Posts Made By: James Brown

Originally Posted by Greg Shaffer

Seriously? Congrats you "forced" Rich to post as he normally does......pat yourself on the back lol

p.s. Greg,

Also, my post above was a snide way of signaling that I think Rich is lying again.  I obviously got under his skin with the gift basket gag.  This intention may or may not have come across in a forum post.

Jim

Originally Posted by Brian McFarland

No, pretty much everyone does except for the guy who posted this on the 2nd:

"I haven't posted since the 29th because I decided that with the New Year, I was going to pretty much quit posting anything here, unless it was a brief remark now and then."

I guess everyone's definition of "a brief remark now and then" can be very different. LOL

Hi Brian:

Rich has made that sort of assertion many times before.  Personally, I think he means it at the time.  But he lacks any sort of self control and is the least self-aware person I've ever come across, so...

Originally Posted by Russ Carroll

Big deal. I caused my brother to post an 800,000 word post one time, all because of what i said.

Caused, or forced?

Originally Posted by James Lacey

• Who is refusing to accept the clear and obvious results of a free and fair election despite their numerous failed attempts to prove election fraud?
• Who tried to halt the electoral college count in Congress on Jan. 6th, 2021?
• Who denied Obama a supreme court pick for almost a year, but rushed through ACB mere days before a Presidential election?
• Who solicited foreign interference in aid for his election?
• Who slandered veterans and gold star families?
• Who utterly failed us when we were hit by the pandemic, and then down-played it and politicized it to cover that failure?
• Who is the only party that sought to destroy the peaceful transfer of power with violence?
• etc.

Hi James:

I believe your 1st, 2nd, and 7th points apply also to certain figures on the left in 2016.  You'll recall the 2017 inauguration day riots? 

Also:  https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/06/politics/electoral-college-vote-count-objections/index.html

And check out Q. 16 on page 5 here:  https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/4156951/2017-10-06-Democracy-Trend-for-Release.pdf.  

HRC solicited foreign interference in the election of '16 with her bogus dossier as well.

Also, your point 6 applies to Biden as much as Trump doesn't it?  

I'm not defending Trump or the fringe morons who breached the capital a year ago.  I hope they rot in jail.  I am however, annoyed with the breathless, "Rs are one and all the end of democracy" stories we have been inundated with this week.  I get it that the D's have to run on something, and it probably is not going to be gasoline prices, but painting half the electorate as wild-eyed insurrectionists bent on destroying liberty is not a winning message in my opinion.

Please understand that I am not attacking you here, I am riffing off your post to attack the left and center press and punditry.

Jim 

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

DeSantis, MIA for two weeks during the covid explosion in Florida, may have had covid himself. Look and listen to him try to breathe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYh0QX0u6ow
What do you think?

MIA?  Didn't he release his schedule when AOC challenged him with the same nonsense.  Also, I gather that he has been spending time with his wife who is undergoing chemo.  

Anyway, omicron is going to infect most all of us sooner or later, vaxed or not.  I assume that DeSantis is vaxed and boosted.  Hopefully omicron or its successor will not be so bad for most of us.  CO is clipping along at an over 25% positivity rate.  That would have been the end of the health care system as we know it a year ago.

Jim

Originally Posted by James Lacey

Other than the vaccines, Trump did little to help and a lot to make things worse. Early in the pandemic, he tried to turn it into a red-state versus blue-state issue for his political advantage. He downplayed it rather than addressing the difficulties and blamed the states any time the federal response fell short. His misinformation and politicization led to millions of unvaccinated Americans and thousands of unnecessary deaths. All the while, he received state-of-the-art care when he contracted the virus himself and went on to get vaccinated and boosted.

Trump's handling of the pandemic alone would qualify him for the worst President in American History. However, the Jan. 6th riot he encouraged and incited will be his legacy and cement his status as the worst American president.

James:

In my opinion, commentary like this:  https://news.yahoo.com/adam-schiff-capitol-attack-democracy-110057115.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall plus Biden, Pelosi, and Harris's speeches yesterday are going to go a long way toward getting Trump reelected in 2024.  It seems the Democrats are weaving a basket to put all their eggs in for the next couple of cycles.  The basket is that R's young, old, conservative, or moderate are hell bent on destroying democracy.

I know a lot or Republicans and independents.  Some, not most, think there were irregularities in the 2020 voting.  None however, believe that the Capital riots were equivalent to 9/11 or Pearl Harbor.  None believe that the rioters came anywhere close to overthrowing the government.   Yet this is what the D leaders and mainstream press are saying, 24/7, loud and clear.  Do they all want to lose elections?  Do they want Trump back in office?

Trust me when I say that I want a return to normal political discourse - heated sure, but overheated and entirely irrational like it is today?  No way.  The D's are priming the pump splendidly for the election of Trump II.

Jim 

Originally Posted by James Lacey

I don't think that is the basket they are weaving. In Biden's speech, he squarely blamed Trump, not other Republicans. He even acknowledged that some Republicans are standing up against the big lie. He specifically called out the people who stormed the Capitol and those who incited them. He specifically debunked Trump's big lie. He did not indict all Republicans. Have you even read the speech in its entirety?

Harris referred to extremists. Pelosi spoke of the rioters. None of them offered a wholesale indictment of Republicans. Read the speeches and let us know which parts are a blanket indictment of Republicans.

Hi James:

The messaging is clear here:  https://news.yahoo.com/adam-schiff-capitol-attack-democracy-110057115.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall

and here: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/01/january-6-insurrection-trump-coup-2024-election/620843/?utm_source=msn

and here: https://www.salon.com/2022/01/05/a-second-civil-war-one-year-after-violent-insurrection-how-worried-should-we-be/

There are lots more.  

Biden's speech is full of this rhetoric.  He does not say "every man or woman who votes R..." but I think he could have.  Some choice passages:

"Right now, in state after state, new laws are being written not to protect the vote, but to deny it. Not only to suppress the vote, but to subvert it. Not to strengthen and protect our democracy, but because the former president lost instead of looking at the election results in 2020, and saying they need new ideas or better ideas to win more votes. The former president and his supporters have decided the only way for them to win is to suppress your vote and subvert our elections. It's wrong. It's undemocratic. And frankly, it's  un-American."

James, you might hear the word "his supporters" as being the Capital storming fringe, but I think Biden and his speech writers intend the phrase to be a stand in for Republicans of any sort.  Nearly one half of all voters supported Trump with a vote, didn't they?   Everything in the last seven paragraphs of Biden's speech from the passage quoted below to the end is a veiled threat - I read the threat as 'vote R and you are voting for totalitarianism.'  I trust that you do not read it that way, but a lot of people do and for some justification for my position, check out the articles I linked to above.

"Look folks, now it's up to all of us, we the people, to stand for the rule of law, to preserve the flame of democracy, to keep the promise of America alive. The promise is at risk, targeted by the forces that value brute strength over the sanctity of democracy, fear over hope, personal gain over public good. Make no mistake about it, we're living at an inflection point in history, both at home and abroad."

This rhetoric is targeted only nominally at Trump or the rioters.  This rhetoric is actually targeted broadly at Republicans of any sort.  This is hardball politics, and I appreciate that the rhetoric is strategic.  My point is that I am predicting a backfire that is detrimental to us all.

Hi James:

This current thread is totally obscured and polluted by Richard's BS.  I'm going to try to make my point, and hopefully you'll have a chance to consider my perspective.


I think Biden is in between a rock and a hard place.  A very vocal portion of his base wants issues like voting access or immigration characterized as civil war with the D's as the obvious and irrefutable good guys and the R's as a whole being irredeemable, vote blocking, insurrection fomenting totalitarians.  As evidence, see the high-brow Atlantic and low-brow Slate articles I posted.  These authors go to great pains to equate Trump, the rioters and any R voter into the same ideological set.  The "inescapable" conclusion they are pushing is that anyone who even considers voting R is morally bankrupt.  I doubt the Atlantic and Slate articles accurately describe the many Republicans you must know.  Let me know if you read those articles differently.

Back to the rock and hard place, Biden's instinct might be to build some bridges, but he has a lot of folks like the authors of the Atlantic and Slate articles to contend with.  So, in my opinion, he vastly overdoes  the tipping point rhetoric.  Basically, vote D or kiss this country goodbye.  That is what I hear in the last 7 paragraphs of his speech anyway.

Trump thrives in this environment.  I now think it is a lot more likely that Trump wins in 2024 than I did a year ago.  Jim

 

Originally Posted by James Lacey

LOL! There is that famous lack of self-awareness. Thanks for proving my point again and again.

That is of course, Richard's specialty.  

Originally Posted by James Lacey

I looked up the authors of those pieces. Amanda Marcotte is clearly a provocateur which would explain why she appears on Salon with some regularity. Barton Gellman is a progressive, but I wouldn't call him extreme, hence why he's on the Atlantic.

Regarding the rhetoric you don't like, I get it, you are a classic Republican who doesn't like being characterized unjustly. That's fair enough.

It was the 1-year anniversary of Jan. 6th yesterday, so you have to expect some political rhetoric from both sides. I still say any rhetoric from the left so far pales in comparison to Trump's deluge of dishonesty and attacks on our norms and traditions.

Before we make predictions about Trump's chances in 2024, he first has to get nominated. Will the current rhetoric about Jan. 6th help that process? Honestly, I think his political career is over. He's being abandoned by more and more Republicans every day and was always met with resistance within the party. His ex-aides are banding together to criticize him and even forming groups like the Lincoln project to actively work against him. How is a twice-impeached abject failure like Trump ever going to clinch the nomination again? Not impossible I guess, but highly unlikely IMHO. There is an unwritten rule in US presidential politics that you get the baton once, and once only.

I hope you are correct.  J