Biden won, it's over --- The Election Thread

[Furniture]

https://mobile.twitter.com/treasonopoly ... 8781182976

It’s official: Donald Trump flunked out of the Electoral College.

[Furniture]

The fact that Vladimir Putin congratulated Joe Biden before Mitch McConnell tells you everything you need to know about where we are in this country...

[Phredd3]

The fact that Vladimir Putin congratulated Joe Biden before Mitch McConnell tells you everything you need to know about where we are in this country...

The way it came out, it almost felt like McConnell was embarrassed by the news and was rushing to play catch-up with a Russian dictator. That is not something I would have ever envisioned to happen, even just prior to this last year. Now, it's barely news (and isn't even mentioned, as far as about 35% of the country is concerned). These are such strange times.

[Furniture]

https://mobile.twitter.com/Anaridis/sta ... 6044244992

This is cool!!!

[CameronBornAndBred]

Trump retweeted a tweet by Lin Wood saying that he supports both Governor Kemp and SOS Raffensperger to be jailed.

A SITTING PRESIDEN CALLS FOR A GOVERNOR TO GO TO JAIL!! Because he thinks he got jobbed in the election.

“He gave @BrianKempGA & @GaSecofState every chance to get it right. They refused. They will soon be going to jail,” Wood wrote along with a manipulated photo of Kemp and Raffensperger wearing face masks imprinted with the Chinese flag.

A few hours later, Trump retweeted the incendiary post, pushing it into the timelines of his more than 88 million followers.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... li=BBnb7Kz

Twitter is so spineless in not shutting down his account.

[dudog]

Trump retweeted a tweet by Lin Wood saying that he supports both Governor Kemp and SOS Raffensperger to be jailed.

A SITTING PRESIDEN CALLS FOR A GOVERNOR TO GO TO JAIL!! Because he thinks he got jobbed in the election.

“He gave @BrianKempGA & @GaSecofState every chance to get it right. They refused. They will soon be going to jail,” Wood wrote along with a manipulated photo of Kemp and Raffensperger wearing face masks imprinted with the Chinese flag.

A few hours later, Trump retweeted the incendiary post, pushing it into the timelines of his more than 88 million followers.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... li=BBnb7Kz

Twitter is so spineless in not shutting down his account.

CB&B, he knows he didn't get jobbed in the election. It's all part of the con.

[CrazyNotCrazie]

Trump retweeted a tweet by Lin Wood saying that he supports both Governor Kemp and SOS Raffensperger to be jailed.

A SITTING PRESIDEN CALLS FOR A GOVERNOR TO GO TO JAIL!! Because he thinks he got jobbed in the election.

“He gave @BrianKempGA & @GaSecofState every chance to get it right. They refused. They will soon be going to jail,” Wood wrote along with a manipulated photo of Kemp and Raffensperger wearing face masks imprinted with the Chinese flag.

A few hours later, Trump retweeted the incendiary post, pushing it into the timelines of his more than 88 million followers.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... li=BBnb7Kz

Twitter is so spineless in not shutting down his account.

I hope that the second Biden is sworn in, Trump gets shut down on twitter. And all of his fellow residents of the land of make believe.

That being said, I keep reading people saying that the media should stop covering him once he is out of office. I agree that the media doesn't need to follow him as closely as they do now. But this plan shows a major lack of understanding of how the media works today. It really does not matter what the mainstream media does. Trump's followers don't care. They get their news from his propaganda agencies. And there is no way in heck that they will stop covering Trump. I really wish there was a way to shut all of them down for spreading lies, but unfortunately, I think the first amendment largely protects them.

[Furniture]

Bye Don!

https://mobile.twitter.com/RexChapman/s ... 7892112385

[dudog]

Some more info on the "elite strike force team":

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... =Peregrine

[OPK]

Some more info on the "elite strike force team":

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... =Peregrine

Shocked. Shocked, I say.

[CameronBornAndBred]

Here's your daily dose of real life and scary insanity.

Houston police were left wondering what happened to one of their own Tuesday after arresting a former captain who allegedly ran a man off the road and held him at gunpoint, believing he was in possession of hundreds of thousands of fraudulent election ballots.
...
Aguirre told investigators he was a member of a civilian organization calling itself Liberty Center for God and Country that was engaged in a vigilante probe of the election. The group paid Aguirre $266,400, the district attorney said.

According to the police report, Aguirre told his arresting officer, “I just hope you’re a patriot.” The former cop also parroted a conspiracy theory about donations from Mark Zuckerberg swaying the election.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/former-houst ... 15098.html

[CrazyNotCrazie]

Here's your daily dose of real life and scary insanity.

Houston police were left wondering what happened to one of their own Tuesday after arresting a former captain who allegedly ran a man off the road and held him at gunpoint, believing he was in possession of hundreds of thousands of fraudulent election ballots.
...
Aguirre told investigators he was a member of a civilian organization calling itself Liberty Center for God and Country that was engaged in a vigilante probe of the election. The group paid Aguirre $266,400, the district attorney said.

According to the police report, Aguirre told his arresting officer, “I just hope you’re a patriot.” The former cop also parroted a conspiracy theory about donations from Mark Zuckerberg swaying the election.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/former-houst ... 15098.html

"The former squad leader, Mark Anthony Aguirre, 63,"

Perhaps he had just gone nuts after years of being told "funny, you don't look like the basketball player Mark Aguirre?"

[ArkieDukie]

The stories about Texas and Georgia have me genuinely concerned that Trump is going to incite a civil war. That has always been my concern. His followers genuinely believe the garbage he is spewing. Nothing you can say will convince them otherwise, because they legit believe that the mainstream media always lies.

Case in point: my SIL, who is a nurse (but not the sharpest knife in the drawer) is not going to get the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, because she believes that the government is going to use it to track people. When my sisters and I called her on it, she said she had done her research as well: she heard this on a Christian talk show. Apparently this is a far more reliable source than actual scientific literature.

My point in telling this story is to say that the religious right is getting a lot of disinformation from “Christian” media outlets. I would bet money that, based on all the weird religious memes I see about how Trump was chosen by God, that the “Christian” media are spouting similar disinformation about the election. I could come up with all sorts of conspiracy theories as to how and why this is happening. The question is, is this spreading of disinformation knowing and deliberate, or is it unknowing and gullible? I vote the former.

[dudog]

The stories about Texas and Georgia have me genuinely concerned that Trump is going to incite a civil war. That has always been my concern. His followers genuinely believe the garbage he is spewing. Nothing you can say will convince them otherwise, because they legit believe that the mainstream media always lies.

Case in point: my SIL, who is a nurse (but not the sharpest knife in the drawer) is not going to get the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, because she believes that the government is going to use it to track people. When my sisters and I called her on it, she said she had done her research as well: she heard this on a Christian talk show. Apparently this is a far more reliable source than actual scientific literature.

My point in telling this story is to say that the religious right is getting a lot of disinformation from “Christian” media outlets. I would bet money that, based on all the weird religious memes I see about how Trump was chosen by God, that the “Christian” media are spouting similar disinformation about the election. I could come up with all sorts of conspiracy theories as to how and why this is happening. The question is, is this spreading of disinformation knowing and deliberate, or is it unknowing and gullible? I vote the former.

There are a lot of people who think the end is coming and would like to help it along. God is going to come down and save the chosen.

That's fine by me. I just wish they didn't want to take the rest of us out with them.

[CrazyNotCrazie]

The stories about Texas and Georgia have me genuinely concerned that Trump is going to incite a civil war. That has always been my concern. His followers genuinely believe the garbage he is spewing. Nothing you can say will convince them otherwise, because they legit believe that the mainstream media always lies.

Case in point: my SIL, who is a nurse (but not the sharpest knife in the drawer) is not going to get the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, because she believes that the government is going to use it to track people. When my sisters and I called her on it, she said she had done her research as well: she heard this on a Christian talk show. Apparently this is a far more reliable source than actual scientific literature.

My point in telling this story is to say that the religious right is getting a lot of disinformation from “Christian” media outlets. I would bet money that, based on all the weird religious memes I see about how Trump was chosen by God, that the “Christian” media are spouting similar disinformation about the election. I could come up with all sorts of conspiracy theories as to how and why this is happening. The question is, is this spreading of disinformation knowing and deliberate, or is it unknowing and gullible? I vote the former.

I have been very worried about this as well for a long time. Also, guess who has all the guns? I am somewhat comforted by the gradual efforts over the past few days by top Republicans to begin to acknowledge that Biden truly has won and we must move on. Every day we get closer to January 20 means one fewer day that Trump is theoretically in charge of the military, but I also feel like we are hopefully finally getting to the point where if he tried something really extreme, a critical mass of the Republicans would stand up to him. I wasn't so sure about this a few weeks ago.

So would I be shocked if there is violence and even another Timothy McVeigh type event? Unfortunately, not at all. But hopefully it can be kept under control. Also, I know there is a difference between threatening bad behavior and actually carrying it out, but the things these crazy people are talking about are a heck of a lot worse than the rioting this summer that really got their panties in a bunch.

As I've said before, I really wish we could just shut down all of these horrible media outlets that are poisoning people's brains with misinformation, but they are generally within their first amendment rights to make stuff up, so we can't really go there.

Best of luck with your SIL. I don't know how I would deal with someone like that.

[Phredd3]

As I've said before, I really wish we could just shut down all of these horrible media outlets that are poisoning people's brains with misinformation, but they are generally within their first amendment rights to make stuff up, so we can't really go there.

The First Amendment is not absolute. As someone OY consistently points out about the crowded theater quote, it is correctly phrased as "not permitted to falsely shout 'Fire!' in a crowded theater". You are allowed to truthfully shout the exact some thing in the exact same place, but the harm of doing so falsely clearly outweighs the benefits of allowing it. I don't see why that doctrine could not be extended to other places, especially virtual ones that do not require one's true identity to be disclosed. Making false assertions about factual matters can be very harmful, particularly when uttered repeatedly about important topics like elections. You can offer up any opinions you want to about what facts may mean, but why is it in anyone's interest to permit the utterance of outright falsehoods?

Clearly any such law would have to be carefully crafted and skillfully defended to succeed, but I think there's a decent argument to be made that, just because the Founders wanted to protect the free flow of ideas, they did NOT intend for us to become a country of outright liars.

[dudog]

Ok, so is this just more blather or are they actually going to do something?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... li=BBnb7Kz

There will never be a better time for a 3rd party.

[dudog]

Interesting conversation here about the future of the Rs.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/ ... li=BBnb7Kz

[ArkieDukie]

Ok, so is this just more blather or are they actually going to do something?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... li=BBnb7Kz

There will never be a better time for a 3rd party.

I could mostly get behind the party they described. Most (not all) Republicans in elected office right now are so far to the right that they don’t really believe women should have equal rights, among other things. By default I vote against them. Texas Republicans, for instance, are crazy. All their political ads show a man in a field of cattle, with his family, with a gun, or at church. Often multiple scenes featuring one or more of these in the same ad. Very cookie cutter, and it works for them. Many here do the same.

Our current governor has a high school degree and has cut a ridiculous amount of money from higher education - so much, in fact, that at least one state school is having to cut an entire academic department. That is today’s ultra conservative Republicans.

[CrazyNotCrazie]

Ok, so is this just more blather or are they actually going to do something?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... li=BBnb7Kz

There will never be a better time for a 3rd party.

I think that a third party is an interesting concept. As a moderate Democrat, I often just want to hand off the party to the Progressives and separate out, and clearly there are many anti-Trump Republicans who feel the same way about their party. That being said, I think this effort will get tripped up on a few issues, most prominently abortion. For better or worse, this is viewed as a binary issue (even though in reality their is a lot of nuance within the "pro-choice" position). The new party would have to take a stand on this, and would lose people from one side or the other with its stand. To a lesser extent, guns would pose a similar problem, although I think there is more understanding of the nuance on this issue and the new party could hopefully find a happy medium of some moderate form of regulation.