Let it be known that on this day I triggered a leftist.
(IM conversation at work re: mask mandate being ruled illegal)Her: Trump-appointed judge in Florida. Meh.Me: U.S. Constitution. Separation of Powers. Meh yourself.
It's amazing how many people that trumpeted (heh) judges overruling President Trump are now losing their shit.
Not surprising, just... amazing.
This is all over MeWe and Gab already, but on the of chance you haven't sen it, Time Magazine just published what amounts to a SuperVillain Monologue that details how the presidential election of 2020 was rigged.
Oh, wait. How the Presidential Election of 2020 was fortified to ensure that Democracy was saved!
The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election
Interestingly, that's the way the title on the web page reads, but the tab calls it "The Secret Bipartisan Campaign..."
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. The scenario the shadow campaigners were desperate to stop was not a Trump victory. It was an election so calamitous that no result could be discerned at all, a failure of the central act of democratic self-governance that has been a hallmark of America since its founding.
Their work touched every aspect of the election. They got states to change voting systems and laws and helped secure hundreds of millions in public and private funding. They fended off voter-suppression lawsuits, recruited armies of poll workers and got millions of people to vote by mail for the first time. They successfully pressured social media companies to take a harder line against disinformation and used data-driven strategies to fight viral smears. They executed national public-awareness campaigns that helped Americans understand how the vote count would unfold over days or weeks, preventing Trump’s conspiracy theories and false claims of victory from getting more traction. After Election Day, they monitored every pressure point to ensure that Trump could not overturn the result. “The untold story of the election is the thousands of people of both parties who accomplished the triumph of American democracy at its very foundation,” says Norm Eisen, a prominent lawyer and former Obama Administration official who recruited Republicans and Democrats to the board of the Voter Protection Program.
But's was okay, because Trump did it first by saying mail-in ballots were insecure.
..it wasn't a coup.
Not even an attempted coup.
Mises Wire: The Capitol Riot Wasn’t a Coup. It Wasn't Even Close.
What Is a Coup?
A gang of disorganized, powerless mechanics, janitors, and insurance agents running through the Capitol isn’t a coup. And if it was a coup attempt, it was so far from anything that might hope to succeed as a coup that it should not be taken seriously as such.
So how do we know a coup when we see one?
In their article “Global Instances of Coups from 1950 to 2010: A New Dataset,” authors Jonathan M. Powell and Clayton L. Thyne provide a definition:
A coup attempt includes illegal and overt attempts by the military or other elites within the state apparatus to unseat the sitting executive.There are two key components of this definition. The first is that it is illegal. Powell and Thyne note that this “illegal” qualifier is important to include "because it differentiates coups from political pressure, which is common whenever people have freedom to organize."
In other words, protests, or threats of protest don’t count as coups. Neither do legal efforts such as a vote of no confidence or an impeachment.
But an even more critical aspect of Powell and Thyne’s definition is that it requires the involvement of elites.
So Twitter has initiated a purge against President Trump and anyone that doesn't want to see him die in fire.
Many of whom have jumped to the Twitter rival, Parler.
Which is hosted on Amazon Web Services.
Which is shutting it down until Parler starts censoring speech in accordance with the wishes of the technocratic oligarchs.
Who constitute a kakocracy.
So, fine, here we go to Gab. Which hosts it's own content.
...if they can do it to Trump, they'll do it to you without even a first thought, let alone a second.
Mozilla, developers of Firefox: 'We need more than deplatforming'
One of my favorite parts of this is the people who spent the last four years insisting the 2016 election was rigged now demanding that after four days, in an election where we have demonstrated actual evidence of irregularities, @realDonaldTrump must concede.
— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) November 8, 2020
No.
Anyone else
getting the feeling Pelosi wants to be known to history as
"Olivia Cromwell"?
— Drang
(@DWDrang) January
20, 2019
I mean, I don't know what they think the President can do about this, beyond launching a Twitter campaign.The great state of Washington, through fraudulent petitioning and tricky wording, has placed on the ballot and passed I-1639; one of the strictest anti-gun laws in our country. We The People therefor ask that our great President and our public servants, step in and abolish such laws restricting, infringing upon and/or otherwise limiting our right, that has been guaranteed to us within the 2nd amendment of the Bill of Rights, and further protected and solidified through centuries of bloodshed and legal proceedings.
We The People humbly and gracefully plead for your helping hand Mr. President. Please put an end to the destruction of our freedoms and liberties by protecting our second amendment rights; here in Washington state and throughout the states of our great country.
Thank you.
Needs 91,909 signatures by August 17, 2017 to get a response from the White House
Remarks of President Donald J. Trump – As Prepared for DeliveryInaugural AddressFriday, January 20, 2017Washington, D.C.As Prepared for Delivery –Chief Justice Roberts, President Carter, President Clinton, President Bush, President Obama, fellow Americans, and people of the world: thank you.We, the citizens of America, are now joined in a great national effort to rebuild our country and to restore its promise for all of our people.Together, we will determine the course of America and the world for years to come.We will face challenges. We will confront hardships. But we will get the job done.Every four years, we gather on these steps to carry out the orderly and peaceful transfer of power, and we are grateful to President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama for their gracious aid throughout this transition. They have been magnificent.Today’s ceremony, however, has very special meaning. Because today we are not merely transferring power from one Administration to another, or from one party to another – but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the American People.For too long, a small group in our nation’s Capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost.Washington flourished – but the people did not share in its wealth.Politicians prospered – but the jobs left, and the factories closed.The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country.Their victories have not been your victories; their triumphs have not been your triumphs; and while they celebrated in our nation’s Capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land.That all changes – starting right here, and right now, because this moment is your moment: it belongs to you.It belongs to everyone gathered here today and everyone watching all across America.This is your day. This is your celebration.And this, the United States of America, is your country.What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people.January 20th 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again.The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.Everyone is listening to you now.You came by the tens of millions to become part of a historic movement the likes of which the world has never seen before.At the center of this movement is a crucial conviction: that a nation exists to serve its citizens.Americans want great schools for their children, safe neighborhoods for their families, and good jobs for themselves.These are the just and reasonable demands of a righteous public.But for too many of our citizens, a different reality exists: Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system, flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of knowledge; and the crime and gangs and drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential.This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.We are one nation – and their pain is our pain. Their dreams are our dreams; and their success will be our success. We share one heart, one home, and one glorious destiny.The oath of office I take today is an oath of allegiance to all Americans.For many decades, we’ve enriched foreign industry at the expense of American industry;Subsidized the armies of other countries while allowing for the very sad depletion of our military;We've defended other nation’s borders while refusing to defend our own;And spent trillions of dollars overseas while America's infrastructure has fallen into disrepair and decay.We’ve made other countries rich while the wealth, strength, and confidence of our country has disappeared over the horizon.One by one, the factories shuttered and left our shores, with not even a thought about the millions upon millions of American workers left behind.The wealth of our middle class has been ripped from their homes and then redistributed across the entire world.But that is the past. And now we are looking only to the future.We assembled here today are issuing a new decree to be heard in every city, in every foreign capital, and in every hall of power.From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land.From this moment on, it’s going to be America First.Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs, will be made to benefit American workers and American families.We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies, and destroying our jobs. Protection will lead to great prosperity and strength.I will fight for you with every breath in my body – and I will never, ever let you down.America will start winning again, winning like never before.We will bring back our jobs. We will bring back our borders. We will bring back our wealth. And we will bring back our dreams.We will build new roads, and highways, and bridges, and airports, and tunnels, and railways all across our wonderful nation.We will get our people off of welfare and back to work – rebuilding our country with American hands and American labor.We will follow two simple rules: Buy American and Hire American.We will seek friendship and goodwill with the nations of the world – but we do so with the understanding that it is the right of all nations to put their own interests first.We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather to let it shine as an example for everyone to follow.We will reinforce old alliances and form new ones – and unite the civilized world against Radical Islamic Terrorism, which we will eradicate completely from the face of the Earth.At the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America, and through our loyalty to our country, we will rediscover our loyalty to each other.When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice.The Bible tells us, “how good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity.”We must speak our minds openly, debate our disagreements honestly, but always pursue solidarity.When America is united, America is totally unstoppable.There should be no fear – we are protected, and we will always be protected.We will be protected by the great men and women of our military and law enforcement and, most importantly, we are protected by God.Finally, we must think big and dream even bigger.In America, we understand that a nation is only living as long as it is striving.We will no longer accept politicians who are all talk and no action – constantly complaining but never doing anything about it.The time for empty talk is over.Now arrives the hour of action.Do not let anyone tell you it cannot be done. No challenge can match the heart and fight and spirit of America.We will not fail. Our country will thrive and prosper again.We stand at the birth of a new millennium, ready to unlock the mysteries of space, to free the Earth from the miseries of disease, and to harness the energies, industries and technologies of tomorrow.A new national pride will stir our souls, lift our sights, and heal our divisions.It is time to remember that old wisdom our soldiers will never forget: that whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots, we all enjoy the same glorious freedoms, and we all salute the same great American Flag.And whether a child is born in the urban sprawl of Detroit or the windswept plains of Nebraska, they look up at the same night sky, they fill their heart with the same dreams, and they are infused with the breath of life by the same almighty Creator.So to all Americans, in every city near and far, small and large, from mountain to mountain, and from ocean to ocean, hear these words:You will never be ignored again.Your voice, your hopes, and your dreams, will define our American destiny. And your courage and goodness and love will forever guide us along the way.Together, We Will Make America Strong Again.We Will Make America Wealthy Again.We Will Make America Proud Again.We Will Make America Safe Again.And, Yes, Together, We Will Make America Great Again. Thank you, God Bless You, And God Bless America.
...Would a newly sworn in Chief Executive be criticized for giving an inaugural speech that was "nationalistic".