Four Bad Things in One Day

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Let me tell you what happened today.

1. The senate republicans voted against a trial for trump on procedural grounds, and while they lost it indicates there is no chance of a trial on its merits. For a second time the Republicans vote entirely on political grounds and show zero integrity.

2. Manchen (D-WVA) indicates he will not vote to get rid of the filibuster under any circumstances. Without Manchen the Democrats will lose every vote in the Senate, and with the filibuster, most bills will not even get to a vote.

3. A Trump appointed judge in Texas put a hold on the temporary block that Biden put in place on deportations. The judiciary has been destroyed and even if we passed bills the Trump judiciary would just block them.

4. The Russians, who put Trump in power, loved the insurrection and so they are now hosting Parler so the nutty boy right can plan more deaths.

I propose that given the Republicans are traitors, the judiciary is fucked, that the Democrats do not control the senate and with the right now having a secure comm channel, that the situation is about as bad as it can be.

Oh Columbia! Oh!

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Though they may defecate in the hallways of your sacred justice and put their perjuring attack dogs on your most supreme court, they do not realize that without a legitimate process the opinions and judgments from this perverted court mean nothing and have no power to command.  

 

The American People will rise up and defend you.  They will defend the will of the majority against this minority of pernicious conspirators!

 

We are coming, Columbia!  We will defend you! 

Explaining Twitter's Ban of Trump

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A friend of mine, Seth Haberman, is concerned about the free speech issues of Twitter banning Trump, who is an obvious criminal and murderer, from Twitter.  This was my response.

I suppose I should be pleased that people are trying to think about, and take seriously, such issues as freedom of speech, but I suggest you are overthinking it. Twitter supported a right wing criminal, bully and compulsive liar as long as they could, doing exactly what the Right told them to do. Then, when Trump gave that ridiculous speech and the rioters attacked the capitol, I suspect that Twitter's attorneys told their client to run for cover. Their position was and is legally weak, and the corporate sponsors knew that there was going to be a backlash from their users, from their advertisers, from voters, and from Congress. Twitter waited to the last possible moment that they plausibly could, I think they deserve credit for that. I am not sure what the final straw was, perhaps the guy in the horns, or the policeman who was murdered with the fire extinguisher to the head, or the MAGA folks defecating in the hallways of Congress, or maybe because a big part of their user base was hopping mad? Or maybe, like deVos, it was nothing of the sort, they just waited to the last minute to jump ship, at this point it is every person for themselves as they try to dodge the inevitable criminal indictments and civil lawsuits. I think it is nice that you and Merkel are concerned about the bigger first amendment issues, but I wouldnt worry, the right wing supreme court will keep things as they are. This decision was a pure CYA and had very little to do with ethics or free speech. That is and will continue to be just a superficial cover for the usual maneuvering for power and money.

Explaining Amazon's Action About Parler

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Amazon removed Parler from their cloud after the riots on Jan 6, 2020, thus putting Parler offline, at least temporarily.  Well, it was a good move, but before people think that Amazon is therefore a company of character, lets review some background here.  This is a good example of why the riot changes everything. 

 

The fact is that Parler was wildly egregious about "violent content" before the riot. But also of course Amazon did nothing whatsoever to restrain their behavior and the riot was significantly promoted and planned on that social network. Amazon wanted the money and they did not want to be accused by the right wing traitors of persecuting the right, part of the mythology of right victimization, even though they are not only not victimized, they are given extraordinary and extralegal protection they do not deserve. But now that the right attack on democracy and the us government legitimacy has been made explicit, Amazon has to act or become both liable for anything else that happens but also has to face the wrath of the shareholders. In other words, this is not an act of principle, or even of a company obeying its own guidelines, it was a craven move of corporate executives to avoid criticism of their bad corporate governance.

 

 

Cassandra Speaks

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I watched Fox News spew editorial garbage fueling the politics of resentment of the right, and yet there is no way to demand equal time to point out the nearly insane hypocrisy and even stupidity of what they were saying. I watched Putin, that KGB homicidal maniac, talking about the failure of our government. I watched Trump spend an hour on national television lying about how the election was a fraud and incite his followers to attack Congress and illegally keep him in power. And yet Trump is still in power with control of the weaponry that could destroy the world in 30 minutes. This situation was coming for years and I have been like Cassandra crying in the wilderness for all the good I have done.