It’s amazing how many great heroes there were in the Trump administration who Kept Us Safe. Remember Anonymous who assured us that, really, the grown-ups were in charge? And of course, there’s that great, amazing hero General Milley who took it upon himself to ensure Trump didn’t nuke the planet. This time it’s Pat Cipollone:
On the other side during that meeting on the evening of Jan. 3 were the top leaders of the Justice Department, who warned Mr. Trump that they and other senior officials would resign en masse if he followed through. They received immediate support from another key participant: Pat A. Cipollone, the White House counsel. According to others at the meeting, Mr. Cipollone indicated that he and his top deputy, Patrick F. Philbin, would also step down if Mr. Trump acted on his plan.
Such a hero. But I have a question:
If he was such a hero, what the fuck was Cipollone doing there in the first place?
A real hero would never have agreed to work in the Trump administration. A real hero, if s/he was somehow blind to Trumpism before then, would have left loooooong before January 3.
Please remember this as the number of self-proclaimed Great Heroes Who Stood Up to Trump and Saved the Republic continues to proliferate in the coming years:
The real heroes were those who resigned in January, 2017, or delayed government service until Trump was gone. The guys who stayed and are now claiming they “made a difference?” They’re not heroes. They’re just Sloppy Joes.
Adding: To those who say I should be grateful to Anonymous, Milley, and many others for standing in Trump’s way: Masha Gessen and others have made the point that you can’t really mitigate the harm an autocrat inflicts. It just prolongs the authoritarian regime. No one in the government can effectively prevent the harm Putin causes, and no one could really blunt Trump’s harm either (for example, see Jan 6). The truly principled competent people let autocrats fail, and they hasten their fall by refusing to work for them in the first place, not by threatening to resign when things, as they inevitably will, spiral downwards.. By that time, it is far too late to stop the madness and horrors (for example, see Jan 6).
The garbage-mouth of Facebook executives. The people who wrote these memos couldn’t formulate a clear thought if it came up and bit ’em on their algorithm — and these are the good guys:
“we estimate that we may action as little as 3-5% of hate…”
“…Colleagues… cannot conscience working for a company that does not do more to mitigate the negative effects of its platform.”
“Action” and “conscience” are not verbs, dear friends. You mean “respond to” and “countenance.” And those are just two of the more egregious examples.
And then there’s this, from FB’s response to the whistleblower’s allegations:
We continue to make significant improvements to tackle the spread of misinformation and harmful content. To suggest we encourage bad content and do nothing is just not true.”
“If any research had identified an exact solution to these complex challenges, the tech industry, governments, and society would have solved them a long time ago.”
Uh huh… In about 10 seconds, I figured out how an “exact solution to [the] complex challenges” faced by Facebook would work and work well. The solution is simple, complete, and permanent:
Nothing that the Cyber Ninjas did matters. Nothing at all. It’s neither funny, nor sad, and certainly not confirming. What it was was an exercise in naked partisanship and total incompetence.
What they will do is try to spin this. Something like:”See? We were honest or we wouldn’t have reported a Biden win. You can trust Republicans not to lie and going forward, Republicans should always audit the election results, especially when Democrats win. And no, hah ha, Democrats can never be trusted,”
But the truth is that the Cyber Ninja results don’t matter in the slightest. A complete waste of time, money, attention.
In light of his openly expressed anti-liberal bias, why does the NY Times let Michael Powell write story after story about liberal/progressive groups? They would never, ever, permit a reporter to cover the extreme right — excuse me, modern conservatives — if they were to boast in print, as he does, about their stated desire to “let me at them.”
It’s a remarkably candid interview, indicative of how confident Powell is that he can get away with being so blatantly biased. Complaining that one of his targets refused, quite rightly, to openly participate in one of his hit jobs, Powell says:
If there’s been a frustration with this beat, it’s been the resolute unwillingness of so many liberal institutions to engage.
Engage. Ah, yes, engage. Back in the early oughts. a Ku Klux Klan apologist with whom I got into an online argument always complained that I refused to engage — as he directed dozens of ad hominen attacks my way that lacked anything resembling evidence or reasoning. Yes, one should engage with reasonable, educated people who have an interest in serious discussion. But one should never engage with truffle-hunting right wing operatives masquerading as journalists who are simply snarfing for dirt.
Of course, later in the interview, Powell takes refuge in both-siderism (can’t conservatives come up with anything original?):
Both on the left and right, I’m interested in people who are iconoclastic thinkers.
Bullshit. Here’s the very next sentence, where he just so happens to pick examples, oversimplified of course, that put liberals and progressives in a bad light or “in disarray”:
If I hear about a Black Marxist disinvited from speaking to the Democratic Socialists of America or feminist legal scholars who object to Obama administration policies on sexual assault and harassment, let me at them..
Oh, please. Read the articles critically. There’s hardly any there there.
Of course, there is an intense, multi-faceted debate among, liberals and progressives on how best to advance the goal of establishing a just society. And there’s an equally intense discussion about how to frame responses to the incredibly serious problems that the right wing and other apologists for racism have created since the founding of this country. This fascinating debate most certainly deserves to be reported upon in the mainstream media. In fact, it should be reported on far more than it has — by talented, unbiased reporters who truly understand the complex issues at stake and the nuance of the positions.
Through the eyes of a MAGAt, January 6 was both a spectacular success and a bit of a disappointment. The insurrectionists accomplished what Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis couldn’t: they overran the seat of the hated United States government. That is quite an accomplishment. Nevertheless, the vote to certify the election was merely delayed; both loathed RINOs and Democratic leaders escaped their clutches; and Trump was forced to abandon the White House. So score Jan 6 as something between a C+ and a B. It could have been so much more — and they were so close!
If I were a leader of the Trumpists, I wouldn’t waste time, money, and precious ammo bothering with a symbolic show of solidarity in DC for jailed compadres on a mere random date in the fall of 2021. I’d spend my time carefully planning dozens, if not hundreds, of disruptive actions on upcoming Election Days across the country. I’d avoid DC now — they got their secutrity act together. Rather, I’d focus on swing districts in swing states and I’d plan to use any means necessary to (1) make it impossible forThose People to vote; and (2) make it impossible to properly count the vote if they somehow manage to do so.
Much progress has already been made on (1), especially in Georgia and Texas. But if you’re not trained as a lawyer or policy geek, if all you’ve got is an arsenal, a beard, and inchoate rage, there are oh so many ways to make (2) interesting. Time to build that third ghost gun!
Trumpism is not going away. Ever. It’s not even Trumpism. It was here long before Trump was born and it will persist long after he’s gone. And yesterday’s dud of a demonstration does not, for a moment, mean that American fascism is losing steam.
On Jan. 12, federal agents and police flooded [Eduard] Florea’s neighborhood in Queens, driving an armored truck onto his street and raiding his basement apartment, the New York Daily News reported. Agents discovered more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition, plus hatchets, swords and 75 military-style combat knives…
And why did they know to raid his apartment?
Hours before the specialSenate runoff in Georgia was called for the Rev. Raphael G. Warnock(D) in the early hours on Jan. 6, Eduard Florea went on the conservative social media platform Parler and wrote: “Warnock is going to have a hard time casting votes for communist policies when he’s swinging with the … fish.”
In a later post, he wrote in reference to Warnock: “Dead men can’t pass [expletive] laws.”
He was a Proud Boy or maybe just a Proud Boy supporter. I’m sure there’s a difference that someone can detect, someone who’s more interested in drawing nuanced distinctions among Nazi-adjacent extremists than yours truly.
As more details emerge, it becomes clear that it was only sheer luck that stood between the fatal mayhem of January 6 and mass slaughter. Luck and some underpaid and utterly indispensable fast-thinking police officers.
September 14, 2001: The only member of Congress and one of the only members of the Federal government to demonstrate exemplary political and moral courage back then.
On September 11, 2001, I knew the following were true:
1. The atrocities were directly due to the negligence and incompetence of the Bush administration 2. War with Afghanistan was both inevitable and a disastrous mistake, strategically and morally 3. It would end exactly the way the Vietnam war ended
My prescience was not that special. That’s what’s so frightening. Millions of others felt the same way, but no one in a position of influence or power did. Or if they did, none thought it was politically astute to condemn Bush for his criminal stupidity or loudly oppose the sheer madness of invading Afghanistan.
There is indeed a world climate crisis. And a world health crisis. But not coincidentally, there is a world intellectual crisis among leaders.
Being a contrarian is not enjoyable but sometimes it is unavoidable and necessary. This is one of those times, unfortunately.
I think everyone is looking at the makeup of this Commission exactly backwards. I’ll start with a brief analogy:
If this were an investigation of the Beer Hall Putsch, would it make sense to include “moderate” members of the Nazi party or sympathizers in the commission investigating it? Of course not. Surely there were some party members and wannabes who were appalled with Hitler’s tactics that day, but you’d have to be insane to consider them moderates who could be trusted to be evenhanded in an inquiry and actually hold Nazi party members, including Hitler, fully accountable.*
Nearly a hundred years later, a Republican instigated a terrorist attack on the US Capitol. Other Republicans supported and helped organize it. Republicans in the US Government and possibly in the police force aided and abetted it. And Republicans implemented the terrorist attack. And Republicans in the military delayed responding to the violence.
Since this was clearly a Republican operation (that also included other white nationalist groups that are Republican-adjacent), no Republican can be trusted to investigate the party’s actions in a fair way even if they disagreed with it. Stated plainly, no Republican should hold a spot on the Jan 6 Commission.
That they are on this commission rests on the baseless assumption that it makes sense to reach out to moderate, reasonable members of the modern Republican party. But there are no reasonable Republicans anymore. The two GOP members of the Committee are right wing extremists who voted the Trump agenda well over 90% of the time. In other words, their disagreements with Trump are merely disagreements over how to implement authoritarianism in the United States, not whether. And who will be in power.
Of course, I fully understand the tactical thinking behind having the Republicans on the Commission. But I think it is terrible tactical thinking and also morally bankrupt.
Why is it bad tactically? Three reasons immediately come to mind. No one should be surprised if at least one of these wingnuts resigned in protest over shock, shock! “the Commission’s leftist agenda.” And there’s another problem with this tactic: tolerance of these two members of a criminal party suggests that somehow we can transform that group of thugs into reasoned, thoughtful colleagues in small-d democratic governance. That, history proves, is a delusion when dealing with any authoritarian party. Third, providing them space on this Commission normalizes not Republicanism, that’s long dead, but modern Republicanism, which merely quibbles with the methods of Trumpism, not its goals.
As for the moral dimension: the world has seen over and again what horrors the authoritarian far right is capable of. It is simply inexcusable to consciously provide them another sounding board for their madness.
If we must continue to have Republicans on the Commission, then I see no reason to trust them with starring roles in the proceedings — they should be ignored. Let’s assume, for the sake of argument only, that they are capable of, some day, behaving like Americans. Then let them watch how actual Americans, like Schiff and Raskin, behave — and learn how it’s done. But as long as they are comfortable remaining Republicans, they are comfortable being members of the same party that instigated and perpetrated this awful attack. No matter what they say, they cannot be trusted to take this investigation seriously. **
I know this is a contrarian view and I know it will not be a popular one, not even among my most liberal/progressive friends. But I think we minimize the danger of these so-called “moderate” Republicans at our peril. They are authoritarian extremists and they cannot be trusted.
*In fact, at Hitler’s trial for the putsch, “The lay judges were fanatically pro-Nazi and had to be dissuaded by the presiding Judge, Georg Neithardt, from acquitting Hitler.[39] Hitler and Hess were both sentenced to five years in Festungshaft (‘fortress confinement’) for treason. Festungshaft was the mildest of the three types of jail sentence available in German law at the time…This was the customary sentence for those whom the judge believed to have had honourable but misguided motives… Hitler served only a little over eight months of this sentence before his early release for good behaviour.” Had Nazi sympathizers not been his judges, and Hitler actually received the punishment he deserved…
** I am, as always, happy to be proven wrong. If these Republicans remain on the Commission, if the final report is thorough and honest (meaning it investigates and names high Republicans in government other than Trump that participated in coordination, planning, and support), and if they sign it without qualifications, I’d be delighted to change my tune.
Let’s make it easy for this newly convicted rightwing felon to own a lefty — namely, me. First a little background on what this man did:
Paul Hodgkins, a Florida man who invaded the Senate chamber holding a Trump flag on Jan. 6, was sentenced to eight months in prison followed by 24 months of supervised release on Monday in the first felony sentencing in connection with the Capitol riot.
Hodgkins, who wore a Trump T-shirt during the Jan. 6 riot, pleaded guilty to one count of obstruction of an official proceeding. Four other charges were dismissed as part of the plea deal.
Prosecutors requested an 18-month sentence for Hodgkins, saying that he made the wrong decision at several points: in Florida, when he packed up the gear he’d bring into the Capitol building; on Jan. 6, when he left the Trump rally early and headed to the Capitol; when he unlawfully entered the Capitol grounds; when he illegally entered the Capitol building; and when he entered into the Senate chamber…
Hodgkins told the judge he was “truly remorseful” and regretful of what he did on Jan. 6. He said he made a “foolish decision” and allowed himself to put his “passion” before his “principles.”
Yeah, right.
My bet is that 8 months and 1 second from today —once his sentence up —this guy will magically develop serious doubts as to whether Biden is really president and claim how proud he was to be holding that disgusting flag.
Cynical? Not in the slightest. Realistic.
But ok, Mr Hodgkins, you want to own this lefty? Prove me wrong. Let’s see you demonstrate real continued regret when the length of time you spend in the pokey doesn’t depend upon it your faking it.
