The GQP: Trumpist Death Cult

[Chad Fuck 17259]

The Republican Party managed to get 5% of their elected representatives to vote for impeachment, in response to 5 dead citizens from a Trump inspired insurrection.
5 dead - gets you 10 Republican PATRIOTS.  And 197 Republican tacit seditionists. Truly the party of Trump without apology. 
Scarily... my mind again drifts to the fact it took Hitler two tries to gain absolute power. Trump has the Brownshirts in place.

And don’t forget, Hitler went to prison. Everyone thought his political energy was spent. But ten years later....

Luckily Trump is a 74 year old walking heart attack waiting to happen. But Hawley looks like a damned Hitlerjugend leader ready to rake the mantle.

The price of Liberty is eternal vigilance.

[Beantown Express 2.0 6489]

Maybe some of you smart folks on here can answer this question for me.  Just flipped to Fox News and some Republican congress woman was talking about the evils of big tech and how they silenced Trump on Twitter.  She then said that we need to make the tech companies (Twitter, Amazon, Google, etc...) a utility and take national control over them.  All the hosts were nodding along.  Maybe I am missing something but nationalizing industries is not something Capitalist countries do, right?  Isn’t that what countries like Venezuela do and what the Republicans (and Dems for that matter) have always railed against.  Maybe we can regulate the tech industries better via laws but taking them over seems like maybe the Republican Party does want to be the Nazi party long term.

[PenelopeWitherspoon 18303]

7 minutes ago, Beantown Express 2.0 said:

Maybe some of you smart folks on here can answer this question for me.  Just flipped to Fox News and some Republican congress woman was talking about the evils of big tech and how they silenced Trump on Twitter.  She then said that we need to make the tech companies (Twitter, Amazon, Google, etc...) a utility and take national control over them.  All the hosts were nodding along.  Maybe I am missing something but nationalizing industries is not something Capitalist countries do, right?  Isn’t that what countries like Venezuela do and what the Republicans (and Dems for that matter) have always railed against.  Maybe we can regulate the tech industries better via laws but taking them over seems like maybe the Republican Party does want to be the Nazi party long term.

What I find hysterical is that this person (it was probably Marjorie Taylor Green, the Q Anon nut from Georgia) and a lot of the GOP thinks that Social Media is a "utility" but that the internet isn't.  Fucking rubes.  Seriously.

And yeah, they are off their fucking rockers.  

[TwiceHorn 30715]

37 minutes ago, Beantown Express 2.0 said:

Maybe some of you smart folks on here can answer this question for me.  Just flipped to Fox News and some Republican congress woman was talking about the evils of big tech and how they silenced Trump on Twitter.  She then said that we need to make the tech companies (Twitter, Amazon, Google, etc...) a utility and take national control over them.  All the hosts were nodding along.  Maybe I am missing something but nationalizing industries is not something Capitalist countries do, right?  Isn’t that what countries like Venezuela do and what the Republicans (and Dems for that matter) have always railed against.  Maybe we can regulate the tech industries better via laws but taking them over seems like maybe the Republican Party does want to be the Nazi party long term.

Yeah, that's utter nonsense and not "conservative" in any way, shape, or form.

Trump's GOP FCC did the exact opposite with ISPs, which far more resemble utilities or common carriers than those private entities.

Probably reasonable to look at regulatory schemes like this, in ascending order of SoCIaLISm:

Nationalization=total government control

Regulation as Utility=comprehensive government control that subordinates profit to the public interest

Regulation as Common Carrier=sporadic government control to insure that the public interest is not completely subordinated to profit

 

Edited January 14, 2021 by TwiceHorn

[Bateshorn 9475]

We've functionally entered a 3 party situation, with Democrats, Trumpists, and a small rump traditional GOP, which at this point only really exists with in the Senate (Murkowski, Collins, Romney, maybe Ben Sasse) and a few Governorships.  There's some political opportunists like McConnell trying to gather an edge, but that's personality dependent.

The rump GOP is in the throws of becoming Democrats at the voter level. I don't know if the elected traditional GOP is going to last for any time, switch parties, or be primaried out of existence eventually. But the old GOP is never coming back. Like how the Whigs devolved into the Know Nothings and the Lincoln Republicans.

Edited January 14, 2021 by Bateshorn

[Snake Diggity 4545]

I am pretty firmly liberal now, but I do want a viable 2nd party.  It is incredibly hard to envision a successful future for the GOP or even predict what will happen.  If they don’t destroy Trumpism, the US probably has less than a decade left as a 1st world country.  But on their current platform, they cannot win a single national election without Trumpers.  I think there are enough moderate voters to sway from the middle, but it would take a complete overhaul of the GOPs message and membership:

Abandon:

Trump and Trumpism (misinformation, anti-journalism, conspiracy theories, pro-white nationalism, exclusionism, evangelicalism, anti-globalization, etc.)

anyone who consistently vocally supported Trump and his lies

 

Keep embracing:

2A

Pro-life (focus on restricting abortion, stop talking about Row v Wade)

Pro-military

low taxes on the middle class

 

Start embracing:

balanced budget

universal healthcare

[Biff Tannen 44917]

5 minutes ago, Snake Diggity said:

Keep embracing:

low taxes on the middle class

???

[Bama Chick 28595]

Seriously there should be a name for this. Because it’s never ending. 
 

There’s a clever white bronco chase analogy to be made but my brain isn’t firing on all cylinders today.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13267]

There is a risk if a few companies control major, public communication channels. I do believe its fair that we should encourage the Twitters and Facebooks have independent (from management) teams that decide on user suspension/bans, and if they're overridden by mgmt, that is transparent to the public. 

One area that the public is blind is in regards to how others respond to someone on social media, especially at scale. Twitter can identify if one user has questionable tweets but perhaps not going to an extreme. However if many users engage with that tweet with violent or threatening responses, I think it's fair to identify the initial person as a lightning rod for potential violence. that person should be warned and suspended, if necessary.

A lone nut tweeting to their 2 followers, is not as dangerous unless they are making direct threats.

[Js1 82355]

23 minutes ago, Snake Diggity said:

I am pretty firmly liberal now, but I do want a viable 2nd party.  It is incredibly hard to envision a successful future for the GOP or even predict what will happen.  If they don’t destroy Trumpism, the US probably has less than a decade left as a 1st world country.  But on their current platform, they cannot win a single national election without Trumpers.  I think there are enough moderate voters to sway from the middle, but it would take a complete overhaul of the GOPs message and membership:

Abandon:

Trump and Trumpism (misinformation, anti-journalism, conspiracy theories, pro-white nationalism, exclusionism, evangelicalism, anti-globalization, etc.)

anyone who consistently vocally supported Trump and his lies

 

Keep embracing:

No gun control bc MUH FREEDUMB, fuck kids if they get gunned down in schools

Pro-fetus only

Politicitizing the military with white supremacists

Tax cuts for the 1% only

 

Start embracing:

balanced budget for Democratic presidents only

More money for insurance companies and gutting the ACA, Medicare and Medicaid

fify

[Macanudo 12649]

23 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

There is a risk if a few companies control major, public communication channels. I do believe its fair that we should encourage the Twitters and Facebooks have independent (from management) teams that decide on user suspension/bans, and if they're overridden by mgmt, that is transparent to the public. 

One area that the public is blind is in regards to how others respond to someone on social media, especially at scale. Twitter can identify if one user has questionable tweets but perhaps not going to an extreme. However if many users engage with that tweet with violent or threatening responses, I think it's fair to identify the initial person as a lightning rod for potential violence. that person should be warned and suspended, if necessary.

A lone nut tweeting to their 2 followers, is not as dangerous unless they are making direct threats.

You think Trumpers would have agreed that his tweets were incendiary?   Nope.

[cactusflinthead 26791]

 

[lemonlime 5482]

No idea why dems in Congress might be livid about the GOP Reps, who seem to be doing their level best to kill them.

 

[Biff Tannen 44917]

Rs need to shut the fuck up.  I know they won't, but they are fucking gaslighting and trying to claw their way back from the depths of the last 4 years.  They are already doing what they do with the coordinated repeating of the same talking points across the board, over and over.

We cannot let them.  They must be destroyed.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13267]

anecdotal but a hardcore MAGA on my facebook has announced she's leaving the GOP because they didn't stand up for Trump. From posted photos, it looks like she's traveled to a couple of Trump rallies in the past and has said that she was going to DC for Trump's Inauguration on Jan 20th.

In the long run, the GOP needs to purge MAGA but it could hurt them in the short run if their voters are mad at them.

[UncleSonny 6455]

Not sure where this goes exactly, but Kris Kristofferson is a god damn legend. Sounds like Toby Keith just about fucked around and found out.

 

 

[Biff Tannen 44917]

9 minutes ago, UncleSonny said:

Not sure where this goes exactly, but Kris Kristofferson is a god damn legend. Sounds like Toby Keith just about fucked around and found out.

 

 

I met Kris in the late 2000s and he was stoned out of his mind and chill as can be.  Weird to think of him having an outburst like that.  The last line is perfect though.

[Guest Lobo]

who the fuck is Ricky Scaggs?  

[DigglerontheHoof 20449]

Toby Keith is Okie trash

[Longhorn_Fan68 33693]

4 minutes ago, DigglerontheHoof said:

Toby Keith is Okie trash

it is known

[956 Worldwide 33957]

47 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

anecdotal but a hardcore MAGA on my facebook has announced she's leaving the GOP because they didn't stand up for Trump. From posted photos, it looks like she's traveled to a couple of Trump rallies in the past and has said that she was going to DC for Trump's Inauguration on Jan 20th.

In the long run, the GOP needs to purge MAGA but it could hurt them in the short run if their voters are mad at them.

I kind of feel bad for these people. How unhappy must you be to travel anywhere at all just to see Donald Trump? 

[Rimbo 25212]

6 hours ago, Bateshorn said:

We've functionally entered a 3 party situation, with Democrats, Trumpists, and a small rump traditional GOP, which at this point only really exists with in the Senate (Murkowski, Collins, Romney, maybe Ben Sasse) and a few Governorships.  There's some political opportunists like McConnell trying to gather an edge, but that's personality dependent.

The rump GOP is in the throws of becoming Democrats at the voter level. I don't know if the elected traditional GOP is going to last for any time, switch parties, or be primaried out of existence eventually. But the old GOP is never coming back. Like how the Whigs devolved into the Know Nothings and the Lincoln Republicans.

Been thinking this was going to happen for a couple years now.

My guess was then: Trump splits the GOP. GOP moderates join the Democrat moderates. AOC & co form a new left-wing party, Trump forms his party. Trump's party dies, AOC's becomes the new center-left.

[Brisketexan 103143]

11 minutes ago, Lobo said:

who the fuck is Ricky Scaggs?  

Actually, a really talented motherfucker.  Big into the bluegrass revival.  Sadly, also another bumblefuck white dude who decided to suck Trump's cock.  But he would be worthy of the medal without regard to the Trump loyalty.

Toby, on the other hand, is a low-talent Okie dipshit.  I wouldn't pay him to play my dog's birthday party.

[Rimbo 25212]

42 minutes ago, UncleSonny said:

Not sure where this goes exactly, but Kris Kristofferson is a god damn legend. Sounds like Toby Keith just about fucked around and found out.

 

 

doing the same thing to country music that pantyhose did to finger fucking... fucking awesome

[Guest Lobo]

6 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Actually, a really talented motherfucker.  Big into the bluegrass revival.  Sadly, also another bumblefuck white dude who decided to suck Trump's cock.  But he would be worthy of the medal without regard to the Trump loyalty.

Toby, on the other hand, is a low-talent Okie dipshit.  I wouldn't pay him to play my dog's birthday party.

I dig the bluegrass, but he looks like the answer to the question, "What if Steve Zahn got fatter and tried to blow Donald Trump?"  

[C-Man 26535]

What is the process for removing congressional representatives and senators that either helped the insurrectionists directly or pulled stunts like Cruz and Hawley on 1/6?

[956 Worldwide 33957]

The House and Senate can expel members by 2/3 vote.

So it won’t happen.

[Js1 82355]

3 minutes ago, C-Man said:

What is the process for removing congressional representatives and senators that either helped the insurrectionists directly or pulled stunts like Cruz and Hawley on 1/6?

Expulsion, pressure them to resign or vote them out.

[C-Man 26535]

1 minute ago, Js1 said:

Expulsion, pressure them to resign or vote them out.

Do you need 2/3 or 3/4 vote?

[Brisketexan 103143]

1 minute ago, 956 Worldwide said:

The House and Senate can expel members by 2/3 vote.

So it won’t happen.

They can't serve if they're in prison.

And if they participated in a conspiracy to commit sedition, they'll be in prison.  Congresspeople don't have the protections against prosecution that the President has.

[Js1 82355]

3 minutes ago, C-Man said:

Do you need 2/3 or 3/4 vote?

2/3

I don't think we require 75% for much of anything.  It's 2/3 to expel, 2/3 to convict POTUS in the Senate, 2/3 to ratify an amendment, 2/3 to ratify Treaties, 2/3 to override vetoes. 

Edited January 14, 2021 by Js1

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20299]

Just because I don't know where else to put this.

Curt Schilling believes his insurance company dropped him over his pro-Trump politics (msn.com)

Curt Schilling fucked around and found out.  It sucks supporting the right of private business to do business with whomever they want when the decide they don't want to do business with you. I hope he can't get insured. 

[Hugo Stiglitz 23245]

 

[Mrs Whiggins 13049]

A Republican giving the straight dope to her constituents. Click on the tweet to follow her thread as it's long.

 

 

[Js1 82355]

 

 

[Beantown Express 2.0 6489]

Not sure if this was posted yet but I still can't believe Tuberville is a US Senator.  Alabama should lose their statehood for this.

 

Newly sworn-in GOP senator suggests delaying inauguration (msn.com)

[The Hot Dog Buffet 1254]

12 minutes ago, Js1 said:

 

 

Anyone who is a registered republican should be absolutely embarrassed and ashamed of themselves.

[Js1 82355]

8 minutes ago, The Hot Dog Buffet said:

Anyone who is a registered republican should be absolutely embarrassed and ashamed of themselves.

Also Bush left office with a 34% approval rating.  Good job Donald, you have beaten that! As you will leave office with an approval rating in the 20s. 

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11486]

40 minutes ago, Js1 said:

 

 

 

 

17 minutes ago, Js1 said:

Also Bush left office with a 34% approval rating.  Good job Donald, you have beaten that! As you will leave office with an approval rating in the 20s. 

that is a pretty amazing cratering, all things considered.  with bush, it was the end of the second term so no one had any real motivation to artificially prop up his reputation.  no fox news broadcasts about dear leader and what not.  with trump, the largest television station in the country was telling everyone he was a demigod just two months ago.

[Red Five 40108]

53 minutes ago, Beantown Express 2.0 said:

Not sure if this was posted yet but I still can't believe Tuberville is a US Senator.  Alabama should lose their statehood for this.

 

Newly sworn-in GOP senator suggests delaying inauguration (msn.com)

Before I clicked on that, I assumed he was saying to have a private swearing-in ceremony, and delay the public one with the parade etc. until post Covid. But no. He's saying to also delay the swearing-in part until post Covid. 

[Js1 82355]

It's bad enough he's an Okie, but he is one of us (UT class of 1990)

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/01/oklahoma-republican-senator-james-lankford-apologizes-black-constituents.html

Quote

Oklahoma GOP Senator Is Sorry His Effort to Delegitimize the Election Offended Black Constituents

Quote

“What I did not realize was all of the national conversation about states like Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, was seen as casting doubt on the validity of votes coming out of predominantly Black communities like Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Detroit,” Lankford wrote. “After decades of fighting for voting rights, many Black friends in Oklahoma saw this as a direct attack on their right to vote, for their vote to matter, and even a belief that their votes made an election in our country illegitimate.”

[Mdhorn 5819]

15 hours ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

Just because I don't know where else to put this.

Curt Schilling believes his insurance company dropped him over his pro-Trump politics (msn.com)

Curt Schilling fucked around and found out.  It sucks supporting the right of private business to do business with whomever they want when the decide they don't want to do business with you. I hope he can't get insured. 

This has been my thought as well--they're all for private businesses being discriminatory so, fuck off with your feelings when they discriminate against you.  

[crash_davis 23038]

 

“It’s no longer a political party. It’s a cult.” Former Oklahoma GOP Congressman leaves Republican Party

https://kfor.com/news/local/its-no-longer-a-political-party-its-a-cult-former-oklahoma-gop-congressman-leaves-republican-party/?utm_campaign=socialflow&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=facebook.com

“This has become a cult. It’s no longer a political party. It’s a cult. It’s the kind of a cult that when the leader of the cult does anything, no matter what it is, or how awful it is, they voted,” Edwards said. “They voted to question the election results even after people came into the Capitol, tried to kill them and killed a police officer who was trying to protect them. And they did that.”

“You’ve got the Josh Hawleys, and the Ted Cruzes and the James Lankfords, and these people who are letting their personal ambition, and fear of the voters, they want to inherit those voters, and it’s leading them to real dark paths. So I don’t know what the future is,” Edwards said, “but for me it’s outside of the Republican Party.”

 

[wildcat09 28387]

 

We are so fucked.

[horn4life 3748]

Just remember ANYTIME you see anyone wearing anything that identifies them as boing Republican or a Trump supporter, that they are A.D.D.!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Armed, Dumb and Dangerous!

[Bozo_Casanova 25499]

Lot of places to post this, but seems most relevant here:

QAnon Woke Up the Real Deep State

Quote

To the QAnon community, and others involved in storming the Capitol:

The Deep State is real, but it’s not what you think. The Deep State you worry about is mostly made up; a fiction, a lie, a product of active imaginations, grifter manipulations, and the internet. I’m telling you this now because storming the Capitol building has drawn the attention of the real Deep State — the national security bureaucracy — and it’s important you understand what that means.

You attacked America. Maybe you think it was justified — as a response to a stolen election, or a cabal of child-trafficking pedophiles, or whatever — but it was still a violent attack on the United States. No matter how you describe it, that’s how the real Deep State is going to treat it.

The impact of that will make everything else feel like a LARP.

Spoiler

The Real Deep State

I’ve been teaching college students about the Deep State for years, and have interacted with it on occasion. By “Deep State,” I’m referring to executive branch agencies populated with unelected officials, especially those involving national security, law enforcement, and intelligence. The non-nefarious name for it is “the federal bureaucracy,” with the subset that includes the military, CIA, and FBI known as “the national security state.”

In 2017, conservative writer David Frum quipped that if you replaced “Deep State” with “rule of law,” you’d have a better understanding of Trumpist complaints.

There’s some truth in that. Federal agencies and their mandates were created by law, their annual budgets are determined by law, and they’re overseen by elected officials. Their main job is executing U.S. law, and one reason they’ve clashed with the White House is being asked to do things outside their legal abilities, or to not do things that are legally required.

So rule of law is part of it, but it’s not that simple.

The president appoints and the Senate confirms top officials, from the Secretary of State to the five members of the Arctic Research Commission, over 1,200 in total. Every other executive branch employee — over 4 million if you include the military, over 2.7 million if you don’t — is hired or recruited, not elected or appointed. This means that the Departments of State, Defense, Justice, the intelligence community, and federal law enforcement are staffed with people the agencies hired themselves.

Their mandates are broad. For example, the FBI is supposed to “investigate federal crimes and threats to national security.” While there are laws giving the FBI certain powers (e.g. to arrest people) and limits (needing warrants), a lot is open to interpretation, especially regarding national security threats.

It’s fair to say the FBI, CIA, IRS, CDC, and other federal agencies have, to some extent, taken on lives of their own. So has the military, and the larger defense-industrial complex. They’re under control of elected and appointed leaders, but also not, acting according to established laws, established regulations (many of which they wrote themselves), and individual judgment calls. You could call that “the Deep State.”

National Security

If you want to understand the real Deep State, the biggest thing you need to know is it’s institutional, impersonal, and operates on a national scale.

The law enforcement-intelligence-national security bureaucracy doesn’t really care about a lot of the little things people think it cares about. It’s mostly focused on terrorists, serial killers, narco-traffickers, and foreign governments. Threats to the nation.

Previous QAnon activity wasn’t on that scale, but the Capitol attack is. I don’t think this has sunk in yet. It wasn’t 9/11, but it was bigger than, for example, Benghazi.

Americans storming the Capitol to prevent Congress from carrying out election law hasn’t happened before. When four Puerto Rican nationalists shot at Congressmen from the House balcony in 1954, they were rightly called terrorists, convicted in federal court, and imprisoned. And that was just four attackers, no one died, and it wasn’t encouraged by a losing presidential candidate to disrupt the peaceful transition of power.

The Capitol attack was a unique event in American history, something they’ll teach about in high school. National security analysts are comparing it to last year’s FBI-thwarted plot to kidnap and execute Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, which came a few months after armed demonstrators forcefully stopped business at the Michigan statehouse. There have been armed post-election demonstrations at multiple statehouses, and reports of plots to storm them next week.

It’s a pattern. And after the Capitol attack, the Deep State is going to take it seriously.

U.S. code defines “sedition” as using “force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States.” That’s what you did. And the legal process you tried to stop is one of the most important in American democracy.

Five people are dead, and it could’ve easily been more. You beat a police officer to death and injured others. You set up a gallows and chanted “hang Mike Pence.” While some goofy attention-seekers attracted the most focus at first, it’s increasingly clear that some who stormed the Capitol, likely members of far right militias, were searching for Vice President Pence, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and other national leaders, and would’ve killed them if they had the chance. That’s terrorism, fortunately thwarted by Capitol security and luck.

Compare that to, for example, riots this past summer. Looting is bad, but it’s a problem for police and insurance companies. Trying to burn down a police station or courthouse is worse, but that too is a law enforcement problem, perhaps one requiring federal assistance. Storming the Capitol, forcefully hindering the execution of U.S. law, and trying to kill top elected officials is a national security problem.

What you did was on another level, and the reaction will be too.

After the Capitol Attack

By “you,” I don’t mean you personally (unless you were there), but your movement as a whole. QAnon’s fingerprints are all over this.

A 35-year-old woman named Ashli Babbitt, shot by Capitol police as she climbed through an opening near where elected officials were hiding, was a QAnon believer who thought she was taking part in the prophesized “storm.” The guy in the horns who traipsed through the Senate chamber is known as the “Q Shaman.” QAnon slogans and hashtags, such as “where we go one we go all,” can be seen on shirts and signs at the riot, and on tons of related social media posts.

This means that, for the first time, the Deep State cares about you.

No matter what anyone’s told you, Deep State operatives weren’t spending their time messing with your internet discussions. That’s below their radar. It wasn’t until May 2019 that an FBI intelligence bulletin warned of the potential for terrorism from “conspiracy theory-driven domestic extremists,” using QAnon and Pizzagate as examples. But it didn’t become a law enforcement or counterterrorism priority.

I should know — I’ve been trying to get them to take QAnon more seriously. This past August, after Trump publicly acknowledged the movement, I warned of the potential for election violence in a national security publication called Defense One:

Win, lose, or too close to call, Trump will be in a position to activate the violent subsets of QAnon, deliberately or inadvertently. The president has been insisting, without evidence, that the election will be rigged, blaming an ambiguous “they” or a rotating cast of villains. The conspiracy-minded QAnon community makes for a receptive audience.

If Trump starts tweeting things like “RIGGED! They’re trying to take your country. Don’t let them! THIS IS IT! Second Amendment!” — let alone if he uses QAnon lingo like “the Storm is upon us” — there’s a risk that some violence-embracing QAnon followers decide to act. And if some do, it could encourage others.

That’s basically what happened. If anything, I think I guessed low.

But now that QAnon was involved in violent sedition, the national security state is paying attention. Arrests of people caught on camera storming the Capitol have already begun. Prosecutions will follow. Big tech companies — who, while powerful, are weaker than, and have a healthy fear of the government — are now treating QAnon almost like how they treat ISIS. A giant federal apparatus built to fight al Qaeda will shift some capacity to fighting you, especially the white nationalist and anti-government militias in your orbit.

You cheered on lawyers who said they’d release the Kraken. But now you’ve poked Leviathan.

This is what you need to absorb: QAnon and “stop the steal” are forever associated with a violent attack against the United States. Maybe that’s not what it’s meant to you, maybe you think that’s a misread of last week’s events, but that’s how the real Deep State, a lot of elected officials, and much of the public sees it.

If that isn’t what you signed up for, now would be a good time to get out.

 

[DigglerontheHoof 20449]

9 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Lot of places to post this, but seems most relevant here:

QAnon Woke Up the Real Deep State

  Hide contents

The Real Deep State

I’ve been teaching college students about the Deep State for years, and have interacted with it on occasion. By “Deep State,” I’m referring to executive branch agencies populated with unelected officials, especially those involving national security, law enforcement, and intelligence. The non-nefarious name for it is “the federal bureaucracy,” with the subset that includes the military, CIA, and FBI known as “the national security state.”

In 2017, conservative writer David Frum quipped that if you replaced “Deep State” with “rule of law,” you’d have a better understanding of Trumpist complaints.

There’s some truth in that. Federal agencies and their mandates were created by law, their annual budgets are determined by law, and they’re overseen by elected officials. Their main job is executing U.S. law, and one reason they’ve clashed with the White House is being asked to do things outside their legal abilities, or to not do things that are legally required.

So rule of law is part of it, but it’s not that simple.

The president appoints and the Senate confirms top officials, from the Secretary of State to the five members of the Arctic Research Commission, over 1,200 in total. Every other executive branch employee — over 4 million if you include the military, over 2.7 million if you don’t — is hired or recruited, not elected or appointed. This means that the Departments of State, Defense, Justice, the intelligence community, and federal law enforcement are staffed with people the agencies hired themselves.

Their mandates are broad. For example, the FBI is supposed to “investigate federal crimes and threats to national security.” While there are laws giving the FBI certain powers (e.g. to arrest people) and limits (needing warrants), a lot is open to interpretation, especially regarding national security threats.

It’s fair to say the FBI, CIA, IRS, CDC, and other federal agencies have, to some extent, taken on lives of their own. So has the military, and the larger defense-industrial complex. They’re under control of elected and appointed leaders, but also not, acting according to established laws, established regulations (many of which they wrote themselves), and individual judgment calls. You could call that “the Deep State.”

National Security

If you want to understand the real Deep State, the biggest thing you need to know is it’s institutional, impersonal, and operates on a national scale.

The law enforcement-intelligence-national security bureaucracy doesn’t really care about a lot of the little things people think it cares about. It’s mostly focused on terrorists, serial killers, narco-traffickers, and foreign governments. Threats to the nation.

Previous QAnon activity wasn’t on that scale, but the Capitol attack is. I don’t think this has sunk in yet. It wasn’t 9/11, but it was bigger than, for example, Benghazi.

Americans storming the Capitol to prevent Congress from carrying out election law hasn’t happened before. When four Puerto Rican nationalists shot at Congressmen from the House balcony in 1954, they were rightly called terrorists, convicted in federal court, and imprisoned. And that was just four attackers, no one died, and it wasn’t encouraged by a losing presidential candidate to disrupt the peaceful transition of power.

The Capitol attack was a unique event in American history, something they’ll teach about in high school. National security analysts are comparing it to last year’s FBI-thwarted plot to kidnap and execute Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, which came a few months after armed demonstrators forcefully stopped business at the Michigan statehouse. There have been armed post-election demonstrations at multiple statehouses, and reports of plots to storm them next week.

It’s a pattern. And after the Capitol attack, the Deep State is going to take it seriously.

U.S. code defines “sedition” as using “force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States.” That’s what you did. And the legal process you tried to stop is one of the most important in American democracy.

Five people are dead, and it could’ve easily been more. You beat a police officer to death and injured others. You set up a gallows and chanted “hang Mike Pence.” While some goofy attention-seekers attracted the most focus at first, it’s increasingly clear that some who stormed the Capitol, likely members of far right militias, were searching for Vice President Pence, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and other national leaders, and would’ve killed them if they had the chance. That’s terrorism, fortunately thwarted by Capitol security and luck.

Compare that to, for example, riots this past summer. Looting is bad, but it’s a problem for police and insurance companies. Trying to burn down a police station or courthouse is worse, but that too is a law enforcement problem, perhaps one requiring federal assistance. Storming the Capitol, forcefully hindering the execution of U.S. law, and trying to kill top elected officials is a national security problem.

What you did was on another level, and the reaction will be too.

After the Capitol Attack

By “you,” I don’t mean you personally (unless you were there), but your movement as a whole. QAnon’s fingerprints are all over this.

A 35-year-old woman named Ashli Babbitt, shot by Capitol police as she climbed through an opening near where elected officials were hiding, was a QAnon believer who thought she was taking part in the prophesized “storm.” The guy in the horns who traipsed through the Senate chamber is known as the “Q Shaman.” QAnon slogans and hashtags, such as “where we go one we go all,” can be seen on shirts and signs at the riot, and on tons of related social media posts.

This means that, for the first time, the Deep State cares about you.

No matter what anyone’s told you, Deep State operatives weren’t spending their time messing with your internet discussions. That’s below their radar. It wasn’t until May 2019 that an FBI intelligence bulletin warned of the potential for terrorism from “conspiracy theory-driven domestic extremists,” using QAnon and Pizzagate as examples. But it didn’t become a law enforcement or counterterrorism priority.

I should know — I’ve been trying to get them to take QAnon more seriously. This past August, after Trump publicly acknowledged the movement, I warned of the potential for election violence in a national security publication called Defense One:

Win, lose, or too close to call, Trump will be in a position to activate the violent subsets of QAnon, deliberately or inadvertently. The president has been insisting, without evidence, that the election will be rigged, blaming an ambiguous “they” or a rotating cast of villains. The conspiracy-minded QAnon community makes for a receptive audience.

If Trump starts tweeting things like “RIGGED! They’re trying to take your country. Don’t let them! THIS IS IT! Second Amendment!” — let alone if he uses QAnon lingo like “the Storm is upon us” — there’s a risk that some violence-embracing QAnon followers decide to act. And if some do, it could encourage others.

That’s basically what happened. If anything, I think I guessed low.

But now that QAnon was involved in violent sedition, the national security state is paying attention. Arrests of people caught on camera storming the Capitol have already begun. Prosecutions will follow. Big tech companies — who, while powerful, are weaker than, and have a healthy fear of the government — are now treating QAnon almost like how they treat ISIS. A giant federal apparatus built to fight al Qaeda will shift some capacity to fighting you, especially the white nationalist and anti-government militias in your orbit.

You cheered on lawyers who said they’d release the Kraken. But now you’ve poked Leviathan.

This is what you need to absorb: QAnon and “stop the steal” are forever associated with a violent attack against the United States. Maybe that’s not what it’s meant to you, maybe you think that’s a misread of last week’s events, but that’s how the real Deep State, a lot of elected officials, and much of the public sees it.

If that isn’t what you signed up for, now would be a good time to get out.

 

That's great and all but 35-40% of our country is all in on sedition.  I wonder how much of the "deep state" is. 

[Jack Straw 2953]

1 hour ago, Mdhorn said:

This has been my thought as well--they're all for private businesses being discriminatory so, fuck off with your feelings when they discriminate against you.  

Watching Republicans and Trump supporters get hoisted by their own petards is delicious.

[Jack Straw 2953]

23 minutes ago, horn4life said:

Just remember ANYTIME you see anyone wearing anything that identifies them as boing Republican or a Trump supporter, that they are A.D.D.D.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Armed, Dumb, Dangerous, and Dishonest.

filled in the missing piece for you 

[Chewy's Hairy Horn 867]

57 minutes ago, horn4life said:

Just remember ANYTIME you see anyone wearing anything that identifies them as boing Republican or a Trump supporter, that they are A.D.D.!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Armed, Dumb and Dangerous!

Seeing that I’m one of many with true ADD, I kinda resent this.  
 

But, given that I’m ADD, I’ve already moved on.  
 

 

Squirrel!!!