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Post by disillusioned on Jan 13, 2021 10:47:55 GMT
There's an important point to make here about the power of speech. Not everyone's speech has the same power. When you're just some guy on the internet talking shit about Christians, you're not responsible for any violent action taken against Christians. When you're POTUS, and you don't just talk shit on the internet, you do it in front of large crowds, and you don't just talk shit, you say things like...
"We'll never give up, we'll never concede"
"Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore and that’s what this is all about. To use a favorite term that all of you people really came up with, we will stop the steal"
Then you direct the mob to march to the captiol "so peacefully" when you can see that it is not a peaceful mob... this after you've had your lawyer on your stage telling the same mob "let's have trial by combat"...
...well, in that situation, you are at least a little responsible for what that mob then does. Even if you didn't specifically say "storm the capitol".
Yes, you can cherry pick quotes from a transcript and spin them to make it seem like Trump wasn't trying to get the mob to stage a coup. And I can cherry pick Bible verses and make it seem like Christianity is a religion of love.
Yeshua, I just don't get why you're still bending over backwards to try and defend this guy. By any objective metric, he's a terrible human being. He lies more than he breathes. He has undermined American credibility on the world stage, and now he's de-stabilizing your country from within. Whether you wish to call it a coup or not doesn't even matter. Donald Trump has been actively undermining democracy. He's going to go, one way or another, but the damage he's done will not be quickly repaired.
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Post by logicalfallacy on Jan 13, 2021 11:38:53 GMT
I need to float the idea that if there was massive fraud by vote counters cheating (or any other method of cheating, really), then there could have been massive cheating in favor of Trump, not just Biden. And in the absence of any mainstream, replicated, reported evidence, since we live in an era of alternate facts, let me say that there was most assuredly massive vote counting fraud committed by pro-Trump vote counters. You know it, I know it, everybody knows it. Tens of millions of votes were counted incorrectly in favor of Trump. In reality (wink) Biden got 100 million votes while Trump got like 53 million. Wasnt even close. I just made that up. Trump does that all the time. Just makes stuff up. And his followers buy it. ........... Cheating most definitely goes both ways. If there was cheating, I guarantee both sides were doing it. If there was MASSIVE CHEATING, I guarantee both sides were doing it. It has always struck me as kind of weird that the Republicans insist that all the cheating was on the side of the Democrats. And yet who has the motivation to most win, and the track record of doing anything to win? Trump. Whose followers form almost cultist behavior? Trump. Whose followers wail and scream and prophesy he is going to win? (Even now) Trump. If any group had the motive to cheat it would be them. But no, 150% of the fraud was votes for Biden. Like, it wouldn't be logical that there is likely some fraud, but that fraud is most likely split fairly 50/50 thus having no real impact on the elections would it? For your personal amusement... or driving you to insanity: (These people clearly do not truly believe that everything is God's will, or that not my will but thine be done.) www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yoffm4OIn-4
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Post by taba on Jan 13, 2021 12:19:48 GMT
The Trump that was on display last week is the same man that I as a Republican opposed back in 2015 when he came down that escalator to launch his campaign. He has always been an immature, bullying narcissist. Any setback he ever suffered was never because of his own failings, it was because he was cheated, double-crossed, stabbed in the back. Before the 2016 election, he announced that the only way he could lose would be if the election were stolen. After he won fair and square in the Electoral College, he still insisted that he had also won the popular vote in a landslide, instead of getting several million votes fewer than Hillary Clinton. (Some Democrats contributed to our decline into idiocy by insisting that Trump’s legitimate victory was actually illegitimate because of supposed vote tampering: former Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid actually insisted the Russians were able to hack the vote counting).
Fast forward to 2020 and again Trump started undermining the election process by predicting massive fraud against him. He convinced most Republicans not to vote by mail, whereas Democrats favored postal voting. Although I am not a fan of voting by mail, there has never been widespread tampering with postal ballots as far as I know. Because postal voting was clearly favored more by Democrats than by Republicans, there were plenty of articles written about a “Red Wave” that would appear on election night, where votes cast in person were counted before postal votes, many of which were still coming in for days after Election Day. It looked likely that Biden would catch up as all these were counted.
Its’s true that some states have unwise policies on postal votes, counting them for days or weeks after the day. This is a recipe for trouble. It’s also true that several states bent or disregarded their own rules in this area. However the Constitution of the United States gives each state the right under our Federal system to handle its elections and it is not the role of the Federal government to overrule this. Although Republicans have typically spoken out for for states’ rights, like Democrats they actually pick and choose when to support this principle, depending on the issues involved. Principled politics, what’s that LOL!
So again in 2020 Trump alleged fraud in advance of any votes being cast and sure enough he refused to accept the results even after all 50 states had duly certified their votes. At that point there was no legal path to overturn the results: state and federal courts had rebuffed every legal argument by Trump and his team. But Trump continued to lie to his millions of supporters that not only had he won the election but that the result could still be overturned. That’s where the shameful events of last Wednesday were truly set in motion. And a handful of Republicans cynically went along with what they knew to be a futile gesture because they hoped to pick up some of Trump’s supporters for 2024: the likes of Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley. But many thousands of Trump supporters converged on Washington because they thought that their presence would impel the Congress and Mike Pence to “do the right thing”: utilize some non-existent mechanism for rejecting the votes from several states. They were duped and lied to by Trump and his cronies. Then Trump appeared to the gathered masses and urged them to head down to the Capitol or else they would lose their country. He told them he’d be right there with them. Then as they marched on the Capitol, Trump got back in his armored limousine and went back to the White House to watch it on TV. The rest is history. Unfortunately the Capitol Police were totally unprepared and overwhelmed.
Looking back on the last few years, I approve of some things Trump did, like judicial appointments, especially to the Supreme Court. The hysteria with which Democrats responded to Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and especially Brett Kavanaugh was a disgrace. The hole we are currently in as a country was dug with plenty of Democratic Party shovels. But Trump has topped everybody with his behavior. He should never have made it as far as the Republican nomination, which is part of the reason why I favor eliminating primaries for choosing Presidential candidates. As much as I dislike the Democratic Party, and as much as I distrust most of the media, I’ll be glad when Trump is finally gone from the White House.
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Post by yeshuapantera on Jan 13, 2021 14:59:44 GMT
There's an important point to make here about the power of speech. Not everyone's speech has the same power. When you're just some guy on the internet talking shit about Christians, you're not responsible for any violent action taken against Christians. When you're POTUS, and you don't just talk shit on the internet, you do it in front of large crowds, and you don't just talk shit, you say things like... "We'll never give up, we'll never concede" "Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore and that’s what this is all about. To use a favorite term that all of you people really came up with, we will stop the steal" Then you direct the mob to march to the captiol "so peacefully" when you can see that it is not a peaceful mob... this after you've had your lawyer on your stage telling the same mob "let's have trial by combat"... ...well, in that situation, you are at least a little responsible for what that mob then does. Even if you didn't specifically say "storm the capitol". Yes, you can cherry pick quotes from a transcript and spin them to make it seem like Trump wasn't trying to get the mob to stage a coup. And I can cherry pick Bible verses and make it seem like Christianity is a religion of love. Yeshua, I just don't get why you're still bending over backwards to try and defend this guy. By any objective metric, he's a terrible human being. He lies more than he breathes. He has undermined American credibility on the world stage, and now he's de-stabilizing your country from within. Whether you wish to call it a coup or not doesn't even matter. Donald Trump has been actively undermining democracy. He's going to go, one way or another, but the damage he's done will not be quickly repaired. I'm not actually bending over backwards to defend Trump. I've been paying attention to the accusations coming mainstream media since the 2016 election. There's a pattern of false allegations the whole way through. I don't know if it started with the claim that nazi's are good people, but that certainly began my interest in looking closer at what actually was said. There was an issue of taking down a statue. He said that there were good people on both sides of the issue of taking down a statue. Then immediately qualified the statement by adding that he's not talking about neo-nazi's either, who he condemns. That's the transcript of the incident. Nevertheless, left wing media sources ran around announcing that Trump said neo-nazi's are good people. Completely out of the context that he specifically qualified. This is what hate looks like from another perspective. They hate a president (could be any president) so much that they're foaming at the mouth to try and put words into his mouth. And I've watched it happen over, and over, and over again. He's an easy target. And that's his problem. Everything you quoted, btw, has a context within the legal system and constitutional arguments that they were staying consistent with. They tried the courts. They tried the legislatures. At this point they were protesting. About the 12th amendment. He said all along that he would fight to the end, legally. He told everyone to stand down and leave the capitol building, while maintaining that his arguments are correct. He sent in the national guard and arrests have been made. This is the objective reality outside of emotional, partisan based appeals. A guy with half a million people behind him in Washington, could have wiped out two of the three branches of government right then and there if he wanted to. Simple explanation, he didn't want to. And the opposite happened. Everyone was told to stand down and obey the law. I'm afraid that you're allowing yourself to get too caught up in the subjective claims of mainstream media outlets, who, when challenged, have no strong basis in fact. I understand people diverging politically and favoring one person or party over another. I preferred to keep the GOP in power this time around. But not emotionally. I have no emotional investment in the GOP. I actually believe in letting it go and moving on. Like I said, I think Trump is toast. Pence, or Cruz or someone else will probably get the nomination. It just is what it is. And I have no idea right now who's side I will prefer in 4 years. It all depends on what's going on and who's running. If I don't like or agree with the GOP candidate, I won't vote for them. It's that simple.
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Post by disillusioned on Jan 13, 2021 15:00:41 GMT
I need to float the idea that if there was massive fraud by vote counters cheating (or any other method of cheating, really), then there could have been massive cheating in favor of Trump, not just Biden. And in the absence of any mainstream, replicated, reported evidence, since we live in an era of alternate facts, let me say that there was most assuredly massive vote counting fraud committed by pro-Trump vote counters. You know it, I know it, everybody knows it. Tens of millions of votes were counted incorrectly in favor of Trump. In reality (wink) Biden got 100 million votes while Trump got like 53 million. Wasnt even close. I just made that up. Trump does that all the time. Just makes stuff up. And his followers buy it. ........... Cheating most definitely goes both ways. If there was cheating, I guarantee both sides were doing it. If there was MASSIVE CHEATING, I guarantee both sides were doing it. It has always struck me as kind of weird that the Republicans insist that all the cheating was on the side of the Democrats. And yet who has the motivation to most win, and the track record of doing anything to win? Trump. Whose followers form almost cultist behavior? Trump. Whose followers wail and scream and prophesy he is going to win? (Even now) Trump. If any group had the motive to cheat it would be them. But no, 150% of the fraud was votes for Biden. Like, it wouldn't be logical that there is likely some fraud, but that fraud is most likely split fairly 50/50 thus having no real impact on the elections would it? For your personal amusement... or driving you to insanity: (These people clearly do not truly believe that everything is God's will, or that not my will but thine be done.) www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yoffm4OIn-4 I find it interesting that republican members of congress objected to the legitimacy of the election when they themselves were elected with the exact same ballots that they are claiming were fraudulent. I don't even understand what the argument is supposed to be. Only the presidential section of the ballots were fraudulent? That hardly seems plausible. Then again, nothing about their allegations has been particularly plausible, so I guess it fits.
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Post by disillusioned on Jan 13, 2021 15:13:50 GMT
There's an important point to make here about the power of speech. Not everyone's speech has the same power. When you're just some guy on the internet talking shit about Christians, you're not responsible for any violent action taken against Christians. When you're POTUS, and you don't just talk shit on the internet, you do it in front of large crowds, and you don't just talk shit, you say things like... "We'll never give up, we'll never concede" "Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore and that’s what this is all about. To use a favorite term that all of you people really came up with, we will stop the steal" Then you direct the mob to march to the captiol "so peacefully" when you can see that it is not a peaceful mob... this after you've had your lawyer on your stage telling the same mob "let's have trial by combat"... ...well, in that situation, you are at least a little responsible for what that mob then does. Even if you didn't specifically say "storm the capitol". Yes, you can cherry pick quotes from a transcript and spin them to make it seem like Trump wasn't trying to get the mob to stage a coup. And I can cherry pick Bible verses and make it seem like Christianity is a religion of love. Yeshua, I just don't get why you're still bending over backwards to try and defend this guy. By any objective metric, he's a terrible human being. He lies more than he breathes. He has undermined American credibility on the world stage, and now he's de-stabilizing your country from within. Whether you wish to call it a coup or not doesn't even matter. Donald Trump has been actively undermining democracy. He's going to go, one way or another, but the damage he's done will not be quickly repaired. I'm not actually bending over backwards to defend Trump. I've been paying attention to the accusations coming mainstream media since the 2016 election. There's a pattern of false allegations the whole way through. I don't know if it started with the claim that nazi's are good people, but that certainly began my interest in looking closer at what actually was said. There was an issue of taking down a statue. He said that there were good people on both sides of the issue of taking down a statue. Then immediately qualified the statement by adding that he's not talking about neo-nazi's either, who he condemns. That's the transcript of the incident. Nevertheless, left wing media sources ran around announcing that Trump said neo-nazi's are good people. Completely out of the context that he specifically qualified. This is what hate looks like from another perspective. They hate a president (could be any president) so much that they're foaming at the mouth to try and put words into his mouth. And I've watched it happen over, and over, and over again. He's an easy target. And that's his problem. Everything you quoted, btw, has a context within the legal system and constitutional arguments that they were staying consistent with. They tried the courts. They tried the legislatures. At this point they were protesting. About the 12th amendment. He said all along that he would fight to the end, legally. He told everyone to stand down and leave the capitol building, while maintaining that his arguments are correct. He sent in the national guard and arrests have been made. This is the objective reality outside of emotional, partisan based appeals. A guy with half a million people behind him in Washington, could have wiped out two of the three branches of government right then and there if he wanted to. Simple explanation, he didn't want to. And the opposite happened. Everyone was told to stand down and obey the law. I'm afraid that you're allowing yourself to get too caught up in the subjective claims of mainstream media outlets, who, when challenged, have no strong basis in fact. I understand people diverging politically and favoring one person or party over another. I preferred to keep the GOP in power this time around. But not emotionally. I have no emotional investment in the GOP. I actually believe in letting it go and moving on. Like I said, I think Trump is toast. Pence, or Cruz or someone else will probably get the nomination. It just is what it is. And I have no idea right now who's side I will prefer in 4 years. It all depends on what's going on and who's running. If I don't like or agree with the GOP candidate, I won't vote for them. It's that simple. I largely disagree with this, but that's fine. For the record, I have no particular emotional attachment whatsoever to ANY american politician or political party. I pretty much think they are all terrible. And I don't consume American mainstream media in large quantities, but where I do, I watch, read, and listen to both sides as much as I can, and I draw my own conclusions. When I do consume American media, I find myself quickly growing tired of hearing from (mostly) right-wing pundits that what I've observed isn't actually what I've observed. To be honest, there's some of that going on here to. You believe whatever you like. Support whoever you like. Vote for whoever you like. I don't care. Not my country, not my problem. It is interesting to watch from the outside though...
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Post by yeshuapantera on Jan 13, 2021 15:13:54 GMT
Guys, I think there were clearly two things at play here. One, you're all right about Trump and what he said about 2016 and forecasting that he would be cheated if he lost in 2020. But secondly, I think at least two realities were at play. I've been looking at the fraud cases. It's not just Trump's imagination. There is a lot of evidence of tampering, either willfully or otherwise. I posted another thread about scientific data analysis. And if you watch the entire video and consider the analysis they bring forward, it most certainly did occur in both directions!!!
Entire batches of votes were being gone through and labeled as either Trump or Biden, instead of inspecting each and every vote. They were being passed off by the 100's to Trump or Biden, without individual, dual party inspection of each ballot as required. There's a lot going on here. That's why a lot of people want audits. And want to know who actually had how many votes. We don't have any way of knowing for sure. It's jumbled mess. Not the most secure and well orchestrated election to date as many left wing media outlets, American or abroad, keep repeating.
Midnight is right, it could be anything. How many votes were legally cast? What role did the "vote shifting," that did occur, play in terms of raw numbers.
I have a problem with either Trump or Biden claiming a landslide when the truth is that we don't know. Some of these people claim that Trump was closer to 80,000,000 (minus the vote switches and unlawful votes) and Biden as around 68,000,000. That's another guestimate. The unprecedented voter numbers do seem to raise an eyebrow. Both of them surpassed by far,any previous vote count for any previous presidential election.
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Post by disillusioned on Jan 13, 2021 16:45:38 GMT
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Post by Midnight Rider on Jan 13, 2021 18:33:26 GMT
[/quote]I find it interesting that republican members of congress objected to the legitimacy of the election when they themselves were elected with the exact same ballots that they are claiming were fraudulent. I don't even understand what the argument is supposed to be. Only the presidential section of the ballots were fraudulent? That hardly seems plausible.
Then again, nothing about their allegations has been particularly plausible, so I guess it fits.[/quote]
Logic says if part of a ballot is fraudulent, the rest of the ballot can't be legitimate either.
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Post by yeshuapantera on Jan 13, 2021 19:39:47 GMT
I think it's fair to point out that you're introducing the idea that: 'Due to the technicalities of the way in which the court cases were framed, not stating a cause of action for fraud, means that we can safely conclude that there isn't any evidence of fraud.' But it doesn't follow that there wasn't 'hard evidence of fraud in existence' based on the direction of the Trump teams legal strategy. And you then may ask, 'what is the strategy then?' Well, from reading your links, to keep it in context, it's apparent that the legal strategies consisted of pointing out irregularities and errors in the voting process. Getting from the irregularities to intent of fraud crosses another bridge. You have to get through one stage to get to the other. Were these errors just mistakes or was their conscious intent behind them? This all has to be played out in court. But it wasn't allowed to play out. So we don't have the sort of knowledge to base these speculations on that would come from the advantage of allowing these cases to be fully played out. You're conclusion doesn't follow. There actually is a lot of evidence that points towards problems of illegally cast and certified votes in key battle ground states. Trying to pin that down to specific people is possible, but another bridge to cross. And can't be used to determine that no evidence of fraud exists.
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Post by taba on Jan 13, 2021 19:55:23 GMT
I think what needs to play out in courts is various challenges to how some states run their elections. Plenty of room for improvement in many cases. But those challenges need to be at the state level: the federal government has no power to tell states how to run their elections. Powers not assigned to the US Government in the Constitution are reserved to the States. In any case, at noon on January 20, Biden will be the duly elected President per the Constitution, whether I like it or not.
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Post by yeshuapantera on Jan 13, 2021 20:01:52 GMT
There are allegations of ballot dumps being brought in that had NO DOWN BALLOT filled out. Meaning that someone filled out mass amounts of ballots quickly, only marking the presidential race at the top of each ballot. Not taking the time to fill out anything else for the house, senate or any local positions. Not saying that answers everything, but it's part of the overall controversy.
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Post by yeshuapantera on Jan 13, 2021 20:27:06 GMT
I think what needs to play out in courts is various challenges to how some states run their elections. Plenty of room for improvement in many cases. But those challenges need to be at the state level: the federal government has no power to tell states how to run their elections. Powers not assigned to the US Government in the Constitution are reserved to the States. In any case, at noon on January 20, Biden will be the duly elected President per the Constitution, whether I like it or not. That's what it came down to in the Senate. People wonder why so many republican's stepped back, this is why. Republicans generally err on the side of states rights. Lindsey Graham made that pretty clear. These cases have to be settled at the state level and prior to certification. Some people had other theories about the 12th amendment. But those theories fell flat on the Senate floor with Pence and others. I don't know how well the non-American's understand what happened, so I'm trying to simplify. This is where republicans were diverging in opinion. I agree with the need to see improvements in state elections. States did break their own election laws and state constitutions, as well as the federal constitution. But the conclusion was basically, once the states certified their electoral votes, that's it. Whether they certified legal votes or not, the Senate didn't seem to care. What I don't like about the message that this sent out, obviously, is that if you can get away with cheating by pushing it all the way through state certification, nothing will be done about it. And if a candidate receives illegal votes, it doesn't matter. It will not be investigated thoroughly anyways. The door is wide open to irregularity's, unlawful adjudication of mass ballots, and everything else found by forensic data research. And yes, whether we like it or not, Biden is due to be inaugurated on 1/20/21. We literally have to take it for what it is and hope that within the next four years pressure to get the problematic states in order will happen. When it was Florida, we had to wear it like a badge of dishonor. Until we eventually tightened up our state election system and officials....
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Post by disillusioned on Jan 13, 2021 21:47:46 GMT
I think it's fair to point out that you're introducing the idea that: 'Due to the technicalities of the way in which the court cases were framed, not stating a cause of action for fraud, means that we can safely conclude that there isn't any evidence of fraud.' But it doesn't follow that there wasn't 'hard evidence of fraud in existence' based on the direction of the Trump teams legal strategy. And you then may ask, 'what is the strategy then?' Well, from reading your links, to keep it in context, it's apparent that the legal strategies consisted of pointing out irregularities and errors in the voting process. Getting from the irregularities to intent of fraud crosses another bridge. You have to get through one stage to get to the other. Were these errors just mistakes or was their conscious intent behind them? This all has to be played out in court. But it wasn't allowed to play out. So we don't have the sort of knowledge to base these speculations on that would come from the advantage of allowing these cases to be fully played out. You're conclusion doesn't follow. There actually is a lot of evidence that points towards problems of illegally cast and certified votes in key battle ground states. Trying to pin that down to specific people is possible, but another bridge to cross. And can't be used to determine that no evidence of fraud exists. Ok, have it however you like. I certainly can't comment on whether or not there were irregularities, and it may well be the case that election processes can improved. However, a few things bear pointing out... Trump and his spokespeople loudly claimed, ad nauseum, that there was hard evidence of fraud which they were going to present in court. Then they didn't. You yourself, on the other boards,claimed repeatedly that you wanted to see how this played out in court. Well, it has now played out. Aparently now that's not good enough. Again, have it however you like. My assertion that there is no hard evidence does not mean that there is no evidence. There's evidence of all kinds of things. But evidence doesn't get you much, I'm afraid, unless its hard evidence. If you have hard, conclusive evidence, well, then you can get some things done. That clearly isn't the case here. Also, when courts dismiss cases, it is generally because they don't have merit. Saying "it wasn't allowed to play out" isn't an argument. It wasn't allowed to play out because the lawsuits were frivolous. But again, have it however you like.
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Post by taba on Jan 13, 2021 22:04:37 GMT
Also, when courts dismiss cases, it is generally because they don't have merit. Saying "it wasn't allowed to play out" isn't an argument. It wasn't allowed to play out because the lawsuits were frivolous. I have to say that's how I see it too. Numerous courts turned away the Trump team's arguments thusly - including the US Supreme Court. When I talked above about letting things play out in state courts, I meant that any controversies about how states conduct their elections should be resolved in those states' courts before future elections. I don't think that's what yeshuapantera meant, but it is what I meant.
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