The really big question is how testimony from Trump insiders will sway public opinion—and thus Trump’s chances in the Republican primary. Right now, most Republicans think the whole thing is a big witch hunt…. But if dozens of Republicans formerly loyal to Trump come out and testify that he committed crimes, some Republican voters might decide that Trump is indeed a criminal.
More people should abandon Internet discourse and get into observing/engaging with local politics. I say this not because local politics often offers more meaningful opportunities for effective praxis (although it does), but because local politics often offers just as much highly toxic and entertaining petty drama.
I highly recommend city council meetings. You might make yourself an informed voter and active community member or something. You also might get to watch an ongoing soap opera of old men ready to murder one another over trash collection ordinances, and unlike the Internet, none of them can effectually tell one another to kill themselves no matter how hard and how clearly they are thinking it.
If your solution to some problem relies on “If everyone would just…” then you do not have a solution. Everyone is not going to just. At not time in the history of the universe has everyone just, and they’re not going to start now.
there isn’t a “kill all the ____” that will fix the problems of the world, because,
1. you probably can’t. 2. if you did, more of them would probably come into existence, or 3. other people would come to fit the same social position. 4. There isn’t a group of Fundamentally Bad Evil People that Cause All The Problems, because 5. Harm isn’t caused by a type of person. everyone causes harm and an effective system of addressing harm has to contend with that. 6. you will end up expanding the definition of ____ to include whoever else you want to kill anyway. which will suck. 7. Destruction without building will leave nothing behind. New harms will arise. Old harms will continue. Because there is nothing to replace them. There is nothing Helpful being done. a better world isn’t created by just getting rid of all the bad stuff and calling it a day. you have to actually make something that meets peoples needs. 8. structures of power and harm sometimes maintain themselves even if no one intends them to or purposefully wants them to. 9. systems of power will end up finding a scapegoat. they will convince you that some marginalized group are the real ____ and you should focus on them. and in your zeal and blood thirst you, or at least some of your allies, will fall for it. And you will commit atrocities. 10. The world that is created can only come from the world that is.
And look, whatever group you are thinking of – yes I mean them too. Pedophiles, rapists, murderers, sociopaths, nazis, billionaires, cops, you name it. Harm and oppression is far too complicated to ever be solved with Finding The Right Group To Kill.
And there are lots of really great arguments to be made about why eliminationist rhetoric is ethically bad, or historically questionable, etc. I am open to that being added on and talked about too.
But my point is that It Will Not Accomplish Your Desired Results. You Will Have Committed Atrocities and You Will Have Failed At Achieving Your Initial Goal.
People say that you can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs, but I say that it’s amazing how many eggs you can break without making an omelet.
“The end justifies the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have is means.”
-Ursula K. Le Guin
religious argument for your unpleasant aunt: look, god himself tried to kill all the bad people off in one big flood, but there were bad people again in like one generation. why do you think your favorite political party is going to do better.
There has been a call for Donald Trump’s eventual jury trial to be televised. Of course, based on current law, procedure, and practice, it seems unlikely this will come to pass. Before the proponents of televising the trial embark upon their campaign, they should keep in mind that everything in the trial would be televised around the nation (and the globe, for that matter).
I could see Trump thinking he is going to get convicted anyway, and he’s never actually going to see the inside of a real jail/prison cell, so he might as well use this platform to go 110% MAGA and stolen election conspiracy. His audience wouldn’t be the jury but the millions of people watching their TVs. Attorneys would object but the question gets out and, in some respects, getting shut down would let Trump say they “couldn’t handle the truth!”
SMMFH:“Vivek Ramaswamy suggests U.S. may be aiding Ukraine because of Hunter Biden”
SIGH….I would like to say a few things about this dumb ass kissing MOFO but ….
“Was the payment to Hunter Biden corrupt? Absolutely it was. Do I think that it has some relationship towards our posture toward Ukraine? I think it’s likely that it does,” Ramaswamy said.
@eaudrey35 the shit assholes like him will say for any type of recognition and attention. A good bitch slap and kick could help him with his issues.
@eaudrey35 @glendathegoodone
Vivek Ramaswamy calls Juneteenth ‘useless’ 2 months after posting a video celebrating it. The GOP presidential candidate also said it was “redundant” and that it overlapped with other holidays, like Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Presidents Day.
VAIL, Iowa — Vivek Ramaswamy suggested canceling Juneteenth, calling it a “useless” holiday in a conversation with Iowa voters Saturday.
Less than two months ago, however, he posted a video on social media celebrating the day.
Breaking down his plan Saturday to institute a national voting holiday, Ramaswamy, a GOP presidential candidate, proposed making space for the new holiday by canceling an old one.
“Cancel Juneteenth or one of the other useless ones we made up,” Ramaswamy told an applauding crowd gathered at a welding company here.
Asked by NBC News to clarify whether he thought Juneteenth was a “useless” holiday, Ramaswamy said, “I basically do.”
Less than two months ago, on Juneteenth itself, he spoke differently about the celebration.
Bringing the bigotry front and center.
<Sigh> The republican presidential debate is going to be one big cage match with every candidate screaming to prove that they’re the biggest fascist of all, isn’t it?
A federal judge has asked Rudy Giuliani to clarify his “seemingly incongruous and certainly puzzling caveats” in a recent filing in which he appears to admit he made false and defamatory statements about two Georgia election workers in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election.
But Mr Giuliani and his attorney have argued that the extremely carefully worded filing – which attempts to move the case along to avoid revealing more evidence – is not an admission.
He “concedes solely for the purposes of this litigation” that he made “false” statements about Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss that “carry meaning that is defamatory per se”, according to the filing on 26 July.
US District Judge Beryl Howell, however, wants to know “precisely” what he’s admitting to.
In their testimony to the House select committee investigating the events surrounding the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, Ms Freeman and Ms Moss revealed the depth of abuse they endured, forcing them from their jobs and making them feel unsafe after the former president and Mr Giuliani promoted debunked conspiracy theories involving them.
Those claims also are included in a federal indictment accusing Donald Trump of three criminal conspiracies and obstruction surrounding his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. One of the six unnamed co-conspirators in the indictment is believed to be Mr Giuliani.
During a committee hearing in Georgia’s House of Representatives on 10 December 2020, Mr Giuliani baselessly accused the women of “quite obviously surreptitiously passing around USB ports as if they are vials of heroin or cocaine” and suggested that they were criminals whose “places of work, their homes, should have been searched for evidence of ballots, for evidence of USB ports, for evidence of voter fraud,” according to the indictment. Prosecutors added that women “received numerous death threats” after the hearing.
They later filed a defamation suit against Mr Giuliani as well as right-wing outlet One American News Network, which settled with the women last year.
A report from Georgia’s State Election Board following a year-long investigation also dismissed bogus claims of election fraud and cleared the allegations against the women.
The fraud claims were “unsubstantiated and found to have no merit,” the investigation concluded.
A late-night federal court filing from Mr Giuliani’s attorneys on 25 July states that he “concedes solely for the purposes of this litigation” that he made false statements about Ms Freeman and Ms Moss, published those statements to third parties, and that they “carry meaning that is defamatory per se”.
The filing also concedes that his statements meet the “factual elements of liability” for their claims that amounted to “intentional infliction of emotional distress”.
In a video after the filing, he added: “I have not admitted that I lied, at any point. I haven’t.”
Judge Howell’s latest filing orders Mr Giuliani to try again without the legalese.
“Given the seemingly incongruous and certainly puzzling caveats contained in the Giuliani Stipulation, plaintiffs’ counsel recounts efforts to obtain clarification from defendant Giuliani’s counsel,” the order states.
He must submit another filing by 8 August that concedes “all factual allegations” of the case against him “as to his liability for plaintiffs’ defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and civil conspiracy claims, and his liability as to plaintiffs’ claim for punitive damages.”
It looks like Giuliani is trying to make an Alford plea in a civil case.
Until recently, DeSantis has tried not just to avoid criticism of Trump in regard to the Capitol riots on Jan. 6, but to avoid interacting at all with mainstream reporters who might ask him about it. Now he’s not only sitting down with biased MSM libs, he’s telling them (as he told NBC) that Republicans will lose in 2024 if it becomes a “referendum” on Jan. 6th “or what document was left by the toilet at Mar-a-Lago.” Having failed to persuade his party’s voters to support his candidacy on its own merits, DeSantis is now tiptoeing toward the task of challenging some 40 percent or more of them about their core factual beliefs.
[Trump’s] campaign has been forced to focus substantially more energy on legal matters than actual promotion of the candidate. This is partly due to legal desperation, but also partly due to a lack of concern over political matters. In the GOP primary, Ron DeSantis is polling around 17 percent compared to Trump’s 54. No one else is even registering as a competitor. Right now, winning over Republican voters is simply not Trump’s top priority.
