“The man who allegedly attacked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband early Friday posted memes and conspiracy theories on Facebook about Covid vaccines, the 2020 election and the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.” CNN.
So Kevin McCrudy sends "Thoughts and Prayers" to Nancy's husband. Sounds like the standard familiar and sickening response to unprovoked carnage. If you're a national political leader and you're not unequivocally condemning this act of violence and both the people who commit it and promote it you're condoning it.
The entire GOP is guilty of stochastic terrorism. The right wing media has been demonizing Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton for 40 or so years. I'm amazed neither has been hurt or murdered. Our mainstream media is determined to make every issue a "both sides" waffle, so no help there. Yes, we are in serious trouble.
Of course, the My Pillow guy makes an appearance in this nightmare. These limp dick MAGA fools , you know the ones who need to be festooned with quasi military dress and AKs to go to Walmart hate Pelosi because she’s got bigger ones than they do. I can only hope that this will trigger a response. The way overdoing and overstepping by killing Roe is apparently doing. Everyone, I know is really sick and tired of living in fear of what the next outrage should bring. Indict the orange pus sac already preferably before the midterms.
The Pelosi‘s live five blocks away from us on the same street — Broadway.
We drive past their beautiful home on an almost daily basis, and whenever they are in town, the presence of security is extremely conspicuous, whether it’s an SFPD squad car parked across the street on a 24-hour basis, or multiple black GMC SUVs.
And, of course, the insurrectionists made it quite obvious that Madame Speaker was a key target for their misdirected rage.
So, every time I drive by there, I think of that house as a likely target for some kind of right-wing craziness.
And today, lo and behold, it happened.
Like the vast majority of residents of this city, we all hope, (though, of course, many of us will not pray, since most of us are not deists), that Paul will get well and not have any permanent damage due to this attack.
But for those who believe it is overly paranoid to think that the right wing fanatics of America do not pose a grave threat to the health and safety of the rest of us, I refer you to Victor Klemperer’s three volumes, describing his and his wife’s life as Jews who, miraculously, survived living in Dresden during the Third Reich:
My mother and father had similar stories of escaping Poland and Germany. They both came to America in the mid and late 30’s. I lived with their persecution everyday of my life. They both lost precious family members. Those of us who are Jewish but not religious, have a tendency to look over our shoulders now. A very uneasy feeling. I think that is why I identify so strongly with what black and brown people have endured for too long.
If only that identification were more common in both groups. One of the saddest things is hearing blacks denigrate Jews or Jews denigrating people of color.
In some cases in can also have serious consequences for the bigot, look at what just happened to Kanye "Ye" West. It's not even clear how he can distribute his music on a large scale, and what a loss for our culture that is.
I can't even distinguish West from some other rappers. Lester Young from Charlie Parker from Coleman Hawkins, sure, no problem. But not that, anything but that.
There are two kinds of music, good and bad. I play the good kind.
He distributes his music via the Universal Music Group. The largest music company in the United States. He has his own "label" which is affiliates with Def Jam Records one of the seminal rap music labels.
Do SFPD keep watch only when Nancy's home? LATER: New nyt hed: "Officers responded so rapidly to Paul Pelosi’s 911 call that they witnessed the attack, officials say."
Thank you, Lucian, for this clear-headed analysis, connecting the obvious dots between the words of the GOP extremists and actions of their minions. It is probably naive of me, but I hope many people point out to Kevin McCarthy, not only his hypocrisy, but his responsibility in encouraging violence in response to HIS VIOLENT RHETORIC!
How do the MAGA loons sleep at night? These MAGA destroyers in our government and on Fuks Not News (and the like) know that they are constantly lying and scrounging around for more and more preposterous lies to avoid any accountability and maintain power. They have an avid audience of propaganda loving lemmings who will believe any dumbass whoppers, the stupider the better. What happened today to Pelosi’s husband is the natural outcome of all their deceit. They aren’t just the party that lacked courage to stand up to a painted clown faced blathering sociopath, they have become the same and care little for the havoc that follows their words and deeds.
Arguably, a certain kind of shifting, inconsistent ethical nihilism is very reassuring to those who can perpetually reconfigure otherwise annoying moral or ethical scruples, by pretending they are irrelevant, because power, you know. And their opponents must be evil, since they represent the good. So they can make preposterous excuses for Trump's endless excesses, his atrocious lies and threats, his crimes, excuses and justifications which they would never dream of affording anyone they otherwise oppose.
Their sleep isn't troubled by a bad conscience, because their moral compasses are not functioning, it's a terrible fate nonetheless since their humanity is so stunted as a result, but there it is, a Faustian bargain on some level of consciousness.
Trump has NO BUSINESS being free to foment further division. LOCK HIM UP. And as for Elon Musk--he is getting off on his self-masturbatory grandiosity. Mr Pillow does that, too. “Protected Speech” does NOT INCLUDE incendiary rhetoric and lies. Maybe we should file a class action suit for inflammatory, offensive speech when so-called leaders make remarks like Kevin McCarthy’s
"On January 8, 2011, Gabrielle Giffords, a U.S. congresswoman from Arizona, is critically injured when a man goes on a shooting spree during a constituents meeting held by the congresswoman outside a Tucson-area supermarket. Six people died in the attack and another 13, including Giffords, were wounded. The gunman, 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, was taken into custody at the scene."
Let's be clear, what congressional douchebag Kevin McCarthy was doing was 'preying', not 'praying'. McCarthy is a predator, and a pretty obvious one at that. His 'thoughts and prayers' is really 'lusting for predation'. McCarthy isn't even a good predator, he's more like a spotted jackal who feeds on the defenseless: the young, the aged, and the injured. Like spotted jackals, predators like McCarthy hunt in packs, because individually none of them can stand up in a fair fight with anything or anyone who can defend himself in any minimal sort of way.
The very idea of Kevin McCarthy being Speaker of the House of Representatives is a hoot. He's got this tinny, little-boy voice that whines incessantly. Kevin McCarthy is a whiny little bitch, forever begging for favors or making excuses for his own failures. From all appearances, McCarthy is a fairly tall fellow, something around six feet tall, and yet he whines and he snivels like a bully who's been caught stealing little kids' lunch money, and is now being punished. The one time in his political career that McCarthy showed any kind of courage was his reported phone call to then-president Donald Trump to chastise him for instigating the MAGAhat attack on the United States Capitol. The next moment we see him, McCarthy is in Florida, kowtowing to the former president. 'Fellatio' doesn't begin to describe the kind of sucking up to Trump that McCarthy reportedly did in order to retain Trump's favor. We saw this kind of self-abasement and the careers of Josef Stalin, Kim Jong-Il and his father Kim Ill Sung, Mao Tse-Dong, and a host of other autocratic contemptibles. Only heaven knows what McCarthy would do to save his life or save his skin, because all he is trying to do is get a job promotion; and the job that McCarthy is angling for is already bespoke to someone who is not even in Congress. It could be Trump, but Trump never had his shit together long enough at any one time to capitalize on the chaos he created. Trump has the cunning and soul of a Machiavelli, but the foresight and judgment of a five-year-old child. Trump is the brand, but what's in the package is as old and as evil as the Roman Emperor Nero, and those like him. So forget about 'thoughts and prayers'. Any prayers that Kevin McCarthy is offering could just as easily be offered to the ancient Phoenician deity Baal.
Hey, please don’t invoke Machiavelli in a description of t-Rump. Machiavelli was a scrupulously honest civil servant of the Florentine republic whose career was ruined when that republic fell and the Medici took over. And t-Rump is a sociopathic thug, nowhere near clever enough to be the Prince that Machiavelli imagined.
That being the case, why did Nicolo Machiavelli write his book-length essay dedicated to Lorenzo de Medici. My guess would be that the did what former Attorney General Bill Barr successfully did to get hired by the new ruler. That's opportunism. An honest thief is still a thief.
Machiavelli lost his government post when the Medici took over the government of Florence, and yes, he hoped to win it back with The Prince. Lorenzo ignored it and M. never worked for the government again. If you’d be willing to share an email address with me, I could send you my review of a bio of Machiavelli that you might find interesting.
The point I was making was that teaching the ruler how to be a successful scoundrel is something that the former Attorney General did with aplomb, because he was a scoundrel himself; and he was not about to waste an opportunity to strut his stuff before and even bigger scoundrel. I understand Machiavelli's ambition to 'stay relevant' with the changing fortunes of Florence when Lorenzo the Magnificent took over. Niccolò Machiavelli had to know, as did each and every Trump sycophant buying for the Boss's attention, that integrity, probity, and even common decency, were liabilities if one was to succeed.
There was cutthroat competition, with some throats actually being cut.
Although Machiavelli was not looking for a job that involve the actual cutting of throats, his appeal to Lorenzo for a job signaled that he was willing to do whatever was necessary to succeed in the new regime. Lorenzo did not take Machiavelli up on his offer, but a great many other rulers heeded Machiavelli's advice.
As a personal note, I spent twelve years working in the federal government, five years in Washington, and seven years as the Regional Attorney for my agency in Boston, Massachusetts. In today's environment, with Donald Trump and his associates in charge, I might have lasted maybe six months before being shown the door. Why do you think so many former federal officials ended their careers having to hire criminal defense lawyers to stave off federal prosecutors. I used to work with Department of Justice attorneys in litigation matters in matters involving large-scale public transportation infrastructure projects. Within the space of four years I was promoted from GS-12 to GS-14 , and for seven years I was the agency lawyer, with more than $2 billion worth of federal mass transit projects crossing my desk. I know about power and influence, and how it can be used, and abused.
My email address is: artsilen@sbcglobal.net. If you wish to send me something to look at, I would be more than happy to do so.
I'm pretty depressed that so many people are now seemingly insane. They're riddled with conspiracy theories, bad math, rotten demagogues, and tyrants unleashed.
There's nothing sane about this entire country right now, and voting is the most sane thing anyone can do-but how many of these people are voting this year?
How many of these people are there? Millions.
We're in serious trouble here, people.
I don't know where we fell off the precipice but the lunatics from the asylum are now in charge.
God help us all.
I voted, but at the same time I'm reminded of a saying my husband used to tell me:
"If voting was as important as everyone says it is, why do they allow everyone to vote?"
Which was his way of saying that voting is good, but politics doesn't depend on voters. It depends on who you know and how much money you have.
And doesn't include voting.
The more I see the more cynical I get. Old age sucks.
Donald Trump and his crazed followers, including the Trumpist Republicans in Congress, have poisoned our democracy. They are normalizing and mainstreaming fascism in our country. Be afraid; be very afraid. Yes, vote, but who is counting and reporting the votes? If you live in a Red state with a Trumpy Secretary of State and Governor, you cannot count on their reporting the true results. And if the SC approves the Independent Legislature concept, we are doomed.
i voted in person early. this attack on paul pelosi is making me sick. and close to tears. i can not believe that these repiglicans won't even speak out and condemn this horrific political attack. we are well and truly done. and i mourn our descent into political and spiritual violence, all of which i lay at the feet of drumpf, McConnell, McCarthy and other individuals of their ilk.
An age-old tactic, arouse the angry, the afraid and deluded and let them do your dirty work. Republicans should be careful. The crazed left might awaken and then all of us will live in fear.
When does “Free Speech” stop being free?? When the speech is nothing but lies causing people to attack the seat of our government? When the barrage of lies that fill the airwaves lead someone to try to assassinate a high ranking government official?? How about when the continual blanketing of “news” presenting lies as facts threaten our democracy, and our very way of life?? Will “free speech” ultimately lead to the demise of our government?? That is an awfully high price to pay for the privilege of being able to say whatever and whenever regardless of the consequences.
And the violent anti-democracy rhetoric will increase now that Elon Musk bought Twitter. Don’t expect any content moderation from now on. The crazies will be in charge.
That is the judicial philosophy that is currently in force. And many of those with law degrees, or donors to the ACLU, or free-speech fundamentalists of whatever stripe, like to take pride in their nuanced understanding of the American concept of “free speech“.
But when the founders wrote the first amendment, and when Brandeis wrote his opinions, and other justices wrote related opinions up until about 30 years ago, the Internet did not exist, or at least it was not nearly as popular and ubiquitous as it has become, and in particular social media applications.
Just as an AR-15 in every home is a very different world than a musket in every frontier cabin, the digital revolution in communications has created a completely different world than the one that existed when these judicial opinions regarding free speech were articulated.
And we are living in the world that these communications revolutions have created, whether it’s the saturation of cable TV and radio with right-wing hate-filled propaganda, or the viral proliferation of like-minded right wing authoritarian groups on social media platforms, collaborating on projects like the January 6 insurrection, or the militia groups planning to kidnap Michigan’s governor, or the perhaps not-quite-clinically-insane Mr. Depape invading and attacking the Pelosi home in the dead of night after marinating in this bile for years.
It’s a free-for-all, and the hateful and heavily armed people are causing a lot of havoc. So I’m not entirely sure that the Brandeis interpretation of free speech is one that’s going to work in the coming decades.
Notice Brandeis left open the direct banning of some speech under "emergency" conditions, so the discussion shifts to what criteria we need to have satisfied to do that.
And there are various examples from Trump and others that would trigger that, particularly when there is either an imminent threat of death or great bodily harm being incited, or ongoing violence --- as in the January 6 riots, when Trump's statements could have been banned from distribution, had they been known at the time.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are more of these violent MAGA crazies every day, with more to come. And, they are all armed to the teeth. One of their other current projects is armed intimidation of voters under the guise of "poll-watching". The country is fundamentally broken, and I no longer believe it can be repaired.
So Kevin McCrudy sends "Thoughts and Prayers" to Nancy's husband. Sounds like the standard familiar and sickening response to unprovoked carnage. If you're a national political leader and you're not unequivocally condemning this act of violence and both the people who commit it and promote it you're condoning it.
Vote like your life depends on it.
Because it does.
Yes vote Blue because life on earth is at stake.
Well, human life and civilization. Cockroaches will probably survive without us.
The entire GOP is guilty of stochastic terrorism. The right wing media has been demonizing Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton for 40 or so years. I'm amazed neither has been hurt or murdered. Our mainstream media is determined to make every issue a "both sides" waffle, so no help there. Yes, we are in serious trouble.
At least somebody knows what 'stochastic' means. Apparently, none of the MAGAhats do.
Of course, the My Pillow guy makes an appearance in this nightmare. These limp dick MAGA fools , you know the ones who need to be festooned with quasi military dress and AKs to go to Walmart hate Pelosi because she’s got bigger ones than they do. I can only hope that this will trigger a response. The way overdoing and overstepping by killing Roe is apparently doing. Everyone, I know is really sick and tired of living in fear of what the next outrage should bring. Indict the orange pus sac already preferably before the midterms.
I think Garland has to build an airtight case before he brings charges, but I was with you word for word up to indict.
Yes on Garland and timing of indictment -- and last night on MSNBC someone said that DOJ may have enough to indict now!
The Pelosi‘s live five blocks away from us on the same street — Broadway.
We drive past their beautiful home on an almost daily basis, and whenever they are in town, the presence of security is extremely conspicuous, whether it’s an SFPD squad car parked across the street on a 24-hour basis, or multiple black GMC SUVs.
And, of course, the insurrectionists made it quite obvious that Madame Speaker was a key target for their misdirected rage.
So, every time I drive by there, I think of that house as a likely target for some kind of right-wing craziness.
And today, lo and behold, it happened.
Like the vast majority of residents of this city, we all hope, (though, of course, many of us will not pray, since most of us are not deists), that Paul will get well and not have any permanent damage due to this attack.
But for those who believe it is overly paranoid to think that the right wing fanatics of America do not pose a grave threat to the health and safety of the rest of us, I refer you to Victor Klemperer’s three volumes, describing his and his wife’s life as Jews who, miraculously, survived living in Dresden during the Third Reich:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Klemperer#Post-war
My mother and father had similar stories of escaping Poland and Germany. They both came to America in the mid and late 30’s. I lived with their persecution everyday of my life. They both lost precious family members. Those of us who are Jewish but not religious, have a tendency to look over our shoulders now. A very uneasy feeling. I think that is why I identify so strongly with what black and brown people have endured for too long.
If only that identification were more common in both groups. One of the saddest things is hearing blacks denigrate Jews or Jews denigrating people of color.
In some cases in can also have serious consequences for the bigot, look at what just happened to Kanye "Ye" West. It's not even clear how he can distribute his music on a large scale, and what a loss for our culture that is.
Yeah, I am left utterly devastated by our irreparable cultural loss! 😂
I can't even distinguish West from some other rappers. Lester Young from Charlie Parker from Coleman Hawkins, sure, no problem. But not that, anything but that.
There are two kinds of music, good and bad. I play the good kind.
--- Louis Armstrong
He distributes his music via the Universal Music Group. The largest music company in the United States. He has his own "label" which is affiliates with Def Jam Records one of the seminal rap music labels.
He does today, but by next week?
It's already cost him millions of dollars, where will it stop? The guy's a whacko in any event, best forgotten as fast as possible.
Meanwhile we have this and a vast treasure trove of all sorts, but you actually have to play a freakin' musical instrument, so there's that:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUDvNlJpx18
Coleman Hawkins Swing Four: Sweet Lorraine
And in a different but accomplished vein:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KVFn2uSAjk
Police and Thieves: The Clash (Remastered)
In other words, anything but some predictable posturing and tedious beats, sez I.
Do SFPD keep watch only when Nancy's home? LATER: New nyt hed: "Officers responded so rapidly to Paul Pelosi’s 911 call that they witnessed the attack, officials say."
Thank you, Lucian, for this clear-headed analysis, connecting the obvious dots between the words of the GOP extremists and actions of their minions. It is probably naive of me, but I hope many people point out to Kevin McCarthy, not only his hypocrisy, but his responsibility in encouraging violence in response to HIS VIOLENT RHETORIC!
How do the MAGA loons sleep at night? These MAGA destroyers in our government and on Fuks Not News (and the like) know that they are constantly lying and scrounging around for more and more preposterous lies to avoid any accountability and maintain power. They have an avid audience of propaganda loving lemmings who will believe any dumbass whoppers, the stupider the better. What happened today to Pelosi’s husband is the natural outcome of all their deceit. They aren’t just the party that lacked courage to stand up to a painted clown faced blathering sociopath, they have become the same and care little for the havoc that follows their words and deeds.
I think you answered your own question!
Arguably, a certain kind of shifting, inconsistent ethical nihilism is very reassuring to those who can perpetually reconfigure otherwise annoying moral or ethical scruples, by pretending they are irrelevant, because power, you know. And their opponents must be evil, since they represent the good. So they can make preposterous excuses for Trump's endless excesses, his atrocious lies and threats, his crimes, excuses and justifications which they would never dream of affording anyone they otherwise oppose.
Their sleep isn't troubled by a bad conscience, because their moral compasses are not functioning, it's a terrible fate nonetheless since their humanity is so stunted as a result, but there it is, a Faustian bargain on some level of consciousness.
Trump has NO BUSINESS being free to foment further division. LOCK HIM UP. And as for Elon Musk--he is getting off on his self-masturbatory grandiosity. Mr Pillow does that, too. “Protected Speech” does NOT INCLUDE incendiary rhetoric and lies. Maybe we should file a class action suit for inflammatory, offensive speech when so-called leaders make remarks like Kevin McCarthy’s
Put Michael Flynn in that cage, too.
Remember this?
"On January 8, 2011, Gabrielle Giffords, a U.S. congresswoman from Arizona, is critically injured when a man goes on a shooting spree during a constituents meeting held by the congresswoman outside a Tucson-area supermarket. Six people died in the attack and another 13, including Giffords, were wounded. The gunman, 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, was taken into custody at the scene."
Vote....but also indict, NOW1
Let's be clear, what congressional douchebag Kevin McCarthy was doing was 'preying', not 'praying'. McCarthy is a predator, and a pretty obvious one at that. His 'thoughts and prayers' is really 'lusting for predation'. McCarthy isn't even a good predator, he's more like a spotted jackal who feeds on the defenseless: the young, the aged, and the injured. Like spotted jackals, predators like McCarthy hunt in packs, because individually none of them can stand up in a fair fight with anything or anyone who can defend himself in any minimal sort of way.
The very idea of Kevin McCarthy being Speaker of the House of Representatives is a hoot. He's got this tinny, little-boy voice that whines incessantly. Kevin McCarthy is a whiny little bitch, forever begging for favors or making excuses for his own failures. From all appearances, McCarthy is a fairly tall fellow, something around six feet tall, and yet he whines and he snivels like a bully who's been caught stealing little kids' lunch money, and is now being punished. The one time in his political career that McCarthy showed any kind of courage was his reported phone call to then-president Donald Trump to chastise him for instigating the MAGAhat attack on the United States Capitol. The next moment we see him, McCarthy is in Florida, kowtowing to the former president. 'Fellatio' doesn't begin to describe the kind of sucking up to Trump that McCarthy reportedly did in order to retain Trump's favor. We saw this kind of self-abasement and the careers of Josef Stalin, Kim Jong-Il and his father Kim Ill Sung, Mao Tse-Dong, and a host of other autocratic contemptibles. Only heaven knows what McCarthy would do to save his life or save his skin, because all he is trying to do is get a job promotion; and the job that McCarthy is angling for is already bespoke to someone who is not even in Congress. It could be Trump, but Trump never had his shit together long enough at any one time to capitalize on the chaos he created. Trump has the cunning and soul of a Machiavelli, but the foresight and judgment of a five-year-old child. Trump is the brand, but what's in the package is as old and as evil as the Roman Emperor Nero, and those like him. So forget about 'thoughts and prayers'. Any prayers that Kevin McCarthy is offering could just as easily be offered to the ancient Phoenician deity Baal.
Hey, please don’t invoke Machiavelli in a description of t-Rump. Machiavelli was a scrupulously honest civil servant of the Florentine republic whose career was ruined when that republic fell and the Medici took over. And t-Rump is a sociopathic thug, nowhere near clever enough to be the Prince that Machiavelli imagined.
That being the case, why did Nicolo Machiavelli write his book-length essay dedicated to Lorenzo de Medici. My guess would be that the did what former Attorney General Bill Barr successfully did to get hired by the new ruler. That's opportunism. An honest thief is still a thief.
Machiavelli lost his government post when the Medici took over the government of Florence, and yes, he hoped to win it back with The Prince. Lorenzo ignored it and M. never worked for the government again. If you’d be willing to share an email address with me, I could send you my review of a bio of Machiavelli that you might find interesting.
The point I was making was that teaching the ruler how to be a successful scoundrel is something that the former Attorney General did with aplomb, because he was a scoundrel himself; and he was not about to waste an opportunity to strut his stuff before and even bigger scoundrel. I understand Machiavelli's ambition to 'stay relevant' with the changing fortunes of Florence when Lorenzo the Magnificent took over. Niccolò Machiavelli had to know, as did each and every Trump sycophant buying for the Boss's attention, that integrity, probity, and even common decency, were liabilities if one was to succeed.
There was cutthroat competition, with some throats actually being cut.
Although Machiavelli was not looking for a job that involve the actual cutting of throats, his appeal to Lorenzo for a job signaled that he was willing to do whatever was necessary to succeed in the new regime. Lorenzo did not take Machiavelli up on his offer, but a great many other rulers heeded Machiavelli's advice.
As a personal note, I spent twelve years working in the federal government, five years in Washington, and seven years as the Regional Attorney for my agency in Boston, Massachusetts. In today's environment, with Donald Trump and his associates in charge, I might have lasted maybe six months before being shown the door. Why do you think so many former federal officials ended their careers having to hire criminal defense lawyers to stave off federal prosecutors. I used to work with Department of Justice attorneys in litigation matters in matters involving large-scale public transportation infrastructure projects. Within the space of four years I was promoted from GS-12 to GS-14 , and for seven years I was the agency lawyer, with more than $2 billion worth of federal mass transit projects crossing my desk. I know about power and influence, and how it can be used, and abused.
My email address is: artsilen@sbcglobal.net. If you wish to send me something to look at, I would be more than happy to do so.
Well said. "Preying" instead of "praying" is PERFECT.
I'm pretty depressed that so many people are now seemingly insane. They're riddled with conspiracy theories, bad math, rotten demagogues, and tyrants unleashed.
There's nothing sane about this entire country right now, and voting is the most sane thing anyone can do-but how many of these people are voting this year?
How many of these people are there? Millions.
We're in serious trouble here, people.
I don't know where we fell off the precipice but the lunatics from the asylum are now in charge.
God help us all.
I voted, but at the same time I'm reminded of a saying my husband used to tell me:
"If voting was as important as everyone says it is, why do they allow everyone to vote?"
Which was his way of saying that voting is good, but politics doesn't depend on voters. It depends on who you know and how much money you have.
And doesn't include voting.
The more I see the more cynical I get. Old age sucks.
Donald Trump and his crazed followers, including the Trumpist Republicans in Congress, have poisoned our democracy. They are normalizing and mainstreaming fascism in our country. Be afraid; be very afraid. Yes, vote, but who is counting and reporting the votes? If you live in a Red state with a Trumpy Secretary of State and Governor, you cannot count on their reporting the true results. And if the SC approves the Independent Legislature concept, we are doomed.
i voted in person early. this attack on paul pelosi is making me sick. and close to tears. i can not believe that these repiglicans won't even speak out and condemn this horrific political attack. we are well and truly done. and i mourn our descent into political and spiritual violence, all of which i lay at the feet of drumpf, McConnell, McCarthy and other individuals of their ilk.
An age-old tactic, arouse the angry, the afraid and deluded and let them do your dirty work. Republicans should be careful. The crazed left might awaken and then all of us will live in fear.
When does “Free Speech” stop being free?? When the speech is nothing but lies causing people to attack the seat of our government? When the barrage of lies that fill the airwaves lead someone to try to assassinate a high ranking government official?? How about when the continual blanketing of “news” presenting lies as facts threaten our democracy, and our very way of life?? Will “free speech” ultimately lead to the demise of our government?? That is an awfully high price to pay for the privilege of being able to say whatever and whenever regardless of the consequences.
And the violent anti-democracy rhetoric will increase now that Elon Musk bought Twitter. Don’t expect any content moderation from now on. The crazies will be in charge.
Then also expect mass resistance from within and without Twitter.
www.bureaubrandeis.com/justice-brandeis-on-freedom-of-speech/?lang=e
The remedy for the lying and distortions is more speech, not enforced silence, to paraphrase
Justice Brandeis.
That is the judicial philosophy that is currently in force. And many of those with law degrees, or donors to the ACLU, or free-speech fundamentalists of whatever stripe, like to take pride in their nuanced understanding of the American concept of “free speech“.
But when the founders wrote the first amendment, and when Brandeis wrote his opinions, and other justices wrote related opinions up until about 30 years ago, the Internet did not exist, or at least it was not nearly as popular and ubiquitous as it has become, and in particular social media applications.
Just as an AR-15 in every home is a very different world than a musket in every frontier cabin, the digital revolution in communications has created a completely different world than the one that existed when these judicial opinions regarding free speech were articulated.
And we are living in the world that these communications revolutions have created, whether it’s the saturation of cable TV and radio with right-wing hate-filled propaganda, or the viral proliferation of like-minded right wing authoritarian groups on social media platforms, collaborating on projects like the January 6 insurrection, or the militia groups planning to kidnap Michigan’s governor, or the perhaps not-quite-clinically-insane Mr. Depape invading and attacking the Pelosi home in the dead of night after marinating in this bile for years.
It’s a free-for-all, and the hateful and heavily armed people are causing a lot of havoc. So I’m not entirely sure that the Brandeis interpretation of free speech is one that’s going to work in the coming decades.
I totally agree.
Notice Brandeis left open the direct banning of some speech under "emergency" conditions, so the discussion shifts to what criteria we need to have satisfied to do that.
And there are various examples from Trump and others that would trigger that, particularly when there is either an imminent threat of death or great bodily harm being incited, or ongoing violence --- as in the January 6 riots, when Trump's statements could have been banned from distribution, had they been known at the time.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are more of these violent MAGA crazies every day, with more to come. And, they are all armed to the teeth. One of their other current projects is armed intimidation of voters under the guise of "poll-watching". The country is fundamentally broken, and I no longer believe it can be repaired.