PILOT SPIN
Spin Zone => Spin Zone => Topic started by: Lucifer on August 08, 2025, 09:41:32 AM
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It's unfolding and not looking good for many of the deep state types and BHO as more and more documents are coming to light, plus whistle blowers coming forward.
Personally I'm not holding my breath as we have watched republicans fuck up before. Comey, Brennan, Clapper, Wray and McCabe all need to be indicted and perp walked as well as BHO. We watched for years as the lunatic left kept shouting "No one is above the law!" so we need to hold that standard and let the chips fall where they may.
The MSM is keeping this as quiet as possible because they too were involved. But facts are facts.
We shall see.
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Lockem up.
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Personally I'm not holding my breath
Me Either
We shall see.
Or more correctly, we will NOT see. Just like the Epstein files, any evidence the deep state (or the criminals involved) doesn't like will disappear.
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I'm not holding my breath. Only Republicans get fried, like the Watergate travesty.
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My bet, nothing comes of it.
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Wow, we've become really cynical about the government's ability to police itself.
And no, nothing will come of it.
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One thing, perhaps, they don't want to bring any charges unless they are sure they have an airtight case to work with.
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In the past we've always had the republican "This is not who we are" and "We don't want to be like the democrats" that ended any meaningful investigations.
The ONLY way to put an end to this is to fight fire with fire. They (democrats) need to be slapped down and use their own rules against them. If not, it will never stop.
These fools have gone through millions of tax payer dollars and have disrupted the country with their charades and show trials. Their party is collapsing and we should go ahead and let it collapse.
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(https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/still-waiting-768x766.jpg)
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Gee, Mike Pense, Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr are certainly quiet right now……
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The MSM is keeping this as quiet as possible because they too were involved. But facts are facts.
If not from the MSM, what is your source for these "facts"?
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If not from the MSM, what is your source for these "facts"?
Lots has already been declassified and put out for the public. DNI Gabbard has been posting documents to start with. With a little internet sleuthing they are attainable.
Plus several conservative websites are posting this info.
https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/press-releases-2025/4086-pr-15-25
https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/dig/4085-dig-obama-conspiracy-to-subvert-president-trump-victory
https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/DIG/DIG-Russia-Hoax-Memo-and-Timeline_revisited.pdf
https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/DIG/DIG-Declassified-Whistleblower-Testimony-Obama-Subvert-President-Trump-July2025.pdf
https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/newly-declassified-appendix-to-durham-report-sheds-additional-light-on-clinton-campaign-plan-to-falsely-tie-trump-to-russia-and-fbis-failure-to-investigate
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/bombshells-begin-newly-declassified-doc-confirms-obama-was-compromised-emails-showed-up-on-mystery-evidence-presented-to-fbi/ar-AA1J5geY
https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/remarks/grassley-americans-deserve-the-facts-on-the-obama-fbis-role-in-trump-russia-hoax
https://www.sgtreport.com/2025/08/declassified-durham-report-annex-exposes-fbi-role-in-prolonging-trump-russia-hoax/
https://www.lifezette.com/2025/07/smoking-gun-newly-declassified-documents-blow-russia-hoax-investigation-wide-open-watch/
https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/08/russiagate-redux-grassley-calls-out-fbi-for-leaking-false-narratives-to-obstruct-biden-investigation/
https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/remarks/grassley-we-need-to-expose-the-political-conspiracy-that-surrounded-president-trump
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5414984-sen-johnson-media-russia-election-interference/
https://www.ronjohnson.senate.gov/2025/8/righting-unconscionable-wrongs
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If not from the MSM, what is your source for these "facts"?
Are you implying that the MSM is the source of truth?
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https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/DIG/DIG-Russia-Hoax-Memo-and-Timeline_revisited.pdf
https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/DIG/DIG-Declassified-Whistleblower-Testimony-Obama-Subvert-President-Trump-July2025.pdf
These two pdfs are the only links you gave that could even remotely be considered "facts"... or evidence. The first seems to go to extreme lengths to detail how a claim that was never made as part of any public accusation against Trump - namely, that Russia tried to hack the electoral infrastructure to manipulate the vote count - was without basis, and that, therefore, the eventual statement that Putin "directed an effort help President Trump defeat Hillary Clinton" was also false. It looks like a total red herring argument to me.
The second is so heavily redacted that I'm not sure there's any information in it that isn't open to more than one interpretation.
Someone high up in the IC at the time (I don't recall who) insisted recently that the Steele dossier WAS considered unreliable and was never the basis for any charges brought against anyone. The same official also clarified that the actual claim was that Russia's alleged campaign to help Trump was mainly a social engineering campaign using bots and other disinformation sources planted on social media. I don't see any reason to trust that statement less, or more, than that declassified memo to DNI Gabbard.
Unless there's something more solid out there somewhere, this looks like more lawfare being waged by the Trump administration against Trump's perceived enemies. I think both sides have been weaponizing this issue for political gain (Dems) and for retribution (Trump), and I doubt what actually happened will ever be publicly known until all parties involved are dead and buried.
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Are you implying that the MSM is the source of truth?
Hardly. But a lot of non-MSM sources are especially untrustworthy imo. The MSM's reporting is always biased (mainly as to selection of stories to cover, and by mixing editorial content with hard news) but almost never patently false or intentionally misleading. The same can't be said of what comes out of many strongly partisan sources outside the MSM - on both ends of the political spectrum.
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These two pdfs are the only links you gave that could even remotely be considered "facts"... or evidence. The first seems to go to extreme lengths to detail how a claim that was never made as part of any public accusation against Trump - namely, that Russia tried to hack the electoral infrastructure to manipulate the vote count - was without basis, and that, therefore, the eventual statement that Putin "directed an effort help President Trump defeat Hillary Clinton" was also false. It looks like a total red herring argument to me.
The second is so heavily redacted that I'm not sure there's any information in it that isn't open to more than one interpretation.
Someone high up in the IC at the time (I don't recall who) insisted recently that the Steele dossier WAS considered unreliable and was never the basis for any charges brought against anyone. The same official also clarified that the actual claim was that Russia's alleged campaign to help Trump was mainly a social engineering campaign using bots and other disinformation sources planted on social media. I don't see any reason to trust that statement less, or more, than that declassified memo to DNI Gabbard.
Unless there's something more solid out there somewhere, this looks like more lawfare being waged by the Trump administration against Trump's perceived enemies. I think both sides have been weaponizing this issue for political gain (Dems) and for retribution (Trump), and I doubt what actually happened will ever be publicly known until all parties involved are dead and buried.
What I posted took me all of three minutes to find. There’s more and more out there, and more coming. Patel has found a lot of hidden records that are currently undergoing declassification. More whistle blowers have come forward. In case you missed it a grand jury is being empaneled and many of those involved have had criminal referrals already filed with the DoJ. Also we should be getting the documentation of who was behind the Mar A Lago raid.
It’s interesting you call this “lawfare”. If you actually cared to follow it and be educated on the law, these people have broken laws, and the legal process is under way. We’ll wait for the grand jury replies whether they are indicted or the GJ finds no basis to proceed.
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Hardly. But a lot of non-MSM sources are especially untrustworthy imo. The MSM's reporting is always biased (mainly as to selection of stories to cover, and by mixing editorial content with hard news) but almost never patently false or intentionally misleading. The same can't be said of what comes out of many strongly partisan sources outside the MSM - on both ends of the political spectrum.
Oh please.
So we never saw “60 minutes” intentionally edit an interview with Kamala Harris because it was so bad they tried editing to hide it? Or we didn’t see the MSM pushing the false narrative of Charlottesville by selectively editing? Or the MSM reporting on the “suckers and losers” hoax?
And the list goes on and on.
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What I posted took me all of three minutes to find. There’s more and more out there, and more coming. Patel has found a lot of hidden records that are currently undergoing declassification. More whistle blowers have come forward. In case you missed it a grand jury is being empaneled and many of those involved have had criminal referrals already filed with the DoJ. Also we should be getting the documentation of who was behind the Mar A Lago raid.
It’s interesting you call this “lawfare”. If you actually cared to follow it and be educated on the law, these people have broken laws, and the legal process is under way. We’ll wait for the grand jury replies whether they are indicted or the GJ finds no basis to proceed.
Yes, it's lawfare. And these people have only been *accused* of breaking the law - I'll reserve judgment on whether they actually broke the law. Given the way the DoJ is now targeting people that Trump has made clear he claims were out to get him, this sure looks like an administration taking control of the DoJ and directing it to do his bidding. It's ironic, given that Trump has stated he wants to END politically motivated prosecutions (i.e., lawfare), that what his administration is doing now looks like more of the same.
And given that a politically directed DoJ is no longer an independent agency working to see that justice is done, I don't care how many grand juries are impaneled or what charges are brought. Sorry, but I wouldn't trust this particular "legal process" if they said the sky was blue..
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Oh please.
So we never saw “60 minutes” intentionally edit an interview with Kamala Harris because it was so bad they tried editing to hide it? Or we didn’t see the MSM pushing the false narrative of Charlottesville by selectively editing? Or the MSM reporting on the “suckers and losers” hoax?
And the list goes on and on.
So what if they edited a bad interview? 60 Minutes edits interviews all the time. It would be awfully hard to prove that it was to hide anything, and certainly to prove that it was to help Kamala's chances.
The Charlottesville fiasco is something I've researched quite extensively. I think there were two factors in that: first, media bias, no question - the MSM always interprets what Trump says in the worst possible light. But Trump is also a horrible communicator, and he practically walked into that one. "Good people on both sides" - how could anyone NOT foresee how the MSM would interpret that? I don't think there was any intentional creation of a false narrative. They just thought they had him clearly saying something favorable about neo-Nazis and never bothered to look critically at that conclusion.
I have no idea what the "suckers and losers hoax" was about.
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Yes, it's lawfare. And these people have only been *accused* of breaking the law - I'll reserve judgment on whether they actually broke the law. Given the way the DoJ is now targeting people that Trump has made clear he claims were out to get him, this sure looks like an administration taking control of the DoJ and directing it to do his bidding. It's ironic, given that Trump has stated he wants to END politically motivated prosecutions (i.e., lawfare), that what his administration is doing now looks like more of the same.
And given that a politically directed DoJ is no longer an independent agency working to see that justice is done, I don't care how many grand juries are impaneled or what charges are brought. Sorry, but I wouldn't trust this particular "legal process" if they said the sky was blue..
So you believe DJT is directing the FBI, DNI and DoJ to “get” his opponents? Do you also think they are manufacturing evidence?
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So you believe DJT is directing the FBI, DNI and DoJ to “get” his opponents? Do you also think they are manufacturing evidence?
Bingo to the first. I have no idea whether they're actually manufacturing evidence, but it wouldn't surprise me.
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So what if they edited a bad interview? 60 Minutes edits interviews all the time. It would be awfully hard to prove that it was to hide anything, and certainly to prove that it was to help Kamala's chances.
The Charlottesville fiasco is something I've researched quite extensively. I think there were two factors in that: first, media bias, no question - the MSM always interprets what Trump says in the worst possible light. But Trump is also a horrible communicator, and he practically walked into that one. "Good people on both sides" - how could anyone NOT foresee how the MSM would interpret that? I don't think there was any intentional creation of a false narrative. They just thought they had him clearly saying something favorable about neo-Nazis and never bothered to look critically at that conclusion.
I have no idea what the "suckers and losers hoax" was about.
On the 60 minutes interview, the actual interview came out once lawsuits were made. This is not just a selective interview “edit”. The editing was so intense its only purpose was to try to save a failing candidate. Oh, and that edited interview was also considered to be election interference. CBS quickly backed down once it was shown they broke election laws.
I’m old enough to remember Dan Rather when he completely falsified a letter from the National Guard to smear GWB. This was a big 3 News anchor fabricating evidence to harm a Republican running for president. It ended Rather’s career.
Then there was Brian Williams of NBC, again caught fabricating a story. The New York Times has been caught numerous time making up complete false stories.
And the list goes on.
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These two pdfs are the only links you gave that could even remotely be considered "facts"... or evidence. The first seems to go to extreme lengths to detail how a claim that was never made as part of any public accusation against Trump - namely, that Russia tried to hack the electoral infrastructure to manipulate the vote count - was without basis, and that, therefore, the eventual statement that Putin "directed an effort help President Trump defeat Hillary Clinton" was also false. It looks like a total red herring argument to me.
The second is so heavily redacted that I'm not sure there's any information in it that isn't open to more than one interpretation.
Someone high up in the IC at the time (I don't recall who) insisted recently that the Steele dossier WAS considered unreliable and was never the basis for any charges brought against anyone. The same official also clarified that the actual claim was that Russia's alleged campaign to help Trump was mainly a social engineering campaign using bots and other disinformation sources planted on social media. I don't see any reason to trust that statement less, or more, than that declassified memo to DNI Gabbard.
Yeah, the IC knew all along it was fake. Nevertheless it was used to get FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign, and it was deliberately leaked to the press and hyped up to the public as fact for the purpose of damaging Trump’s reputation.
Unless there's something more solid out there somewhere, this looks like more lawfare being waged by the Trump administration against Trump's perceived enemies. I think both sides have been weaponizing this issue for political gain (Dems) and for retribution (Trump), and I doubt what actually happened will ever be publicly known until all parties involved are dead and buried.
For once the Republicans are standing up for themselves legitimately, not weaponizing falsely (that part is pertinent) for whatever reason. You call it retribution but another word for it is justice.
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Yes, individual MSM reporters have been caught crossing the line - Rather is the best-known. And as you noted, it ended his career. I'm less familiar with the details of the Jennings case, but he's no longer anchoring NBC Nightly News.
I conclude that when it happens within the MSM, and it's caught, the offender pays a steep price. That's how it should work. What price do writers at highly partisan sites pay when they're caught making shit up?
Paramount settled the lawsuit brought by Trump, almost certainly so as not to jeopardize their pending merger with Skydance. As I wrote, it would have been pretty difficult to convince the court that the editing was done "to try to save a failing candidate", so it's very unlikely that had anything to do with the settlement. The Trump administration's overwhelming power, now that previously independent agencies like FCC have been whipped into line to do the president's bidding, is a far more plausible explanation for the settlement.
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Bingo to the first. I have no idea whether they're actually manufacturing evidence, but it wouldn't surprise me.
The Steele dossier itself was THE most manufactured evidence in modern times. Not only was it completely made up, when it was leaked to the press, those press reports were then taken to the FISA court as corroborating evidence, despite originating from the same unverified source.
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Yeah, the IC knew all along it was fake. Nevertheless it was used to get FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign, and it was deliberately leaked to the press and hyped up to the public as fact for the purpose of damaging Trump’s reputation.
For once the Republicans are standing up for themselves legitimately, not weaponizing falsely (that part is pertinent) for whatever reason. You call it retribution but another word for it is justice.
How do you know what is true and what is false in these current cases? NO party should be able to stand up for themselves by using the power of the executive branch to direct the wheels of justice. With that power they really can manufacture evidence, or force settlements when evidence is lacking, as apparently happened in the 60 Minutes case.
The result may or may not be justice, but a large segment of the public is going to doubt the integrity of the process, and that's a problem in my opinion. I don't blame the Trump administration, as there have been administrations before, Democrat as well as Republican, that have similarly tried to weaponize the DoJ. I used to think our system had guardrails to keep that from actually happening, but today we have a Congress that acquiesces to practically everything Trump wants, and a USSC that seems determined to transform the Presidency into a de facto term-limited monarchy.
The strength of Trump's presidency in his second term is something to file under "be careful what you wish for". Someday there will be another Democrat president, and he or she will have exactly the same powers that Trump wields today. We've already seen how the Dems are reacting to the redistricting plan in Texas. This is not going to end well for the country.
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. We've already seen how the Dems are reacting to the redistricting plan in Texas. This is not going to end well for the country.
I read a piece in WAPO that discussed how Dems have no room to complain about gerrymandering. Many blue states have already gerrymandered Republican candidates out of existence.
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Hardly. But a lot of non-MSM sources are especially untrustworthy imo. The MSM's reporting is always biased (mainly as to selection of stories to cover, and by mixing editorial content with hard news) but almost never patently false or intentionally misleading.
https://www.jns.org/huckabee-slams-cbs-for-selectively-editing-interview-on-israel/
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How do you know what is true and what is false in these current cases? NO party should be able to stand up for themselves by using the power of the executive branch to direct the wheels of justice. With that power they really can manufacture evidence, or force settlements when evidence is lacking, as apparently happened in the 60 Minutes case.
The result may or may not be justice, but a large segment of the public is going to doubt the integrity of the process, and that's a problem in my opinion. I don't blame the Trump administration, as there have been administrations before, Democrat as well as Republican, that have similarly tried to weaponize the DoJ. I used to think our system had guardrails to keep that from actually happening, but today we have a Congress that acquiesces to practically everything Trump wants, and a USSC that seems determined to transform the Presidency into a de facto term-limited monarchy.
The strength of Trump's presidency in his second term is something to file under "be careful what you wish for". Someday there will be another Democrat president, and he or she will have exactly the same powers that Trump wields today. We've already seen how the Dems are reacting to the redistricting plan in Texas. This is not going to end well for the country.
How else do you propose to bring accountability to those who carried out this organized scheme to thwart the will of the People? Let them just get away with it? Directing the DOJ to investigate this decade long organized attempt to prevent Trump presidency(ies) which the People wanted, is the only tool we have. The only other alternative is to handle it like the Mafia (or the CIA, same thing) and just eliminate the guilty parties, just like this cabal ultimately tried to do with Trump. But Trump doesn’t sink to that level. He is using the justice system appropriately. Again, what alternative do you suggest?
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... but almost never patently false or intentionally misleading.
you and I have a different definition of "almost never"
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So what if they edited a bad interview? 60 Minutes edits interviews all the time. It would be awfully hard to prove that it was to hide anything, and certainly to prove that it was to help Kamala's chances.
The Charlottesville fiasco is something I've researched quite extensively. I think there were two factors in that: first, media bias, no question - the MSM always interprets what Trump says in the worst possible light. But Trump is also a horrible communicator, and he practically walked into that one. "Good people on both sides" - how could anyone NOT foresee how the MSM would interpret that? I don't think there was any intentional creation of a false narrative. They just thought they had him clearly saying something favorable about neo-Nazis and never bothered to look critically at that conclusion.
I have no idea what the "suckers and losers hoax" was about.
Did you watch the interview, both the original (which President Trump’s lawsuit forced to be made public) and the edited version? I did. It was jaw dropping. They literally cut a fumbling answer she made to one question and pasted in a truncated version of an answer she gave to a completely different question. All to make her seem coherent, which she most certainly was not. Because she is, quite literally, incapable of being coherent. This is the person CBS was trying to edit into the most powerful position in the WORLD. The fact that CBS had to pay for this perfidy is quite satisfying.
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How else do you propose to bring accountability to those who carried out this organized scheme to thwart the will of the People? Let them just get away with it? Directing the DOJ to investigate this decade long organized attempt to prevent Trump presidency(ies) which the People wanted, is the only tool we have. The only other alternative is to handle it like the Mafia (or the CIA, same thing) and just eliminate the guilty parties, just like this cabal ultimately tried to do with Trump. But Trump doesn’t sink to that level. He is using the justice system appropriately. Again, what alternative do you suggest?
It all depends on whether there really was an organized scheme to steal an election. I have read so much on both sides, including vehement denials from members of the IC, that I have no idea what to believe. This war of competing realities has made it well nigh impossible for an objective observer to decide what is truth and what is mere allegation without basis.
If there actually WAS an organized effort, then yes, the offenders should be brought to justice if possible. But if it's done with a DoJ that has been commandeered by the White House, then public confidence in a successful prosecution will be low, and with good reason. The investigation and prosecution should be conducted by an independent special counsel, not by a DoJ that's loyal to the aggrieved party.
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I read a piece in WAPO that discussed how Dems have no room to complain about gerrymandering. Many blue states have already gerrymandered Republican candidates out of existence.
Oh, there is little doubt that both sides have done this, this is only the first time (at least that I know of) that the party doing the gerrymandering has been open and unapologetic about their motivation.
I agree with Mike Lawler - gerrymandering should be banned. Election districts should be drawn up by an independent, nonpartisan commission.
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These two pdfs are the only links you gave that could even remotely be considered "facts"... or evidence. The first seems to go to extreme lengths to detail how a claim that was never made as part of any public accusation against Trump - namely, that Russia tried to hack the electoral infrastructure to manipulate the vote count - was without basis, and that, therefore, the eventual statement that Putin "directed an effort help President Trump defeat Hillary Clinton" was also false. It looks like a total red herring argument to me.
The second is so heavily redacted that I'm not sure there's any information in it that isn't open to more than one interpretation.
Someone high up in the IC at the time (I don't recall who) insisted recently that the Steele dossier WAS considered unreliable and was never the basis for any charges brought against anyone. The same official also clarified that the actual claim was that Russia's alleged campaign to help Trump was mainly a social engineering campaign using bots and other disinformation sources planted on social media. I don't see any reason to trust that statement less, or more, than that declassified memo to DNI Gabbard.
Unless there's something more solid out there somewhere, this looks like more lawfare being waged by the Trump administration against Trump's perceived enemies. I think both sides have been weaponizing this issue for political gain (Dems) and for retribution (Trump), and I doubt what actually happened will ever be publicly known until all parties involved are dead and buried.
But azure. Listen. The Democrat left has been exposed as thieving whores, literally prostituting themselves in their rabid thirst for power and wealth. They are now exposed as having grifted from American taxpayers, through USAID and hundreds of fake NGOs that existed only on paper and produced no good for Americans but swelled the coffers of leftist/globalist thugs. The DOJ and State Department are shutting these off. The Democrats stole a presidential election. The world saw it. They stole America’s sovereignty by letting millions of non-citizens infest our country, and are now trying to protect their imported, Congressional-seat-creating hordes by objecting to known alien criminals being taken off our streets. They stole the mainstream media, which is now failing and attempting to appear blameless for their perfidy (e.g. Tapper’s book). They stole our votes, our treasure, our sovereignty, tried to steal our families, our very genders, and as that fails and they are flailing, all they have to fall back on is their feeble, disingenuous cry, “Trump is a threat to democracy.”
President Trump, since the moment he took office in 2017, and even during our long national exile from justice under the puppet Biden (during which someone, not him, really ran the country), has been consistently and faithfully sticking to his promises to remove grift and corruption and restore our country TO US from the damages wrought by the left (and bought-off Republicans, but I repeat myself), and has been actually doing that. Those four exile years obviously were spent not in planning personal revenge, but in planning carefully to select the people and policies for cleaning up and clearing out the rot. Hence, DOGE and the early deadly strike against USAID and NGOs, the primary funding source (American taxpayer money!) of AMERICA’S enemies. President Trump’s enemies are, make no mistake, OUR enemies. We all watched them attempt to take him out multiple times, even violently … as a political opponent, a duly elected president, and even as simply a citizen residing in Florida. If you think his fight is merely for personal revenge, and not for us and a legacy of healing and restoration and flourishing for America, than I have nothing more to say to you.
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Oh, there is little doubt that both sides have done this, this is only the first time (at least that I know of) that the party doing the gerrymandering has been open and unapologetic about their motivation.
California, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, Connecticut as well as others has been "open and unapologetic about their motivation" to gerrymander. They cloak it in "equality, equity and democracy". Many of these states legislatures wrote the rules for gerrymandering (under democrat control) and are now horrified that republicans want to use those very rules.
Much the same as when Harry Reid changed the rules in the senate (2013) to allow the "nuclear option" to confirm presidential appointments with a simple majority. Everything was fine until a republican took office and the dims cried it was unfair and wanted it switched back.
"Rules for me but not for thee"
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But azure. Listen. The Democrat left has been exposed as thieving whores, literally prostituting themselves in their rabid thirst for power and wealth. They are now exposed as having grifted from American taxpayers, through USAID and hundreds of fake NGOs that existed only on paper and produced no good for Americans but swelled the coffers of leftist/globalist thugs. The DOJ and State Department are shutting these off. The Democrats stole a presidential election. The world saw it. They stole America’s sovereignty by letting millions of non-citizens infest our country, and are now trying to protect their imported, Congressional-seat-creating hordes by objecting to known alien criminals being taken off our streets. They stole the mainstream media, which is now failing and attempting to appear blameless for their perfidy (e.g. Tapper’s book). They stole our votes, our treasure, our sovereignty, tried to steal our families, our very genders, and as that fails and they are flailing, all they have to fall back on is their feeble, disingenuous cry, “Trump is a threat to democracy.”
President Trump, since the moment he took office in 2017, and even during our long national exile from justice under the puppet Biden (during which someone, not him, really ran the country), has been consistently and faithfully sticking to his promises to remove grift and corruption and restore our country TO US from the damages wrought by the left (and bought-off Republicans, but I repeat myself), and has been actually doing that. Those four exile years obviously were spent not in planning personal revenge, but in planning carefully to select the people and policies for cleaning up and clearing out the rot. Hence, DOGE and the early deadly strike against USAID and NGOs, the primary funding source (American taxpayer money!) of AMERICA’S enemies. President Trump’s enemies are, make no mistake, OUR enemies. We all watched them attempt to take him out multiple times, even violently … as a political opponent, a duly elected president, and even as simply a citizen residing in Florida. If you think his fight is merely for personal revenge, and not for us and a legacy of healing and restoration and flourishing for America, than I have nothing more to say to you.
I'll add that the lunatic left is desperate for their funding that was removed through the USAID grift, just before the senate recess Chuck Schumer tried to bargain with DJT to grant a backlog of appointments in exchange for $1 billion in "foreign aid". And we all know that "foreign aid" would have never left the country but been diverted to NGO's to fund the democrat machine. DJT replied "Go to Hell".
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Did you watch the interview, both the original (which President Trump’s lawsuit forced to be made public) and the edited version? I did. It was jaw dropping. They literally cut a fumbling answer she made to one question and pasted in a truncated version of an answer she gave to a completely different question. All to make her seem coherent, which she most certainly was not. Because she is, quite literally, incapable of being coherent. This is the person CBS was trying to edit into the most powerful position in the WORLD. The fact that CBS had to pay for this perfidy is quite satisfying.
No, I never saw either the original interview or even the full edited version. I don't need to - Kamala Harris was a TERRIBLE candidate and would likely have made a poor president, I don't dispute that. All I'm saying is that the network has plausible deniability there because they do LOTS of editing, for lots of different reasons. 60 Minutes is entertainment, not hard news, and I'd never trust any of their stories to be reported objectively.
I think the lawsuit was basically frivolous because the case was unprovable. That's really all I'm saying - and the fact that CBS/Paramount caved in doesn't support that the case was solid because there could very well have been a quid pro quo in the settlement.
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No, I never saw either the original interview or even the full edited version. I don't need to - Kamala Harris was a TERRIBLE candidate and would likely have made a poor president, I don't dispute that. All I'm saying is that the network has plausible deniability there because they do LOTS of editing, for lots of different reasons. 60 Minutes is entertainment, not hard news, and I'd never trust any of their stories to be reported objectively.
I think the lawsuit was basically frivolous because the case was unprovable. That's really all I'm saying - and the fact that CBS/Paramount caved in doesn't support that the case was solid because there could very well have been a quid pro quo in the settlement.
Then they should have shown the interview unedited. It was guffaw worthy and terror-inducing at the same time. Much more entertaining than the strained, convoluted final product. And yes, back room agreements likely were made. The original suit was for $20 billion. Award was $20 million.
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But azure. Listen. The Democrat left has been exposed as thieving whores, literally prostituting themselves in their rabid thirst for power and wealth. They are now exposed as having grifted from American taxpayers, through USAID and hundreds of fake NGOs that existed only on paper and produced no good for Americans but swelled the coffers of leftist/globalist thugs. The DOJ and State Department are shutting these off. The Democrats stole a presidential election. The world saw it. They stole America’s sovereignty by letting millions of non-citizens infest our country, and are now trying to protect their imported, Congressional-seat-creating hordes by objecting to known alien criminals being taken off our streets. They stole the mainstream media, which is now failing and attempting to appear blameless for their perfidy (e.g. Tapper’s book). They stole our votes, our treasure, our sovereignty, tried to steal our families, our very genders, and as that fails and they are flailing, all they have to fall back on is their feeble, disingenuous cry, “Trump is a threat to democracy.”
President Trump, since the moment he took office in 2017, and even during our long national exile from justice under the puppet Biden (during which someone, not him, really ran the country), has been consistently and faithfully sticking to his promises to remove grift and corruption and restore our country TO US from the damages wrought by the left (and bought-off Republicans, but I repeat myself), and has been actually doing that. Those four exile years obviously were spent not in planning personal revenge, but in planning carefully to select the people and policies for cleaning up and clearing out the rot. Hence, DOGE and the early deadly strike against USAID and NGOs, the primary funding source (American taxpayer money!) of AMERICA’S enemies. President Trump’s enemies are, make no mistake, OUR enemies. We all watched them attempt to take him out multiple times, even violently … as a political opponent, a duly elected president, and even as simply a citizen residing in Florida. If you think his fight is merely for personal revenge, and not for us and a legacy of healing and restoration and flourishing for America, than I have nothing more to say to you.
Sorry Becky, but ALL of the things you accuse the Dems of are strongly disputed, including the grift, the fake NGOs, and the allegedly stolen 2020 election. Even the idea that Biden was a puppet - though I happen to agree with you that he wasn't competent to run the country at least during his last two years in office and the actual power was likely in someone else's hands - but we'll never be able to prove that.
President Trump's enemies are HIS enemies. Our enemies are countries like China, Russia, and Iran that seek to gain control of the world economy and undermine our values and our ability to conduct trade fairly. I've come to support Trump's policy of using tariffs as a negotiating tool to force other countries to adopt fair trading practices, and I'm especially heartened that he's woken up to the fact that Putin is NOT someone he can strike a deal with while wearing kid gloves. I hope he follows through with his threatened sanctions against countries that buy Russian oil if/when the upcoming Alaska summit falls apart. He's proving to be a much stronger and cannier head of state in the foreign policy area than I expected him to be. I'm not impressed with his Big Beautiful Bill - I think Elon was spot on - and I'm afraid the income from tariffs won't significantly offset the increased deficit. But I'd much rather he focus on the business of governing than direct the DoJ to prosecute cases that, even if they manage to win some of them, half the American voters will never see as justice achieved but rather as revenge exacted by a chief executive with too much power.
The Democrat Party is in decline. They have no vision for the future of the country. If Trump's administration plays their cards wrong we'll have another Democrat in the White House in 2028, and that will be another disaster if the next president is any of the current names being tossed around as possibilities. Endless re-litigation of previous elections is probably the surest way to make that happen, so it's a self-defeating strategy. Trump should get on with the business of governing - THAT is what we elected him for.
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It all depends on whether there really was an organized scheme to steal an election. I have read so much on both sides, including vehement denials from members of the IC, that I have no idea what to believe. This war of competing realities has made it well nigh impossible for an objective observer to decide what is truth and what is mere allegation without basis.
If there actually WAS an organized effort, then yes, the offenders should be brought to justice if possible. But if it's done with a DoJ that has been commandeered by the White House, then public confidence in a successful prosecution will be low, and with good reason. The investigation and prosecution should be conducted by an independent special counsel, not by a DoJ that's loyal to the aggrieved party.
You had to have been following along as it happened. The facts are indisputable, from the Struck-Stroke texts, to Hillary Clinton’s campaign funding through Perkins Coie -> Fusion GPS -> British IC -> the Russian interference narrative - a quite deliberate effort to discredit the 2016 election - then we have the outright admission, unabashedly published in Time magazine, bragging about “The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election”: A broad RICO level coalition between government, business, left wing activists, and RINOs all coming together in 2020 to ensure “autocratic Trump” does not win in November. They just couldn’t help themselves, they had to brag with glee about what they pulled off. It was an admission that 2020 was “fixed” through strategic meddling.
Make no mistake, the DOJ isn’t loyal to Trump. He simply named the gal in charge. There are still oppositional operatives in the agencies, all of them, as well as organized “shadow intelligence” communities forming outside government among those who have been fired.
You are right that we can’t trust any sources on their face anymore, but the above events (such as the funding for the Steele dossier) have been vetted, as facts came out over the years. You wouldn’t hear much about them from mainstream media though.
You are also right that it damages trust if an administration is seen to weaponize government against political opponents but unfortunately that rubicon has been crossed and it was the Dems that did it first. Only the Trump hating half of the country will see what Trump is doing that way, and that makes no difference at all. He could cure cancer tomorrow and they’d say he was being a Nazi.
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Are you implying that the MSM is the source of truth?
Lol!!!
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Oh, there is little doubt that both sides have done this, this is only the first time (at least that I know of) that the party doing the gerrymandering has been open and unapologetic about their motivation.
I agree with Mike Lawler - gerrymandering should be banned. Election districts should be drawn up by an independent, nonpartisan commission.
One of the reasons I distrust your replies is your devotion to rationalizing, and cross blaming to avoid reality.
Gerrymandering has become an art form for the democrat communist party. Pretending to excuse it because you think republicans might have done it once upon a time is the kind of intellectual dishonesty progressives are famous for.
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One of the reasons I distrust your replies is your devotion to rationalizing, and cross blaming to avoid reality.
Gerrymandering has become an art form for the democrat communist party. Pretending to excuse it because you think republicans might have done it once upon a time is the kind of intellectual dishonesty progressives are famous for.
Huh? "Pretending to excuse" what? I'm neither excusing nor pretending to excuse gerrymandering, regardless of which party does it. I'd like to see the whole process taken out of the hands of politicians.
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Huh? "Pretending to excuse" what? I'm neither excusing nor pretending to excuse gerrymandering, regardless of which party does it. I'd like to see the whole process taken out of the hands of politicians.
Keep telling yourself that.
I’m sure it gives you comfort.
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Keep telling yourself that.
I’m sure it gives you comfort.
I don't understand that logic. Or how that is any different than when any of us wish something should or should not happen.
I would like to see the entire gerrymandering system replaced with a mathematically logical and non-biased method of distributing representation.
Each state is given representation proportional to their population. I think it should be proportional to the number of US citizens of legal age (Which I would suggest being at LEAST 21 but preferably 25).
Within the each State, the votes should be distributed in similar size and geographically shaped areas.
Wishing for that doesn't give me comfort. But actually doing it would. I suspect the Ds would lose a lot more representatives than the Rs would if this were to be done.
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I don't understand that logic. Or how that is any different than when any of us wish something should or should not happen.
I would like to see the entire gerrymandering system replaced with a mathematically logical and non-biased method of distributing representation.
Each state is given representation proportional to their population. I think it should be proportional to the number of US citizens of legal age (Which I would suggest being at LEAST 21 but preferably 25).
Within the each State, the votes should be distributed in similar size and geographically shaped areas.
Wishing for that doesn't give me comfort. But actually doing it would. I suspect the Ds would lose a lot more representatives than the Rs would if this were to be done.
Totally agree as to how districts should be drawn. But I still don't understand N7's comment. N7, what is it you think brings me "comfort"? What am I supposedly "pretending to excuse"?
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Totally agree as to how districts should be drawn. But I still don't understand N7's comment. N7, what is it you think brings me "comfort"? What am I supposedly "pretending to excuse"?
When one constantly rationalizes behavior by their political party by claiming both sides did it, or could have done it, when the facts scream something else, or like you have done excessively, try to ignore the crimes of the democrat communist party by pretending that you didn’t have any idea, it is to deny the facts in favor of protecting them, which is without a doubt, an attempt to give yourself a pass on calling out your own side.
Pretending that the 2020 election was anything but a stolen one is as blindly partisan as pretending that the Covid scam was anything but an attempt to enshrine totalitarianism by the criminal democrat communist party.
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When one constantly rationalizes behavior by their political party
Okay I'll stop you right there. I don't have a political party. So it's impossible for me to rationalize behavior by "my political party".
by claiming both sides did it, or could have done it, when the facts scream something else, or like you have done excessively, try to ignore the crimes of the democrat communist party by pretending that you didn’t have any idea, it is to deny the facts in favor of protecting them, which is without a doubt, an attempt to give yourself a pass on calling out your own side.
Pretending that the 2020 election was anything but a stolen one is as blindly partisan as pretending that the Covid scam was anything but an attempt to enshrine totalitarianism by the criminal democrat communist party.
So how was the 2020 election stolen? By gerrymandering? By voter fraud by legal Americans? By voting by illegal immigrants? Some combination? And if some combination, what was the contribution by each of those methods?
It would be no skin off my back to learn that the Democrats somehow engineered Trump's loss in 2020. I'm in no way affiliated with them. I just have seen no credible evidence of it, meaning that all the "evidence" that I'm aware of from Trump followers to that effect (e.g. the film 2000 Mules) has been convincingly debunked.
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Okay I'll stop you right there. I don't have a political party. So it's impossible for me to rationalize behavior by "my political party".
So how was the 2020 election stolen? By gerrymandering? By voter fraud by legal Americans? By voting by illegal immigrants? Some combination? And if some combination, what was the contribution by each of those methods?
It would be no skin off my back to learn that the Democrats somehow engineered Trump's loss in 2020. I'm in no way affiliated with them. I just have seen no credible evidence of it, meaning that all the "evidence" that I'm aware of from Trump followers to that effect (e.g. the film 2000 Mules) has been convincingly debunked.
Yep.
You will keep pretending until the end of time.
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Okay I'll stop you right there. I don't have a political party. So it's impossible for me to rationalize behavior by "my political party".
So how was the 2020 election stolen? By gerrymandering? By voter fraud by legal Americans? By voting by illegal immigrants? Some combination? And if some combination, what was the contribution by each of those methods?
It would be no skin off my back to learn that the Democrats somehow engineered Trump's loss in 2020. I'm in no way affiliated with them. I just have seen no credible evidence of it, meaning that all the "evidence" that I'm aware of from Trump followers to that effect (e.g. the film 2000 Mules) has been convincingly debunked.
Does it logically make sense that Biden actually got 81M+ votes?
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Does it logically make sense that Biden actually got 81M+ votes?
Does it logically make sense that Biden actually got 81M+ legitimate votes?
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Okay I'll stop you right there. I don't have a political party. So it's impossible for me to rationalize behavior by "my political party".
If I recall, you recently said you were more left but are reorienting back toward center, maybe because the far left has gone off the deep end with gender, etc.? Is that correct, you’re becoming more “conservative” with age (many do) though I use the term “conservative” in a relative sense. The fact that you did NOT vote for Kamala is credible evidence that you do not support the Democrat party anymore, in any case.
So how was the 2020 election stolen? By gerrymandering? By voter fraud by legal Americans? By voting by illegal immigrants? Some combination? And if some combination, what was the contribution by each of those methods?
It would be no skin off my back to learn that the Democrats somehow engineered Trump's loss in 2020. I'm in no way affiliated with them. I just have seen no credible evidence of it, meaning that all the "evidence" that I'm aware of from Trump followers to that effect (e.g. the film 2000 Mules) has been convincingly debunked.
There is a whole lot of nuance there. You have to be specific in what was debunked. There were clear cases of fraud with concrete evidence, for example, ballots that had been run through a copy machine. There was also a whole lot of smoke stopping just short of a fire, for example, forensic analysis of the Dominion voting machines which showed deletion of specific files, but only those files that would have proven vote flips. Highly suggestive of covering up fraud.
There are hundreds of sworn affidavits by poll workers and other witnesses to fraud. There are videos of ballot harvesting in nursing homes, people telling demented old people which box to check on a ballot. Some of this was presented to legislative bodies conducting probes. In those cases, and in general, the decision was made to not pursue it for fear of literal civil war if Biden were not inaugurated.
2000 Mules was debunked, meaning it was determined to not prove fraud. But at the same time it did not prove no fraud. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. You may say, “2000 Mules did not prove fraud,” and would be correct. You may NOT say, “2000 Mules was wrong therefore there was no fraud.”
The question is whether the fraud was enough to sway the election. Many cases were brought before courts with this evidence but instead of taking the case and actually processing the evidence, the courts declined the cases. This was then misrepresented to the public as the courts having “found no fraud” which is a total lie. They didn’t find it because they didn’t even look at the evidence.
If it happened, it was not illegals voting. It was manufactured paper ballots, plus digital manipulation of Dominion machines. Just made up votes in both cases, adding up to the 80 million additional Democrat votes in that election that don’t seem to appear anywhere else. I’m not saying 80 million were manufactured, it only took a few thousand in very specific targeted districts in swing states, that’s all. Unfortunately right now, until the demographics change, it’s come down to only 6 states deciding the election. The rest of us don’t matter.
The lawyers attempting to bring these cases were persecuted, arrested, jailed on trumped up charges as a way to intimidate them into silence. This was part of a massive effort to squash any efforts to investigate fraud. It is a false statement to say “no fraud occurred sufficient to sway the election.” That has NEVER been proven. What is true is that the allegations of fraud were never properly considered one way or the other.
Therefore I cannot say that outright fraud swayed the election. However, let's say there was no fraud at all. In that case the single thing that won the election for Biden was universal mail in ballots, and that came about due to covid hysteria.
Mail in (absentee) ballots have always been understood to be for exceptional cases where showing up to vote in person is unreasonably difficult. It was never meant to be implemented just because a bad cold is going around. If covid hadn’t happened and therefore no universal mail in ballots, Trump would have won.
Biden’s win was a near statistical impossibility based on past trends, things like bellwether counties and so on. I guess the mail in ballot monkey wrench could have thrown statistical history out the window but I haven’t been convinced of that.
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I just have seen no credible evidence of it, meaning that all the "evidence" that I'm aware of from Trump followers to that effect (e.g. the film 2000 Mules) has been convincingly debunked.
To be fair, it was "convincingly debunked" to those that wished it to be debunked, and the debunking was also convincingly justified by a media with an agenda.
I'd like to hear a convincing answer to Eppy's question.Does it logically make sense that Biden actually got 81M+ votes?
I guess if one hates Trump enough, that could be believed swallowed.
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Ironically, if they had not cheated and Trump won, he'd be out of office having learned nothing about how to defeat the deep state and democrats. But now he's back with four years of study and is causing havoc amongst the "elite". They would have been better off if Trump won in 2020. It worked out for the best for us.
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Ironically, if they had not cheated and Trump won, he'd be out of office having learned nothing about how to defeat the deep state and democrats. But now he's back with four years of study and is causing havoc amongst the "elite". They would have been better off if Trump won in 2020. It worked out for the best for us.
He’s absolutely brutal this term. Way more effective and no he would not have been in 2020. He’d be gone today, Pence might have been the heir apparent and he would have lost and we would have God knows who but probably a Democrat in office right now.
Not only did Trump have four years to learn and plan, his team had four years to learn how to counter every possible attempt at election fraud. They had scores of lawyers on site at the polls, and watchers at every ballot box.
Even if 2020 wasn’t stolen, the Dems attempted it, there was definitely fraud, the only question is to what degree. But now it’s been uncovered, they’ll never be able to pull it off, if the Republicans continue the same vigilance Lara Trump et al did in 2024.
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TI'd like to hear a convincing answer to Eppy's question. I guess if one hates Trump enough, that could be believed swallowed.
To believe that, how would one explain the 2024 election as well as the graph showing vote totals over the last several elections where that 81M+ sticks out like a sore thumb.
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If I recall, you recently said you were more left but are reorienting back toward center, maybe because the far left has gone off the deep end with gender, etc.? Is that correct, you’re becoming more “conservative” with age (many do) though I use the term “conservative” in a relative sense. The fact that you did NOT vote for Kamala is credible evidence that you do not support the Democrat party anymore, in any case.
I was pretty much a knee-jerk progressive, having absorbed my politics from the LGBT community, for about the 15 years before moving to VT. Prior to coming out I was generally apolitical, but at various times I explored certain political philosophies that I found interesting, including libertarianism, but not in great depth. I was attracted to libertarianism because elements of that philosophy aligned with my own concept of an ideal society, but I never explored it further. After Trump's 2016 win I sought to understand where people who had voted for him were coming from, so I reached out. I attended a caucus of the local branch of the Libertarian party and asked lots of questions, I talked to local Republicans, I conversed about subjects like the 2A online (including here I believe) and in person. This was all in the 2017-8 time frame. Since then I think I've just become more conservative with age, as you say. I became bothered by lots of things on NPR and PBS, especially the self-conscious "wokeness" of their topic choices and their p.c. language (e.g. pregnant people), and with age and awareness of mortality comes greater respect for life, at least that has been my experience. I bristle when I hear people frame the abortion issue as "a woman's right to choose", as if there wasn't another life involved. Today I'm against abortion except when done for a legitimate medical reason, but I don't know of an effective way to ban all non-medical abortions that doesn't put providers into a legal bind that's just not compatible with offering the care that women with complicated pregnancies need.
Not that my political positions aren't still evolving - they are - but I don't think I'm still moving toward the center. I'm probably trending a bit right of center for now.
2000 Mules was debunked, meaning it was determined to not prove fraud. But at the same time it did not prove no fraud. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. You may say, “2000 Mules did not prove fraud,” and would be correct. You may NOT say, “2000 Mules was wrong therefore there was no fraud.”
Agreed, and I don't think I ever said that the fact that it was wrong implied that no fraud occurred. What I said was that I've never seen evidence that the election was stolen, not that there was no fraud.
The question is whether the fraud was enough to sway the election. Many cases were brought before courts with this evidence but instead of taking the case and actually processing the evidence, the courts declined the cases. This was then misrepresented to the public as the courts having “found no fraud” which is a total lie. They didn’t find it because they didn’t even look at the evidence.
That's a fair point - most of the cases were dismissed because the plaintiffs lacked standing. Others were dismissed because the court did not believe that the presented evidence was strong enough to merit going forward. I very vaguely recall that at least one case went forward on the merits for a time but was eventually decided against the plaintiffs or dismissed.
I'd never argue that these failures to prove massive fraud implies that there was NO fraud. The big question, as you said, is whether there was enough to tip the election against Trump. Doesn't the fact that so many cases were dismissed because the judge decided there was no evidence suggest that maybe the evidence really is lacking? If these were competent lawyers - at least some of them - wouldn't they have presented their strongest evidence? Were all these judges Democrat appointees, do you think it was all political? I'll admit that I doubt it because it sounds like a conspiracy theory - that's why I ask for solid evidence.
I don't say that it didn't happen - but if it did, and it can't be proven, then someone outsmarted the voting system, and that's a problem.
If the country was controlled by the Left as late as last year, how is it that Kamala Harris lost the 2024 election? If the system is so vulnerable to manipulation, why weren't they able to do it again? Election workers have been adamant, at least in public, that the kind of manipulation you're talking about is impossible. It doesn't sound as though anyone was aware of any critical vulnerabilities that needed fixing, in the 4 years since 2020.
The lawyers attempting to bring these cases were persecuted, arrested, jailed on trumped up charges as a way to intimidate them into silence. This was part of a massive effort to squash any efforts to investigate fraud. It is a false statement to say “no fraud occurred sufficient to sway the election.” That has NEVER been proven. What is true is that the allegations of fraud were never properly considered one way or the other.
Therefore I cannot say that outright fraud swayed the election. However, let's say there was no fraud at all. In that case the single thing that won the election for Biden was universal mail in ballots, and that came about due to covid hysteria.
Mail in (absentee) ballots have always been understood to be for exceptional cases where showing up to vote in person is unreasonably difficult. It was never meant to be implemented just because a bad cold is going around. If covid hadn’t happened and therefore no universal mail in ballots, Trump would have won.
Biden’s win was a near statistical impossibility based on past trends, things like bellwether counties and so on. I guess the mail in ballot monkey wrench could have thrown statistical history out the window but I haven’t been convinced of that.
Yeah, the mail-in ballot theory has never made sense to me either. I can't think of a way that mail-in ballots would introduce a systematic error into the final result. People taking advantage of ballots sent by mistake to dead relatives? Why would the bogus votes be likelier to be for Biden? Mail-ins might skew the timeline of the count to make it seem that Trump was going to win, but then if the later mail-ins were predominantly Democrat voters, Biden would emerge the winner. Maybe those mail-ins wouldn't have voted at all - but that only means that Trump would have won because Biden voters failed to turn out in sufficient numbers.
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wrt mail-in ballots: can someone please explain why they believe mail-in ballots were secure? For example, what prevented people from creating multiple bogus mail-in ballots?
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wrt mail-in ballots: can someone please explain why they believe mail-in ballots were secure? For example, what prevented people from creating multiple bogus mail-in ballots?
How would that be done? That's a real question - all I know is that in VT, every registered voter is mailed one ballot. If you want another, you have to return the first one for disposal. Other states might handle mail-ins differently.
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I was pretty much a knee-jerk progressive, having absorbed my politics from the LGBT community, for about the 15 years before moving to VT. Prior to coming out I was generally apolitical, but at various times I explored certain political philosophies that I found interesting, including libertarianism, but not in great depth. I was attracted to libertarianism because elements of that philosophy aligned with my own concept of an ideal society, but I never explored it further. After Trump's 2016 win I sought to understand where people who had voted for him were coming from, so I reached out. I attended a caucus of the local branch of the Libertarian party and asked lots of questions, I talked to local Republicans, I conversed about subjects like the 2A online (including here I believe) and in person. This was all in the 2017-8 time frame. Since then I think I've just become more conservative with age, as you say. I became bothered by lots of things on NPR and PBS, especially the self-conscious "wokeness" of their topic choices and their p.c. language (e.g. pregnant people), and with age and awareness of mortality comes greater respect for life, at least that has been my experience. I bristle when I hear people frame the abortion issue as "a woman's right to choose", as if there wasn't another life involved. Today I'm against abortion except when done for a legitimate medical reason, but I don't know of an effective way to ban all non-medical abortions that doesn't put providers into a legal bind that's just not compatible with offering the care that women with complicated pregnancies need.
Not that my political positions aren't still evolving - they are - but I don't think I'm still moving toward the center. I'm probably trending a bit right of center for now.
A critical thinker! I love it.
Agreed, and I don't think I ever said that the fact that it was wrong implied that no fraud occurred. What I said was that I've never seen evidence that the election was stolen, not that there was no fraud.
Right, I got what you meant. When I say “you” I mean the generic you, not you in particular.
If the country was controlled by the Left as late as last year, how is it that Kamala Harris lost the 2024 election? If the system is so vulnerable to manipulation, why weren't they able to do it again? Election workers have been adamant, at least in public, that the kind of manipulation you're talking about is impossible. It doesn't sound as though anyone was aware of any critical vulnerabilities that needed fixing, in the 4 years since 2020.
The 2024 election was very different. Lara Trump, who was made co-chair of the RNC, assembled an army of lawyers and watchers to camp out at all the pertinent swing state districts and raise holy hell at any hint of shenanigans. As opposed to 2020 when Republican poll watchers were literally blocked from observing vote counting, and truckloads of ballots were delivered unsupervised in the dead of night. The Dems were unable to do that sort of stuff in 2024. They had eyes all over them.
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Yea, MSM never lies..... ::)
(https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/time-fake-gaza-photo-1-584x1024.jpg)
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Mail in vote fraud is epidemic among the democrat party.
There were numerous cases where over 100 Mail in ballots were sent in from the exact same address which turned out to be small apartment, and the ballots did not have a crease from folding and mailing in. They were carried in after being filled out by fraudsters, but the federal criminal judges refused to hear the evidence simply ruling the matter either too late, or too early, and often on the same issue.
That means the same criminal in a robe first ruled that the lawsuit lacked standing because the injury hadn’t yet happened, the. Turned around and ruled that filing the action once the count was complete and the fake election was certified wa stop late and should have been filed before (which they were).
The scum bag coward john roberts was instrumental in forcing the Supreme Court to refuse to hear any of the cases and witnesses in the chamber reported he was apoplectic about what terrible things might happen if they took on the cases.
It was a national disgrace and many people pretend they have no idea it ever happened.
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Mail in vote fraud is epidemic among the democrat party.
There were numerous cases where over 100 Mail in ballots were sent in from the exact same address which turned out to be small apartment, and the ballots did not have a crease from folding and mailing in. They were carried in after being filled out by fraudsters, but the federal criminal judges refused to hear the evidence simply ruling the matter either too late, or too early, and often on the same issue.
I won't say this didn't happen, but this is another kind of fraud where if it's possible, I wouldn't expect it to hugely favor a Democrat. Cheating isn't a Democrat or a Republican thing, it's a human thing, maybe an ape thing or even a primate thing. Lots of people cheat. I hear cases where students are accused of cheating on exams and other assignments - I serve on an academic integrity committee. A large fraction of them are convicted and punished. Many are old enough to vote. I'd bet that you'd find equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans among the convicted cheaters.
Where did this happen? How are mail-in ballots handed out in that state? How did the fraudsters get so many ballots? If there is any way an address can get more ballots than residents at that address, then the system in that state is broken. In Vermont, the only way it could happen is if someone in the municipal offices was complicit.
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In Vermont, the only way it could happen is if someone in the municipal offices was complicit.
OMG. That would NEVER happen! Except that I believe it did. I just knew too many people that would have gone to any extreme to see Trump lose. My Father-in-law, may he rest in peace rot in hell admitted that he voted several times using his "retarded" daughter in law's ballot and his wife's ballot.
(Yeah, I know. "retarded" is no longer tolerated. Call her "Learning Disabled" or "On the Spectrum)", but she was incompetent and her father used her ballot to vote against Trump. And he was never apologetic for it. I knew other people that voted more than once, and they were all Democrats.
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OMG. That would NEVER happen! Except that I believe it did. I just knew too many people that would have gone to any extreme to see Trump lose. My Father-in-law, may he rest in peace rot in hell admitted that he voted several times using his "retarded" daughter in law's ballot and his wife's ballot.
(Yeah, I know. "retarded" is no longer tolerated. Call her "Learning Disabled" or "On the Spectrum)", but she was incompetent and her father used her ballot to vote against Trump. And he was never apologetic for it. I knew other people that voted more than once, and they were all Democrats.
Sure, that sort of thing undoubtedly happens. I listed that as a possibility in an earlier version of my previous post to Rush and then decided it's a given. But again, why should it be more often Democrats doing it as Republicans? And for it to sway the election, the household where that happens has to be politically divided. That does happen, but in my experience it's far less than half of all households.
Yes, my experience could be just too limited to see the full picture... and, with respect, so could yours.
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I won't say this didn't happen, but this is another kind of fraud where if it's possible, I wouldn't expect it to hugely favor a Democrat. Cheating isn't a Democrat or a Republican thing, it's a human thing, maybe an ape thing or even a primate thing. Lots of people cheat. I hear cases where students are accused of cheating on exams and other assignments - I serve on an academic integrity committee. A large fraction of them are convicted and punished. Many are old enough to vote. I'd bet that you'd find equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans among the convicted cheaters.
Where did this happen? How are mail-in ballots handed out in that state? How did the fraudsters get so many ballots? If there is any way an address can get more ballots than residents at that address, then the system in that state is broken. In Vermont, the only way it could happen is if someone in the municipal offices was complicit.
In Nevada every registered voter received a mail in ballot whether they requested it or not. So let's start with "registered voter".
The voter rolls are filled with people who have moved or died. So one address could have received 10 ballots. There were addresses to empty lots receiving ballots.
These ballots are "harvested" and mailed, or in some cases dumped at the polling stations. Judges even allowed ballots that were mailed three days after the election to count, as well as ballots with no postmark.
So democrats are fighting to keep voter rolls from being cleaned up and eliminating dead or moved (out of state) voters. Activist judges over ride the legislature by accepting ballots without post marks or mailed in late.
And traditionally this type of vote manipulation benefits democrats.
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I won't say this didn't happen, but this is another kind of fraud where if it's possible, I wouldn't expect it to hugely favor a Democrat. Cheating isn't a Democrat or a Republican thing, it's a human thing, maybe an ape thing or even a primate thing. Lots of people cheat. I hear cases where students are accused of cheating on exams and other assignments - I serve on an academic integrity committee. A large fraction of them are convicted and punished. Many are old enough to vote. I'd bet that you'd find equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans among the convicted cheaters.
Where did this happen? How are mail-in ballots handed out in that state? How did the fraudsters get so many ballots? If there is any way an address can get more ballots than residents at that address, then the system in that state is broken. In Vermont, the only way it could happen is if someone in the municipal offices was complicit.
Maybe you were out of the country on election night 2020. Maybe that explains why you can't remember a single thing that happened after 11:06pm, when SIX states (they all just happened to be swing states) simultaneously decided to CEASE counting and chase everyone out, especially the republican election monitors. Then magically joe biden went from over 800,000 votes behind to winning the state, but all that happened when the monitors couldn't verify a single ballot.
I know you weren't there and you are tempted to pretend if you didn't see it then it didn't happen, but President Trump's vote total went up by only a handful over night while joe biden's vote total went up over one-million. I know, you think it was magic and the republicans HAD to be guilty too.
Then Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, and Minnesota ALL had magical increases in biden votes, without more than a handful of Trump votes counted, of course it happened in secret, and when lawyers brought video evidence of boxes full of filled in ballots out from under tables and other counting started in secret but ONLY until the lead changed from Trump to biden.
You have no idea this happened because... yeah... I guess some people really do live under an actual rock.
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In Nevada every registered voter received a mail in ballot whether they requested it or not. So let's start with "registered voter".
The voter rolls are filled with people who have moved or died. So one address could have received 10 ballots. There were addresses to empty lots receiving ballots.
These ballots are "harvested" and mailed, or in some cases dumped at the polling stations. Judges even allowed ballots that were mailed three days after the election to count, as well as ballots with no postmark.
So democrats are fighting to keep voter rolls from being cleaned up and eliminating dead or moved (out of state) voters. Activist judges over ride the legislature by accepting ballots without post marks or mailed in late.
And traditionally this type of vote manipulation benefits democrats.
The same was true in VT: every registered voter received a ballot. But I received only one, and at the time I was renting at an address that had seen several tenants in the past 10-15 years. Your scenario has a lot of "could haves". The voter rolls would have to have not just a few mistakes, but tons of them. How was the "harvesting" done? Seems that would require complicity from city and town clerks and maybe even the USPS. So what if "traditionally" manipulation benefits Democrats? The question is whether it happened in sufficient volume to sway the election.
Again, the reason I ask for hard evidence is that what you suggest happened would require a pretty massive effort - basically, a conspiracy to rig the election - to bring it off. And I'm admittedly biased against any theory that has to invoke a conspiracy to make sense - I don't care which side advances it.
The MSM slants stories leftward, no question, but not every journalist is left-leaning, and news companies exist to sell newspapers/subscriptions (or clicks on ads). If there was such a conspiracy, I can't imagine there wouldn't be competition to be the first to break the story. The journalist who broke the story would have won the Pulitzer. So that scenario - massive fraud, covered up by the MSM - doesn't pass the smell test as far as I'm concerned.
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Maybe you were out of the country on election night 2020. Maybe that explains why you can't remember a single thing that happened after 11:06pm, when SIX states (they all just happened to be swing states) simultaneously decided to CEASE counting and chase everyone out, especially the republican election monitors. Then magically joe biden went from over 800,000 votes behind to winning the state, but all that happened when the monitors couldn't verify a single ballot.
I know you weren't there and you are tempted to pretend if you didn't see it then it didn't happen, but President Trump's vote total went up by only a handful over night while joe biden's vote total went up over one-million. I know, you think it was magic and the republicans HAD to be guilty too.
Then Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, and Minnesota ALL had magical increases in biden votes, without more than a handful of Trump votes counted, of course it happened in secret, and when lawyers brought video evidence of boxes full of filled in ballots out from under tables and other counting started in secret but ONLY until the lead changed from Trump to biden.
You have no idea this happened because... yeah... I guess some people really do live under an actual rock.
A lot of snark there, N7, but no substance I'm afraid. None of those stoppages were permanent so they wouldn't have affected the final count. I wasn't out of the country, I heard all the allegations. My understanding is that all of them were investigated and disproven. If you have hard evidence, present it and I'll read it - but I'm not interested in an empty rehashing of all the allegations made in the first days after the election.
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The same was true in VT: every registered voter received a ballot. But I received only one, and at the time I was renting at an address that had seen several tenants in the past 10-15 years. Your scenario has a lot of "could haves". The voter rolls would have to have not just a few mistakes, but tons of them. How was the "harvesting" done? Seems that would require complicity from city and town clerks and maybe even the USPS. So what if "traditionally" manipulation benefits Democrats? The question is whether it happened in sufficient volume to sway the election.
Again, the reason I ask for hard evidence is that what you suggest happened would require a pretty massive effort - basically, a conspiracy to rig the election - to bring it off. And I'm admittedly biased against any theory that has to invoke a conspiracy to make sense - I don't care which side advances it.
The MSM slants stories leftward, no question, but not every journalist is left-leaning, and news companies exist to sell newspapers/subscriptions (or clicks on ads). If there was such a conspiracy, I can't imagine there wouldn't be competition to be the first to break the story. The journalist who broke the story would have won the Pulitzer. So that scenario - massive fraud, covered up by the MSM - doesn't pass the smell test as far as I'm concerned.
I'm not "suggesting" anything, it happened and was documented.
And your sense of smell sucks. Probably because you keep your head buried in the sand.
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I'm not "suggesting" anything, it happened and was documented.
And your sense of smell sucks. Probably because you keep your head buried in the sand.
What happened? A giant conspiracy to tilt the election? Documented by whom? Where?
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What happened? A giant conspiracy to tilt the election? Documented by whom? Where?
So now I need to spend my day providing this for you? For an academic you certainly lack skills for doing any meaningful research, but I'm not surprised.
It's just easier to cry out "conspiracy!" then stick your head in the sand and pretend it never happened.
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https://justthenews.com/government/congress/exclusive-democrat-whistleblower-told-fbi-schiff-approved-leaking-classified
A career intelligence officer who worked for Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee for more than a decade repeatedly warned the FBI beginning in 2017 that then-Rep. Adam Schiff had approved leaking classified information to smear then-President Donald Trump over the now-debunked Russiagate scandal, according to bombshell FBI memos that Director Kash Patel has turned over to Congress.
The FBI 302 interview reports obtained by Just the News state the intelligence staffer — a Democrat by party affiliation who described himself as a friend to both Schiff, now a California senator, and former Republican House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes — considered the classified leaking to be "unethical," "illegal," and “treasonous,” but was told not to worry about it because Schiff believed he would be spared prosecution under the Constitution's speech and debate clause.
No publicly-disclosed opinion from the Attorney General or the Solicitor General can be found making that determination as a matter of law.
But officials told Just the News that DOJ officials showed little interest in pursuing Schiff when the allegations were brought to them years ago, citing the very same excuse the lawmaker had offered.
In his most recent interview with the bureau in 2023, the whistleblower, whose name is redacted, told agents from the FBI's St. Louis office that he personally attended a meeting at which Schiff authorized leaking classified information.
"When working in this capacity, [redacted staffer's name] was called to an all-staff meeting by SCHIFF," the interview report said. "In this meeting, SCHIFF stated the group would leak classified information which was derogatory to President of the United States DONALD J. TRUMP. SCHIFF stated the information would be used to indict President TRUMP.”
The whistleblower told investigators that he "stated this would be illegal and, upon hearing his concerns, unnamed members of the meeting reassured that they would not be caught leaking classified information," the 2023 interview report stated.
The staffer made similar claims to agents in the FBI's Washington field office as early as 2017, shortly after Trump took office for his first term.
You can read the FBI interview reports here:
Democratic HPSCI Staffer - FBI Interview Notes
Schiff did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
The alleged leaks fall outside the statute of limitations for prosecution on most legal theories, but the revelations nevertheless come at a sensitive time for Schiff, who recently was referred to the Justice Department for possible prosecution for potential mortgage fraud, based on a story first written by Just the News.
Officials also said some of the DOJ officials who declined to prosecute a rash of classified leaks during the Russiagate affair remain employed in positions of power, a matter that may be of interest to lawmakers in Congress.
"For years, certain officials used their positions to selectively leak classified information to shape political narratives," Patel told Just the News on Monday. "It was all done with one purpose: to weaponize intelligence and law enforcement for political gain.
"Those abuses eroded public trust in our institutions," he added. "The FBI will now lead the charge, with our partners at DOJ, and Congress will have the chance to uncover how political power may have been weaponized and to restore accountability," he said.
Schiff, who previously served as the ranking member and then chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) before ascending to the Senate, pushed false allegations of Trump-Russia collusion for many years, and touted British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s discredited dossier — even reading multiple baseless claims from it into the congressional record in March 2017.
The whistle-blower began approaching the FBI that same year.
In one meeting, the Democratic HPSCI staffer told the FBI that retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn — Trump’s first national security adviser — was to be a specific focus of the committee as part of a broader effort to target Trump. The whistleblower also specifically pointed to Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., as a likely source of classified leaks, the memos state.
Punishment for duty to law instead of party loyalty
The Democratic staffer also allegedly told a former Republican colleague on the committee that he was terminated because Schiff's staff did not believe he had adequate "party loyalty" after he raised concerns about the leaks strategy, the FBI memos show.
The whistleblower was interviewed twice in 2017 and at least four times over six years about the alleged Schiff leaks, but Justice Department prosecutors declined to move forward, according to the memos, part of a large production of documents Patel sent to the House Judiciary Committee that identified several classified leak schemes carried out by senior government officials over the last decade.
The memos are mostly FBI 302 interview reports, which as explained by one criminal defense law firm, allow an FBI agent to draft a memo—in paragraph form—of what the witness said. It can be one-page long or twenty-pages long, depending on the length of the interview.
The memo section of a 302 is the key part. This is a combination of what the agent was able to write down during the interview and his recollection. It may list the questions and the answers or simply be a narrative of what the witness said. The witness generally doesn’t see the 302 or get a chance to correct any mistakes he thinks are in it before it is finalized.
Whistleblower: Schiff promised CIA appointment if Hillary won
The Democratic whistleblower told the FBI in a December 2017 interview at his home that “the HPSCI work environment started to change around August 2016 as the U.S. presidential election approached.” He said that, during a September 2016 staff meeting, other Democratic staffers revealed they had provided “on background” information to journalists about “their impressions of Russian activity surrounding the upcoming election.”
The Democratic staffer told FBI agents during an August 2017 interview at the Bullfeathers restaurant in the nation’s capital that he was told by various HPSCI staffers in the October 2016 timeframe that if former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won the November 2016 election, Schiff would be offered the position of CIA director. The staffer told the FBI in December 2017 that “the mood within HPSCI was indescribable” after Trump's win, and that Schiff “was particularly upset, as he believed he would have been appointed as the Director of CIA” had Clinton won the election.
The whistleblower told the FBI in December 2017 that “the HPSCI minority viewed the [2016] election and its aftermath as a constitutional crisis” and that by February 2017, “all hell broke loose.”
He told the FBI in August 2017 that “Schiff believed Russia hijacked the election, and the United States was in the middle of a constitutional crisis. Classified information began leaking to the media. The Democratic minority leadership of HPSCI was aware of the leaks but was under the impression that leaking the information was one way to topple the administration and fix the constitutional crisis.”
The Democratic whistleblower provided details to the FBI in August 2017 about a February 13, 2017 HPSCI staff meeting where the HPSCI staff director and general counsel “advised the minority staff that he wanted to drive the ‘Russian involvement’ issue into a Joint Inquiry ‘similar to the 9/11 Commission.’ He instructed the staff to use any resources they had developed within the Intelligence Community to gather facts. … He wanted to make the information public and use the media to compel public opinion to bring about the Joint Inquiry.”
The Democratic staffer told the FBI in December 2017 that he believed that “this was an explicit request to gather classified information for public disclosure.”
He also told the FBI in December 2017 that a yet-redacted person had approached a HPSCI staffer and directed him “to reach out to his contacts at” a redacted place “in order to collect information on MICHAEL FLYNN’s contact with Russia.”
The staffer had told the FBI in August 2017 that, when another redacted staffer was asked about the Flynn information request, they “opined everything is directed at Trump and trying to get him impeached. Flynn just happened to be the issue of the day.”
The Democratic whistleblower also told the FBI in December 2017 that “a particular leak” from the summer of 2017 had caused him “to confront HPSCI on the issue.” He said that “a particularly sensitive document” was “viewed by a small contingent of staff, as well as SCHIFF and Representative ERIC SWALWELL” and that “within 24 hours, the information appeared in the news almost verbatim.”
The staffer told the FBI that it was “suspected that SWALWELL played a role in the leak and noted that SWALWELL previously had been warned to be careful because he had a reputation for leaking classified information.”
The whistleblower had told the FBI in August 2017 that the sensitive document was read by HPSCI staffers and by members of Congress in late June or early July 2017, and that its contents immediately leaked to the press. The staffer told the bureau that the general counsel for a redacted intelligence agency then “read them the riot act about disclosure.”
The Democratic staffer purportedly told the FBI in a May 2023 discussion at the Marriott St. Louis Grand Hotel that he “had several conversations with two unnamed FBI agents related to the matter and was eventually invited to attend a mock grand jury with the United States Department of Justice.”
But the staffer told the bureau that he “was eventually informed that the issue would not be investigated further by the DOJ, as Congressmen have immunity to all speech and actions made on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.” No copy of any such legal opinion issued under color of law has been made public.
The whistleblower told the bureau that he “did not believe that the activity he witnessed would be protected by this legal provision.”
Party loyalty takes precedence over oath to protect and defend Constitution
The FBI interview reports indicate that an FBI agent had spoken with a Republican staffer “who described the sudden firing of a minority staffer.” The GOP staffer told the FBI agent that the Democratic staffer had told him that he “was suddenly fired due to a perceived lack of party loyalty.”
The Republican staffer told the FBI agent that the Democratic staffer had told him that there was allegedly “a systematic process through which leaks were effected” and that “he had been fired because there was an expectation of leaking, and he refused to participate.”
The GOP staffer further told the FBI that the Democratic staffer said that “this was not a one-time thing” but rather that “under the system established by” Schiff’s staff director, “notes would be run up to the ranking member, ADAM SCHIFF, after which a decision was made as to who would leak the information.”
Schiff's long history of promoting baseless Trump-Russia collusion claims
After promoting the Steele dossier in 2017, Schiff engaged in a battle with then-Rep. Nunes in 2018 about the use of the anti-Trump dossier.
The Republican majority released their FISA memo in early February 2018, finding that Steele’s anti-Trump dossier formed an essential part of the initial and all three renewal FISA applications against Page; former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe testified that no FISA warrant would have been sought from the FISA court without the Steele dossier information; the political origins of the Steele dossier were known to senior DOJ and FBI officials but excluded from the FISA applications; and DOJ official Bruce Ohr met with Steele beginning in the summer of 2016 and relayed to the DOJ information about Steele’s bias, with Steele telling Ohr that he was desperate that Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not becoming president.
Schiff and the Democratic minority released their late February 2018 rebuttal memo wrongly contending that “FBI and DOJ officials did not ‘abuse’ the FISA process, omit material information, or subvert this vital tool to spy on the Trump campaign.”
“In fact, DOJ and the FBI would have been remiss in their duty to protect the country had they not sought a FISA warrant and repeated renewals to conduct temporary surveillance of Carter Page, someone the FBI assessed to be an agent of the Russian government,” the Democrats wrongly contended. They also said the Justice Department “met the rigor, transparency, and evidentiary basis needed to meet FISA’s probable cause requirement.”
Schiff baselessly claimed in August 2018 that “I think there's plenty of evidence of collusion or conspiracy in plain sight.” Schiff then claimed again in April 2019 that “I’ve been very clear over the past year, year and a half, that there is ample evidence of collusion in plain sight.”
Robert Mueller’s special counsel report in March 2019 “did not establish” any criminal collusion between Trump and Russia, and DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz soon vindicated Nunes and showed Schiff was wrong.
Horowitz then uncovered huge flaws with the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation in a December 2019 report, finding at least 17 “significant errors and omissions” related to the FISA warrants targeting former Trump campaign associate Carter Page. Horowitz also criticized the “central and essential” role of British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s debunked dossier in the FBI’s politicized FISA surveillance. Steele had been hired by the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which was being paid by Clinton campaign lawyer Marc Elias. Horowitz found the FBI had also concealed exculpatory information from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court.
The DOJ watchdog also said Steele’s alleged main source – Igor Danchenko – “contradicted the allegations of a ‘well-developed conspiracy’ in” Steele’s dossier.
Ex-FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith admitted to Durham in August 2020 that he falsified a document during the bureau’s efforts to renew FISA surveillance authority against Carter Page, fraudulently editing a CIA email in 2017 to state that Page was “not a source” for the agency.
Ahead of the infamous Hunter Biden laptop letter, Schiff attempted to shoot down the October 2020 New York Post stories on Hunter Biden’s shady business dealings in China and Ukraine by falsely claiming on CNN that “we know that this whole smear on Joe Biden comes from the Kremlin.”
Schiff tweeted in September 2020 that the investigation was “political from the start” and sent Horowitz a letter requesting the watchdog open an investigation on Durham. He also criticized Attorney General William Barr’s elevation of Durham from federal prosecutor to special counsel, slamming it as “politically motivated.”
Durham’s 2023 report concluded that “neither U.S. law enforcement nor the Intelligence Community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.” The special counsel assessed that “the FBI ignored the fact that at no time before, during, or after Crossfire Hurricane were investigators able to corroborate a single substantive allegation in the Steele dossier reporting.”
Schiff is mentioned by name three times in the 2023 Durham report, including that a university researcher who refused to investigate Trump-Russia allegations felt threatened by a Schiff staffer.
Durham’s report said two researchers, likely from Georgia Tech, were on Capitol Hill in a November 2018 meeting with HPSCI staff regarding a pending cyber security federal research contract.
During the meeting, HPSCI staffers cut off the presentation to show researchers a news article about “Trump, Russia, and Alfa Bank.” Schiff’s staff told the researcher they needed the university’s “help with the matter,” according to the Durham report.
The researcher “responded by saying that it would be inappropriate for a public university to do that.” A staffer from the office of Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., also allegedly said that “we are now in charge” while a HPSCI staffer “said that their boss [Schiff] would soon take over leadership of HPSCI.” The researcher “took the comment as a mild threat.”
After the release of the Durham report, the House of Representatives formally censured Schiff in 2023 because he “spread false accusations that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia” and “perpetuated false allegations from the Steele Dossier accusing numerous Trump associates of colluding with Russia into the Congressional Record.”
President Joe Biden pardoned Schiff on his last full day in office in January this year, but only in reference to Schiff’s role on the select committee which investigated the Capitol riot.
“In certain cases, some have even been threatened with criminal prosecutions, including General Mark A. Milley, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, and the members and staff of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol,” Biden said. “These public servants have served our nation with honor and distinction and do not deserve to be the targets of unjustified and politically motivated prosecutions.”
Schiff claimed that he wished Biden had not pardoned him.
“I continue to think it was unwise and unnecessary and that it sets a bad precedent," Schiff said, adding that “I understand why the president, President Biden, did it. It’s a response to completely improper threats by Trump to prosecute people for no reason except that he thinks they’re political opponents or he thinks they’re effective or whatever reason, so, you know, the origin of all this is the threats, the improper threats by Trump, but nevertheless, I don’t think that should’ve been the response.”
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people keep talking about wanting hard evidence of fraud or a massive conspiracy.
I will keep asking for evidence that mail-in balloting was secure. Sure, azure only got 1 ballot in VT, but that isn't evidence that mail-in balloting is secure.
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people keep talking about wanting hard evidence of fraud or a massive conspiracy.
I will keep asking for evidence that mail-in balloting was secure. Sure, azure only got 1 ballot in VT, but that isn't evidence that mail-in balloting is secure.
If mail in balloting is so secure, why can't I purchase a gun and have it mailed to me using the same level of security?
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What happened? A giant conspiracy to tilt the election? Documented by whom? Where?
The article in Time Magazine for starters, from the horse’s mouth. They all but admitted the gory details about actual fraud but their desperation belies that we can’t put it past them.
All to “protect democracy and ensure a fair election”, euphemisms for making sure outsider Trump never wins. It wasn’t even about the Democrats, it was about Trump. Had a RINO won the primary we would not have seen such a massive, organized effort to make sure every single Democrat would vote, because of course they knew mail in ballots skew Democrat. This is simply because urban voters skew Democrat and lines at the polls are much worse in cities.
It was bi-partisan, it was about Trump. Why? Because they knew Trump could “break all the toys” (as Styx puts it) and they were right as it turns out in this, Trump’s second term.
They even admit it was a giant conspiracy! The verbiage about the “autocratically inclined president” betrays the LIE within, the lie that they are all about fair elections. They were totally biased and it was indeed about making sure Biden won.
There was a conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes, one that both curtailed the protests and coordinated the resistance from CEOs. Both surprises were the result of an informal alliance between left-wing activists and business titans. The pact was formalized in a terse, little-noticed joint statement of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and AFL-CIO published on Election Day. Both sides would come to see it as a sort of implicit bargain–inspired by the summer’s massive, sometimes destructive racial-justice protests–in which the forces of labor came together with the forces of capital to keep the peace and oppose Trump’s assault on democracy.
The handshake between business and labor was just one component of a vast, cross-partisan campaign to protect the election–an extraordinary shadow effort dedicated not to winning the vote but to ensuring it would be free and fair, credible and uncorrupted. For more than a year, a loosely organized coalition of operatives scrambled to shore up America’s institutions as they came under simultaneous attack from a remorseless pandemic and an autocratically inclined President. Though much of this activity took place on the left, it was separate from the Biden campaign and crossed ideological lines, with crucial contributions by nonpartisan and conservative actors.
Here below: the conspiracy to make sure Biden won! And “steer media coverage” - aka CENSORSHIP, like the well documented fact that Twitter and Facebook were strong-armed by the FBI and the IC to not report on Hunter Biden’s laptop. That piece of information alone would have given the election to Teump.
This is the inside story of the conspiracy to save the 2020 election, based on access to the group’s inner workings, never-before-seen documents and interviews with dozens of those involved from across the political spectrum. It is the story of an unprecedented, creative and determined campaign whose success also reveals how close the nation came to disaster. “Every attempt to interfere with the proper outcome of the election was defeated,” says Ian Bassin, co-founder of Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan rule-of-law advocacy group. “But it’s massively important for the country to understand that it didn’t happen accidentally. The system didn’t work magically. Democracy is not self-executing.”
That’s why the participants want the secret history of the 2020 election told, even though it sounds like a paranoid fever dream–a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information. They were not rigging the election; they were fortifying it.
No, they were rigging it.
https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/
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The same was true in VT: every registered voter received a ballot. But I received only one, and at the time I was renting at an address that had seen several tenants in the past 10-15 years. Your scenario has a lot of "could haves". The voter rolls would have to have not just a few mistakes, but tons of them. How was the "harvesting" done? Seems that would require complicity from city and town clerks and maybe even the USPS. So what if "traditionally" manipulation benefits Democrats? The question is whether it happened in sufficient volume to sway the election.
Again, the reason I ask for hard evidence is that what you suggest happened would require a pretty massive effort - basically, a conspiracy to rig the election - to bring it off. And I'm admittedly biased against any theory that has to invoke a conspiracy to make sense - I don't care which side advances it.
The MSM slants stories leftward, no question, but not every journalist is left-leaning, and news companies exist to sell newspapers/subscriptions (or clicks on ads). If there was such a conspiracy, I can't imagine there wouldn't be competition to be the first to break the story. The journalist who broke the story would have won the Pulitzer. So that scenario - massive fraud, covered up by the MSM - doesn't pass the smell test as far as I'm concerned.
I moved to Texas in 2016, where I registered to vote in Texas. Imagine my surprise to find I could request a mail in ballot to be sent to me from NC, because I was still registered there. In the immediate aftermath of my move I could easily have voted twice, before the county election board was notified of my address change, IF they were ever going to be notified. As it turned out, I had to notify them myself and ask to be removed.
There were many, many examples of this; people moving and still staying on the rolls at their old residence. Then there were all the old people that died but remained on the rolls, having ballots automatically mailed to their last residence, still occupied by family members who simply filled out the ballots and returned them.
Much of this is anecdotal but it betrays the outdated, hodge-podge, ways voter registration is handled. There are no national standards. Each state is in charge of its own election process and county election boards don’t necessarily communicate with each other. It’s on the voter to report changes. I had to tell the election board my parents were dead. Until I did that anyone who knew their birthday could log in and request a mail in ballot in their name.
Since big cities skew Democrat and hence many election board employees and poll workers are Democrats, and the 2020 re-election of Trump was seen as an existential world-ending catastrophe, I can easily see organized inside efforts to scour the rolls for these “extra vote” opportunities. These people think Trump is literally Hitler, and themselves as saviors of the universe. They would absolutely break the law to prevent Trump from winning, especially since they also skew stupid and probably didn’t even realize how illegal what they were doing was.
No I can’t say it happened on a scale that swung the election, but it certainly did happen.
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Maybe you were out of the country on election night 2020. Maybe that explains why you can't remember a single thing that happened after 11:06pm, when SIX states (they all just happened to be swing states) simultaneously decided to CEASE counting and chase everyone out, especially the republican election monitors. Then magically joe biden went from over 800,000 votes behind to winning the state, but all that happened when the monitors couldn't verify a single ballot.
I know you weren't there and you are tempted to pretend if you didn't see it then it didn't happen, but President Trump's vote total went up by only a handful over night while joe biden's vote total went up over one-million. I know, you think it was magic and the republicans HAD to be guilty too.
Then Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, and Minnesota ALL had magical increases in biden votes, without more than a handful of Trump votes counted, of course it happened in secret, and when lawyers brought video evidence of boxes full of filled in ballots out from under tables and other counting started in secret but ONLY until the lead changed from Trump to biden.
You have no idea this happened because... yeah... I guess some people really do live under an actual rock.
So now I need to spend my day providing this for you? For an academic you certainly lack skills for doing any meaningful research, but I'm not surprised.
It's just easier to cry out "conspiracy!" then stick your head in the sand and pretend it never happened.
In azure’s defense, she’s been in the far left bubble for a long time and only relatively recently has opened up to alternate points of view which means alternate sources of information. Those of us who have been paying attention to the alternate sources of information since 2015 or earlier, and through the 2020 election, know of a lot of facts that never saw the light of day in mainstream media.
For example, the Russia collusion hoax is no surprise to any of us who listened daily to Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh. We’ve known the Steele dossier was fake since 2017. Now, half the country seems surprised at the idea Trump didn’t get golden showers from Russian prostitutes in Moscow. Who am I kidding, the left probably still believes it.
And remember, Elon only bought Twitter in late 2022. Before that, there was no mainstream social media at all that wasn’t heavily censored.
I see azure as trying to catch up, certainly not sticking her head in the sand. If she were doing that she wouldn’t still be here asking questions. Maybe she lived under a rock for much of the past decade, but that was easy to do unless you pro-actively sought out “right-wing” sources, which is verboten when you’re in the leftist cult.
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In azure’s defense, she’s been in the far left bubble for a long time and only relatively recently has opened up to alternate points of view which means alternate sources of information. Those of us who have been paying attention to the alternate sources of information since 2015 or earlier, and through the 2020 election, know of a lot of facts that never saw the light of day in mainstream media.
For example, the Russia collusion hoax is no surprise to any of us who listened daily to Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh. We’ve known the Steele dossier was fake since 2017. Now, half the country seems surprised at the idea Trump didn’t get golden showers from Russian prostitutes in Moscow. Who am I kidding, the left probably still believes it.
And remember, Elon only bought Twitter in late 2022. Before that, there was no mainstream social media at all that wasn’t heavily censored.
I see azure as trying to catch up, certainly not sticking her head in the sand. If she were doing that she wouldn’t still be here asking questions. Maybe she lived under a rock for much of the past decade, but that was easy to do unless you pro-actively sought out “right-wing” sources, which is verboten when you’re in the leftist cult.
Whatever. But making declaratives "There's no proof" "What facts?" and such without even trying to do the slightest research doesn't bode well. This is not a classroom in which the teacher can sit at the head of the class and say "I don't believe you, you go do a research paper on this with references, then get it peer reviewed and only then I will discuss".
Like you said, many of us were deep into this while it was happening and took the time to separate fact from fiction.
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don't people understand that you don't need a "massive nation-wide fraud conspiracy"? All you have to do is focus the fraud in a vote key areas. It's just a red herring to talk about massive national conspiracy.
The dems didn't need to waste any effort with voter fraud in places that california or taxachusetts, those states would go for whatever sludge with a "(D)". It's the swing states where national elections are won or lost.
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If mail in balloting is so secure, why can't I purchase a gun and have it mailed to me using the same level of security?
hmmmm
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don't people understand that you don't need a "massive nation-wide fraud conspiracy"? All you have to do is focus the fraud in a vote key areas. It's just a red herring to talk about massive national conspiracy.
The dems didn't need to waste any effort with voter fraud in places that california or taxachusetts, those states would go for whatever sludge with a "(D)". It's the swing states where national elections are won or lost.
The reason they’d do that would be to get congressional seats but they’re importing illegals to do that. Hopefully Trump will put a stop to that, by requiring only citizens and legal residents to be counted. But you’re correct, it comes down to one or two counties in each of a few swing states. Nobody else’s vote matters in a presidential election except to win the popular vote, which does strengthen the mandate, but doesn’t decide the election.
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Azure has a closed mind on any subject that challenges the democrat agenda.
It makes. I difference what you post she will pretend it isn’t good enough, or that she wasn’t told she is allowed to look beyond the party narrative.
I’ve given up because she is refusing to acknowledge any events and pretending both sides might be guilty rather than approach this with any shred of an open mind.
She is probably a nice person but the progressive brainwashing is way to deep to make a dent.
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Azure has a closed mind on any subject that challenges the democrat agenda.
It makes. I difference what you post she will pretend it isn’t good enough, or that she wasn’t told she is allowed to look beyond the party narrative.
I’ve given up because she is refusing to acknowledge any events and pretending both sides might be guilty rather than approach this with any shred of an open mind.
She is probably a nice person but the progressive brainwashing is way to deep to make a dent.
I respectfully disagree. Azure has come a long way in the time I have been reading her posts. She has a way to go, but I think she has proven that she has an open mind. But some learned and ingrained thoughts and beliefs can be difficult to overcome.
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I respectfully disagree. Azure has come a long way in the time I have been reading her posts. She has a way to go, but I think she has proven that she has an open mind. But some learned and ingrained thoughts and beliefs can be difficult to overcome.
And like I said, she has the disadvantage of not having been steeped in "our" side for years and years.
I don't want to make it sound like "our side" is equally brainwashy, although parts of it are. The parts that are good sources yet firmly on the right are the likes of Rush Limbaugh. His reporting was factual. He may have had opinions, like being pro-life, but when he told you a thing happened for instance, he wasn't making stuff up, it was a fact.
The dialogue is so divided now, there is not a lot of in between or, balanced sources to carry you from one side to the other. I've called it "no man's land" before, which means when you venture there, you're open to fire from either side. She is rightfully suspicious and cautious about just buying into everything said on the right, having experienced the counter brainwashing of the left.
I'm really oversimplifying things. "Our side" isn't monolithic, it includes conservatives, libertarians, centrists and populists. Everybody that refuses to support the current incarnation of the Democratic party, which has gone off the deep end.
Not voting for Kamala is a huge step in the right direction. It means she rejects continuing the horrific decline under Biden and at least she figures Trump isn't so bad she has to support Kamala as preferable. Sounds like maybe she was open to giving Trump another chance even if not ready to actually support him (yet?)
We're talking about her like she isn't in the room. ;D
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Azure has a closed mind on any subject that challenges the democrat agenda.
It makes. I difference what you post she will pretend it isn’t good enough, or that she wasn’t told she is allowed to look beyond the party narrative.
I’ve given up because she is refusing to acknowledge any events and pretending both sides might be guilty rather than approach this with any shred of an open mind.
She is probably a nice person but the progressive brainwashing is way to deep to make a dent.
I've said it before (specifically about Little Joe), I couldn't care less what people say on this forum. I care how they end up voting. If azure pulls the lever for Vance in 2028, her head's in the right place. Assuming of course Vance runs and is the sane choice over whomever the Dems run, which I think is 99.9% likely, but not necessarily 100%.
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Well, I wasn't in the room until just now. Had a long day at the avionics shop where the techs found some sort of leak in my altimeter's baro scale - and then, when they needed to get into the cargo area, instead of asking me for the key, they evidently jimmied the lock and left it in a state where, even though unlocked, the door still couldn't be opened. Grrr!!
Anyway, Rush, is this the Time Magazine article by Molly Ball? I've had that article open in a tab for a few days but only started reading it. I'll take it up soon and see what I think. Molly Ball is a frequent contributor on many venues; I think she's appeared on Washington Week a few times as well.
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Well, I wasn't in the room until just now. Had a long day at the avionics shop where the techs found some sort of leak in my altimeter's baro scale - and then, when they needed to get into the cargo area, instead of asking me for the key, they evidently jimmied the lock and left it in a state where, even though unlocked, the door still couldn't be opened. Grrr!!
Yikes.
Anyway, Rush, is this the Time Magazine article by Molly Ball?
Yes.
You edited out something else about changing swing states and districts. That is correct. Florida used to be a swing state, and what, Palm Beach County? Flipped it to Bush in 2020?
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I've said it before (specifically about Little Joe), I couldn't care less what people say on this forum. I care how they end up voting. If azure pulls the lever for Vance in 2028, her head's in the right place. Assuming of course Vance runs and is the sane choice over whomever the Dems run, which I think is 99.9% likely, but not necessarily 100%.
If the Dems' nominee is any of the usual names that are currently being thrown around as possibles for 2028 (Jeffries, Newsom, Schumer, etc.), no way could I vote for any of them, no matter who the R candidate is. But I'm not sure that Vance is the person I want conducting American foreign policy in Trump's wake. Vance seems, of everyone in Trump's orbit, to be the one who is most focused on this hemisphere, and I'd need to be convinced that it isn't to the exclusion of the wider world. Trump is a pragmatist who is starting to understand the seriousness of the Ukraine situation and wants a deal that doesn't compromise American interests. I think he's aware of the danger that China represents, primarily with respect to Taiwan - at least I hope he does. What would Vance do if Xi decides to, say, blockade Taiwan's harbors and force all freight coming in to go through Chinese customs? What are he and Trump doing now to prepare against, or even prevent moves like that? Those are critical questions for me.
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You edited out something else about changing swing states and districts. That is correct. Florida used to be a swing state, and what, Palm Beach County? Flipped it to Bush in 2020?
Right, I was wondering whether it's really possible to predict which districts will be the swing districts in advance. Seems there would still be a huge number of districts to target. But I decided I wanted to read the Time article first before discussing 2020 any further, since you mentioned it twice.
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Right, I was wondering whether it's really possible to predict which districts will be the swing districts in advance. Seems there would still be a huge number of districts to target. But I decided I wanted to read the Time article first before discussing 2020 any further, since you mentioned it twice.
I don’t think they change on a dime, it’s more gradual so they can be largely predicted in advance in any one election, especially within 2 years, like for example you have midterm results.
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I don’t think they change on a dime, it’s more gradual so they can be largely predicted in advance in any one election, especially within 2 years, like for example you have midterm results.
Palm Beach County, like Broward (Fort Lauderdale) was famous for their last second fraud. The supervisor of elections would update the vote totals on line and the count would be at 99% complete, and suddenly a whole box of Mai, in ballots would be discovered and they would all be for the democrat. It was as dishonest as those special districts in Chicago and stayed that way until the 2016 election when there was serious oversight and people started to fear arrest and jail time.
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to be the one who is most focused on this hemisphere, and I'd need to be convinced that it isn't to the exclusion of the wider world.
let's not forget that the President of the United States isn't the president of the entire world, isn't responsible for the entire world. But, yes, the Executive Branch is the only one of the three branches that has the constitutional authority and responsibility for foreign relations. Not congress, not the courts.
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Trump could be Vance's SoS.
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let's not forget that the President of the United States isn't the president of the entire world, isn't responsible for the entire world. But, yes, the Executive Branch is the only one of the three branches that has the constitutional authority and responsibility for foreign relations. Not congress, not the courts.
The senate must approve treaty's.
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If the Dems' nominee is any of the usual names that are currently being thrown around as possibles for 2028 (Jeffries, Newsom, Schumer, etc.), no way could I vote for any of them, no matter who the R candidate is. But I'm not sure that Vance is the person I want conducting American foreign policy in Trump's wake. Vance seems, of everyone in Trump's orbit, to be the one who is most focused on this hemisphere, and I'd need to be convinced that it isn't to the exclusion of the wider world. Trump is a pragmatist who is starting to understand the seriousness of the Ukraine situation and wants a deal that doesn't compromise American interests. I think he's aware of the danger that China represents, primarily with respect to Taiwan - at least I hope he does. What would Vance do if Xi decides to, say, blockade Taiwan's harbors and force all freight coming in to go through Chinese customs? What are he and Trump doing now to prepare against, or even prevent moves like that? Those are critical questions for me.
I agree, China/Taiwan is a delicate issue. First, I think Trump is being proactive by encouraging domestic chip production. But that doesn’t mean we should sit by and allow China to overtake Taiwan. Foreign policy is such a complex balancing act. On the one hand we don’t want to involve ourselves in others’ wars, particularly in the other hemisphere. There is a policy that the U.S. protects this hemisphere (Monroe Doctrine) which has been seriously violated (like China running the Panama Canal), and an argument can be made to justify military intervention to avoid the East gaining a foothold in our half of the globe, like we flat would not allow Russia to put nukes on Cuba.
But we do need to have a global presence because the U.S. is the protector of global shipping, and global shipping is the foundation of our very existence now, unfortunately. (Post ww2 Order - basically the world agreed to let us police the high seas in exchange for trade deals and cooperative promises ensued between countries to refrain from attempted state sanctioned piracy and a bunch of other complicated factors. It’s the biggest reason we support Israel as much as we do, the Mid-East shipping lanes are lifeblood to the West.) Again, Trump is trying to chip away at that dependency by bringing manufacturing home, but we’re nowhere near self sufficiency so must maintain that role.
In my opinion we have a strong interest in helping negotiate peace in the eastern hemisphere, like Russia vs Ukraine, but we should not be taking sides or actively participating in the war. The NATO alliance is a dicy complication which could have easily been solved by admitting Russia into NATO but the deep state nixed that idea when Russia asked, seemingly preferring that Russia befriend China instead. Great, of the three nuclear superpowers, we drove the other two together, while at the same time shipping all our manufacturing jobs to one of them and having them ship back all the little items we need to survive on a daily basis. Fucking stupid.
But back to the topic at hand, I don’t know enough about Vance right now to say whether I think he’d handle foreign policy well, other than, if he follows what Trump is doing, that’s the right direction.
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President Trump is giving live daily demonstrations of what the President of the United States should look like. A master class, if you will.
Ted Kennedy eulogized his brother Robert with these words … “he saw wrong and tried to right it.” History has shown that such people become targets for evil … yes, evil. The force that seeks to destroy everything good.
President Trump sees things that are wrong, and sets out to fix them. Then today’s Democrats howl that he is a Nazi, even as their ratings plunge. Evil does not want clean voter rolls, an honest census, a crime-free city, borders, people of faith, flourishing families, peace, or really, anything good and healthy.
A good soldier rides into battle knowing death rides with him. President Trump, who narrowly missed having his head blown apart on live TV, is riding into the battle every day. Would that each of us would see wrong and try to right it, regardless of the cost to us. The alternative is dystopia.
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“We’re going to win. We’re going to win so much. We’re going to win at trade, we’re going to win at the border. We’re going to win so much, you’re going to be so sick and tired of winning, you’re going to come to me and go, ‘Please, please, we can’t win anymore.’ And I’m going to say: ‘I’m sorry, but we’re going to keep winning, winning, winning. We’re going to make America great again.’”
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President Trump is giving live daily demonstrations of what the President of the United States should look like. A master class, if you will.
Ted Kennedy eulogized his brother Robert with these words … “he saw wrong and tried to right it.” History has shown that such people become targets for evil … yes, evil. The force that seeks to destroy everything good.
President Trump sees things that are wrong, and sets out to fix them. Then today’s Democrats howl that he is a Nazi, even as their ratings plunge. Evil does not want clean voter rolls, an honest census, a crime-free city, borders, people of faith, flourishing families, peace, or really, anything good and healthy.
A good soldier rides into battle knowing death rides with him. President Trump, who narrowly missed having his head blown apart on live TV, is riding into the battle every day. Would that each of us would see wrong and try to right it, regardless of the cost to us. The alternative is dystopia.
He is indeed. And the one thing he screwed up on, over-promising the Epstein files before knowing everything in them, isn’t even that big a deal according to a poll I saw. Unlike what you’d think from the (likely manufactured) outrage on social media, he’s not losing support over it. People care WAY more about their own wallet and the border and world peace than what happened on Epstein island. But Trump’s enemies are playing it up because they have little else to criticize him for.
Oh, “taking over” DC like that’s a shock. DC was always owned by the feds. It was granted some limited autonomy in 1973 but always with the caveat that the feds could take it right back at any time. Trump is doing nothing shocking or unconstitutional whatsoever.
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The senate must approve treaty's.
Yup but the senate doesn’t conduct foreign policy
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Yup but the senate doesn’t conduct foreign policy
So how does the executive get a treaty approved via the senate? The senate may not conduct direct foreign policy, but they do have a say so on the terms.
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He is indeed. And the one thing he screwed up on, over-promising the Epstein files before knowing everything in them, isn’t even that big a deal according to a poll I saw. Unlike what you’d think from the (likely manufactured) outrage on social media, he’s not losing support over it. People care WAY more about their own wallet and the border and world peace than what happened on Epstein island. But Trump’s enemies are playing it up because they have little else to criticize him for.
Oh, “taking over” DC like that’s a shock. DC was always owned by the feds. It was granted some limited autonomy in 1973 but always with the caveat that the feds could take it right back at any time. Trump is doing nothing shocking or unconstitutional whatsoever.
Do you have a link to something that states that? I'll try to do some searching.
Washington, D.C., has limited autonomy. It operates under **Home Rule**, granted by Congress through the **District of Columbia Home Rule Act of 1973**, which allows the city to elect its own mayor and city council and manage local affairs like budgeting, taxation, and legislation. However, Congress retains ultimate authority over D.C., meaning it can override local laws, control the budget, and intervene in governance. The District lacks full voting representation in Congress, with only a non-voting delegate in the House and no senators, limiting its ability to influence federal decisions that affect it. This unique status stems from D.C.'s designation as a federal district, not a state, as outlined in the U.S. Constitution (Article I, Section 8) , which gives Congress control over the seat of government. For example, during the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, D.C.'s mayor couldn’t deploy the National Guard without federal approval, highlighting its lack of full autonomy. Residents have pushed for statehood to gain equal representation and full self-governance, but this remains a contentious issue, with bills like H.R. 51 passing the House in 2021 but stalling in the Senate. If you’d like, I can dig into specific aspects, like recent statehood debates or compare D.C.’s autonomy to other territories.
From Gork, seems to indicate only Congress can revoke.
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Do you have a link to something that states that? I'll try to do some searching.
From Gork, seems to indicate only Congress can revoke.
Pretty sure it was Michael Knowles video I got that from and maybe other commentary. He seemed to know what he was talking about. But that was yesterday and I’ve slept since then, might have been somewhere else. I confess I haven’t verified it with a link to something authoritative.
You might be right that “the feds” refers technically to Congress, however, pretty sure I remember Knowles (or whomever) saying that historically it has been the president who presided over the actually policing of the city. Possibly Congress delegated those duties to the prez. If Congress has ultimate authority, that doesn’t mean it can’t delegate.
As for the mayor not deploying the National Guard, that might not apply to local police, don’t know at the moment. In any case I take Knowles’ word over Grok, but again, confess I haven’t directly researched it.
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I agree, China/Taiwan is a delicate issue. First, I think Trump is being proactive by encouraging domestic chip production. But that doesn’t mean we should sit by and allow China to overtake Taiwan. Foreign policy is such a complex balancing act. On the one hand we don’t want to involve ourselves in others’ wars, particularly in the other hemisphere. There is a policy that the U.S. protects this hemisphere (Monroe Doctrine) which has been seriously violated (like China running the Panama Canal), and an argument can be made to justify military intervention to avoid the East gaining a foothold in our half of the globe, like we flat would not allow Russia to put nukes on Cuba.
But we do need to have a global presence because the U.S. is the protector of global shipping, and global shipping is the foundation of our very existence now, unfortunately. (Post ww2 Order - basically the world agreed to let us police the high seas in exchange for trade deals and cooperative promises ensued between countries to refrain from attempted state sanctioned piracy and a bunch of other complicated factors. It’s the biggest reason we support Israel as much as we do, the Mid-East shipping lanes are lifeblood to the West.) Again, Trump is trying to chip away at that dependency by bringing manufacturing home, but we’re nowhere near self sufficiency so must maintain that role.
In my opinion we have a strong interest in helping negotiate peace in the eastern hemisphere, like Russia vs Ukraine, but we should not be taking sides or actively participating in the war. The NATO alliance is a dicy complication which could have easily been solved by admitting Russia into NATO but the deep state nixed that idea when Russia asked, seemingly preferring that Russia befriend China instead. Great, of the three nuclear superpowers, we drove the other two together, while at the same time shipping all our manufacturing jobs to one of them and having them ship back all the little items we need to survive on a daily basis. Fucking stupid.
But back to the topic at hand, I don’t know enough about Vance right now to say whether I think he’d handle foreign policy well, other than, if he follows what Trump is doing, that’s the right direction.
I pretty much agree on all points - including that it would have been better if Russia had been offered a path to NATO membership soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union, similar to what has been outlined for Ukraine. But here we are, that ship has sailed and Putin now has ambitions to revive the Soviet empire under the Russian flag. Given our economic interdependence with Europe, I don't think a settlement of the Ukraine conflict that's favorable to Russia is in American interests. Full disclosure here: I'm ethnically Polish and have spoken with people who lived under Soviet domination. I'm still in contact with an old family friend, also Polish, whose father fled communist Poland in the post WW2 years. The stories he has told me about his father's ordeal are horrific. I think Putin is basically a more charming version of Stalin, and without the hammer and sickle - but make no mistake, he's an old commie apparatchik and any deal that allows Russia a path to dominate Eastern Europe again, in my opinion, should be a non-starter.
Did you see Margaret Hoover's interview with Niall Ferguson last weekend on the new Firing Line? The teaser segment advertised "a conservative critique of Trump's first 100 days" and I think the interview mostly delivered. Ferguson reminded me of the Taipei blockade scenario and suggested (I thought surprisingly, but he has a point) that detente with China now may be our best hope to avoid that scenario, and that avoiding it should be priority one as we do not have sufficient military strength in the Indo-Pacific and specifically in the South China Sea to effectively deter China, and the last thing we want is an all-out war with a nuclear superpower.
Ferguson is also a strong fiscal conservative and correctly (imo) warns that the debt crisis is approaching a critical point. He cited "Ferguson's law" (Adam, not Niall) that any great power that spends more on its debt than on national defense is in decline.
He clearly admires Trump but is concerned that Trump may be overreaching by trying to tackle too many problems at once, and by rolling out tariffs in a chaotic way. But the interview was taped in May - I wonder what he thinks now, after it's become clear that Trump's threats of extreme tariffs are mainly a card to play at the negotiating table, and his default tariffs (of order 15%) are more reasonable and might be mainly to partially offset the increased spending in the BBB.
Anyway Ferguson says that there are three competing foreign policy philosophies inside the Trump administration: (1) confront the Axis of Authoritarianism everywhere (Mike Waltz et al), (2) Russia is not our enemy, China is the real threat, and (3) neither Russia nor China really matter as long as we control this hemisphere. He places Vance squarely in the third camp - this squares with my impressions dating from the Oval Office confrontation with Zelensky, but it might not be accurate.
https://www.pbs.org/video/niall-ferguson-lm6wzo/ (https://www.pbs.org/video/niall-ferguson-lm6wzo/)
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Do you have a link to something that states that? I'll try to do some searching.
From Gork, seems to indicate only Congress can revoke.
This was it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lp5XOyge83M
He says about 4:15 that even the homerule act says the president has the right to take over the police department.
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More from Grok...
Yes, the District of Columbia Home Rule Act of 1973, specifically Section 740 (codified as D.C. Code § 1–207.40), allows the President to effectively take control of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) under certain conditions. This provision is titled "Emergency control of police" and permits the President to direct the Mayor to provide MPD services for federal purposes during special conditions of an emergency nature. Here's a breakdown of how it works, based on the Act's text: - **Conditions for Invocation**: The President must determine that "special conditions of an emergency nature exist which require the use of the Metropolitan Police force for federal purposes." Once directed, the Mayor is required to provide those services. This has been interpreted in legal and media analyses as enabling a temporary federal takeover of the MPD. - **Initial Duration Limit**: The services cannot extend beyond 48 hours unless the President notifies the Chairmen and ranking minority members of the relevant congressional committees (Committees on the District of Columbia) in writing, explaining the reason and expected duration. - **Overall Termination Rules**: The services must end at the earliest of: - The conclusion of the emergency. - 30 days after the services begin. - Enactment of a joint resolution by Congress to terminate them. - **Extensions**: Any extension beyond 30 days requires Congress to enact a joint resolution authorizing it. There's a special provision for cases where Congress is adjourned sine die (without a set return date), tying the 30-day clock to when Congress reconvenes. ### Context and Recent Application This provision has been invoked in recent days by President Trump amid a declared "crime emergency" in D.C., leading to a federalization of the MPD and deployment of additional forces. Reports indicate efforts to extend the control beyond the initial 30-day limit, which would require congressional approval. However, D.C. officials, including the Attorney General, have pushed back, arguing that the law does not permit a full "federal takeover" and emphasizing local autonomy. In summary, while the Act does grant the President this authority in emergencies, it's not unlimited or permanent—it's designed as a short-term measure with built-in checks from Congress. Historical uses have been rare, typically tied to events like riots or national security threats. _Disclaimer: Grok is not a lawyer; please consult one. Don't share information that can identify you._
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https://x.com/DNIGabbard/status/1955721194143146226
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"That's our story and we're stickin' to it." Holy shit. :o
And yet, Rogers's email sent earlier the same day shows no evidence of being interested in fake intel. So this is weird and doesn't so far support the idea of collusion to create a fake report. More like a teaser to get you to read on.
Presumably there's more being made public, per Gabbard's statement.
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"That's our story and we're stickin' to it." Holy shit. :o
And yet, Rogers's email sent earlier the same day shows no evidence of being interested in fake intel. So this is weird and doesn't so far support the idea of collusion to create a fake report. More like a teaser to get you to read on.
Presumably there's more being made public, per Gabbard's statement.
This fits with what I know about the inner workings of these agencies. The CIA and FBI are the most corrupt but the NSA less so. They’re like a bunch of nerds; think Sheldon Cooper, more interested in the details of their job and less in political agenda.
The collusion aspect in order of guilt would be Obama-Hillary at the top, then the Democratic Party, then CIA/FBI more than happy to help, and lastly the NSA, more or less just being made to comply with the requests coming from “above”.
The NSA is more about simply collecting data, and less about what’s done with it. In that email he even implies he’d be happy if they left the NSA out of it, and the report just be CIA/FBI, but then he’s shot down in the reply: No, the NSA needs to be in lockstep with the rest, he’s told.
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This fits with what I know about the inner workings of these agencies. The CIA and FBI are the most corrupt but the NSA less so. They’re like a bunch of nerds; think Sheldon Cooper, more interested in the details of their job and less in political agenda.
The collusion aspect in order of guilt would be Obama-Hillary at the top, then the Democratic Party, then CIA/FBI more than happy to help, and lastly the NSA, more or less just being made to comply with the requests coming from “above”.
The NSA is more about simply collecting data, and less about what’s done with it. In that email he even implies he’d be happy if they left the NSA out of it, and the report just be CIA/FBI, but then he’s shot down in the reply: No, the NSA needs to be in lockstep with the rest, he’s told.
Maybe so, but so far, what's been declassified is only suggestive - there's no smoking gun here. For all we know, Clapper was drunk when he wrote that email and was joking, or half-joking , about "compromising our modalities".
I agree that it looks suspicious, but again, this is one of those extraordinary claims requiring at least solid, if not extraordinary, evidence.
And yeah, I just downloaded the declassified emails from the DNI website. The screenshots Gabbard posted on Twitter appear to be all there is, so far. I can respect that the rest of it might compromise national security in some way if it were declassified, but I hope there is a "rest of it", and that the congressional oversight committees can examine it all, unredacted.
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For all we know, Clapper was drunk when he wrote that email and was joking, or half-joking , about "compromising our modalities".
Come on. That’s a stretch.
If, and it’s a big if, they plan to bring charges, they’ll hold back the real smoking gun stuff for now.
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Come on. That’s a stretch.
My point is, there is very little context here, so it's very difficult to say what Clapper's email actually meant.
If, and it’s a big if, they plan to bring charges, they’ll hold back the real smoking gun stuff for now.
Of course - I would expect nothing less.
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Let me put it a little differently: what Gabbard is trying to say is, we have a case here, and this is the tip of the iceberg. If you're already inclined to think these FBI/CIA people are partisan to the point of corruption, then of course, it looks like a big deal. If you don't know them from Adam, then you're going to be more skeptical and take a wait and see attitude. I always start by assuming that someone is well-meaning and has integrity, until I learn something to the contrary, and these guys in the IC, I just have yet to see any hard evidence that they actually are corrupt. So my attitude is, wait and see.
Gabbard has promised before what she then couldn't deliver, right? ;) (I mean, VERY recently.) I think that's another reason to be a bit skeptical about any claims she makes that are (so far) backed up with so little evidence.
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My point is, there is very little context here, so it's very difficult to say what Clapper's email actually meant.
Of course - I would expect nothing less.
I share your frustration at the slow leaking. It does seem like tease. I can only guess at their strategy, which includes keeping the public distracted with one thing when they’re focusing on something else. Or causing the targets (if they plan on bringing charges) anxiety, which might lead them to slip up and further implicate themselves. Or it’s simply a massive overwhelming amount of material that needs to be sorted through. We don’t really know. For now I’m going to trust Trump, Gabbard, etc.
The reason I trust them is that Gabbard was an erstwhile Democrat, as were many of Trump’s team, and they left the Democrat Party, which means they aren’t Uniparty, and we know Trump is not Uniparty, so all of them are renegades. Which is exactly what we need, because the federal government (and their corporate interests) has become completely out of control. And it seems they’re trying to address that.
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Let me put it a little differently: what Gabbard is trying to say is, we have a case here, and this is the tip of the iceberg. If you're already inclined to think these FBI/CIA people are partisan to the point of corruption, then of course, it looks like a big deal. If you don't know them from Adam, then you're going to be more skeptical and take a wait and see attitude. I always start by assuming that someone is well-meaning and has integrity, until I learn something to the contrary, and these guys in the IC, I just have yet to see any hard evidence that they actually are corrupt. So my attitude is, wait and see.
Gabbard has promised before what she then couldn't deliver, right? ;) (I mean, VERY recently.) I think that's another reason to be a bit skeptical about any claims she makes that are (so far) backed up with so little evidence.
These “guys” in the IC are individuals. Some are corrupt evil slime, others are ethical good people, and yet others just do what they’re told.
What are you referring to with Gabbard? Bondi was the one screwing up the Epstein promises.
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People who are determined to ignore the obvious in favor of protecting their beloved political party will never accept anything. It is the most common practice among progressives to simply pretend there is no ‘hard eveidence’ when the topic is their beloved and accept anything bullshit thrown against the wall when they are talking about the opposition party.
It’s a waste of energy to engage blind partisans on any topic of importance.
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These “guys” in the IC are individuals. Some are corrupt evil slime, others are ethical good people, and yet others just do what they’re told.
Yep! As in every organization.
What are you referring to with Gabbard? Bondi was the one screwing up the Epstein promises.
Ah! You're right, senior moment on my part I guess. I believe I was thinking of her assessment that Iran was not trying to build a nuclear bomb - but that was back in March, so not that recent, and not exactly a promise. Still, a reason to wait for more evidence I think - or for them to file charges.
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People who are determined to ignore the obvious in favor of protecting their beloved political party will never accept anything. It is the most common practice among progressives to simply pretend there is no ‘hard eveidence’ when the topic is their beloved and accept anything bullshit thrown against the wall when they are talking about the opposition party.
When the allegations are against the Republicans, I take the same approach. And I've defended Trump and even Vance against media distortions of their words. So I think your description there is very wide of the mark.
It’s a waste of energy to engage blind partisans on any topic of importance.
You've said a mouthful there, brother. 8)
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Well, I’m thread crossing here, but when President Trump announced he was bringing in the National Guard to clean up DC, he had Hegseth, Bondi and Patel standing at the podium with him. Huh? Wouldn’t you just hire more officers, put heat on the Police Chief, and things like that? He’s fortifying DC. One’s mind does wander to why … and when you realize DC is upwards of 90 percent black, and a potential subpoena could be issued to Saint Obama, would the Guard presence be for readiness for a Rodney King-type event?
I do see that in two days they’ve made several dozen arrests of serious criminals in DC, including 16 criminal aliens. Even Morning Joe had to concede it was a needed move.
But all this may relate to Obamagate is my point.
Update. Jeff Childers on Coffee & Covid posted about this type of thing yesterday.
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These “guys” in the IC are individuals. Some are corrupt evil slime, others are ethical good people, and yet others just do what they’re told.
What are you referring to with Gabbard? Bondi was the one screwing up the Epstein promises.
One whistleblower, according to Gabbard, was fired after about a year of trying stop this hoax, pointing out continuously that what was going on was illegal and unethical. Reason given for firing was “not being loyal enough to the party.” What about being loyal TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE?
Dems select for loyalty and malleability, not integrity or competence.
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Ah! You're right, senior moment on my part I guess. I believe I was thinking of her assessment that Iran was not trying to build a nuclear bomb - but that was back in March, so not that recent, and not exactly a promise. Still, a reason to wait for more evidence I think - or for them to file charges.
Oh, I’m doing it too. I almost typed Bondi when I meant Gabbard wrt posting these Russia hoax emails.
I dunno how we mix those two up. Bondi is blond and Gabbard is dark brown with that weird white streak, like Madeline Kahn in Young Frankenstein. Does she do that on purpose or is it natural? I had the same grey streak on one side when I first started going grey, but I soon started dying it out. Hubby was sad when I did that because he said it was sexy. Hmmmm, we should have role played…
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One whistleblower, according to Gabbard, was fired after about a year of trying stop this hoax, pointing out continuously that what was going on was illegal and unethical. Reason given for firing was “not being loyal enough to the party.” What about being loyal TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE?
Dems select for loyalty and malleability, not integrity or competence.
Whoa, whoa, whoah! What? Loyal to the party??? That’s quite a Freudian slip. The agencies are supposed to be loyal to the Constitution.
Or wait, unless it was the guy that was fired that said that. In that case it wasn’t a Freudian slip but he’s just telling it like it is, like he’s pretty sure that’s why he was fired.
I don’t know the proportion mix of party affiliation in these agencies but I’ve all ideas it has over time skewed more and more Democrat, just like the educational system. Once you pass a certain tipping point, the workplace culture mandates you belong to the majority, and the other party is actively pushed out. If this has happened in the IC agencies, then the majority party loses objectivity and starts believing their party ARE the People, the Constitution, and democracy.
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Whoa, whoa, whoah! What? Loyal to the party??? That’s quite a Freudian slip. The agencies are supposed to be loyal to the Constitution.
It’s pretty obvious at this point that the Dems don’t care at all about the Constitution or the American people. They are in fact reflexively against both. Power is their only game. Which for the right makes them fun targets. Did you see where President Trump is ordering a review of the Smithsonian with an eye to de-woking the leftist’s history-rearranging damage to the exhibits? Love it. Every day, several times a day, he triggers them to expose their hatred of America.
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Whoa, whoa, whoah! What? Loyal to the party??? That’s quite a Freudian slip. The agencies are supposed to be loyal to the Constitution.
Or wait, unless it was the guy that was fired that said that. In that case it wasn’t a Freudian slip but he’s just telling it like it is, like he’s pretty sure that’s why he was fired.
It was the fired employee who said that. The rarest of creatures, a Dem with integrity.
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https://justthenews.com/government/federal-agencies/patel-says-he-trying-build-transparent-russiagate-case-american-public
FBI Director Kash Patel on Thursday opened up about his recent work that uncovered an alleged massive plot to smear President Donald Trump by planting now-debunked stories about Russia collusion in the mainstream media.
Just The News has broken several stories recently about the Russiagate scandal, which found that high-ranking government officials during the Obama administration tried to damage Trump during and after his 2016 presidential campaign by promoting false conspiracies, to the benefit of former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
Patel said his team in the Trump administration is hoping to build a case for the public that showcases an alleged cover-up by former government officials to provide accountability, even if the statute of limitations passed on actually prosecuting them.
"What we're doing is building a case for the American public under the truth and transparency and accountability initiative," Patel told Fox News' Sean Hannity. "What I mean by that is [Attorney General Pam] Bondi ... John Ratcliffe at the CIA, [National Intelligence] Director [Tulsi] Gabbard ... we are working with them, because the documents that would facilitate an investigation of this magnitude don't just rest at the FBI and DOJ, they're throughout the intelligence community."
Patel said his team has been exposing documentation that he already knew existed but was previously classified for "political reasons" and then taking it to Congress, who can use their oversight authority to help publicize the information.
"We are educating the American public as we build through this transparency initiative and where the investigation goes, I can assure you of this, we will have max accountability for the American public," he said. "We are going to de-weaponize the FBI and get its credibility back to the American people by delivering the accountability, by showing them what we're doing every step of the way, that has never been done before, restoring the FBI to its former greatness."
Patel added that the "cover-up" of the alleged corruption by the Obama and Biden administrations was also bad because they had the trust of the public.
"As bad as the crime is, the corruption cover-up from senior government officials who were sworn to uphold their duties and accountability for the American public, they are the ones who violated that trust and need to be held accountable," he said.
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https://justthenews.com/government/federal-agencies/patel-says-he-trying-build-transparent-russiagate-case-american-public
Patel said his team has been exposing documentation that he already knew existed but was previously classified for "political reasons" and then taking it to Congress, who can use their oversight authority to help publicize the information.
Does this mean he needs to get this done before the midterms?
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Patel said his team has been exposing documentation that he already knew existed but was previously classified for "political reasons" and then taking it to Congress, who can use their oversight authority to help publicize the information.
Does this mean he needs to get this done before the midterms?
I believe it means what it says. Previously classified and done that way to keep it away from the public, but he is turning it over to congress in hopes that they make it public.
Right now republicans hold congress and the chair of the oversight committee. If during the mid terms the democrats gain control, then of course the dims will not want the information made public.
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I believe it means what it says. Previously classified and done that way to keep it away from the public, but he is turning it over to congress in hopes that they make it public.
Right now republicans hold congress and the chair of the oversight committee. If during the mid terms the democrats gain control, then of course the dims will not want the information made public.
That’s what I’m thinking. It’s really only a two year presidency. Even so the Republican Congress can hardly be called fully cooperative.
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That’s what I’m thinking. It’s really only a two year presidency. Even so the Republican Congress can hardly be called fully cooperative.
Republicans are masters at defeating themselves. The August recess of the senate is proof as they will not recess the senate in fear that the President could make recess appointments. The Speaker of the House could have stopped the activist judges early on but decided not to, probably because he knew the Rino Caucus would have defeated it.
The ghost of Paul Ryan is still very prominent inside the beltway.
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The article in Time Magazine for starters, from the horse’s mouth. They all but admitted the gory details about actual fraud but their desperation belies that we can’t put it past them.
All to “protect democracy and ensure a fair election”, euphemisms for making sure outsider Trump never wins. It wasn’t even about the Democrats, it was about Trump. Had a RINO won the primary we would not have seen such a massive, organized effort to make sure every single Democrat would vote, because of course they knew mail in ballots skew Democrat. This is simply because urban voters skew Democrat and lines at the polls are much worse in cities.
It was bi-partisan, it was about Trump. Why? Because they knew Trump could “break all the toys” (as Styx puts it) and they were right as it turns out in this, Trump’s second term.
They even admit it was a giant conspiracy! The verbiage about the “autocratically inclined president” betrays the LIE within, the lie that they are all about fair elections. They were totally biased and it was indeed about making sure Biden won.
Here below: the conspiracy to make sure Biden won! And “steer media coverage” - aka CENSORSHIP, like the well documented fact that Twitter and Facebook were strong-armed by the FBI and the IC to not report on Hunter Biden’s laptop. That piece of information alone would have given the election to Teump.
No, they were rigging it.
https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/
I just finished reading the article by Molly Ball. What am I missing? They didn't admit to trying to make sure Biden would win - they purportedly believed that Trump was trying to rig the election and tried to ensure that the election was fair and square. At least that is all that article has them "admitting" to. I won't argue that mail-in voting is AS secure as in-person voting, and they obviously had a hand in encouraging mail-in voting (which I can't fault them for given that it was during the pandemic), but they didn't admit to using illegal means to sway the election. At least, not to Molly Ball.
I mean, the article is clearly biased against Trump - I expected no less, as Ball is part of the left-leaning Washington Week crowd (though I've only seen her on the show once or twice). To her, the riot on Jan. 6 was entirely Trump's fault, despite the fact that his speech on the Ellipse encouraged "peaceable protest" not violence. So, if only for that reason alone, I wouldn't expect an earth-shattering admission of wrongdoing.
The one problem I have with their admitted tactics is pressuring Facebook and Twitter to take down posts containing what they called "disinformation". When the censors are biased, a lot can fall under that heading that really isn't, including protected political speech. That's not to say that the censors violated anyone's 1A rights - State Action applies anyway - but what they admitted to raises suspicion that perhaps other un-p.c. opinions were suppressed. I don't have any hard evidence that Trump supporters were unfairly targeted for their opinions on those platforms, though.
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“…but there is NO hard eveidence,” said Henny Penny.
Oh, and the republicans might have done it too.
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“…but there is NO hard eveidence,” said Henny Penny.
Check your reading comprehension N7. I didn't say there IS NO hard evidence - I said that *I* don't have any. Meaning: if anyone has any, I'll read it with an open mind.