Linearinauguration question
by Jay 
, San Diego, Tuesday, January 19, 2021, 09:42
Been going back on forth on this. Do you think it's better that we are doing a big traditional outdoor inauguration, but with 20,000 troops for extra security? Or should we have done a smaller, indoor event that could be controlled more tightly?
OT - Its really gotta suck to be Julian Assange right now
Perhaps more than anyone Assange is responsible for Trump winning in 2016. Four years later as Trump leaves office he's decided not to pardon Assange.
Gonna be interesting to watch how this plays out now. Julian is now basically at the mercy of Merrick Garland & US Intelligence. His only leverage now is in selling out everyone in Trumpworld who was even tangentially involved in the laundering of stolen emails.
As for Snowden? Assange at least had some GOP factional support for a pardon for his work in "exposing" Hillary. Snowden? There was never any base of GOP support for him within the GOP. The only thing that giving a pardon to Snowden would accomplish is uniting the intel community with Democrats and Republicans.
OT a little related and maybe too late but [on IMPEACHMENT]
I wish the Dems would have somehow "taken the high road" and avoided impeachment.
I would have had a secret zoom meeting with Pelosi, Biden, and the leaders of SDNY.
We are not going to impeach but censure. We are going to explain that we are not impeaching because, though my God what this guy did was impeachably (Word?) wrong, the country needs to heal.
SDNY, put this fucker in jail so he can't run again. Or hell let's prove sedition but that would involve the Biden Admin so maybe a bad idea.
President Biden, you go run the freaking country like it is supposed to be run.
Pelosi, lets shore up Obama Care, protect our natural resources and whatever else.
This fucker has taken enough air out of the room that is the United States.
Lot's to fill in and maybe I am just too naive, but as a general road map I think that would have been a politically savy way to have handled it.
Avoiding impeachment is taking the stupid road
by HumanRobot 
, Cybertron, Tuesday, January 19, 2021, 15:20 @ Grantland
It’s Chamberlain surrendering to Hitler.
Impeachment is "taking the high road".
by Bingo , Fort Wayne, IN, Tuesday, January 19, 2021, 15:07 @ Grantland
Either we are a nation of laws or we aren't. Holding somebody accountable for their actions is precisely what is needed right now. Is it really taking the high road, to allow a criminal to walk free of charge?
This is the problem with the 2 party system in America
Democrats are largely encouraged to take the high road. Heal. Bring America together.
Meanwhile, the GOP can scheme and conspire to do whatever they can to preserve their own power. There is no hypocrisy too large that they won't shun. There's no accountability they won't dismiss.
I don't know why the Democrats always need to make nice. It wasn't like it prevented the creation of Trumpism in the first place. You had a bunch of folks on the right get pissed off because a black man wore a tan suit.
We already did the "healing" bullshit last time around.
"Give Trump a chance!", "Listen to middle America (sitting in diners yapping to NYT reporters)!", etc, etc, etc. How did that work out, anyway? Oh, that's right -- they were beaten fairly & democratically at the ballot box, so they simply ignored that reality and attempted to quite literally overthrow the government on 1/6/21 as directed by their budding dictator and cult leader.
Fuck that noise, fuck those people, kill it all with fire.
By "last time" you mean Reconstruction, right?
Our country would be a lot better off if we had just erected a bunch of gibbets after the Civil War instead of letting all the rich white dudes who lead the traitors just go back to essentially running their states again.
The amazing part of it all
Is the great lengths the Democrats had to go through so as not to say "Russian collusion changed the election." They had to say "Russia certainly tried to meddle in persuading the election." All because Republicans were having a hissy fit that the Dems were looking for some mysterious boogeyman to blame. But guess what? Every investigation out there from every intelligence agency generated evidence that Russians did indeed conspire to effect the 2016 election. And the GOP tried calling it the great Russian hoax for 4 years.
Oh but now? Well now they want to convince you that My Pillow forensics accountants can prove that the Dominion machine algorithms turn up Biden all the time. And the Chinese were behind it. That was sufficient enough proof to storm the Capitol. GMAFB.
Mein Pillow is going to be Dominion-owned in short order
Of all of the people Dominion has sued, Lindell has to be the deepest pocket AND the most willing to go on the record with crackpot nonsense.
'Mein Pillow'. Nicely played
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You mistake the cowardly, politically-expedient,
unpatriotic road for the "high road".
Nearly a half-century of Democrats taking the "high road" is precisely how we ended up at a point where our democracy is hanging by a fuckin thread. The gravy train has to stop now or we're all done for.
I am in favor of the Teddy Roosevelt approach
Speak softly and carry a big stick. Less time in front of microphones and more time just relentlessly pounding these guys legally and politically.
Roberts has already put it out there he wants no part of impeachment trial. Not sure Biden does either. The constitutionality of post presidency impeachment is an interesting discussion also.
We are IN this position bc they let Nixon off the hook.
It's a direct line from Ford pardoning Nixon, to Reagan's secret wars, to Trump.
I'd like to think that we can't get any lower, but I don't want to test that hypothesis. There needs to FINALLY be a line in the sand, establishing that the President is not above the law.
The guy raised an army or followers and stormed the Capitol, and people died.
I couldn't possibly disagree more.
by domer.mq , Tuesday, January 19, 2021, 12:34 @ Grantland
If you aren't going to impeach a sitting president for riling up a mob in an attempt to destroy the democratic process, then what ever would you impeach someone for?
"Nation of laws, not men." It would be absolute baloney if you ignored what was done and went for, "gosh. Time to heal." Censure!? That's the legal and political equivalent of shushing someone.
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Sometimes I rhyme slow sometimes I rhyme quick.
Answering all of you and your answers are predictable
and understandable and probably correct.
Just not very creative.
A censure isn't particularly creative, either
As penalties go, a censure is less effectual than a speeding ticket, whatever legal consequences Trump might face elsewhere. There's nothing novel about failing to hold Trump meaningfully accountable for his actions--America has been doing just that since at least the 1980s.
These arguments about "healing the nation" and "taking the high road" are, however sincere, grotesquely misplaced. There can be no healing without accountability.
Censures should be sponsored and named after Susan Collins.
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The Collins Memorial Censure, brought to you by Soymilk
by Brendan , The Chemical and Oil Refinery State, Tuesday, January 19, 2021, 14:44 @ nedhead
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"Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy." - Yeats
Why is creativity a requirement?
by domer.mq , Tuesday, January 19, 2021, 13:45 @ Grantland
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Also back and forth, but I think I've landed on...
by domer.mq , Tuesday, January 19, 2021, 09:46 @ Jay
Better to do it traditional as much as possible. It was already going to be "different" because of COVID. But I think you need to do this sort of thing as "openly" as you can to make a point that "the American experiment perseveres" or whatever. Basically, while you must do what is necessary to remain safe and secure, you must also carry on tradition as much as possible and show that a few thousand morons didn't manage to destroy it.
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I'd do a simple ceremony
Although I will admit I haven't given it a lot of thought.
A simple ceremony and then Biden immediately heading to fix all the shit that is in front of him would be a nice message. I don't understand the "Business as usual" message. There's nothing usual about this transition at all.
In the "everything should be decided by covid"
approach, I think it's irresponsible to gather large numbers of people together, even outside. How will they get there? Will people be coming in from out of town?
Very small, outside ceremony.
Fair. Whatever it is needs to be public and outside or else
the morons online will claim that Kamala or one of the lizard people was actually sworn in the basement of Comet Pizza.
Yes
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glorious (n.) - amazing and inspiring so as to fill an observer with awe; see, e.g., John Parr's hair in the "Man in Motion" video
Sort of funny cause it's true. And the first thing I though
when I read the thread. There has to be some public swearing in for the 70million+ lizard brains.
Yeah. I'm serious. It's hard to imagine anything that would
further inflame the dark corners of the interwebs and make violence more likely. I think that is actually something that would accomplish that.
Protect the line of succession, for sure. But Biden has got to take the oath outside in public, per protocols. Besides (and I am completely serious here, too), who is going to take a shot at Biden when the result would be President Harris ... then Pelosi?
This I found scary, BTW...
by domer.mq , Tuesday, January 19, 2021, 12:39 @ BillyGoat
McCarthy's clearly hearing things in his FBI briefings that have if spooked.
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We used to make fun of the Chinas and Russias of the world
for the weekend at Bernie's type scenarios. UGH
Yep. We'll have "HRC is actually running the military."
by domer.mq , Tuesday, January 19, 2021, 11:43 @ BillyGoat
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This is where I am
by okerland , The right side of the Bay Bridge, Tuesday, January 19, 2021, 10:59 @ domer.mq
Part of me says Biden should do it from a secure location, but the other part of me says his haters have said he's been living in his basement for months and this would further validate it.
We were going to have this issue no matter what once Biden won.
Agree, but
I'd feel better if the ceremony were pushed back to mid-afternoon tomorrow (after Ossoff and Warnock get sworn in), and that at noon, Biden/Roberts and Harris/Sotomayor met in separate locations to do the oaths (broadcast/webcast, of course). And I'd feel better if Pelosi and Leahy didn't attend the ceremony.
It would be nice if at least one of Blinken/Yellen/Austin were confirmed, too. But I don't think that's possible.
Secure the line of succession just in case.
I suspect they've thought of this.
by domer.mq , Tuesday, January 19, 2021, 10:34 @ CK08
I also suspect we won't hear the plan at all until the last moment, if at all.
Certainly the Secret Service will have thought of it.
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falling on this side too
by Jay , San Diego, Tuesday, January 19, 2021, 09:54 @ domer.mq
One thing I hadn't considered is simply the increased covid risk to all the extra military personnel. Bringing them together (and sleeping in close quarters), well, I hope that's not a super spreader itself.
Still, it's important to project "business as usual" as much as possible.
The military personnel need to be there anyway, right?
I'm also wary of the health risks, but given what happened two weeks ago, there's no such thing as "extra" personnel right now.
Totally agree.
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