ChiGoose

The Slack channel is called #social-watercooler. Really seems unlikely that's where policy decisions are made...

...and? The GOP does the same. Any candidate the Dems nominate will be decried as an anti-American socialist who wants to open the borders and destroy the police. In a two-party system, everything about elections is zero-sum and incentivizes our worst tendencies.

Is he? I would be surprised if most Dems think he's a hero. Like Liz Cheney, what I've seen from the Left is begrudging respect for doing the right thing. Then again, you get people who want attention and say crazy things like they are now Democrats or that the Dems should run Cheney on their 2024 ticket.

It doesn't. It does raise the question of why the Proud Boys would invite a documentarian if they were going to be committing crimes but there could be other reasons for it. Maybe they didn't think what they were doing was a crime. Or maybe they're stupid. We're talking about people with an initiation ritual of trying to name cereal brands while being beat up. The article raises the question, but it does not answer it.

I watched the second day of the Jan 6th hearings and thought I would put a recap here for people who do not have two hours to watch it. Due to the length, I may not be able to include every statement and witness, but will include the main witnesses and important testimony. When evaluating the testimony, I think it’s important to remember that the witnesses here were sworn in prior to testifying. Which means that if they lie, they expose themselves to perjury charges. I would keep that in mind when comparing it to people on Twitter or podcasts who have no penalty for lying. Also of note: the committee stated that it will release all of the materials from the hearing, though I have not seen it yet. I imagine they will post it to the Committee's website. Link to the hearing. RECAP: Eric Herschmann (former White House Lawyer): Never saw any evidence to sustain the Dominion allegations The claims were nuts and Rudy Giuliani never proved his allegations Matt Morgan (former Trump Campaign General Counsel): Assessed that the stolen election claims were not sufficient to be outcome changing Chris Stirewalt (Former Fox News Politics Editor): After the votes were counted, Joe Biden won the election In the 40-50 years of absentee ballots, Dems prefer early voting & absentee while GOP prefers election day. This is called the Red Mirage: election day results will start better for GOP and then shift as the absentee and early vote is tallied. We knew this was going to be more pronounced due to the pandemic and problematic because the Trump campaign was clear they wanted to exploit it. Fox News partnered with the Associated Press and the University of Chicago to build a better election forecasting device. As votes come in, they compare them to their model and the Arizona tallies matched their forecast exactly Calling Arizona was a unanimous decision by their team and they are proud for getting it right and beating the competition As of November 7th (four days after Election Day), there was essentially no chance that Trump could win Jason Miller (Trump Campaign Senior Advisor): Team was aware of the red mirage and was discussing it as the results started coming in The atmosphere in the room changed when Fox called Arizona While Giuliani wanted Trump to declare victory, Miller did not think it was appropriate given the results Bill Stepien (Trump Campaign Manager): Told Trump the early numbers would be good but would change during the night (red mirage). Tried to convince Trump that mail-in voting was a good thing. They can lock in votes early and not leave it to chance on election day The GOP had an advantage on the grassroots level that would give them an edge on getting the votes in Assigned Alex Cannon to look at the Arizona claims: baseless (claims of illegal voters were just people overseas voting legally) Bill Barr (Attorney General): Trump claimed fraud without evidence because the results were changing as the night went on. Barr was not concerned as they knew this would happen (red mirage) Trump’s claim that the election was stolen was “bull####” Barr had his team look into any allegations of fraud they received and determined they were without merit, bogus, and based on misinformation. Barr told Trump that the DoJ was looking into the claims but found them to be without merit Mark Meadows and Jared Kushner told Barr they were working to turn Trump around On Trump’s claims about Detroit: Instead of counting precincts, Detroit brings all of the ballots to a central location for tallying; meaning there would be trucks bringing in ballots from around the city at all hours Also, Trump did better in Detroit than they had expected On Dominion claims: idiotic and disturbing. Absolutely zero basis for the allegations Trump had a report that he claimed proved he won. Barr read it and found it to be amateurish and lacked supporting evidence for its claims. Barr: “If he really believes this stuff, he’s become detached from reality” Barr’s opinion is that the election was not stolen and there was no evidence that it was On 2,000 Mules: “In a nutshell, we were unimpressed with it.” The cellphone data was unimpressive. Mentioned that a contractor said their truck alone probably accounted for 6 of the “mules” since their work route took them by a drop box regularly Even if the ballots were harvested, courts would not throw away legitimate votes. They would still open the ballots, do the verification process and tabulate the legal votes On Philadelphia claims: Turnout was in line with the rest of PA. Trump actually ran weaker than other GOP candidates on the ballot (behind 2 of the statewide candidates and the congressional delegation). That does not suggest fraud On allegations that more people voted absentee in PA than requested ballots: They compared apples to oranges: took the requested absentee ballots for the primary and compared to the absentee votes in the general. When looking at apples to apples, there was no discrepancy Jeffrey Rosen (Acting Attorney General): “There were instances where the president would say ‘I heard this, etc.’ and we were in position to say we have looked at that and you’re getting bad information. It’s not correct. It’s been debunked” Derek Lyons (Counselor to the President): Campaign told Trump that the claims of fraud were unsubstantiated and could not be the basis for challenging the election Alex Cannon (Trump Campaign Lawyer): Told Peter Navarro that the hand recount in Georgia would resolve any issues with the technology or Dominion, and that Chris Krebbs (CISA) had released report that the technology was secure. Navarro told him that he and Krebbs were part of the Deep State working against Trump Had brief conversation with Mike Pence in November. Pence asked if he was finding anything with voter fraud. Cannon told him he was not finding anything sufficient to alter the course of the election. Pence thanked him Richard Donoghue (Acting Deputy Attorney General): Tried to be clear to Trump that after dozens of investigations and hundreds of interviews, the claims of fraud were not supported by the evidence. The info Trump was getting was false There were so many claims of fraud that when you debunked one, Trump would accept it but then ask about another one Claim of 68% error rate in Michigan: was actually 0.00063% Claim by PA truck driver of shipping ballots: Investigated who loaded and unloaded the truck, no evidence to support claim Claims about Georgia suitcase: Talked to the witnesses, there was no suitcase. If you watch the video closely, it’s an official lockbox Claims about scanning ballots multiple times: No evidence Claims that Native Americans were being paid to vote: No evidence BJ Pak (US Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia): Bill Barr asked him to look into a video from State Farm Arena that purported to prove fraud. Pak found the alleged suitcase was an official lockbox There was a mistake where they thought they were done counting for the night, so they sent the election watchers home and packed up. The Secretary of State corrected them and told them to continue counting There was no evidence to support the claim of widespread fraud in Georgia Pak left his position and was replaced by someone handpicked by Trump. They continued the investigations and found no evidence to support the claims Al Schmidt (City Commissioner of Philadelphia): On Claim of 8,000 dead voters: could not find evidence of even 8 They took every claim seriously, no matter how absurd it appeared When Trump tweeted about Schmidt by name, his family received threats that included the names and ages of his family as well as his home address and other personal details Ben Ginsburg (Leading GOP election lawyer for GOP presidential candidates since 2000): Normal course of action after an election is to analyze the precinct results to look for abnormalities and send people to ask questions Check with poll workers and observers to see if they found any irregularities (Trump campaign stated they had 50,000 observers) The problem for the Trump campaign was that the election was not close. In Arizona, they were down by ~10,000 votes. When Ginsburg argued Bush v Gore, the difference was 537 votes in 2000 That kind of gap is not made up in a recount The claim that the Trump campaign was not given the opportunity to provide evidence in court was false: about half of the 62 cases, there were discussions on the merits and in no instance did the court find the claim to be real There were post-election reviews in the battleground states that found no evidence of fraud Rep. Zoe Lofgren lead most of the hearing and also played video testimony from a staffer on the committee as well as some Trump campaign employees discussing the post-election fundraising. The main takeaways: Between Election Day and January 6th, the campaign sent millions of emails to supporters (as many as 25 per day) They encouraged supporters to donate to the Election Defense Fund to fight the election results Campaign staffers testified that there was no such fund, it was just a marketing gimmick They raised $250 million after the election Most of the money went to the Save America PAC created by Trump, which then disbursed funds to organizations such as a foundation run by Mark Meadows, a policy institute that employed former Trump campaign staff, the Trump Hotel Collection, and the Jan 6th rally. Lofgren stated that the donors deserve to know where their money went MY THOUGHTS / TAKEAWAYS: This is a pretty damning takedown of the election steal claims. As far as I can tell, all of the witnesses were Republicans and/or people hired/appointed by Trump, and despite their investigations, they could not find anything to support the claim that the election was stolen. I do not believe that it will change many minds, but having this on the record in sworn testimony (as opposed to people being able to lie about it on other mediums) is helpful. It is hard to swallow claims that all of these people were secretly working against Trump and, in fact, that claim would mean that Trump is utterly incompetent in hiring and appointing people if all of them end up working to bring him down. Also, the idea that they would all be lying under oath is difficult to believe as they would be in legal jeopardy should someone provide evidence that they are lying. For those hoping for an indictment of Trump himself, the testimony underscores the biggest challenge with a charge like seditious conspiracy: proving mens rea (intent). There was not some smoking gun document or testimony from Trump himself stating that he knew the claims of fraud were baseless but he was pushing them anyway. As unbelievable as the claims were, and with his advisors telling him they were false, if Trump truly believed the election was stolen, that would be a significant challenge for potential prosecutors. Were there to ever be a trial, the prosecution could put on evidence like the testimony from this hearing to convince a jury that Trump was willfully ignorant of the facts (which would satisfy the mens rea requirement), but that is obviously very risky. However, I would like to see more about the post-election fundraising in future hearings. I am not as familiar with the nuances of the law around wire fraud, but if the campaign was soliciting donations for legal expenses and instead funneling the money elsewhere, that would likely result in a lot of potential legal exposure for those involved.

Look man. I don't know you and you don't know me. But take a step back and look at what's actually being posted on this board. It's a swamp of garbage posts with little facts or logic. Just quick hits to get people angry and congratulate themselves on being smarter than everyone else. Any time an actual discussion accidentally happens, someone swoops in with the latest drivel from the Federalist or Red State. The quality of writing is poor, the news sources are horseshit, and very few people actually want to engage in discussion. It's just about pointing fingers and feeling superior. Whenever anything is introduced that may contradict the predominant worldview on PPP, it is immediately dismissed as not credible or the conversation is sidetracked into one of the standard whataboutisms. There is absolutely zero interest in hearing different perspectives. Sometimes it feels like this board is just all of the uncles that everybody avoids on Thanksgiving got together to start a club where they just rant about how evil everyone who disagrees with them is and how much better they are than everyone else.

It's really hard to understand how anyone could watch that presentation and still defend it as a peaceful protest or handwave it away because it was definitely all the fault of sleeper FBI agents. These people were traitors to the US and they attacked our government.

Secession would be a rude awakening for all of those red states that rely on the generosity of blue states and the federal government. In the “makers vs takers” conversation, states run by Republicans are generally takers.

To be fair, that’s why Reagan signed the gun control law that banned automatic weapons. Black people started getting guns to protect themselves and that was a bit “no-no” for the GOP.

Decent chance we are watching the end of the American experiment. Though I think most posters on PPP will gladly cheer this.

I have absolutely no idea what your point is but that is about on par for the braindead drivel I see on this board every day. In any case, if your point is that the GOP is poised to take control of Congress despite the January 6th insurrection, then I think it speaks pretty poorly of American voters.

They made it abundantly clear that Trump was told he lost the election, that his closest advisors knew he lost and told him so. They even have Bill Barr saying the whole Dominion voting machines thing was totally made up. They also showed videos of the “peaceful protest” where cops were assaulted and had live testimony from one of the police officers who was knocked unconscious. They also had testimony from some of the people from the riot saying they were only there because they thought that Trump told them to be there and to take action. Also, because they are idiots, the Proud Boys invited a documentarian to film them and he brought video evidence of the planning and violence.

Well, I’m genuinely curious because people who watch Fox News generally know less about current events than people who watch no news at all. So what’s the purpose? I’m assuming it’s emotional but would love to hear it from an actual Fox News viewer.

Oh no! Super clever! You really got me! What an incredibly insightful and powerful statement!

I have a hard time understanding why people watch Fox News. Is it like how people used to eat lead paint?

Thompson: *eloquent speech invoking Lincoln* Cheney: No mercy

Ok, so once again, a criminal investigation by the FBI is completely different than a congressional investigation. They have different purposes, standards, rules, evidence, and burdens. I think the DoJ is too chickenshit to charge Trump for very clear obstruction of justice. I would guess it's because they want to "restore legitimacy" to the institution and going after a former president would result in accusations of political bias. I think there is nothing they can do to avoid accusations of bias at this point and they should focus instead on enforcing the law. I mean, the FBI has always been seen as a more conservative organization (like most law enforcement) but there are people out there who believe they were in a conspiracy to elect Hillary effing Clinton. People will believe whatever they want, but the DoJ should not care about that and just do its job instead. The January 6th committee is a congressional committee. It is not a criminal investigation. It does not have to follow the rules and restraint that the FBI does. It also can decide on its own what evidence to provide as opposed to needing to go through the adversarial system of a court and judge. The stated purpose is to understand why January 6th happened and how to stop it in the future. Whether or not they are able to achieve that is something we will have to see, but it is COMPLETELY different than a criminal investigation. This stuff really isn't that hard to understand. It is absolutely befuddling to me that people continue to conflate the two very different types of investigations.

You literally put quotation marks around the word evidence when talking about the Mueller Report. As to why Trump hasn't been charged yet, that's the big question. Mueller basically wrapped an indictment for obstruction in a nice pretty bow but the DoJ does not seem to be taking it. I have no idea why that is, but if I had to guess, I would say it's because they are chickenshit. I don't think what Trump did was "the worst thing ever" but it is abundantly clear that he broke the law: we have the evidence for multiple charges, but the people at the top seem to be playing politics and care more about the reputation of the DoJ than justice itself.

I don't know if you're simply acting in bad faith or really just struggle with comprehension. If you take Mueller's conclusion that there was no conspiracy with the Russians but then you say that the evidence is bunk, then you're just arguing in bad faith. If you conflate collusion with conspiracy, then you either do not understand the legal issues at hand, or are once again arguing in bad faith. Either Mueller's report is trustworthy or it is not. To agree with the conclusion but dismiss the rationale and evidence is asinine. Mueller documented that the Trump campaign was absolutely crawling with Russian contacts but there was no legal remedy available as there was not an actual agreement with the Russians and Mueller felt he could not charge a sitting president with obstruction of justice. To say that means Mueller cleared Trump or his campaign of any wrongdoing is... dumb.

Do we need to go over the definition of conspiracy again? Because claiming that Mueller cleared Trump and then dismissing any of the evidence that Mueller compiled against Trump and the campaign is disingenuous. This isn't that hard of a concept to grasp unless you work very hard not to.

It really feels like 90% of the arguments made on this board are in bad faith.

Holy hell. THAT is your logic here?! By this logic, Trump is responsible for the Afghan-Pakistan skirmish in 2017, the Armenian-Azerbajani war in 2018, among others. FDR must be responsible for WWII. If he was a stronger president, Hitler would never have invaded Poland in 1939. If only Woodrow Wilson was a stronger president, WWI would never have happened. I didn't realize that George W. Bush was responsible for the war in Darfur and the war in Somalia. "Wars started during a US president's term are automatically their fault" is a galactic brain version of "the president of the US controls global gas prices" Maybe open a book on international relations or something before embarrassing yourself. Or even read some of the intellectual discussion on the ongoing Ukraine - Russia conflict and its causes (and not some hackery found on the Federalist or Red State or some other partisan clickbait site).

Between this and the candidates getting tossed from the ballot for fraud, I'd ask what's in the water in Michigan, but I think we already know the answer to that...

So the argument is that Ray Epps was an FBI informant and but for him, the insurrection wouldn't have happened? Seems like a stretch...

Is the argument here that the insurrection was actually organized and lead by the FBI? And that poor innocent people were tricked into storming the Capitol by the FBI? The FBI does some shady crap with undercover informants, but it's hard for me to buy this line that an FBI informant would somehow excuse people for their actions. Let's say the Bills finally win the Super Bowl and we all go to downtown Buffalo for the parade. And then there are a handful of people who yell "let's storm city hall!" and they go to break into city hall. Are you following them in? I certainly am not. And anyone who does should be investigated and prosecuted for the appropriate crimes. Saying "well, this guy said we should do it" probably isn't going to fly in court.