Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Trump's threat to democracy is that he is normalizing, for one of the two political parties, the idea that you only accept election results when you win. To state the obvious, the whole system hangs on the idea that everyone accepts the legitimacy of the government, winners and losers alike. When you say "those idiots can be controlled," I don't know what you are talking about. Not that anyone is going to beat Trump for the GOP nomination, but most of the people running against him aren't willing to challenge him on anything important, and those that are have no prayer.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Speaking of childish logic games, I don't understand why you like to play this game of thinking of something stupid that someone has said somewhere, elevating it as if it's worth responding to, and then explaining that both the right and left do it.

Like, who thinks "that 'democracy' is their side having rights and the other side not having rights"?

Setting the concept of "democracy" aside, there is a strong impulse across the land to talk about interests as rights. Conservatives who disagree that, for example, gays and lesbians should have equal rights have created bogus religious rights to entitle themselves to discriminate. Progressives who want to change the culture around race and gender and other norms have advocated for rights to safe spaces. Obviously, the reason for this is that you can articulate your own interest as a right, you have a legal and political grievance that becomes more actionable. But it doesn't have anything to do with "democracy."

They need to do the politics to win people over.

Or, we could wait for Trump to die. I don't want to be overly optimistic about this, but I do think that a lot of his legitimacy is charismatic, and that it will be very hard to anyone else to replicate it. He's not going to live for ever. What happens after that? (Or if he loses another time?)

I really thought that the GOP would lose more people in the middle as it lurched to the crazy right, but there are a lot of Republicans who have just recalibrated and stayed the course.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

If you accept that he knew he'd lost, then you agree that he acted as a mafioso trying to change an election he'd lost. When he had that call, he was not still litigating the vote. He had lost that litigation. He was trying to get the result tossed.

I'm not clear why you think a broad case isn't the right response to a broad conspiracy, or why you think the fact that some defendants are trying to do stuff delegitimizes the prosecution.

That is a common conservative talking point lately, but it's nonsense. Not every fact mentioned is therefore criminal.

If she can't prove it, she can't prove it. But it was pretty obvious in real time that Trump had a lot of people criming to overturn his election loss. That is the heart of it.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I was thinking about this the other day. 10 years ago the PB had a dozen libs and maybe 3 or 4 hard core Rs. Then there was Penske whom I always assumed was just a dada performance thing.

Me? I was the only one who actually put thought into votes (besides sebby but you can’t categorize him); I mean was there anyone else here who voted for W twice and Obama twice?

The Rs included Slave. Last thing I saw from him was defending orange puke after the weird claims about his inauguration crowd, so at least early he hadn’t moved. But B&B was pretty hardcore R and she seems to have moved way away from that lot.

And until the Rs move to a decidedly different flavor, that is, non-insane place, I ain’t voting for them.

So if you extrapolate from our small sample they might have lost a lot of voters. It’s important to remember that facefuck won because Hillary was a flawed choice for a lot of reasons and there was a huge increase in 3rd party votes from people who didn’t like her.

As to state legislatures I just point to what Michigan did. In 2020 we passed an anti gerrymandering law by popular vote. Legislators have no control- a 9 person commission picks boundaries: 4 R 4 D and 1 independent. The next vote the Ds took both houses. The talking heads sold it as a reaction to Trump, but nope. It was a reaction to our taking back our state. I can’t believe other states don’t do that.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Our demographic is trending D, but others are trending R.

I've said it before, but it would be best if every state had a commission whose job would be to pick the most compact districts with equal population to some objectively small tolerance. Anyone can submit a proposal, and the commission picks the one that yields districts of roughly equal size with the shortest aggregate borders.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

It will take someone with greater organizing ability than TFG, but one danger to democracy involves local police and sheriffs.

They do get together and plan things, but the Money has been in charge for a long time.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I used rights where I should have used interests, but I think it's because I was leapfrogging to effect. The interests are manifesting themselves as rights, or preclusion of the rights of others.

The interest, the impulse, to use your term, becomes the basis to assert a right to do something, or a right to stop someone else from doing something. The right wing and the progressives each power over-- well... everyone. Sometimes de jure, sometimes de facto. Where they can't acquire the former, they use the latter. Boycotts, book banning, cancellation, soft censorship of antagonistic views as mis/dis/mal-information.

The right and left are authoritarians, and that is not false equivalence. They are engaged in a zero sum game and the impact of their authoritarian impulses is a preclusion of rights. Free speech? Sure, you have it. But not in Florida. And not if you want to keep your job at a corporation that has embraced the "correct politics" of the day.

The right is Orwell. The left is Huxley. They're both Trumpian. And they both want society to reflect what they think it ought to be. And they're pretty damn adamant about it.

It is deeply undemocratic behavior, so yes, I think MAGA and Wokeland are terrible threats to "democracy" in the broad sense it is described in the media.

Can't sway cult members. Hopeless to try.

Totally agree. This probably invites a hex of some sort, were I a believer in souls or afterlives, but Trump's death would be the best result of all possible ones at the moment.

And there a ton more who left the GOP after Dobbs and aren't coming back.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

That "if" is what has to be proven. I thought he made the call before the litigation was over, but even being wrong about that, Trump never agrees he lost any court case. His asking for votes is consistent with his past refusal to accept defeat and a belief that the court didn't have adequate proof before it and he was seeking that proof.

I think roping in inner circle types like Giuliani is smart. But 18 people many of whom have never even heard of each other? And I'm not speaking to legitimacy. I'm handicapping based on practicalities.

I didn't say they were. But when you start mixing non-criminal acts with criminal acts, you invite both confusion, doubt as to which is and isn't criminal, and the defense that the case is criminalizing politics.

She has a rifle. There's enough to nail a tight crowd of inner circle types who have solid criminal exposure. I think using the shotgun is a strategy error. But that's just me. I've never been the sort to sue everybody one can just to be careful because it makes a messy case. I think the smarter approach is to do your due diligence and sue the people you're certain have liability.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

One more point on this.

I'm watching Coco Gauff and Muchova in the US Open semifinals yesterday. Great match. Both playing their asses off, and a wonderful ending where a 19 year old, first teenager a long time, makes it to the finals.

But while Gauff is on an early roll, a pack of protestors start screaming, shutting down play for 15 minutes, potentially imperiling the hot streak Gauff had been enjoying in the match.

Really? Is that how fucking nuts we've become? These miscreants are going to fuck with a couple players who've trained for years to get where they are just because these ostensibly aggrieved sorts feel so fucking deeply about something?

Yes. That is the case. People are so invested in their "causes," and so blindered to the annoyance they cause everyone else, that they Just Don't Give a Fuck about Gauff, Muchova, or the thousands of people (and if you've been to the Open, you know it's filled with lots of middle class and even working class folks who've paid a decent sum and traveled considerably to be there) in the stands.

This mentality can be written off as a few whackjobs doing what whackjobs do. But it's better described as what it is: Fundamentalism. These nuts (one of whom glued himself to the floor) are a microcosm of the types of anti-democratic zealots who are imperiling "democracy." They are so fucking sure -- so fucking sure -- that their cause is so important and their desires must be immediately met that they'll take almost any measure to push it forward.

They're on a continuum with MAGA and the extreme Progressives/Woke. Ask a MAGA person how he or she can support a clear authoritarian and they'll tell you some nonsense about how the US is imploding and will be communist if Biden is allowed another term. Utterly fucking unhinged. Ask a strident Progressive/Woke person how they can be so extreme, how they can deny facts, reality, biology, etc. to foist narratives of dubious credibility and demand bizarre policy fixes, and they'll tell you theirs is a cause that is so essential and so immediate that any and all means must be taken. And both will tell you it is totally fine to try to censor and shame into silence their opponents rather than debate them. And burn their books if that option is available.

These people are nuts - zero sum gamers, fundamentalists, as whacked as the fucking Taliban in their zeal.

And it is that organically demented mindset - the certainty that "I am right, and on the right side of history, and therefore entitled to be as mad a zealot as I like!" view - that threatens "democracy" more than anything else. As long as that persists, the middle cannot compromise. And no compromise by the middle? Well then, no functional government or society.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Companies don't want you to embarrass them. The horror.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

And it turns out the special grand jury recommended charges for a whole bunch more. Which is interesting.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Funny that you don't even mention what they were protesting. It's a lot easier to both sides when you don't even attempt to grapple with the substance.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

There's nothing embarrassing about questioning what has turned out to be a bizarre form of religion.

Most people roll their eyes at extreme progressive silliness and the severe forms of the DEI/ESG stuff. I apply that approach. I also do the same thing with MAGA. Why get into a fight with these people? And certainly, there's no point in telling them both of their movements have been co-opted by corporate masters playing both sides and puppeteering them as useful idiots.

They're the embarrassment. And people like me are cowards. Hence, I have a hard time faulting, and a great deal of admiration, for people who call bullshit on them. Those people have character, as opposed to a desire to accrue money from MAGA and progressives and getting thru their conversations with help from tequila (I've lately been on an anejo kick).

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

She was expecting a protest because they did them at prior Grand Slams. She said she wasn't bothered. But she won. Wonder how the loser felt?

Curious, what "substance" do you see? A guy glued his foot to a tennis court and some friends threw confetti and chanted- you find that illuminating or mind changing?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sport...imate-protest/

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

That protest held outside the match, on the grounds, would have been totally fine. To do it in the match is the height of narcissism and extreme fundamentalism. They did nothing but harm their cause.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Juries are comprised of people who don't have anything important enough to do to get themselves excused. Grand juries, which sit for exceedingly long periods of time, are comprised of people who truly, seriously, have nothing more important to do in their lives, if they have lives of any useful kind at all. I wouldn't be surprised at anything one of those juries does. Particularly a state one, in the south.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I understand that climate-change activists feel that the danger of climate change is so great that they need to engage in civil disobedience to highlight it to an apathetic world. I respect that they are willing to suffer the consequences entailed by civil disobedience. But the apparent decision to focus on disrupting sporting events seems totally misguided and uphelpful to me, a calculated decision to piss people off with very little prospect of mobilizing public opinion in any kind of useful way, quite the opposite actually.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

When I have been in a jury pool I would have loved to have been seated. I'd sit back and watch. But yes, a Grand Jury, I don't get how anyone can do that.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

You transitioned very quickly to focusing on speech.

This is nonsense, in two different ways. First, you're not really talking about "authoritarianism." You're talking about the tolerance for different views in the marketplace of ideas.

Second, equating the right and the left is nonsense on stilts. You can observe that there are people across the political spectrum who do not want to tolerate certain ideas. But there is such a vast, vast, vast difference between (a) the conservative states that are outsourcing public-school curriculum to PragerU, closing and banning books from libraries, and forbidding students from learning about historical racism; (b) centrists like the Washington Post editorial page that fetishize balanced budgets and entitlement cuts and will not discuss alternatives; and (c) lefties who shout down conservative speakers at universities, etc. Grouping them all together (as "authoritarians," no less) is just sloppy and obtuse, like equating elephants and mice as grey mammals.

What zero-sum game? WTF? When DeSantis punishes Disney for disagreeing with him, he gains, corporations lose, and the left isn't involved.

Corporations are not "the left," duh. There are many of them and they aren't exactly known for tolerating leftist speech. Many corporate employers are quite conservative in important ways, to state the blindingly obvious.

What you're really beefing about is that the mainstream has accepted views ("correct politics") that are not yours. But you don't want to argue about the substance of that, in part because you know you're in a minority, so you'd rather foster a grievance that you are somehow that victim of "authoritarians."

Not even sure what you're getting at here, but you said "Orwell" so I'm sure Hank will be on it.

When you find yourself explaining that the left is Trumpian, you ought to stop, take a few deep breaths, pour yourself a Negroni, and try to figure out where you took the wrong turn.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

When I was at DOJ, a colleague got seated for a four-month trial. It sounded pretty cool. I would love to be on a jury, but have never had the chance. I got called to voir dire once, but I had a connection to one of the firms that got me excused immediately.

I get another shot a week from Monday.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

When I was a big law a young litigation associate told a Judge (from the box) "I am a litigator on major lawsuits. I cannot expend the time." The Judge did not excuse him, but one of the lawyers did. The Judge called the firms head of lit and Junior got yelled at.

I was in the box once. The case was a murder trial. Prosecutor explained the evidence was heavily scientific, things like fibers. When he heard I was a patent attorney he looked at me curiously, like trying to figure out if I'd be good or bad. I'd have been bad. He was going to try and pitch "science=magic" and i have clients that make test equipment and put effort to invent ways to reduce errors.

D Counsel asked the pool, "Hypothetical, say we don't have the trial, we just ask you all now is my client guilty, what is your verdict." I told her it was sort of a silly question because Prosecution carries a heavy burden and we have not seen any evidence.

I can't remember which bounced me, and whether it was because I'd be a wildcard for their case, or just because I was an asshole.

Oh, but if looking at a 4 month trial I'd get myself bounced using the best trick I've ever seen- the Judge is doing the VD and asking some old guy questions, OG just kept saying "huh?" Got out right quick he did!

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Uh, no. The call happened on January 2. The court cases were over. Agree completely that he refuses to accept defeat, but don't get why you see that as some sort of justification.

You don't seem to be considering the additional leverage the State gets. Some of them have started to defend themselves by saying they were only following his orders, which tends to strengthen the case against him. Charging people incentivizes them to flip.

Oh, come on now. Every single complaint I have ever read incudes facts that tell the story but are not elements of prima facie claims. It's necessary for context. The notion that doing this here is "criminalizing politics" is sophistry. Saying this belies an intentional ignorance of everything in the indictment that isn't a part of ordinary politics.

You seem to think that she has sued people who she doesn't think have certain liability. Whom do you mean?

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Sebby, the report today is that Fani Willis could have indicated double the number of people she did:

An Atlanta-area special grand jury that spent months investigating alleged 2020 election interference in Georgia by Donald Trump and his allies agreed that the former president should be indicted in the case and also recommended charging one of Trump’s closest associates, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), and 37 other people — a far larger group than a prosecutor ultimately charged.

WaPo

Wonder if this changes your view at all.

eta:

And now Meadows's bid to remove to federal court has been rejected, which undermines his defense. Doesn't that make Willis's decision to charge him look better?

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

It's the most lurid example of authoritarian behavior by the right and left. Abortion could be used just as well, but it's one sided, the right being the sole authoritarian. Speech involves the extremes of each of the parties.

Intolerance, actually, manifesting itself as authoritarianism.

Taking them apart and laddering them in regard to wrongness avoids the essential binding element - the problem: A desire by significant numbers of people to not be confronted with views that don't fit the way they insist the world is or should be. "I want the world to be what I want it to be and I'm done with having anyone challenge me!" The mindset is this warped belief, similar to the fabulist view that one can will himself to success, that if one simply shuts out inconvenient facts, they disappear.

Sorry. The math and data are: Trump lost. The math and science are: There are not 37 genders. Etc.

The zero sum game is the effort, by the likes of DeSantis, to shut the mouths of those with whom one disagrees. Make them disappear. DeSantis passed that unconstitutional "don't say gay" bill and has banned LGBTQ books because he knows - a large voting bloc doesn't want to entertain views about sexuality or gender that deviate from their views. They instead want to shut down those views entirely. If that isn't Orwellian, what is?

You know what I'm talking about. We all know it. We've all got friends in the C Suite or on boards. You can bust them about the extreme DEI and ESG pieties and they'll in very, very private confines admit to thinking it's moral panic, a religion, or a bullshit scam for consultants to make money. But they sure as fuck aren't going to say that out loud to any friends. To even challenge it is to put one's career at risk.

You have me exactly backwards. I want people to stop telling other people that they may not challenge certain things, that they may not credibly critique certain things without being pilloried or professionally ruined. CRT in schools? By all means. Expose kids to every imaginable idea and let them see if they buy it. Vaccine denialism? Let it rip. There is no greater rebuttal to RFK Jr. than to hear the man's incoherent lunacy on vaccines. Hunter's laptop? Jordan Peterson's shtick? 1619 Project? Transitioning children? All totally fine with me. My view is let it all rip, and - and - let everyone who wants to call bullshit on any of these things rip them to fucking shreds. And any sorts who want to buy into them? Do so. Good for you!

All of these are, btw, fringe ideas/idea peddlers.

Extreme ESG/DEI is not a thing among the 60% of businesses in the US that are small businesses. And a huge percentage of those who work in large corporations don't give a fuck about these things.

The majority of the country is in the middle. They'd prefer people stop telling each other what they can and cannot read and fighting about trans people, who make up .0005% of society.

We don't give a fuck about people's strong emotions about their pet issues, or those people, even. But we very much don't like twits telling us we can't drink Bud Light (I wouldn't anyway) because a cross dresser did an ad for it. And we don't want to be told we have to listen to claptrap about inclusion if we don't feel like it.

The authoritarianism from the left is Huxley - subtle, nudging. From the right, it's Orwell. Statutory, enforced.

A venn diagram of the mindset those kids at the US Open and Trump would be a circle in this essential regard... Both live in their own realities. And they insist the rest of us do so as well.

Any sane person concerned with climate would understand the very best thing he could do is organize lobbying to get more nuclear plants built and encourage conversion of coal and oil plants to natural gas. That's the necessary next step. And that's non-negotiable. There is no fantasyland where solar and wind are the next conversion.

But no. Instead, they're going to disrupt a tennis match. Throw a tantrum. Like Trump. "I get to live in my world and everything around me must adhere to it!"

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

[QUOTE=Tyrone Slothrop;533896]I'd make the case he is organically deranged, if not insane. And I think he clearly is. I'd argue this guy is so fucked up, obviously, he really cannot believe it when he loses at anything. And I'd have forty years of media clippings to prove that case.

But he won't use that angle. He'll instead seek to prove the election was actually stolen. Which is probably a better angle as it eats the argument that he believed it was stolen.

Orders from who? Trump's m.o. thru life has been to never explicitly give an order to anyone. Just let it be known what he desires and have lieutenants give the orders. Unless she's flips Rudy, how's she get the big dog? Maybe Meadows. Maybe. I see your point.

Again, I'd use a rifle. The more ambitious and broad the case, the more potential black swans it invites.

I think the low level operators like that young female lawyer they charged are not liable. And the other local counsel who were merely lobbying officials. That shit happens in elections all the time.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I read a few articles about that. My view is Willis has a template - she's done RICOs before - and she's defaulting to it. Smith could've done something similar, but I think he more wisely chose to narrow his focus. One of the two is going to try a case in the near term. And it won't be Willis.

Maybe Willis' aim is to provide proffers Smith can use? If there's coordination, that'd be pretty smart.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

When I was called, I knew the court administrators handling jury selection. I gave them the "You know they're going to reject me... Can you just tell the lawyers I'm a lawyer?'

The answer was a smiling "no."

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

No one is protesting to change minds.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I spent 6 weeks on a DC grand jury as a first year associate. Fungible billing units can do it.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Ty, Sebby and I all agree those knuckleheads hurt their cause, not help it. Understand? When is the last time Ty, Sebby and I agreed on anything?

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Isn’t 6 weeks short? I thought it was much longer service.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

DC grand juries meet daily. I think federal ones are much longer but only like a day or two per week.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Just curious, but, in hindsight, what do you think of W's terms in office? Is his a legacy to be proud of?

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Yes. Especially thinking about what the alternatives were. I voted for W twice and President Obama twice, and do not regret either for a second.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Interesting; there's obviously been a large movement of educated folks to the Dems with the rise of Trumpism. I think some of them are permanent members of the Dem Party now, but some could be won back by the Rs, and I suspect you're in the later category.

For me, the forever wars that Bush got us into are a pretty atrocious legacy. While I supported the Afghan war, I think the way it was run, and particularly the failure to play only a support role for local forces from nearly the beginning, led to easily foreseeable disaster. And the Iraq war was moronic from the beginning - there was no reason for us to go in there.

But, as they say, YMMV.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Fascinating.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Weren't you the one who thought China's treatment of its people regarding Covid was the world's best example?

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Worst President ever. Trump soiled the office; W soiled our reputation and credibility in the world for generations. And killed hundreds of thousands of people for no good reason.

I supported Bush. And I chalk up everything bad that's ever happened to me since as karmic repayment. (It's not a lot, but that's hardly comforting... Only means I'm due a whole lot more.)

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Are they doing it for awareness? Operating under the assumption people in Arthur Ashe are unfamiliar with this obscure subject of climate change?

I could see if one did this at a Southern Arkansas Upstairs School of Culinary Arts versus John Birch Special Needs Community College fast pitch softball game. But the fucking US Open? It's like screaming "You all need to read Hamlet!!!" in the quad at Bard.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Of course they are doing it to try to change minds.

They are very, very bad at changing minds. They are more likely to change my mind, someone who feels strongly we need to address climate change, that the minds of those who outrightly oppose them.