DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus January 6th Fallout p4

Z, I can't control what other people say or criticize, so don't project their issues on me. So let rhe EO thing go because I never criticized it. It being the number of EO's. It is very possible I criticized what he ordered. But I have an issue with with aome of biden and Obama's as well.

I am sure many former Presidents would have liked to have fotten a 3rd term. But trump. Was the only who had a plan to circumvent it and tried to implement it. No matter how poorly he did it.

You said this:


That's unfair. No way in the world would Trump have executed 6 million people for any reason. No way in the world would have had the military roaming the streets w/machine guns and gunning people down. No way would we have been forced indoors.

Sorry Jester, but those comparisons are BS and are used by people who are overly melodramatic. I don't like Trump either, but that is an unfair comparison. Please don't diminish the atrocities that the Nazis committed upon the world by comparing them to anyone in current times.

I really want to go full nuclear on you guys because you are undermining the importance of those who told their stories after the nightmare that was the Nazi regime. DO NOT COMPARE anything in our country to those atrocities. During a Psych class, we were asked to read Man's Search for Meaning by a Jewish psychologist by the name of Victor Frankl. He was successful. He had his family ripped from him. Most of them were murdered. He had every possession that he owned stolen from him by the Nazis. He was packed into a train car where Jews and Negroes were packed in so tight that they urinated and crapped on one another during their journey to the Concentration camp. He witnessed the gas chambers. He was branded. He saw multiple beatings and murders. He saw firing squads and people steamrolled into ditches that were ultimately large graves. He wanted to either commit suicide or do something to get shot, but you want to know why he did not? Because he wanted to tell his story so that these atrocities would never occur again. Please do not dishonor the name of those who suffered similar injustices by comparing Trump to Hitler. Please?

Again, I said:

I wouldn't call trump a hitler clone. Maybe a hitler wannabe.

And then I explained what I meant by wannabe:

Hitler was the leader of an authoritarian regime.
Mussolina was the leader of an authoritarian regime.
Putin is the leader of an authoritarian regime.
Kim Jong Un is the leader of an authoritarian regime.

Trump has demonstrated numerous times and in various ways that he wants to be the leader of an authoritarian regime in America.

Thus he is a Hitler wannabe, a Mussolina wannabe, a Putin wannabe ...
This is different than being a Hitler clone which would include mass genocide and attempts to conquer the world

Then I said:

Vers, i said i didn't think trump was a hitler clone. I said I didn't think he wanted genocide. Tou are the ine making thise comparisons. Either you aren't paying attention to what i am saying or you are creating your own narrative.

Okay Jester.........you go right on ahead and ignore my message. You are entitled to that opinion and I am entitled to mine which is that you are diminishing the suffering of so many that were at the hands of the evil Nazis by comparing Trump--or anyone else for that matter-to those monsters.

It's always good to know where people stand on morality issues. So, thanks for that, at least.

Thirteen Similarities Between Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler

Thomas David Kehoe
Sep 18, 2020

Germany in 1920 had many similarities to the United States in 2020:

1. Both times were/are extraordinary. Voters were/are polarized between the left and the right, and centrist leaders struggled to stay in office. Germany in 1920 was far more polarized than the United States in 2020. Several German provinces had Soviet revolutions. A right-wing private army, the Freikorps, killed thousands of Reds. Street brawling between the left and right occurred nightly in cities across Germany. The recent unrest in Portland and Kenosha has been far less violent than the world Hitler lived in.

2. Both times were/are extraordinary for the same reason: conservatives were discredited and lost control of the right, enabling the rise of right-wing populists. In 1914 Prussian conservatives, led by Kaiser Wilhelm II, started World War One (WWI). In 1918 Germany lost WWI. About two million German soldiers were killed and four million wounded. The German economy was destroyed and millions of Germans were unemployed, hungry, and cold. The conservatives, who were generally well-educated, affluent, and had been in positions of influence for generations, were discredited. Their place was taken on the right by populists, who were not educated or affluent. The 2007–2008 Great Recession was followed by a realization that the wealthy “1%”, who are associated with conservative politics, had both caused the recession and benefited from it. Since 2008 economic disparity has increased in the United States, i.e., the rich are getting richer and the poor are becoming poorer. This discrediting of conservatism led to the 2016 conservative loss of control of the Republican Party, with conservative leaders being replaced by populists. While the pattern is similar, there is difference in degree: WWI was far more destructive than the Great Recession.

3. The German right-wing populists, including Adolf Hitler, were dedicated to restoring Germany to its pre-WWI status as one of the leading nations of Europe, economically and culturally. Current American right-wing populists, including Donald Trump, promise to “make America great again.”

4. In 1920s Germany conservatives supported the right-wing populists on the belief that the conservatives could control business and industrial policies while the populists focused on popular conspiracy theories, such as international cabals of Jewish bankers and Freemasons, secret Catholic societies, and Russian control of German Communists. Since the 2016 election conservatives have made a similar deal with right-wing populists, who enthrall voters with wild theories about Mexican immigrants, Muslim terrorists, and Democratic pizzerias.

5. Democracy was a new concept in Germany in the 1920s. The Nazis believed, correctly, that a small minority of fanatics could gain power over larger numbers of more or less indifferent voters. American democracy is far more firmly established, but the Republicans were able to gain the Presidency after losing the popular vote in 2000 and 2016. Republican-controlled state legislatures have used gerrymandering and changing voting laws to maintain control.

6. A key step in the rise of the Nazis was the 1920 purchase of Munich’s Völkischer Beobachter newspaper. The newspaper’s editor, Dietrich Eckart, a talented poet and playwright, used the newspaper to shape the “Hitler Myth.” At first the newspaper was semi-weekly, with its subscribers reading other newspapers on other days. In 1923 the newspaper moved to daily editions, with Nazi supporters reading only the Völkischer Beobachter, enabling the Nazis to shape their followers into fanatics. Donald Trump doesn’t own Fox News but their relationship is symbiotic. Cable news and social media algorithms enable Trump’s followers to live in a news bubble, shaping their views.

On a personal level, Adolf Hitler and Donald Trump have several similarities.

Quote

Hitler intentionally destroyed any inherent bureaucratic rationality in favour of an instrument devoted solely to propaganda, to upholding the ‘idea’ of National Socialism as embodied in the Leader. The intrinsic contradiction between ‘leadership of people’ (Menschenführung) and ‘administration’ (Verwaltung), which would be laid bare during the Third Reich, was, his memorandum plainly shows, inherent to Hitler’s conception of the party and approach to power. The untrammelled personalized form of power that he represented could not dispense with bureaucratic organization, but was nevertheless inimical to it. As long as the party existed only to attain power, the contradiction could be sustained. In government, it was a recipe for chaos. (Kershaw, Ian. Hitler: 1889–1936 Hubris (p. 404). W. W. Norton & Company.)

Adolf Hitler was not good at administration. His management style was to put off decisions, letting his subordinates fight among themselves, before finally making decisions. Donald Trump is also not good at administration and his management style is to foster a chaotic environment where he can make decisions without planning.

Both Hitler and Trump were masters of mass communication. Hitler mastered beer hall oration, then newspapers, and then the new medium of radio. Donald Trump mastered television and then was one of the first leaders to master Twitter and other social media.

In the 1920s poor Jews flooded into German cities from eastern Europe. Adolf Hitler rallied his followers with claims that these immigrants were taking jobs from Germans and that many of these immigrants were criminals and rapists. Donald Trump campaigned successfully with similar allegations about Mexican immigrants.

Adolf Hitler and the Nazi leadership were not religious and rallied their followers with hatred of Jews and Catholics. Donald Trump isn’t religious and rallies his followers with hatred of Muslims.

Adolf Hitler was obsessed with architecture. His paintings of buildings showed talent (but he couldn’t paint people). Donald Trump was a real estate developer before his careers in television and politics.

Adolf Hitler had Asperger’s, with poor social skills, singular obsessions with conspiracy theories, and an intolerance of anyone who disagreed with him. His deepest need was to be seen as a genius. Donald Trump has narcissism, with odd social skills, belief in conspiracy theories, and an intolerance of people who disagree with him. His deepest need is for admiration and support of his grandiose sense of self-importance.

The love of Donald Trump’s life is his daughter Ivanka. The love of Adolf Hitler’s life was his niece Geli Raubal. They valued loyalty above other qualities in relationships.

And there are many differences.

Adolf Hitler had no interest in luxuries. From 1920 to 1929 he rented a small bedroom in an apartment. He loved cars but never learned to drive. He had no interest in golf or any other sport. His relationships with women, until he was 40, were from a distance and extremely immature. When he was 40 he met 17-year-old Eva Braun, and he kept their relationship secret until their deaths sixteen years later. He had no children, but loved dogs. He never had a job or worked a day in his life, and had no skill or interest in business. He was a vegetarian and maintained his weight.

Donald Trump is obsessed with luxuries. He was a hard-working businessman and actor before going into politics. He loves his children and enjoys golf. When he was in a relationship with Marla Maples he enjoyed their relationship being discussed in stories in the tabloids. He enjoys McDonald’s hamburgers and is overweight.

The “Hitler Myth” of a lone genius who would make Germany great again was created by Dietrich Eckart, the poet and playwright. Hitler’s public persona was different from his private personality. How Hitler’s personality changed to match the public persona is a subject for another blog post.

Donald Trump’s public persona seems to be his actual personality. On The Apprentice he played a version of himself. The show was staged and edited but apparently Trump wasn’t acting.

There’s one more similarity between Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler: their opponents underestimate their intelligence. Hitler’s mentor Dietrich Eckart created a myth that Hitler was a genius. In reality, Hitler had Asperger’s and was highly intelligent at some things and not intelligent about other things. Asperger’s is believed to be an inability for different areas of the brain to communicate with each other. Without the distractions or dampening effects of other brain areas, each brain area can be super smart. But people with Asperger’s tend to fail at everyday tasks because their brain areas fail to connect.

Donald Trump doesn’t have Asperger’s but he also seems to be very smart in some ways and not at all smart in other ways. Half the country sees him as highly intelligent, perhaps a genius, when the other half of the country thinks he’s the stupidest President we’ve ever had. Who’s right? I don’t know, but anyone who underestimates Donald Trump doesn’t know history.

https://tdkehoe.medium.com/thirteen-similarities-between-donald-trump-and-adolf-hitler-3a97a8055dde



In 2016, I identified four future developments that would justify the Trump-Hitler comparison. Here are the results.

Posted February 12, 2021 by Sebastian Schutte & filed under Governance, Security

In 2016, comparing president-elect Donald Trump to all-time villain Adolf Hitler seemed overdrawn. It ultimately proved to be exaggerated in 2021, with the transition of power to Joe Biden completed. However, during his presidency, Trump has taken actions similar to the ones the Nazis used to consolidate their power. This is no partisan political statement, but the result of a simple test.

Before Trump took office, I published an analysis of the Trump-Hitler comparison on the Monkey Cage blog of the Washington Post. I pointed to four areas where Trump could copy key moves of power consolidation pioneered by the German Nazis. Then, I kept quiet on the matter for four years. History has delivered the results. Let’s take a look.



In my 2016 post, I first pointed out bottom-line changes to German society after 1933:

Nazi policies concentrated on building a cohesive national majority, to unite ‘ethnic’ Germans against Jews, foreigners, homosexuals, political critics and other minority groups. The contemporary analogy would be Trump actively pitting white Christian America against minorities in the years ahead.

Political polarization has increased during the Trump presidency. This is especially visible since the killing of George Floyd in police custody and similar high-profile incidents involving police brutality against minorities. Riots and deadly confrontations between predominately white Trump supporters and more diverse “Black Lives Matter” activists have occurred and polarized US politics along ethnic lines.

Beyond this general outlook, I highlighted four key steps that were taken by the Nazis to consolidate their power. Using history as a guide, I translated them in scenarios for contemporary America. The first step is scapegoating. I wrote:

Scapegoating was a Nazi maneuver to blame minority groups for policy failures and the weak economy. Trump has blamed foreigners and minorities for taking away jobs and killing Americans, but we need to see if this rhetoric from the campaign trail continues once he takes office.

Moreover, Nazi ideologues drew connections between their adversaries: to them, Marxists were essentially Jews, and Jews were connected to big money, so they alleged a global conspiracy against “racial” Germans — the “Jüdisch-Bolschewistische Weltverschwörung.” The equivalent today — an invented conspiracy of Trump’s domestic critics, minorities and international adversaries — would be a clear parallel and warning sign.

Trump has continued to blame foreign and domestic enemies for his policy failures. China has been blamed for the COVID-19 pandemic. Domestically, violent Anarchists, left-wing cancel culture, and the “deep state” have been blamed. Trump has never connected these dots into a Nazi-style world conspiracy, but his most ardent followers have. In the popular QAnon conspiracy theory, a child-abusing, state-run conspiracy, composed of global elites, is responsible for a wide array of social problems. Such conspiracy theories were not originally proposed by Trump, but he has embraced them, by drawing a “Q” in the air, referring to the state department as the “deep state department”, and by proposing that his reelection was stolen by a conspiracy. In summary, Trump has relied heavily on scapegoating.

A second component of the Nazi power consolidation was media co-optation. I wrote:

Media co-optation (“Gleichschaltung”) proceeded in two steps in Nazi Germany: extending ideological command over the media where possible and shutting down those media outlets Hitler could not control. In the United States today, this type of autocratic control would be virtually impossible, though attempts at censorship are imaginable. Trump has had openly hostile relations with major newspapers such as the New York Times and The Washington Post, and threatened legal action during the campaign. The role of social media in the election points to future possible points of contention. One factor that contributed in some part to Trump’s victory was propaganda containing false but factual-sounding statements that discredited Hillary Clinton on social media.

Facebook has announced that it will do more fact-checking on trending stories. Mass-media technology has changed dramatically since the 1930s — and Trump has no legal basis to shut down critical outlets. But legal quarrels between his administration, the media and social networks would be a red flag, and a threat to the First Amendment.

Four years later, the struggle over fact-checking has prevailed. Trump has repeatedly lashed out at reporters by calling them “Fake News”. He also attempted to silence critics on Twitter and sued the New York Times. The largest and most consequential attempt at media co-optation came with proposed changes to legislation that could eliminate fact-checking from the Internet. Under U.S.C. section 230, online publishers, such as social media companies, are protected from liability for presenting, but also restricting information provided by third parties. This legislation allows Twitter and Facebook to label published information as disputed or not trustworthy. If repealed without replacement, labeling something as factually incorrect could be result in costly lawsuits. Even after having lost the election, Trump threatened to veto military funding unless Section 230 was repealed. Calling Trump’s word into question would have been financially impossible for most providers, had this attempt been successful. In this sense, Trump has attempted media-cooptation.

A third component of the Nazi reign was paramilitary organizations. I wrote:

Paramilitary organizations were also part of the Nazi effort to boost national-majority cohesion. The “Sturmabteilung” (SA) violently attacked and intimidated adversaries, most notably on “Kristallnacht” in 1938, when they carried out large-scale attacks on Jews and political opponents. Thus far, the president-elect’s reaction to post-election racial violence and harassment has been a call to “stop it!” Trump rejected an endorsement from a KKK-linked newspaper before the election, but continued praise from former KKK leader David Duke leaves many Americans concerned about the potential for a rise in SA-type activities. Even more alarming would be any indication that the U.S. government would tolerate violence or racial intimidation from white supremacist groups.

In the wake of the attacks on the Capitol on January 6, direct comparisons to Kristallnacht and Hitler’s early violent power grab, the “Beer Hall Putsch” have been drawn by US politicians. Earlier than that, Trump has refused to condemn deadly right-wing attacks: after the Charlottesville car attack, Trump commented there were “very fine people on both sides”. Instead of rejecting paramilitary organizations threatening violence, Trump simply asked the “Proud Boys” to “stand down”. The threat of paramilitary violence coming from QAnon, local militias, and anti-BLM vigilantes was part of his presidency and culminated in a deadly attack on the US capitol, directly instigated by Trump. However, there is one important difference to Nazi Germany: Trump did not organize and directly control paramilitary organizations, labor service, and youth indoctrination. The Nazis did that with the SA, the Reichsbund organizations, and the Hitler Youth.

Finally, I identified emergency laws as a cornerstone of Nazi rule:

Emergency laws came about in Germany after the 1933 arson attack on the Reichstag (Germany’s parliament). Hitler used the threat of terrorism and foreign aggression to justify sweeping autocratic policies, including the 1933 Enabling Act (which let the government issue laws without the Reichstag). Similarly, the Reichstag Fire Decree in 1933 gave Hitler the power to suspend most Germans’ political and individual rights, effectively outlawing opposition parties. Changing the U.S. Constitution to abolish elections and remove freedom of speech is hardly imaginable. The United States has an uninterrupted democratic history, while Hitler was able to tap into nostalgia for the times under the last German emperor. But the United States has had similar measures in place since Sept. 11, 2001, which have boosted government surveillance while limiting checks and balances on domestic policing and the use of military force.

Trump has attempted to directly control politics while circumventing checks and balances on multiple occasions. However, the US has not seen an abolition of checks and balances comparable to the Enabling Act. Instead, “ruling by decree” was a constant element of his presidency, starting with banning Muslims from entering the country and mobilizing the National Guard during BLM protests. Additionally, he prompted to designate ANTIFA a terrorist organization, which in turn would have lowered legal barriers for employment of force.

With regard to international conflict, the picture is mixed. Trump has made good on his promise to not start a war, but he has come very close at times. Tensions with North Korea increased early on in his presidency, culminating in threats of “fire and fury” and dismissing Steve Bannon for his observation that there is no military option for the Korean peninsula. The assassination of high-ranking Iranian General Qasem Soleimani brought the countries to the brink of war, and retaliatory strikes were conducted against a US base in Iraq.

So what’s the final verdict on the comparison? Clearly, some predictions from 2016 have proven accurate. The rise of racial tensions under Trump and Hitler and analog developments in the four highlighted policy areas add weight to the comparison. But the analogy has failed to predict the course of the United States. Germany in 1933 was still grappling with its defeat in World War I, was experiencing the Great Depression, witnessed very high levels of internal violence between Nazis and Communists, and rejected its foreign-imposed democracy. Some analog circumstances exist in the United States today: the legacy of the 9/11 wars, the COVID crisis and the Great Recession before it, and the deadly violence surrounding riots and protests all fit the overall picture.

But American democracy is home-grown and held in high regard. Major parts of the Republican party, social media providers, and even Trump’s most loyal news outlets have refused to go along with unfounded claims of election interference. The Enabling Act of 1933 turned Germany from a democracy into an autocracy. At a similar junction, the United States turned the other way in 2021.

https://blogs.prio.org/2021/02/in-2...-hitler-comparison-here-are-the-results/

Trump allegedly praised Hitler as doing 'a lot of good things,' new book claims
https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/07/politics/donald-trump-adolf-hitler-book-claims/index.html

White House chief of staff John Kelly's confirms Trump's infatuation with Hitler.

OF COURSE TRUMP THINKS HITLER SHOULDN’T BE JUDGED BY THAT ONE GENOCIDE

He reportedly told his chief of staff the führer did “a lot of good things” too.

If aliens were dropped on planet Earth today and for some reason wanted a quick primer on the previous president, perhaps as a way to stop his alien counterpart from gaining power on Mars or Jupiter, the CliffsNotes on Donald Trump would start with the fact that he’s a dangerous moron prone to saying and doing things that elicit the response, “What the f--k is wrong with you?” Obviously some of the main examples illustrating his M.O. include purposely lying to the public about a deadly virus and holding super-spreader rallies with no regard for how contagious it was; throwing an international hissy fit when he was told he couldn’t buy Greenland; and the fact that he’s apparently been telling people he’s going to be president again by next month. And now we have another story that strikes at the heart of Trump’s...unique worldview, which just happens to involve Adolf Hitler.

The Guardian reports that a new book out next week recounts an exchange Trump allegedly had in Europe with his second chief of staff, John Kelly, wherein the president of the United States defended Hitler and argued the guy shouldn’t be judged by that one genocide:


Setting aside the fact that the leader of the free world had to be reminded which countries were on which side during World War II, it’s amazing, in a completely terrifying way, that Trump’s staff needed to basically sit him down and say, “Now, what did we talk about, Donny? We’re not going to say anything nice about Hitler in public today, right? Can you remember that?”

Equally scary is the fact that the white supremacist/neo-Nazi contingent of Trump’s supporters would no doubt have loved to hear him proclaim that Hitler did a lot of positive things for society, and it’s extremely easy to imagine him offering some stream of consciousness aside at one of his rallies about how “nobody ever talks about all the good things Hitler accomplished.”


In a statement a Trump spokesperson insisted to The Guardian, “President Trump never said this. It is made-up fake news, probably by a general who was incompetent and was fired.” (Trump, you may recall, has a thing for hiring people and then deeming them incompetent after they give an honest accounting of what it was like to work for him.) According to a 1990 Vanity Fair profile by Marie Brenner, Trump kept a book of Hitler’s speeches next to his bed.

Of course Trump isn’t the only member of the Republican Party with a disturbing affection for Nazis. Rep. Paul Gosar has attended at least one event with a known Holocaust denier. Meanwhile, Marjorie Taylor Greene—who made a name for herself blaming California wildfires on Jewish laser beams—has likened mask mandates and encouraging people to get vaccinated against COVID-19 to the systemic murder of 6 million Jews, which some might say downplays the latter.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/07/donald-trump-hitler-good-things

There is more to the vanityfair article but it goes on about other GOPers and their issue.

Vers, I posted all of this to prove one point, comparing Trump to Hitler and his followers to Nazis, was far from "baseless rhetoric"; but even I will concede he didn't get that far, because Trump was only responsible for a million or so deaths, and luckily some of our democracy's safeguards were able to withstand his assault on our democracy. However, anyone who takes him or his MAGA movement lightly and thinks the worse can never happen here, well they don't live in reality imho. Trump or somebody just like him is likely to be the next republican nominee, not to mention others emulating Trump or emerging from the cesspool of the Trumpian alt-right radicals, extremists, and QAnon types running for lower offices. The whole thing is STILL very much in the early stages and eerily similar to the rise of the German Nazis.

And I also don't think that individuals, like those who support Trump on this board are Nazis or think that way necessarily, and the vast majority of voters who supported him still have at least one oar paddling in reality. Most of those people just want something better and latched on over partisan political views. That said, it doesn't take a genius to see that actual American Nazis, and worldwide far right groups, including dictatorships and authoritarian regimes, all seemed to embrace Trump over his rhetoric. Have you ever seen Putin compliment another POTUS like he did Trump? Have you ever seen another POTUS act subservient to PUTIN, like Trump in Helsinki?

And it is more than fair to criticize them being called fascists, with only the strictest of comparisons to the German Nazi's during the Holocaust in mind. They didn't carry out a genocide here at home... But nobody can deny the similarities in between the MAGA Populist Movement and the rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party, in Germany. And in my opinion, fascism IS the only fitting description for the Trumpian Maga movement now AND going into the future. I base that on much of the information above and my personal feelings. And most of you will disagree on both sides of the aisle. Yet, I don't single out anyone but Trump for this now, but I think others like DeSantis or Abbott are chomping at the bit for a chance to pick the ball up and run with it, taking it all to an even more extreme level. And that level, from the evidence and actions I'm seeing in their current politics, it all screams MAGA FASCISM to me. They seem to be building the ideology as they go, one bat crap crazy thing at a time. Even moderate Republicans spend a ton of time criticizing them and the laws/things they propose or aspire to accomplish.

Furthermore, Trump came to power more rapidly than Hitler, so the organization of his followers and their grip on power was more of a "We finally have great power!, Wtf do we do now?" moment for the alt-right and those who put him in office. You could see that very early on when Donny stood and said, "I'm president, can you believe it?" The disorganized far right populist MAGA movement that swept Trump into power was without question, more chaotic than organized. Now imagine what will happen if Trump gets help or a new guy gets the lead role in 2024 and they take this movement to the next level, nobody can predict exactly what that would look like, but I CAN'T imagine it will be better than trump, dumber than trump, more disorganized than Trump, or any less authoritarian or fascist. Period.

Eventually, rather MAGA takes over America or gets tossed onto history's trash heap of failed ideologies, a term more appropriate than fascism may be coined to describe what we've all experienced, but for now it is the closest thing to a fitting description of what I think we are seeing. And of course I'll get flamed, laughed at, and piled onto just like many did when I predicted violence and bloodshed was coming on January 6th. But Hitler and the Nazis didn't fold after the first setback and neither has the MAGA movement. Time will tell, and I hope you religious types out there pray that I'm wrong. I certainly don't want to be right.

MORALITY ISSUE? LMAO, that's a good one. So, let's debate morality now... what even is morality? I think it's immoral to force women to have babies they do not want to have, many think the opposite, the ROE debate shows that much. Who gets to define these morals you uphold or bash in your rhetoric? You, obviously. because we only agree in part on what is and is not morally acceptable. What you are truly saying with a statement like "It's always good to know where people stand on morality issues.", is that you are judging based on your self perceived moral high ground and completely dismissing different points of view as wrong because they don't align with your personal morals or exist in your limited world view. And this isn't being said to insult or belittle you, Vers, I'm simply pointing out that feelings ARE NOT FACTS. So just because our biases allow YOU to perceive a thing as this or that based on how it feelZ, the same biases prevent us from always knowing what is simply mIsUnDeRsToOd and what is realZ.


So let's break this down and talk about it. Trump left office and is debatably out of power. The MAGA movement is however still very much in control of right wing politics in America. Other emerging leaders who have embraced the movement and cater to it are on the rise. They are attempting to take away existing rights, destroying any norms or institutions we have in place to protect democracy (or the Republic, for those who think that matters), to accomplish the political, religious, and ideological goals of a small subset in our society. All while a clear majority see those goals as monstrous, cruel, and unAmerican (among other things).

Guys like DeSantis and Abbott seem more dedicated this particular brand of politics and have already acted in more extreme ways than Trump (with exception of the 6th) to accomplish the goals of the base. The "do anything, at any cost" to accomplish our goals mentality is an affront to our traditional politics and political discourse. Yet, MAGA politicians and the base have embraced them and are calling for even more. Sorry you can't see it, but if it walks like a duck... and it closely resembles historical fascism... what should we call it?

Personally, I won't apologize for anything I've said about fascist or fascism. And I won't back off warning others of what I perceive as the greatest threat our democracy has ever faced. Time may prove me wrong, but you or others ranting because you don't like what I have to say? That's never going to stop me or most others like me from calling it the way we see it. I remember when that was a trait beloved on the right, it's actually where I learned it.

I guess that's more accurate because try as he did, he didn't succeed. So yeah, Wannabe is a better fit.

You have to be careful these days. Some people have confused thinking having their own opinion is the same thing as having their own set of facts. Opinions vary but there's only one set of facts.

Like the Facts you guys made up about Trump/Russia?

Tell the lie enough times and you all will believe it.

SHAME

"you guys"? I didn't make up anything about Trump and Russia colluding. I have posted facts showing Russia was involved in interfering. So has every intelligence agency in the U.S. Facts you ignore.

Quote:
That's unfair. No way in the world would Trump have executed 6 million people for any reason. No way in the world would have had the military roaming the streets w/machine guns and gunning people down. No way would we have been forced indoors.




Vers,
just for a little clarity, according to a book that Mark Esper that was vetted at the highest levels of the pentagon, trump did want to impose the insurrection act in June 2020 and put active military on the streets, especially in DC during the Floyd protests and also shoot them with our active military. Luckily as on many different instances during that presidency, there were adults in the room.




Scoop: Esper says Trump wanted to shoot protesters

Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper charges in a memoir out May 10 that former President Trump said when demonstrators were filling the streets around the White House following the death of George Floyd: "Can't you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?"



Esper, who had earlier been Secretary of the Army, was fired by Trump after the 2020 election.
That moment in the first week of June, 2020, "was surreal, sitting in front of the Resolute desk, inside the Oval Office, with this idea weighing heavily in the air, and the president red faced and complaining loudly about the protests under way in Washington, D.C.," Esper writes.

"The good news — this wasn't a difficult decision," Esper continues. "The bad news — I had to figure out a way to walk Trump back without creating the mess I was trying to avoid."
Behind the curtain: The book was vetted at the highest levels of the Pentagon. I'm told that as part of the clearance process, the book was reviewed in whole or in part by nearly three dozen 4-star generals, senior civilians, and some Cabinet members.


Context: Esper enraged Trump by publicly stating in June 2020 that he opposed invoking the Insurrection Act — an 1807 law that permits the president to use active-duty troops on U.S. soil — in order to quell protests against racial injustice.

You mean like Iran interfering in the 2020 elections to undermine Trump?

Confirmed by every intelligence agency in the U.S. Facts you ignore.

But it doesn't reflect on Biden winning in 2020 just like it doesn't reflect on Trump winning in 2016.

But you and others suggested it affected 2016 and Trump winning. That is a lie confirmed by every intelligence agency in the US.

Your other promoted accusations are now being proven to be lies in Federal Court by John Durham.

Please post receipts to back up your claim. Sources?

Russia and Iran tried to interfere with 2020 election, U.S. intelligence agencies say

-Russia and Iran both carried out operations to try to interfere in the 2020 presidential election between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, according to a U.S. intelligence report.

-The report also said there are no indications that foreign actors attempted to alter U.S. ballots or vote tabulation.


Iran, meanwhile, “carried out a multi-pronged covert influence campaign intended to undercut former President Trump’s reelection prospects.

read the entire story at...
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/16/rus...ection-us-intelligence-agencies-say.html

I was wondering if you could actually find a slanted article that didn't say Russia was still trying to influence the election for trump. It seems as though you couldn't. So Iran was interfering for trump and Iran was interfering for Biden. I notice you didn't mention a thing about the Russian interference part until you had to produce the evidence. How convenient.

How blind hate has made you.

Shame

Religion does that to people.

Irony? Projection? Or just a guy with no mirror in his cave?

The Blind leading the Blind.

Shame!

Your vision is so poor I'm amazed you still have the ability to type. But thanks for showing that when you're confronted with the facts you go back to meaningless gibberish. It was the typical result expected.

I know, I been telling you that since 2016! smh. CAN'T YOU SEE?

How Trump’s 2020 Election Lies Have Gripped State Legislatures

LANSING, Mich. — At least 357 sitting Republican legislators in closely contested battleground states have used the power of their office to discredit or try to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, according to a review of legislative votes, records and official statements by The New York Times.

The tally accounts for 44 percent of the Republican legislators in the nine states where the presidential race was most narrowly decided. In each of those states, the election was conducted without any evidence of widespread fraud, leaving election officials from both parties in agreement on the victory of Joseph R. Biden Jr.

The Times’s analysis exposes how deeply rooted lies and misinformation about former President Donald J. Trump’s defeat have become in state legislatures, which play an integral role in U.S. democracy. In some, the false view that the election was stolen — either by fraud or as a result of pandemic-related changes to the process — is now widely accepted as fact among Republican lawmakers, turning statehouses into hotbeds of conspiratorial thinking and specious legal theories.

357 lawmakers took concrete steps to discredit or overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. That amounts to 44 percent of the Republican lawmakers in those states.

23 percent took steps to delay the vote count or overturn the election by supporting lawsuits or by signing letters to Congress or former Vice President Mike Pence.

11 percent supported sending alternate slates of electors to Congress that would override the choices of voters in those states.

7 percent supported a legally dubious theory of “decertification” of the 2020 election, which legal experts say has no basis in U.S. election law.

24 percent of the Republican lawmakers voted for an outside, partisan review of the 2020 election (often referred to as an “audit”). The reviews have been used to justify new voting laws and efforts to decertify the 2020 election.

Legislators in Florida and North Carolina did not face as much pressure to overturn the election because Mr. Trump carried both states. In Nevada, Democrats control the Legislature, and though the state Republican Party pushed for alternate electors, no legislators took action.

These fictions about rigged elections and widespread fraud have provided the foundation for new laws that make it harder to vote and easier to insert partisanship in the vote count. In three states, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, state lawmakers successfully pushed for investigations that sowed doubt about the results and tested the boundaries of their oversight.

And yet The Times’s analysis also shows that these efforts have encountered significant resistance from key Republican figures, as well as Democrats. In most states, the lawmakers who challenged the 2020 results do not yet have the numbers, or the support of governors, secretaries of state or legislative leaders, to achieve their most audacious aims.

They have advanced, but not enacted, legislation that would make it easier for politicians to overturn elections. And it is only a minority of Republican lawmakers who promote the legally dubious view that they — and not the votes of the people — can select the electors who formally cast a ballot for the president in the Electoral College.

Election and democracy experts say they see the rise of anti-democratic impulses in statehouses as a clear, new threat to the health of American democracy. State legislatures hold a unique position in the country’s democratic apparatus, wielding a constitutionally mandated power to set the “times, places and manner of holding elections.” Cheered on by Mr. Trump as he eyes another run for the White House in 2024, many state legislators have shown they see that power as license to exert greater control over the outcome of elections.

In an interview with The Times, Mr. Trump acknowledged that in deciding whom to endorse in state legislative races, he is looking for candidates who want state legislatures to have a say in naming presidential electors — a position that could let politicians short-circuit the democratic process and override the popular vote.

“In 2020, the plan of Trump and his allies hinged ultimately on getting state legislatures to overturn the will of the voters,” said Ben Berwick, a counsel at Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan group. “If past is prologue, that same strategy is likely to be central to efforts to subvert an election in the future.”

The Times’s review provides only a glimpse of the ways that state legislatures fueled the movement to deny and challenge the 2020 results. The analysis focused on concrete actions and did not include lawmakers’ posts on social media or statements they made in campaign speeches.

Some legislators who were among the most vociferous in their support of subverting the election have tried to use their 2020 efforts as a springboard to higher office, all while still pledging to further remove democratic guardrails.

Doug Mastriano, the Republican state senator from Pennsylvania who won his party’s nomination for governor on Tuesday, has pushed the Justice Department to investigate debunked election conspiracies, held a legislative hearing with members of Mr. Trump’s legal team and promised to enact new voting restrictions if elected. Mark Finchem, a Republican state representative in Arizona who has pursued the dubious theory of election decertification, is a candidate for secretary of state in Arizona.

Mr. Trump’s defeat was undisputed among election officials and certified by Democratic and Republican secretaries of state, with slates of electors signed by Democratic and Republican governors. None of the many recounts or audits altered the outcome. Mr. Trump’s Department of Justice found no evidence of widespread fraud. Mr. Trump lost more than 50 of his post-election challenges in court.

His campaign to overturn the defeat played out differently across the states. Mr. Trump won Florida and had no reason to pressure lawmakers to agitate over the result, though they used distrust in the election as justification for new voting restrictions. But in Texas, another state Mr. Trump won, the deeply conservative Legislature was eager to show voters it was taking action and lawmakers introduced a bill that included provisions to overturn results in future elections.

In Nevada, Mr. Trump lost by more than 33,000 votes. But with Democrats in control of the House, Senate and governor’s office, Republicans in the State Legislature showed little interest in joining efforts by the Nevada Republican Party to send an alternate slate of electors after the 2020 election. Nevada is the only one of the nine battleground states where Democrats control the Legislature.

A call for action

Four days before the House of Representatives was set to formally tally the Electoral College votes for Mr. Biden, an act long considered purely ceremonial, Mr. Trump’s advisers gathered more than 300 state legislators on a Zoom call, according to a report by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

The former president and his allies pushed for lawmakers to change the certified results sent to Congress. Many experts said such a move would have been unconstitutional.

Peter Navarro, a former top White House adviser, told those in the group that it was their responsibility to act, describing the situation as dire. Mr. Trump told them that legislatures were the linchpin in his strategy, more important than the courts or Congress, according to the report.

The argument was based on the independent state legislature theory which asserts that state legislatures hold absolute and exclusive power over presidential elections, including the appointment of electors to the Electoral College. The idea is purely theoretical; it has never been affirmed by a court decision and most scholars say it has no merit.

Days after Mr. Trump spoke to lawmakers, members of the Pennsylvania state legislature wrote a letter to Senator Mitch McConnell, then the Senate majority leader, and Representative Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader in the House, asking them to delay certification. On Jan. 5, more than 90 legislators from Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania sent a letter to Vice President Mike Pence asking him to delay the certification of the election.

Mr. Trump has continued to try to convince state legislatures that they can “decertify” the 2020 election, a process that has no basis in either the United States Constitution nor state constitutions.

State lawmakers have responded to Mr. Trump’s calls for action largely by overhauling voting procedures. A total of 34 laws that include restrictions on voting were passed in 2021, according to a review by The Times, and 18 laws were passed this year, according to a report from the States United Democracy Center, a nonprofit group. Some limited drop boxes or mail-in voting. Others put more power over elections in the hands of state legislatures, rather than local election officials or secretaries of state.

Some bills also sought to make it easier for lawmakers to intervene in elections. An early draft of a sweeping Texas election law included a subsection titled “Overturning Elections,” though that provision was dropped before the bill’s final passage. In Arkansas, Republicans granted the State Board of Election Commissioners new powers to take “corrective action” or open investigations at every stage of the voting process. (Arkansas state legislators were not included in the Times analysis because Mr. Trump won the state handily.)

In many states, lawmakers’ first step has been to call for outside partisan investigations, often referred to as “audits,” although they do not follow typical auditing procedures or standards.

‘Audits’ as a gateway

The hunt for fraud in Arizona accelerated in the days after electors had been certified, and showed how a vocal and determined faction of Republican legislators could force through a deeply destabilizing outside election review.

The initial pursuit of fraud would devolve into a yearlong fracas between Republicans and local election officials in Maricopa County, home to Phoenix. The Republican Senate hired a shadowy outside firm with ties to election conspiracy theories to conduct an “audit,” dismissing objections from Republican county officials.

What the “audit” eventually found — that Mr. Biden had indeed won Arizona — proved irrelevant to those who had called for it. Mr. Trump and his allies focused instead on perceived irregularities in the voting process, such as 23,344 mail-in ballots sent from voters’ prior addresses and election management databases that were purged. Both practices are legal and common.

Local election officials found 76 misleading, inaccurate or false claims in the audit report.

Yet many of those claims appeared verbatim in a resolution introduced in February by Mr. Finchem, the Arizona state representative, and sponsored by 13 fellow Republicans in the Legislature. The resolution calls for “decertifying” the election. In announcing the resolution, Mr. Finchem made reference to the independent state legislature theory as a justification.

“While some may say there is no valid constitutional, nor statutory grounds for such an action, they clearly are disregarding longstanding jurisprudence,” Mr. Finchem wrote in an announcement accompanying the resolution.

The path from the reviewto the resolution shows how outside investigations can create pressure for further action.

Republican leaders in the Arizona Legislature haven’t taken up Mr. Finchem’s measure. Russell Bowers, the speaker of the Arizona House and a Republican, said that the State Legislature could only appoint its own electors if “there was proven demonstrable fraud sufficient to cover whatever balance or a gap in voters that existed.” He added, “We did not even come close to that,” and he dismissed the Senate review as a “seat-of-the-pants circus.”

Republican leaders in other battleground states are facing similar upheavals surrounding so-called audit efforts. In Wisconsin, Robin Vos, the Republican speaker of the House, at first resisted launching an outside “forensic audit.” But after public pressure from Mr. Trump, Mr. Vos relented and created a review helmed by Michael Gableman, a former State Supreme Court justice.

Mr. Gableman quickly took the investigation in a different direction. When he released an initial report of his findings in March, Mr. Gableman argued for “decertification.” One state representative, Timothy Ramthun, has put the call to decertify at the center of his campaign for governor.

Remaking legislatures in the next election

Legislative leaders have repeatedly acted as firewalls blocking anti-democratic efforts from moving forward. In the days after the election, the Republican speaker of the House and the Senate president from Michigan rebuffed Mr. Trump’s personal pleas to support an alternate slate of electors, even after being summoned to the White House.

Mr. Trump has not forgotten. Since then, he has made transforming the Michigan Legislature a pet project. He has endorsed 10 candidates for state legislative seats — including some who are challenging Republican incumbents — and is seeking to play kingmaker in the already brewing fight over who will be speaker of the House.

In the interview, Mr. Trump, who won seven million fewer votes than Mr. Biden, spread blame for his loss across several targets, including Vice President Pence, Mr. McConnell and state lawmakers.

“The legislatures, the local Republicans, lost the election,” he said.

Trump-endorsed candidates for state legislative seats have taken note.

Jonathan Lindsey, a Trump-endorsed candidate for the Michigan State Senate, said that at a minimum he thinks the State Legislature should vote on electors if an election is disputed. Regarding the 2020 election, he added: “If I were in that seat, I would have voted to send Trump electors.”

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/05/22/us/politics/state-legislators-election-denial.html


These Trumpian politicians think they will just get away with stealing the election next time and have put a traitorous contingency plan in place to have stupid for Trump reps to be the bagmen and overturn results in red states. They must like buildings burning down around them... the left will never let this happen. And they wonder why there is violence.

Yet, is races down ballot, they questioned nothing or very little.. Also, in elections where republicans won, there was no call for review. So it was only the presidential election that was under review?

Something like 100 percent of Democrats did everything possible to shut down any Republican who dared to question the election results.

If it walks like a donkey and talks like a donkey....

A troll says wha...

A sweaty bloated turd of a human.

Careful, that's a little unkind to Turds.

Never fails to amaze me how one 'side' feels they can disparage Trump, and the 'other' side, yet cry foul when it's done to a lib.

Names galore when it comes to r's, yet defense and excuses galore when it comes to a D, or biden who doesn't know where he is half the time.

Remember mean orange man bad.

Oh come one now. There have been tons of disparaging remarks poking fun at Biden's speech impediment. You think this place is for serious political discussion ? You can't take a joke? There are a handful of threads with a handful of intelligent discussion. The rest is full of BS. Take the fake outrage and indignation elsewhere.

Same for you. And yes - Orange Turd is a bad man.

Perfect example: "Biden's speech impediment"

That speech impediment only showed up in the last few years. I know people want to claim he's had it forever. But facts don't lie. He's lost now. 10 years ago? No speech impediment, at all.

And while we're at it, who's pulling his strings? he's had over 40 years of being in politics and..................? Things haven't gotten better. Other than his bank account, and his son's bank account.

But keep on with the names. It's very becoming of the left: "Hey, we can say what we want, but don't you dare say anything about our guy."

Well, they get to play the victim. So...

j/c...

Biden's "speech impediment".

You’ll Never Guess Which Celebs Have Speech Impediments!
Home»Speech/Language Pathology»You’ll Never Guess Which Celebs Have Speech Impediments!
Posted By Allied Travel Careers on Oct 8, 2014 | 0 comments
3/5 - (1 vote)
celebrities with speech impediments
Even though we don’t always like to admit it, the majority of us lead pretty basic lives compared to that of celebrities. I mean, how many times a day do you see your face on the TV screen or inside a magazine? Probably not so often, unless it’s in your facility’s newspaper.
With their perfect hair, makeup, lips, eyes, fingernails, clothes, abs and everything else, it might be pretty hard to think about celebrities being “just like us” when they aren’t on the big screen. But, there is a list of celebs that have seen SLPs like YOU for their speech impediments.
You’ll never guess which celebs had or currently still have speech impediments; here’s a list of some of the well-known:
1. Nicole Kidman: You never would have thought this Oscar award-winning actress suffered with a stuttering problem while growing up. Through the help of her speech therapist and hard work, she overcame her speech impediment (great work!)
2. Drew Barrymore: Although it’s not completely concealed, Drew Barrymore has made her lisp one of her many charming aspects.
3. Michael Phelps: You don’t need to be able to pronounce the letters s, z, f, t and d perfectly in order to earn a gold medal–Phelps doesn’t let his lisp get in the way of winnin’ big!
4. Mike Tyson: Probably one of the most distinct voices in Hollywood, Mike Tyson is well-known for his high voice and lisp– but don’t get it twisted, growing up his lisp caused him to get into many fights with those who were brave enough to make fun of him.
5. Barbara Walters: She’s been around for decades, making a name for herself and interviewing countless celebrities. Despite her being ridiculed for her lisp, she quit her speech therapy lessons and has accepted her speech impediment– congrats to her!
6. Susan Olsen: More commonly known as “Cindy Brady,” we all have heard her adorable lisp at some point in her childhood success. However, thanks to surgery she has since corrected her infamously “cute” lisp.
7. Bruce Willis: As a star in over 60 movies, it’s not commonly known that he struggled with stuttering throughout his younger years. Scared that it would ruin his dreams of acting, Bruce actually felt that it helped him to overcome his speaking issues.
8. Joseph Biden: VP Joe Biden also had a stuttering problem while growing up but has since been able to overcome it before he was first elected to the Senate back in 1973!
9. Tiger Woods: As one of the most successful golfers of all time, Tiger Woods used pet speech therapy to overcome his stuttering issues as a child. He would practice speaking correctly to his dog day in and day out!
10. Daffy Duck: Maybe one of the most known “celebs” with a lisp!
Maybe your next travel assignment will lead you to become a celebrity’s speech therapist? Who knows–after all, you are in control of your next destination with Allied Travel Careers.



https://www.alliedtravelcareers.com/blog/youll-never-guess-which-celebs-have-speech-impediments/

I didn't go back further, there were >50 pages of articles on his speech impediment since 2019