Trump Impeached For Second Time, Subpoenaed For First Time - What's Next?

New emails from Justice Department and White House officials show how President Donald Trump's allies pressured then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen to consider false and outlandish allegations that the 2020 election had been stolen at the same time that Rosen was being elevated to lead the Justice Department in December 2020 and sought to get the Justice Department to formally back up the false claims.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/15/politics/trump-allies-emails-justice-depa...

https://twitter.com/willsommer/status/1407925243000365057?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1407925243000365057%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fsecondnexus.com%2Fpearson-sharp-executions-qanon-election

Here is an article about the totally bizarre video in post 712.

Matt Shuham wrote:

One America News Network host Pearson Sharp didn’t flinch as he delivered the somber news to camera: Radical Democrats had “overthrown” the election, and the punishment for traitors is death. 

“What are the consequences for traitors who meddled with our sacred democratic process and tried to steal power by taking away the voices of the American people? What happens to them?” Sharp mused to camera, in a clip flagged by The Daily Beast’s Will Sommer. 

“Well, in the past, America had a very good solution to dealing with such traitors: Execution.” 

The monologue offers a chilling glimpse at what appears to be a growing comfort with violence from far-right platforms like OAN and their viewers. Sommer noted that members of the QAnon conspiracy theory movement had gleefully circulated the clip online, seeing it as “proof that the mass executions are right around the corner.” 

Even here on babble the Big Lie was supported by at least one person!

Personally I think the riot in Washington was not caused by the Big Lie. That is because the theft of the election was not the Big Lie it is the Orange Herring. The Big Lie is that the US's federal elections are in any sense democratic and free of overt corruption and influence peddling by its military/security cabal.

Many of us see only superficial differences in the parties, when it comes to policies that would affect that cabal. Trump was an outside grifter to the cabal but I firmly believe that if Trump had actually gone outside his boundaries as POTUS he would have been iced. Biden is clearly an insider in the cabal but not the architect of foeign policy.

At a local level maybe Buffalo will lead the way to a socialist future but I am waiting for the backlash to begin in earnest. She openly fought the DNC for the right to lead her city. I expect the forces to align against her. The strange thing about Buffalo is that last time the Republicans were not in the race and a Reform candidate came in a distant second. I fear a "leftish" Independent backed by the Blue machine given that two thirds of the voters voted Democrat lase time.

Questions about the FBI's role in 1/6 are mocked because the FBI shapes liberal corporate media

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1405970321166024713

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1405972449204781060

"The FBI has been manufacturing and directing terror plots and criminal rings for decades. But now, reverence for security state agencies reigns..."

They're only regarded that way because they won't parrot the flavour of the month official liberal group-think verities so fervently endorsed by those who cleave so closely to the awful msm crap of WaPo, NYT or CNN. Nothing more certain to turn you stupid than a steady diet of those. Not Greenwald or Taibbi.

Not hard to see why your little tribe doesn't like Taibbi either...

Has the media's Russiagate reckoning finally begun?

https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1404886425145905152

NDPP wrote:

Not hard to see why your little tribe doesn't like Taibbi either...

Has the media's Russiagate reckoning finally begun?

https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1404886425145905152

Here is Nathan Robinson telling us why democratic socialism is the best thing for the human race. Are there any similar statements from Greenwald or Taibbi?

Michael Moriarity wrote:

NDPP wrote:

Not hard to see why your little tribe doesn't like Taibbi either...

Has the media's Russiagate reckoning finally begun?

https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1404886425145905152

Here is Nathan Robinson telling us why democratic socialism is the best thing for the human race. Are there any similar statements from Greenwald or Taibbi?

They would never be allowed on Fox again.

JKR wrote:

Your description of US politics leaves me longing for the days when President Trump was was getting in the way of the international cabal from controlling the US presidency!!!!!!!! Was Trump's insane presidency just a bad dream???????

His insane Presidency was not a dream. Strangely enough all the "insanity" in his foreign policy seems to have been adopted by the other side of the duopoly. When will Biden repudiate Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and when will he heed the elected governments of Iraq's demand that the US leave the country. When will he stop the non-stop sanctions war against any state in the world that does not agree with American hegemony.

I'm waiting to see the difference. Do you see a difference?

JKR wrote:

I think Biden will abide by all the international agreements Trump made with countries such as Israel, UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, etc.... As president Trump had the right to sign international agreements with other countries that presidents after him have to live with.

You really think that POTUS's feel bound by treaties that they sign. I find it interesting you think he will be bound by Trump's treaty's but he doesn't have to re-enter into the Iran nuclear treaty Trump ripped up. My idea about how the US follows treaties in far more in line with this article than your believe that the US actually does anything other than whatever it feels is in its best interests in any moment in time.

Well, the US is an unreliable international partner—and it has long been one, even before the current administration pulled out from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Paris agreement on climate change, and threatened to end NAFTA. History is dotted with treaties that the US has signed but not ratified, signed and then unsigned, and even refused to sign after pushing everyone else to sign.

Capriciousness about international treaties is an old US tradition. It starts with the country’s very creation: hundreds of treaties signed with Native American tribes that were either broken, or not ratified. Today, the US is one of the countries to have ratified the fewest number of international human rights treaties—of the 18 agreements passed by the UN, America has only ratified five.

https://qz.com/1273510/all-the-international-agreements-the-us-has-broke...

NDPP wrote:

Re: #723

What happened to Glenn Greenwald? Trump happened - and put the left's parameters to the test

https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/greenwald-trump-happened/

"There's been a new fracturing of the intellectual left, typified by an essay last week from Nathan J Robinson. Overall Robinson's case against both Greenwald and Taibbi is far less persuasive than he appears to imagine..."

Yeah I have quibbles with a few thing Cook says (like calling Enjeti "a thoughtful rightwing populist") but the conclusion of the piece is really strong.

The central issue here – the one Robinson raises but avoids discussing – is what political conditions are most likely to foster authoritarianism in the US and other western states, and what can be done to reverse those conditions.

For Robinson, the answer is reassuringly straightforward. Trump and his rightwing populism pose the biggest threat, and the Democratic party –  however dismal its leaders – is the only available vehicle for countering that menace. Therefore, left journalists have a duty to steer clear of arguments or associations that might confer legitimacy on the right.

For Greenwald and Taibbi, the picture looks far more complicated, treacherous and potentially bleak.

Trump fundamentally divided the US. For a significant section of the public, he answered their deep-seated and intensifying disenchantment with a political system that appears to be rigged against their interests after its wholesale takeover by corporate elites decades ago. He offered hope, however false.

For others, Trump threatened to topple the liberal facade the corporate elites had erected to sanctify their rule. He dispensed with the liberal pieties that had so effectively served to conceal US imperialism abroad and to maintain the fiction of democracy at home. His election tore the mask off everything that was already deeply ugly about the US political system.

Did that glimpse into the abyss fuel the sense of urgency among liberals and parts of the left to be rid of Trump at all costs – and the current desperation to prevent him or someone like him from returning to the Oval Office, even if it means further trashing free speech and transparency?

In essence, the dilemma the left now faces is this:

• To work with the Democrats, with liberals, who are desperate to put the mask back on the system, to shore up its deceptions, so that political stability can be restored – a stability that is waging war around the globe, that is escalating the threat of super-power tensions and nuclear annihilation, and that is destroying the planet.
• Or to keep the mask off, and work with those elements of the populist left and right that share a commitment to free speech and transparency, in the hope that through open debate we can expose the current rule by an unaccountable, authoritarian technocratic class and its corporate patrons masquerading as “liberals”.

The truth is we may be caught between a rock and hard place. Even as the warning signs mount, liberals may stick with the comfort blanket of rule by self-professed experts to the bitter end, to the point of economic and ecological collapse. And conservatives may, at the end of the day, prove that their commitment to free speech and disdain for corporate elites is far weaker than their susceptibility to narcissist strongmen.

Robinson no more has a crystal ball to see the future than Greenwald. Both are making decisions in the dark. For that reason, Robinson and his allies on the left would be better advised to stop claiming they hold the moral high ground.

I thought the Robinson (someone I often agree with) piece was disappointing. He spends so much time using quotes from Taibbi and Greenwald taken out of context to prosecute them and spends zero time engaging with what their critique is. The closest he get is here:

The idea here is that institutions like the CIA and large corporations have become captured by culturally left “woke” ideology. (This same idea is expressed in new books like Woke, Inc. and The Dictatorship of Woke Capital.) 

Personally I find use of the word “woke” by critics of the left to be extremely irritating, because the term is so imprecise. I feel the same way about “cancel culture.” The usage of this term often puts valuable anti-racist and feminist points in the same bucket as the most marginal and extreme beliefs. What exactly are we talking about? It is hard for me to even have this conversation, because to critics, there is a big blob called Woke that consists of many disparate, equally evil things.

That's at best a caricature of their critique and if I'm being "less charitable" a misrepresentation and quickly followed by a pivot. I basically agree with him about how "woke" has become appropriated to be a catchall for phony identitarian politics. But it's weird to me that he is so much more interested in the politics of this word than the issue of how embedded intelligence agences have become in the media institutions that set our discourse. That's an issue that has major implications for democracy and Greenwald and Taibbi are some of the few journalists that have been making that critique.

The consequences of the too close relationship between journalists and intellegence services has a long disturbing history. I'm looking foward to this documentary but these interview excerpts do a good job of looking at how that worked in Northern Ireland/UK.

Stephen Dorril Extras from The Man Who Knew Too Much Documentary

What is the point of relitigating the 'lesser of two evils debate' in a non-election/primary year? Couldn't this be an opportunity to let off flogging that dead horse and focus on more constructive structural issues? 

Prosecutors charge Trump Organization with a 15-year tax scheme
----------------

New York prosecutors on Thursday charged the Trump Organization and its chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, with a 15-year alleged tax scheme that marked the first criminal case against the former President’s namesake company.

An indictment unsealed Thursday by the Manhattan district attorney’s office charged the company and an entity called Trump Payroll Corporation with 10 counts and Weisselberg with 15 felony counts in connection with an alleged scheme stretching back to 2005 “to compensate Weisselberg and other Trump Organization executives in a manner that was ‘off the books.’”
----------------

Michael Moriarity wrote:

The Democrats suck, but they are not driving full speed towards destruction of the global ecology

I agree that it's not full speed especially when compared with the Republicans but it's in the same direction and they also have a heavy foot. If Republicans are going 250 km an hour, I’d say the Democrats are going at least 170. Now that the ‘better’ driver has the wheel, do we need to rehash how bad the other driver is or can we shift the conversation to how to turn the car around?

Michael Moriarity wrote:

I have a lot of respect for melovesproles and his/her opinions, but I am forced to disagree in this case by my belief that the Republican Party is, as Chomsky has put it many times in the last decade or so, the most dangerous organization in human history.

I have a lot of respect for your opinion as well and I think we consume a lot of the same media and share a lot of views. Chomsky has probably influenced my political thinking more than any other writer/speaker.

It’s not even that I disagree with Chomsky’s opinion on the need to vote for the Democrats to block Republicans. However, as someone that is obsessed with strategy I think it is a bad sign that he has only become increasingly rigid on this point even as the left has failed to win any gains from this relationship on the most important issues facing us: wealth inequality, weakening of democracy, environmental catastrophe etc. A strategy that doesn’t adapt or evolve when faced with continuing failure is not usually a great strategy. Despite the flak she took on this, I though Briahna Gray Joy’s challenging him on this point was welcome and necessary. Not that Chomsky needs to change his mind but the left needs to become more strategically sophisticated and that will only happen through discussion and debate.

Michael Moriarity wrote:

Civil liberties concerns seem almost trivial to me in comparison.

So I think this is probably where our disagreement is the deepest. I don’t think the Greenwald/Taiibi critique is a civil liberties one. I think it’s at its core a critique of the propaganda system and how it operates which is less about civil liberties and more about power. That isn’t some insignificant issue and it is pretty firmly entangled with the possibility for real positive social change. It’s also the area where Chomsky has done a lot of his best work.

If we want to get more into the details of the critique (for me at least), it helps to break it into two overlapping but separate points.

• The first is that the “Liberal” media/establishment was able to shift significantly to the right in response to Trump. This included inflating the threat of Russia by tapping into old Cold War tropes, rehabilitating Intelligence Services and integrating them as trusted ‘anonymous sources’ into news reports. We can see the result of that renaissance of Liberal hawkishness with Biden following Trump and not even Obama on Iran and Cuba with very little pushback. You can also see it with how Democrats have voted on military budget spending and how on foreign policy they have followed the lead of Liz Cheney. Greenwald has done more reporting on this than most American journalists. I don’t see how that can be written off as a ‘civil liberties’ issue and separate from our environmental crisis unless we completely ignore the evidence we have on the enormous role of the military in emitting and poisoning the planet.
• The second prong of the Greenwald/Taiibi critique is the one Robinson is more comfortable engaging with and the one that I am more conflicted about, which is the cultural critique. That the left is changing it’s character and becoming a movement that is more interested in cultural conformism than in challenging power. This is a complicated issue and I have mixed feelings about it. I don’t think it is as simple as either side is saying but I think there clearly has been an important cultural shift, some of it positive and some of it negative.

“Just say that the election was corrupt + leave the rest to me” and to congressional allies, Mr. Donoghue wrote in summarizing Mr. Trump’s response.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/30/us/politics/trump-justice-department-election.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage

"I'm Not Into Coups" Claims Fascist Former President Donald Trump; The Late Show With Stephen Colbert

US liberals' hysteria outlives Trump

https://mondediplo.com/2021/08/06usa

"Donald Trump may be gone, for now, but an unanswered question remains. Why exactly did the 45th President of the United States induce such fear and loathing among the nation's highly educated elite? The question is important for assessing the extraordinary wave of hysterical rhetoric that came to dominate American culture over the last five years..."

JKR wrote:

NDPP wrote:

Why exactly did the 45th President of the United States induce such fear and loathing among the nation's highly educated elite?

Because he's a fascist, racist, sexist, classist, narcissistic, authoritarian, psychopathic moron?

That's pretty much what I was thinking as well.

"There are people who have spent every day talking about January 6 ever since it happened, and now talk about it more than ever, as if it's the most historical, momentous event rather than a 3 hour riot that got put down, and I can't imagine a more dreary or empty existence."

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1428759492494233606

Reuters: 'The FBI has found scant evidence that the Jan 6 attack on the Capitol was the result of an organized plot to overturn the presidential election result.'