Author: Keith Preston
When your revolution is backed by the elites… Reply
“We Did It!”? Reply
Was The Storming Of Capitol Hill An Inside Job? 1
The relevant part starts about 30 minutes in.
Eric Weinstein: How To End The Business Model Of Division Reply
Weinstein compares US politics and media to kayfabe in wrestling. Good man.
Managing Director of Thiel Capital, Eric Weinstein, discusses how we can heal the country after a tumultuous year.
Jared, Ivanka Force Secret Service Agents To Rent Apartment Just To Use Bathroom Reply
This is pretty funny.
Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti react to new rumors about Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.
House Democrats Briefed on Disturbing Assassination, Coup Plots by Trump Supporters Reply
I always thought that as the “right-wing” in its various forms continued to shrink in size and lose power politically, it would move in two directions. Some would be co-opted by totalitarian humanism (like the neocons, corporate Republicans, and Never Trumpers). Others would become more militant and even terroristic, which seems to be happening, and at a more rapid pace than I would have thought.
By Jake Johnson, Common Dreams
House Democrats on Monday were briefed by the U.S. Capitol Police on several disturbing potential armed demonstrations and assassination plots planned in the coming days by supporters of President Donald Trump, an indication that the deadly invasion of the halls of Congress last week may have been just the start of a broader wave of right-wing violence ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.
HuffPost reported that on a private call late Monday, “new leaders of the Capitol Police told House Democrats they were closely monitoring three separate plans that could pose serious threats to members of Congress as Washington prepares for Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration on Jan. 20.”
According to HuffPost:
Does It Matter Who Attacks the System As Long as the System Gets Attacked? 3
A left-wing anarchist has offered the following reply to right-libertarian/an-cap sympathizers with the Beer Belly Putsch.
It’s equally true of Hoppean and paleo types who think that because the putsch attempt was against “the government” and its targets were members of Congress, the perpetrators were somehow “anarchist” or “libertarian” heroes. Never mind that it was instigated by a fascist president who wanted to overturn the results of an election and stay in office by stopping the vote from being counted. I see a lot of claims that it was just “one mob versus another mob,” or that because the state has no moral legitimacy it was no more serious than any other act of vandalism. By the argument of these people, Mussolini’s march on Rome and the Munich beer hall putsch were either good or morally neutral because their target was the gummint, and even if Hitler was known to be behind the Reichstag fire it was no more serious than any other arson. This is some real galaxy brain thinking.
The core issue here is whether or not it matters who attacks the system as long as the system gets attacked.
Police Are Three Times More Likely to Use Force Against the Left, Data Shows Reply
My general take on this question, which is completely unscientific and based merely on observation, is that police are more likely to use violence against the Left than the Right at demonstrations, although the Left is also more likely to engage in violence. However, left-wing violence tends to be more minor league (like simple assaults and petty vandalism) while right-wing violence, when it occurs, tends to be the real deal, like actual murders.
By Sharon Zhang, Truthout
Police in the United States are more likely to use force against left-wing protesters than they are against right-wing protesters, according to new data analyzed by The Guardian, corroborating observations repeatedly made by the left.
The data is based on over 13,000 protests since April of last year and was gathered by researchers for the U.S. Crisis Monitor project. “Force” in the data includes use of tactics like tear gas and rubber bullets.
The Guardian’s analysis showed that police used force at 4.7 percent of left-wing protests versus 1.4 percent of right-wing protests — 511 left-wing protests and 33 right-wing. When looking at protests that didn’t involve looting or vandalism, the disparity grew: Police were about 3.5 times more likely to use force at left-wing protests than right-wing protests, 1.8 percent and 0.5 percent, respectively.
The report also found that police were more than doubly likely to intervene or break up a left-wing protest than a right-wing one, using tactics like arrests. A similar analysis of the same data by FiveThirtyEight found the same thing.
When Mob Inciters Become Lions of the Left Reply
My general take on the Chicago Seven and anti-Vietnam War riots is that mob action in resistance to the Vietnam War was not extreme enough. If the US had been dissolved into, say, 50 independent nations in 1970 (like the independent nations of Latin America) we wouldn’t have had many of the problems we’ve had since. Not that it was politically or culturally feasible at the time, and there was also the problem of the Soviet empire.
By Helen Andrews, Wall Street Journal
The Chicago Seven were countercultural heroes in the 1960s. They thumbed their noses through one of the country’s most notorious political trials, taunting the judge and making a mockery of the proceedings with flippant courtroom pranks. Aaron Sorkin wrote and directed a movie about them last year, “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” which will probably win a few Oscars.
One thing people forget about the Chicago Seven is that most of them were guilty. Jerry Rubin admitted as much later: “We wanted disruption. We planned it. . . . We were guilty as hell. Guilty as charged.”
The crime they were accused of was crossing state lines to incite a riot. The defendants believed that Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s 1968 nomination for presidency was illegitimate. Nominations in those days were decided not by primaries but by backroom deals among party power brokers. The antiwar movement believed that a more democratic process would have produced a candidate opposed to the Vietnam War.
The question was whether the violent clashes between protesters and police outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago were an unfortunate consequence of peaceful marching that got out of hand, or whether the organizers intended for things to get violent.
The Capitol Insurrection, A View from Inside Reply
Impeachment, Warmongering Iran, and Bull Moose Reply
Questions swirl around possible ‘insider’ help for Capitol attack Reply
By Marshall Cohen, CNN
Washington (CNN)One week after the deadly insurrection at the Capitol, there are still more questions than answers on whether any lawmakers or police assisted the pro-Trump rioters.
The idea of an insurrection is unheard of in modern US history, and the possibility that lawmakers or allies inside the Capitol were helping only contributes to the uncertainty and worry about the event and what’s to come.
At least one protest organizer said he coordinated with three House Republicans. There are unverified accusations of a “reconnaissance” mission one day before the attack. And more than a dozen US Capitol Police officers are under internal investigation for allegedly helping rioters.
While President Donald Trump’s role in inciting the violence is clear, there are some early indications and accusations that other insiders may have more actively aided the mob.
House Republicans under scrutiny
Ali Alexander, a right-wing conspiracy theorist who led one of the “Stop The Steal” groups, claimed in a livestream video that he planned the rally that preceded the riot with three GOP lawmakers: Reps. Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs of Arizona, and Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama.
Brooks spoke at the rally before Trump took the stage, and urged the crowd to “start taking down names and kicking ass.” In a 2,800-word statement about his involvement, Brooks said he was only telling the crowd to fight back at the ballot box. (Brooks also revealed that a White House official called him one day earlier and invited him to speak at the rally.)
CNN previously reported that Gosar associated himself with Alexander’s group in recent months. A spokesman for Biggs told CNN that he hasn’t ever met or worked with Alexander.
Alexander said he hoped his “mob” would pressure lawmakers to block President-elect Joe Biden’s victory through the Electoral College. After the riot was quelled, the three lawmakers voted to throw out Biden’s electoral votes from Arizona and Pennsylvania. Their effort failed.
The MAGA Movement Must Either Rehabilitate Or Purge QAnon Cultists From Its Ranks Reply
By Andrew Korybko, One World
The Trump-inspired “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) movement must either rehabilitate or purge the QAnon cultists in its ranks because they’re discrediting and potentially even dangerous, to say nothing of the fact that their very association with MAGA provides the “deep state” with the seemingly “plausible pretext” to push forward with its dystopian efforts to criminalize the movement as a so-called “domestic terrorist” organization and potentially even intensify its censorship of alternative and social media.
“The Master Plan”
The whole world is talking about QAnon, the mysterious network of supposedly high-placed pro-Trump supporters that’s allegedly been leaking secret information about the outgoing leader’s “deep state” enemies for the past few years, after some of the Capitol Hill invaders pledged their loyalty to it before and during the events of that fateful day last week. There’s little doubt that many of them were influenced by QAnon’s narrative that Trump has hatched a “master plan” of epic proportions to take down traitorous elements in America’s permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) as well as their academia, media, political, and religious (specifically Roman Catholic) allies that most mere mortals are unable to comprehend since it involves the playing of so-called “5D chess”. Having deluded themselves into mistakenly thinking that the President would support their storming of America’s seat of government, they raided the building after police suspiciously removed barricades and even opened the doors for them to do so.
From One MAGA To Another: Here’s How To Cope With What Happened Reply
By Andrew Korybko, One World
As someone who proudly associates himself with the Trump-inspired “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) movement, I feel obligated to help my fellow MAGA members better cope with what happened since quite a few of them aren’t taking recent events all that well, and it’s more important than ever that we retain a clarity of focus about the future instead of remaining mired in the past or desperately clinging to the Q-Anon fake news scenario about a “grand finale” that’s fated to never come.
My Personal Motivations For Supporting MAGA
I proudly associate with the Trump-inspired “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) movement and passionately support its domestic agenda, especially when it comes to defying the liberal-globalists’ totalitarian ideology of so-called “political correctness” and of course “draining the swamp”. I explained my personal motivations in the letter that I published shortly after his historic election titled “Dear Foreign Friends, Here’s Why Trump Won (From A Clevelander)”. Nevertheless, like many of my fellow MAGA members, I’m deeply disappointed by Trump unexpectedly giving up the fighting a little more than 24 hours after he promised during his Save America Rally that “We will never give up. We will never concede, it doesn’t happen. You don’t concede when there’s theft involved.” I expressed my frustrations about this more at length while analyzing the last four years of Trump’s Presidency from a critical perspective in light of his surprise tacit concession in my piece about how “Trump Was Swallowed By The Swamp Because He Lacked The Strength To Drain It”.
Trump Was Swallowed By The Swamp Because He Lacked The Strength To Drain It Reply
By Andrew Korybko, One World
Trump sincerely thought that he could irreversibly effect significant long-term change to the way that America is run by “draining the swamp” that all of his supporters so deeply despise, but he ultimately lacked the strength time and again to take the decisive steps that were necessary in order to execute this grand strategic vision due to several important reasons that deserve to be discussed at length.
The Commander-In-Chief Capitulates
The Trump Era is over after the incumbent announced in the day after Wednesday’s storming of the US Capitol that “My focus now turns to ensuring a smooth, orderly and seamless transition of power”, which was widely interpreted by friends and foes alike as the tacit concession that he previously promised never to provide a little more than 24 hours prior during his speech at the Save America Rally. At that event, he literally said that “We will never give up. We will never concede, it doesn’t happen. You don’t concede when there’s theft involved”, yet completely changed his tune following the day’s tumultuous events and after mysteriously “going dark” for over 24 hours, during which time some speculate that he was forced by his enemies in the permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) to give up the fight.
Inside Google’s Groundbreaking New Unionization Reply
I suspect it will be an uphill battle for unions in an era of extreme capital mobility and labor transience.
Alex Gorowara, a software engineer for Google, discusses the union formed by hundreds of Google employees and explains their demands.
How $2k Checks OBLITERATED Zombie Reaganism Reply
Supply-side economics is not going to sell well in a society with a shrinking middle class and rising poverty.
Krystal Ball analyzes how passing stimulus checks has changed politics for the better.
Andrew Yang LAUNCHES NYC Mayor Campaign With UBI Plan Reply
After DiBlasio, Bloomberg, and Giuliani, New York has nowhere to go but up.
Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti react to Andrew Yang’s first official New York City mayor campaign video.
The GOP Is DEAD, Here’s Its Only Chance At Coming Back Reply
Bye.
Saagar Enjeti predicts what a Biden presidency will mean for the future of the Republican Party.
Trump IMPEACHED With Most Bipartisan Votes In History, What’s Next? Reply
Trump makes history.
Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti react to the second impeachment of President Donald Trump.
Marjorie Taylor Greene to introduce IMPEACHMENT against Biden on his first day Reply
Politics is definitely going to be more interesting the more wingnuts get elected to offices as opposed to the usual boring corporate lawyers.
Team Rising predicts how Trump Republicans might behave under the Biden administration.
