since it has become such a popular pastime lately, and so I looked up why old people complain. Honest to God, the first cause listed for old people complaining is a urinary tract infection (UTI).  Seems in addition to that burning sensation, it alters moods and behaviors. If you don't believe me, google "old people complaining". Maybe the problem is that we have not one, but two pandemics going at the same time: COVID and UTI. Maybe the U.S. is ninth worst in the world for UTI too. So I'm thinking maybe we ought to add some antibiotics to those COVID vaccines, and then move Trump supporters to the front of the line. Maybe historians in the future are going to write that America's great experiment in democracy failed because of urinary tract infections.

Looks like Cruz has come in from out in the cold to say something about the election. I hadn't noticed him in a while. Wasn't it his father who shot JFK according to Trump? Or did he shoot Jack Ruby, I forget. The way I remember the story unfolding though is that the guy didn't shoot anybody, it was one of those things that you say because of the 1st amendment. Funny how freedom of speech applies to every fabricated piece of bs to come out of ignoramus's mouths in Trumpistan, but the press needs to be shut down.

Good luck to you guys on Wednesday. I assume Trump has a golf game scheduled.

[Alan Klein]

We are rounding the corner. As it gets warmer and we get more sunlight, people will complain less about both, Covid and UTI.

Thank God for global warming.

[TechTalk]

Funny how freedom of speech applies to every fabricated piece of bs to come out of ignoramus's mouths in Trumpistan, but the press needs to be shut down.

Well, in addition to the daily repetition of calling professional journalists "fake news"; Trump, from time to time, has called the press the enemy of the people. Freedom of the press is enshrined in the Bill of Rights as a neccessary element of democracy—but for Trump democracy and the Constitution are of little concern in his anti-democracy and pro-Trump crusade. And still, people normalize his actions as nothing to be concerned about.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/The press are truly the ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!

"The press is doing everything within their power to fight the magnificence of the phrase, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! They can’t stand the fact that this Administration has done more than virtually any other Administration in its first 2yrs. They are truly the ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!" [all caps is in the original tweet - not altered by me]

https://thehill.com/trump-calls-press-the-enemy-of-the-people

"President Trump said Friday that the press is “truly the enemy of the people,” ratcheting up his use of the derisive label to attack the news media.

He has rejected calls to tone down his rhetoric, even in the wake of explosive devices being sent to CNN and prominent Democrats he has criticized."

[LesPalenik]

Now Trump is saying that the number of Covid cases and deaths are inflated.

“The number of cases and deaths of the China Virus is far exaggerated in the United States because of the @CDCgov’s ridiculous method of determination compared to other countries, many of whom report, purposely, very inaccurately and low,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

If anything, the official death count is undercounted, showing over $350,000 fatalities as of now and will be well 400,000 by the Inauguration Day.

https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-usa-data/thats-real-fauci-rejects-trump-claim-that-u-s-coronavirus-deaths-overcounted-idUSKBN2980GC
 

[faberryman]

We are rounding the corner. As it gets warmer and we get more sunlight, people will complain less about both, Covid and UTI.

I was just walking my dog thinking how normal everything seemed. It is a brisk and sunny day, and all the people who drove by gave me a wide berth and waved, and the neighbors said hello, but then I get home and turned on the TV and it looked like the TV guy was anchoring Dante's Inferno or something. Kind of makes you not want to turn on the TV. Honestly, I haven't watched too much news since the election. Reading about what is going on in my newsfeed has been enough. I'll probably turn on the TV on January 6th for live coverage of Congress counting the votes and the associated protests. I'll probably turn it off when Ted Cruz sanctimoniously reads Green Eggs and Ham or whatever he is planning to do. He is not a favorite of mine and now he looks like a homeless guy with that scraggly-ass beard and all. It does nothing for his credibility. I mean he is perfectly within his rights to object to a state's panel of electors and everything, but I am starting to be a broken record about saying just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should do it. It's not going to make a bit of difference. He will just make a spectacle of himself. All of them will. I guess a lot of people like making spectacles of themselves. They need the attention or something. But think of all the times you could have been a horse's ass but weren't, and how everyone, including yourself, was a little better off because of it. Maybe it would be a good thing if Trump went down to Congress, dropped his trousers, bent over and let whoever wanted to kiss his ass do so, and then let the process proceed as normal. Maybe he could even have a photographer there, and you could get an 8x10 glossy of you kissing his ass sort of like you were at the high school prom or something. You could frame it, and put in on the credenza behind your desk next to the picture of your wife and kids, and it would be the proudest moment of your life.

[TechTalk]

I highly recommend reading this Washington Post story on the hour-long phone call from Trump to the Georgia Secretary of State pressuring him to "find" thousands of votes for him and say that Georgia had "recalculated" the election results to show that Trump won. Trump also threatened the Georgia Secretary of State and his legal counsel with possible criminal offenses.

‘I just want to find 11,780 votes’: In extraordinary hour-long call, Trump pressures Georgia secretary of state to recalculate the vote in his favor

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com:https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-raffensperger-call-georgia-vote/2021/01/03/

There is a 4-1/2 minute audio recording of the phone call available online. Perhaps we will have the entire conversation available to listen to sometime. Trump will say it was a perfect call and his supporters will say there was nothing unusual about it. Personally, I find it disturbing—perhaps even alarming—to hear a President of the United States saying what he does in this recording.

https://www.youtube.com/Audio: Trump berates Ga. secretary of state, urges him to ‘find’ votes

The Georgia Secretary of State responded to Trump's tweet regarding the phone call saying "Respectfully, President Trump: What you're saying is not true. The truth will come out."

https://twitter.com/GaSecofState/The truth will come out

[John Camp]

I was just walking my dog thinking how normal everything seemed. It is a brisk and sunny day, and all the people who drove by gave me a wide berth and waved, and the neighbors said hello, but then I get home and turned on the TV and it looked like the TV guy was anchoring Dante's Inferno or something. Kind of makes you not want to turn on the TV.

I'd like to find a rational place to talk about the MSM -- specifically, the NYT, the WAPO and the WSJ. I think that under the influence of social media, they've gone off the edge, focusing on commentary rather than news reporting (although all of them do some decent news reporting.) I think they are as much to blame for this current political mess as social media. Anyone who has read the political threads here know how much I disdain Trump and his followers, but I totally understand why he hates the Times. The Times no longer understands that there is a population that is not black, not LGBTQ, and not "progressive," and isn't big in the creative arts (theater, music, literature.) In fact, I'd estimate about 80% of the population falls outside those groups, and I do think that 80% deserves coverage of issues that concern them.

I've been wondering which is more dangerous, the groups and individuals supporting antigovernment violence or the vastly larger number that try to normalize Trump's ongoing effort to undermine democracy. Violence would create an immediate threat, but one that can be put down fairly quickly or preferably prevented as happened in Michigan. The normalizing of Trump's anti-democracy efforts by his supporters, on the other hand, could carry forward and have a more long-lasting effect in weakening democracy and threatening its longevity.

I completely agree with your concern. The idiots like the Proud Boys can be dealt with. What you have a much harder time dealing with are the people who go around with the aggrieved sense that their election has been stolen somehow and the rightful president defeated. They'll be back at the ballot box with all their misplaced grievances when the Proud Boys are long forgotten.

[faberryman]

I'd like to find a rational place to talk about the MSM -- specifically, the NYT, the WAPO and the WSJ. I think that under the influence of social media, they've gone off the edge, focusing on commentary rather than news reporting (although all of them do some decent news reporting.) I think they are as much to blame for this current political mess as social media. Anyone who has read the political threads here know how much I disdain Trump and his followers, but I totally understand why he hates the Times. The Times no longer understands that there is a population that is not black, not LGBTQ, and not "progressive," and isn't big in the creative arts (theater, music, literature.) In fact, I'd estimate about 80% of the population falls outside those groups, and I do think that 80% deserves coverage of issues that concern them.

I don't know why you put the onus on the NYT to do that. It's like subscribing to National Review and complaining it doesn’t cover enough progressive issues. It doesn't make much sense to me. Same with NYT. You are not going to find everything you want (and don't want) in one publication. You need to read a variety of sources.

I subscribe to NYT and get digital content and the Sunday print version. I don't read the ballet reviews. I assume some people do. The paper costs the same with or without the ballet reviews. Read what you want, don't read what you don't want, and if you don't like the content or the point of view, find something you like better.

Trump hates anybody or anything that criticizes him, so naturally he hates the NYT. That's no surprise. Trump now hates Fox News after four years of ass-kissing and tells his followers to watch OAN. He has started tweeting a lot of OAN video lately. He'll turn on OAN sooner or later.

[TechTalk]

NPR has additional audio from the Trump phone call to the Georgia Secretary of State pressuring him to flip the election results there.

'This Was A Scam': In Recorded Call, Trump Pushed Official To Overturn Georgia Vote

https://www.npr.org/2021/01/03/953012128/this-was-a-scam-in-recorded-call-trump-pushed-official-to-overturn-georgia-vote

[Peter McLennan]

'This Was A Scam': In Recorded Call, Trump Pushed Official To Overturn Georgia Vote[/b]

Just when we thought it was impossible for his behaviour to astonish us any further...

Remember the impeachment hearings?  When Republicans were accusing Democrats of trying to reverse the election? Destroy democracy?

Now, the president is on tape coercing a state governor to do exactly that.

I can't wait to see how <insert usual suspects here> attempt to defend this.

[jeremyrh]

NPR has additional audio from the Trump phone call to the Georgia Secretary of State pressuring him to flip the election results there.

'This Was A Scam': In Recorded Call, Trump Pushed Official To Overturn Georgia Vote

https://www.npr.org/2021/01/03/953012128/this-was-a-scam-in-recorded-call-trump-pushed-official-to-overturn-georgia-vote

I’m sure it’s just a sign of a strong democracy that the president can attempt to overturn the result of a free election - right, Alan?

[TechTalk]

Just when we thought it was impossible for his behaviour to astonish us any further...

Remember the impeachment hearings?  When Republicans were accusing Democrats of trying to reverse the election? Destroy democracy?

Now, the president is on tape coercing a state governor to do exactly that.

I can't wait to see how <insert usual suspects here> attempt to defend this.

Given the past Republican minimizing and dismissal of Trump's efforts to undermine democracy and rule of law, I have little doubt that pressuring and threatening a Secretary of State to find enough votes to overturn an election will be minimized and normalized as well.

Those that have blind faith in an ideology willingly trade blindness for comfort in their faith.

[LesPalenik]

All these desperate moves by Trump are a strong indication of the fear of lawsuits against him, once he looses the presidential immunity.

[BernardLanguillier]

Democracy is about complaining.  Only in dictatorships can't you complain.

Democracy is about ensuring that 1. the law favors the majority of people and that 2. the law is followed. There is endless room for discussion within the framework of these 2 principles.

Here it's all too clear that the purpose of the complaining is to put an end to these principles. In other words to put in place a system in which you'll only be allowed to complain if you complain against those who disagree with the great leader Trump.

It's called a dictatorship.

The fact that Trump claims he is a victim doesn't change anything to what is happening.

It's a known historical facts that democracies are weak to well equipped demagogues who don't respect the spirit of democracy nor the law and put in place an elaborate plan to ensure that opposition is either not allowed to act (that includes the press) or that it's actions are not followed by the effects they should legally have.

And history has also showed that the citizens supporting these leaders are as guilty as the leaders themselves. That would include you.

Cheers,
Bernard

[TechTalk]

The full-length audio of the Trump phone call to the Georgia Secretary of State is available from the Washington Post and now YouTube.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/audio-trumps-full-jan-2-call-with-ga-secretary-of-state/2021/01/03/video.html

https://www.youtube.com/Trump’s full phone call with Georgia election officials

The transcript of the call is available here...

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search:https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-raffensperger-call-transcript-georgia-vote/2021/01/03/

[Alan Klein]

I’m sure it’s just a sign of a strong democracy that the president can attempt to overturn the result of a free election - right, Alan?

He's wasting his breath and looking foolish.  Nothing's going to change. But that's allowed in a democracy.