The insurrection committee's public hearings

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malchior
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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

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Kurth wrote: Fri Jul 15, 2022 12:34 pmI'm really interested in this. I think it's pretty much agreed that compared to other countries around the world today, corruption in the U.S. is minimal. But I'm struggling with the notion that we are more corrupt than our past selves.
I'm not strictly talking about the crime of corruption. I'm talking about corruption of our morals, business leadership values, the relationship of business to their communities, and ultimately it has manifested in widespread, persistent and destabilizing distrust in institutions. Call it decadence if the word fits the mind better. Still this is a huge subject that best comes in the form of book recommendations but I'll talk high level which is what I was aiming for anyway. :)
I think we also need to define what we mean by corruption and what "past selves" we are talking about, specifically.
Right. I'd argue even defining corruption is pretty malleable nowadays. There were eras where there was epidemic 'cash passed in envelopes' corruption. But our parents/grandparents grew up in a nation that had far more civic responsibility burned into their bones. Even then we saw convicted "dirty politicians" taking bribes. And they were convicted in greater numbers in the past. At one point it was seen as deeply unpatriotic and law enforcement did a good job of investigating it. The rub then is why did convictions become less prevalent? Did politicians become more ethical. I think we know that isn't true. I'd argue more that now you don't need to take a bribe anymore. Congresscritters and politicians are often wealthier when they come to Congress now. If not, the revolving door pays eventually. Or get payment via through family members.

For instance, would a modern day Jim Trafficant stuff his freezer with cash or instead see a spouse land a half million dollar consulting gig upon election? And we just saw Cruz got SCOTUS to sign off on his campaign loan/indirect bribe scheme.

I'd call that corruption of a sort but it's been blessed. Anyway one of the things I think about is how much should we trust corruption figures from a system that runs like this? The corruption is baked into this system. I think our "past selves" would clearly recognize that this as clear corruption but we're all boiled frogs now. Well sort of because I think the best proxy metric is trust in institutions. It is the lens through we can see how expectations for self-dealing behaviors deviate from the reality. At least that's one way I interpret it.
It's an interesting thought, though.
I honestly think it's true. America is in deep, deep (terminal IMO) decline as the nation we grew up in. I don't know how we restore faith in our institutions at this point without a major shake up. It just doesn't seem possible.
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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

Post by Pyperkub »

Oh, make no mistake, we had plenty of corruption in the post WW2 era. It was just domestic. See Nixon/Agnew/Eisenhower's Military-Industrial Complex, etc.
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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

Post by malchior »

It's crazy that 18 months later it took Congress investigating crimes with less resources to force the DOJ to do its job. I would very much like to see Garland leave sooner than later. He has done a great disservice to his country.



This is simultaneous with the DOJ shoring up the imperial Presidency. The DOJ keeps playing long ball for a nation that very well might not exist in its current form in a few years.

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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

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malchior wrote: Fri Jul 15, 2022 1:28 pm
Kurth wrote: Fri Jul 15, 2022 12:34 pmI'm really interested in this. I think it's pretty much agreed that compared to other countries around the world today, corruption in the U.S. is minimal. But I'm struggling with the notion that we are more corrupt than our past selves.
I'm not strictly talking about the crime of corruption. I'm talking about corruption of our morals, business leadership values, the relationship of business to their communities, and ultimately it has manifested in widespread, persistent and destabilizing distrust in institutions. Call it decadence if the word fits the mind better. Still this is a huge subject that best comes in the form of book recommendations but I'll talk high level which is what I was aiming for anyway. :)
I think we also need to define what we mean by corruption and what "past selves" we are talking about, specifically.
Right. I'd argue even defining corruption is pretty malleable nowadays. There were eras where there was epidemic 'cash passed in envelopes' corruption. But our parents/grandparents grew up in a nation that had far more civic responsibility burned into their bones. Even then we saw convicted "dirty politicians" taking bribes. And they were convicted in greater numbers in the past. At one point it was seen as deeply unpatriotic and law enforcement did a good job of investigating it. The rub then is why did convictions become less prevalent? Did politicians become more ethical. I think we know that isn't true. I'd argue more that now you don't need to take a bribe anymore. Congresscritters and politicians are often wealthier when they come to Congress now. If not, the revolving door pays eventually. Or get payment via through family members.

For instance, would a modern day Jim Trafficant stuff his freezer with cash or instead see a spouse land a half million dollar consulting gig upon election? And we just saw Cruz got SCOTUS to sign off on his campaign loan/indirect bribe scheme.

I'd call that corruption of a sort but it's been blessed. Anyway one of the things I think about is how much should we trust corruption figures from a system that runs like this? The corruption is baked into this system. I think our "past selves" would clearly recognize that this as clear corruption but we're all boiled frogs now. Well sort of because I think the best proxy metric is trust in institutions. It is the lens through we can see how expectations for self-dealing behaviors deviate from the reality. At least that's one way I interpret it.
It's an interesting thought, though.
I honestly think it's true. America is in deep, deep (terminal IMO) decline as the nation we grew up in. I don't know how we restore faith in our institutions at this point without a major shake up. It just doesn't seem possible.
I suggest that you are talking about Capitalism in its highest, most efficient, Amercanized/weaponized form. We have prayed at the altar so long and so hard that we don't even realize it's a face-eating leopard (not quite the best analogy, but you get the idea).

Also, reading some of the comments from the past page or two, I must have been the most cynical person here, because I haven't considered us some amazing, shining, special bright snowflake for decades. You want to compares us to a Russia or Sri Lanka? Sure, we look AMAZING. But there are other Western democracies where we don't (and haven't for a LOONG time) "stack up" if you will.
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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

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malchior wrote: Sat Jul 16, 2022 10:11 am It's crazy that 18 months later it took Congress investigating crimes with less resources to force the DOJ to do its job. I would very much like to see Garland leave sooner than later. He has done a great disservice to his country.

This is simultaneous with the DOJ shoring up the imperial Presidency. The DOJ keeps playing long ball for a nation that very well might not exist in its current form in a few years.
If you are DoJ you want to back the winning horse at this point. :horse:

They are more likely developing cases against the Democrats because they know who is winning. And it's not the Democrats.

The Secret Service clearly knows who is winning - look how fast they wiped their phones.

Look at how terrified Ivanka Trump and her husband and all the rats and cockroaches that backed him are in their testimonies. They are scared. They think the brickbat of American justice is going to be unleashed on them.

But turns out, its more of a Wiffle bat. Where are the real consequences except some outrage on MSNBC and CNN? Now they are openly planning for more. Jan 6 isn't the day American democracy was saved - it was the day it died.

In November people will confirm this and vote for the effective dissolution of American democracy and reconfirm it in 2024 by voting in the president of the Christian-fascists and the megacorporations and their oligarchs. And they will do it for the promise of cheaper gas and cheaper stuff and their jobs.
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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

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Carpet_pissr wrote: Sun Jul 17, 2022 11:15 am Also, reading some of the comments from the past page or two, I must have been the most cynical person here, because I haven't considered us some amazing, shining, special bright snowflake for decades. You want to compares us to a Russia or Sri Lanka? Sure, we look AMAZING. But there are other Western democracies where we don't (and haven't for a LOONG time) "stack up" if you will.
I think you have more international exposure than a lot of us. To be fair, until the past decade I haven't really even thought about American exceptionalism. I just took it for granted. I think being exposed to the international community on reddit as I used that platform more and more has opened my eyes enough to make me actually look and see. Trump being elected was another step on my journey. I registered to vote at the tender age of 43 in order to vote for our first female president. WTF America. Then with George Floyd, I really opened my eyes and now I can't unsee it. 1/6 felt almost inevitable by the time we got there with all of the doubt being cast on the election.
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malchior
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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

Post by malchior »

coopasonic wrote: Mon Jul 18, 2022 5:55 pmWTF America.
I've been here for a *long time* now. It is something that can happen when you do work outside the country for any length of time. You see other countries and realize that something might be wrong here. Stay out long enough and you realize there is a lot wrong here. So much wealth. So much potential. And so much misery here compared to other peer nations.
Then with George Floyd, I really opened my eyes and now I can't unsee it.
This was my last straw when I went from *lot* wrong to this country is an absolute shit hole. When I realized that this culture is cruel and toxic. I had read a lot about the police being out of control for years. I had read about reactions to the 'police riot' we saw in 1968 in Chicago. That was the first glimpse that showed us that we weren't the people we pretended to be and set the police to be set above the law.

That began the journey which led SCOTUS to invent qualified immunity and essentially sanctioned the carceral state and police violence. And because of that we saw the events we saw in 1994 and 2020. Especially 2020 where we watched the police riot all across the nation. They beat up peaceful protesters, they ran them over with cars, they beat up foreign reporters, they attacked the people, and nothing happened. That was it. That was the moment I believed this country was past the point of return. We were a brutal nation on course for out in the open authoritarianism vs. the "lite" version we've had for decades.
1/6 felt almost inevitable by the time we got there with all of the doubt being cast on the election.
And this was proof that we were on that course to outright authoritarianism. A political party justifying insurrection and denying elections. We are now 18 months later and the political class that caused it to happen? Above the law. Untouchable. Protected and excused by the corrupt elite that has torn the heart out of this nation.

That's at least how I see it. This country is an absolute shit hole. It isn't worth saving. I've said I would be ok with it breaking apart if it saves lives. That should be what we focus on because this cruel, sick, dead end culture is tracking to get a lot of people hurt/killed in the next few years and I'd love to avoid it. But we probably won't. Keep preparing.
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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

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Rep. Bennie Thompson, chairman of the House January 6 committee, announces COVID diagnosis ahead of Thursday's hearing
Maybe next year, maybe no go
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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

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malchior wrote: Mon Jul 18, 2022 6:26 pm
coopasonic wrote: Mon Jul 18, 2022 5:55 pmWTF America.
I've been here for a *long time* now. It is something that can happen when you do work outside the country for any length of time. You see other countries and realize that something might be wrong here. Stay out long enough and you realize there is a lot wrong here. So much wealth. So much potential. And so much misery here compared to other peer nations.

I blame Reagan, Jello Biafra, literature, punk music, and growing up in a liberal enclave proximate to Canada for my disillusionment in my early teens. America isn't that special. It's a top 15, sure, mostly due to economics.
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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

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I guess as long as they're investigating, that's all that matters. Hopefully they come to some type of conclusion before 2027.


PURGED — Here’s the news. ⁦Those @SecretService⁩ texts are gone, gone, gone . Agency scoured records and said it found nothing new to give Congress . National Archives now investigating if USSS broke the law
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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

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LawBeefaroni wrote: Tue Jul 19, 2022 11:53 am
malchior wrote: Mon Jul 18, 2022 6:26 pm
coopasonic wrote: Mon Jul 18, 2022 5:55 pmWTF America.
I've been here for a *long time* now. It is something that can happen when you do work outside the country for any length of time. You see other countries and realize that something might be wrong here. Stay out long enough and you realize there is a lot wrong here. So much wealth. So much potential. And so much misery here compared to other peer nations.

I blame Reagan, Jello Biafra, literature, punk music, and growing up in a liberal enclave proximate to Canada for my disillusionment in my early teens. America isn't that special. It's a top 15, sure, mostly due to economics.
Same thing. I didn't really have a sense for American exceptionalism growing up and I didn't care for those that boasted it. That said, I still had American pride. It took until somewhere in my 30s for that disillusionment to occur and in my 40s to start feeling the onset of American shame. We're not the worst apple in the barrel but I'd be fishing for something better if it were reasonable to do so.
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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

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LawBeefaroni wrote: Tue Jul 19, 2022 11:53 am
malchior wrote: Mon Jul 18, 2022 6:26 pm
coopasonic wrote: Mon Jul 18, 2022 5:55 pmWTF America.
I've been here for a *long time* now. It is something that can happen when you do work outside the country for any length of time. You see other countries and realize that something might be wrong here. Stay out long enough and you realize there is a lot wrong here. So much wealth. So much potential. And so much misery here compared to other peer nations.

I blame Reagan, Jello Biafra, literature, punk music, and growing up in a liberal enclave proximate to Canada for my disillusionment in my early teens. America isn't that special. It's a top 15, sure, mostly due to economics.
I can point to one pivotal moment when I was in high school...will never forget it: Oliver Stone's JFK
As debunked as a lot of his 'presentation' was, I bought it hook line, and sinker at the time, and came roaring home to my parents to confront them about the lies and the cover up, etc etc. Considering I was a VERY laid back teen, I bet I scared the hell out of them, thinking back on that. LOL. I remember VERY clearly being FIRED UP.

Whether the spark was accurate or true didn't matter, after that, I began digging into history, and civics and politics pretty deeply. Even went through a Noam Chomsky phase, and by the time I saw the documentary 'Manufacturing Consent', I was pretty much done. But yeah, I could chalk a lot of my liberal tendencies, if not most, to international travel as well (and study abroad before that). I'm very sure (not joking) my pro-Trump Dad thinks I was brainwashed as a result of my travels (which ironically, he paid for, at least the study abroad trips).
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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

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The thing that concerns me, is that we don't have an impartial jury here. It doesn't matter how much evidence, or what missing texts or steering wheel grabs, or who reveals what secrets.

At the end, its still going to be some people who are deciding if Trump should go to jail. And I don't believe that all of those people are deciding based on "if" trump did something wrong. At least some of those people will be making their decision based on party line, career path, and personal wealth impact. Those are the things they care about, and that will drive the decision "Will sending Trump to jail be supplemental or detrimental to me and mine?"

This show is an attempt to make it so NOT sending trump to jail would be detrimental to career, but I am not sure its working.
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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

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Jaymon wrote: Tue Jul 19, 2022 5:48 pm The thing that concerns me, is that we don't have an impartial jury here. It doesn't matter how much evidence, or what missing texts or steering wheel grabs, or who reveals what secrets.

At the end, its still going to be some people who are deciding if Trump should go to jail. And I don't believe that all of those people are deciding based on "if" trump did something wrong. At least some of those people will be making their decision based on party line, career path, and personal wealth impact. Those are the things they care about, and that will drive the decision "Will sending Trump to jail be supplemental or detrimental to me and mine?"

This show is an attempt to make it so NOT sending trump to jail would be detrimental to career, but I am not sure its working.
It's definitely a Show. I'm just glad the producers/writers have seemingly moved past trying to make the whole thing revolve around the soul-crushing, unforgivable sin of Grabbing for a Steering Wheel :o :o :o :o :o . THE HORROR!!!! IS IT TRUE?!? NOoooooo. That couldn't POSSIBLY have happened!! THINK OF THE CHILDREN IF IT EVEN WERE TRUE!!!! GOD HELP US!!!!

At least the Twitterverse was collectively losing its shit and assuring us all that IF THIS WERE PROVEN, TRUMP WILL BE WEARING ORANGE ON MORE THAN JUST HIS SKIN, LIKE, TOMORROW, PEOPLE!!! :roll:
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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

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Smoove_B wrote: Tue Jul 19, 2022 1:38 pm I guess as long as they're investigating, that's all that matters. Hopefully they come to some type of conclusion before 2027.


PURGED — Here’s the news. ⁦Those @SecretService⁩ texts are gone, gone, gone . Agency scoured records and said it found nothing new to give Congress . National Archives now investigating if USSS broke the law
More:

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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

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And the consequences of deleting them are less than the consequences for saving them.

They won.
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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

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I’m so done with reading the phrase ‘this seems like big news.’

It feels like that or some version of that will continue to be asked even as the flames finish off the last remnants of the Constitution.

“I could be wrong, but the original Constitution literally being burned in effigy by the newly sworn in ‘Hate America Great Party’ while screaming neoNazi death metal seems like big news? Anybody? No? Just me? Mmmk, just checkin’. “

It’s fucking tiresome.
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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

Post by LawBeefaroni »

There is no way the carrier, the NSA (Dishfire anyone?), and a few other three letter and blank letter agencies don't have copies of the texts. They have no incentive to turn them over, however.

The Committee undoubtedly knows this.
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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

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Without getting way into the details I work with a lot of former 3-letter agency folks and many of my colleagues are former FBI cybercrime forensics investigators. We were shooting the shit today and many of them don't believe the Secret Service official story. Those are supposed to be official records. That is why the national archive is involved. They have jurisdiction over record preservation. In any case, a lot of these folks can't believe what they are seeing.
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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

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malchior wrote: Tue Jul 19, 2022 8:01 pm Without getting way into the details I work with a lot of former 3-letter agency folks and many of my colleagues are former FBI cybercrime forensics investigators. We were shooting the shit today and many of them don't believe the Secret Service official story. Those are supposed to be official records. That is why the national archive is involved. They have jurisdiction over record preservation. In any case, a lot of these folks can't believe what they are seeing.
Other than saying "come on guys", do you have a sense of what can be realistically proven about the deletion of these text messages? Assuming for the moment that there isn't a witness who is willing to say to the J6 committee either "I was on text messages that day and this is what they said" and/or "I can confirm that those text messages were intentionally deleted."
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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

Post by malchior »

El Guapo wrote: Wed Jul 20, 2022 9:18 am
malchior wrote: Tue Jul 19, 2022 8:01 pm Without getting way into the details I work with a lot of former 3-letter agency folks and many of my colleagues are former FBI cybercrime forensics investigators. We were shooting the shit today and many of them don't believe the Secret Service official story. Those are supposed to be official records. That is why the national archive is involved. They have jurisdiction over record preservation. In any case, a lot of these folks can't believe what they are seeing.
Other than saying "come on guys", do you have a sense of what can be realistically proven about the deletion of these text messages? Assuming for the moment that there isn't a witness who is willing to say to the J6 committee either "I was on text messages that day and this is what they said" and/or "I can confirm that those text messages were intentionally deleted."
Well we're assuming there were texts to delete. The groupthink is that there is a good chance they weren't texting at all on the cell network. We sort of have a feeling they they were using signal. Which is a major policy violation it's own. It's all alleged stuff but Secret Service going opaque on this and attempting to trash the IG looks like they are covering up.

In other words, it needs to be investigated to be sure. The certainty they have that the messages are gone is odd. Meaning they went from we're checking this subpoena to 'all messages deleted' in days. A proper investigation should have taken longer. Potentially weeks. In other words, the whole thing smells crooked.

I'll caution though that FBI inherently thinks Secret Service is essentially a JV squad and undisciplined to boot. It might be biasing them but I'm hearing the same noise in nat sec twitter and even saw someone say on MSNBC they think something is really wrong at Secret Service.

They have constant discipline problems. For example, they've had multiple diplomatic incidents this year where agents where tossed out of countries. One in Israel a week or two ago and another in SE Asia IIRC. On top you had the Ornato situation, the strong pushback on Hutchinson which quickly was memory holed, and then this obviously fucked up situation and it all adds up to Secret Service has serious issues.

Ultimately though answering the original question, what can be proven? Who knows at this point. When an agency is bent and resisting an IG investigation they can do a lot of damage. It is sort of crazy we are having this discussion at all. What worries me to some extent is we have a major agency that people in the know say we maybe shouldn't trust and they are protecting key personnel. I just throw it on the pile of evidence that the United States is much more at risk than we think it is. We're seeing all sorts of crazy national security threats happening without obvious consequence. You can sense that the people who worry about this stuff professionally are worrying a lot right now.

Edit: We also from reporting have heard other improbable things about Secret Service adjacent to this. They conducted no after action review or formal report came out of 1/6. At least that is the official story. But it has a lot of people in the know saying, "really?" If they had done so, they would have definitely preserved all records. So why not? Did someone actively make a decision not to conduct formal investigation/reporting? If so, who and what was the justification? Was it never considered? Lots of questions here.

I don't know their policy/procedures but you'd assume Vice President trapped in a garage for hours while a mob rampaged would trigger the criteria for reviewing the incident. Everything about this makes no sense. It's deeply disturbing to folks because the explanation is supposed to sound like incompetence. Maybe it was but it just sort of begs for disbelief.
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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

Post by Jaymon »

If congress gets ahold of our texts, they will find out our code word for the president is 'limp dildo'. Well shit, that means all our asses are getting canned. Delete, delete them all!
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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

Post by malchior »

Jaymon wrote: Wed Jul 20, 2022 6:07 pm If congress gets ahold of our texts, they will find out our code word for the president is 'limp dildo'. Well shit, that means all our asses are getting canned. Delete, delete them all!
I know it's a joke but I think the communications may very well indicate that good people saw crazy stuff and the agency is helping protect the former President. If they are good, hopefully they'll step forward and tell us what they heard/saw.
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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

Post by Jaymon »

On a serious note. The secret service, in my opinion, should not be asked like this. They are supposed to keep the secrets. They have a long history of keeping presidential secrets. They are required to keeping the president from harm, not to be a congressional nanny-cam. A president cannot trust them if the president thinks the secret service is a bunch of spies.
If congress wants to know what trump said and did on jan 6th, then call trump in for questioning, or find out from other source. The secret services job was to try and keep that guy alive regardless of what he said or did.
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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

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Jaymon wrote: Wed Jul 20, 2022 6:21 pm On a serious note. The secret service, in my opinion, should not be asked like this. They are supposed to keep the secrets. They have a long history of keeping presidential secrets. They are required to keeping the president from harm, not to be a congressional nanny-cam. A president cannot trust them if the president thinks the secret service is a bunch of spies.
If congress wants to know what trump said and did on jan 6th, then call trump in for questioning, or find out from other source. The secret services job was to try and keep that guy alive regardless of what he said or did.
I disagree. They aren't the SS of Germany. Freedom of this type of information, after the term, isn't a breach of security.

The Supreme Court has held that executive privilege is not an absolute privilege but a qualified one that must yield when there is a compelling need for the information. An attorney general opinion supporting a presidential assertion of executive privilege therefore must first explain why the information fits within the scope of executive privilege and then demonstrate that Congress’s need for the information is not sufficient to overcome the qualified privilege. That second inquiry is the one that will be vital to this dispute: whether executive privilege can and should be asserted given the committee’s stated need for the information and the gravity of the events under investigation. And, as discussed below, there is also the question of who gets to decide whether privilege should be asserted, Trump or Biden.
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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

Post by Smoove_B »

Jaymon wrote: Wed Jul 20, 2022 6:21 pm On a serious note. The secret service, in my opinion, should not be asked like this. They are supposed to keep the secrets. They have a long history of keeping presidential secrets.
Some have said everything changed when the Secret Service was taken from the Treasury and put into Homeland Security after 9/11. In the same way that Immigration and Naturalization Services was absorbed and turned into I.C.E. and the Citizenship and Immigration Service, also after 9/11. has become...problematic since moving into Homeland Security. Is there a theme here?

Many moons ago when I was working on my post-graduate degree, I was in a few classes with a guy that was transitioning into I.C.E. as part of the post- 9/11 reorg and I distinctly remember his stories about how the culture changed pretty much overnight - that his job went from helping people to arresting them.
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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

Post by malchior »

Jaymon wrote: Wed Jul 20, 2022 6:21 pm On a serious note. The secret service, in my opinion, should not be asked like this. They are supposed to keep the secrets. They have a long history of keeping presidential secrets. They are required to keeping the president from harm, not to be a congressional nanny-cam. A president cannot trust them if the president thinks the secret service is a bunch of spies.
If congress wants to know what trump said and did on jan 6th, then call trump in for questioning, or find out from other source. The secret services job was to try and keep that guy alive regardless of what he said or did.
I couldn't disagree more with the entire premise here. Secret Service is a protective service that has a wider mandate than just the President. It isn't the President's guard. They are still bound by the Constitution of the United States and supposedly the rule of law. Like many other agencies that concept has been stressed to its limits. Shielding them substantively from Congress is the *opposite* of what should happen. They just likely crimed (intentionally or not) but we're supposed to just trust that they have good intent? No thanks. Everything is telling us that the agency has major problems.
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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

Post by Holman »

Jaymon wrote: Wed Jul 20, 2022 6:21 pm On a serious note. The secret service, in my opinion, should not be asked like this. They are supposed to keep the secrets. They have a long history of keeping presidential secrets. They are required to keeping the president from harm, not to be a congressional nanny-cam. A president cannot trust them if the president thinks the secret service is a bunch of spies.
If congress wants to know what trump said and did on jan 6th, then call trump in for questioning, or find out from other source. The secret services job was to try and keep that guy alive regardless of what he said or did.
Protecting a President from physical harm is absolutely not the same thing as covering up a President's crimes.

They're Federal bodyguards, not Mafia lieutenants.
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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

Post by hepcat »

Absolutely agree. They’re not there to enable criminal behavior. They’re security.
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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

Post by Smoove_B »

Did we know this? I feel like this is new information
A watchdog agency learned in February that the Secret Service had purged nearly all cellphone texts from around the time of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, but chose not to alert Congress, according to three people briefed on the internal discussions.

That watchdog agency, the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General, also prepared in October 2021 to issue a public alert that the Secret Service and other department divisions were stonewalling it on requests for records and texts surrounding the attack on the Capitol, but did not do so, the people briefed on the matter said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal investigations.

The previously unreported revelation about the inspector general’s months-long delay in flagging the now-vanished Secret Service texts came from two whistleblowers who have worked with Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari, the people knowledgeable about the internal discussions said.

In recent days, one former employee approached the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), an independent government-accountability group, and described the decision from Cuffari’s office not to promptly disclose that Secret Service records had been wiped from agency phones starting in January 2021. The group relayed the information to congressional staff, who independently corroborated the account with a second whistleblower.
Once again, Department of Homeland Security. The theme continues...
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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

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Wow you google that name and he doesn't seem to be the guy you want at the top and yet there he remains.
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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

Post by Unagi »

WtaF.
What’s blood boiling to me is just how exposed all of this bullshit is, and still - the enormous pile of boulders just stays suspended in midair. Defying all logic and gravity.
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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

Post by Smoove_B »

I'm hopeful that with everything happening there are some journalists looking into how much of this is Trump-related rot vs general organizational problems. My gut is that we're seeing yet another area that Trump poison spread to.
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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

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Bob Woodward must be rolling over in his bed.
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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

Post by LawBeefaroni »

Serious journalism today is a Twitter thread longer than 3 tweets.
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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

Post by Kraken »

The hearings are spectacular, and that's their danger.
The organizers of the January 6 hearings had no choice but to resort to showmanship. They clearly learned the lesson of the Mueller report. When Mueller gathered the findings of his investigation into the Trump campaign’s expectation to “benefit electorally” from Russian disinformation campaigns, he released them as a book. He may as well have put his findings in a bottle and thrown them into the sea. Americans don’t go to books to understand the world any more. They go to their screens. That’s one of the most prominent truths revealed by the Trump years: spectacle wins. The sheer capacity to gather attention is, by far, the most important force in US politics.

On that level, the January 6 hearings have been a resounding success. The ratings have been superb. Nearly 20 million people watched the first prime time hearing, which puts it roughly on the level of Sunday Night Football. Not only have the hearings managed a large audience, but the narrative they are telling has registered. Republican megadonors no longer find Trump as appealing as they once did, at least this week, and several conservative legal scholars have declared that the hearings have changed their minds on his culpability, whether that matters or not.

But as the hearings come to a close, the very success of their presentation presents a very real danger to the republic they purport to be saving. With every display of some new idiocy or corruption, whether it’s the random presence of Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne in the events leading up to the near-fall of the United States, or Jason Van Tatenhove’s description of “armed revolution”, the same question rears its threatening head: So what?

If the January 6 hearings turn out to be mere spectacle, they will have been a complete disaster. The Trump years revealed something other than that spectacle wins. They also revealed that the American system of government is basically a collection of habits and expectations. The actual structure of American government is crumbling plaster and cobwebs. Anyone who wants to can shred it with a gesture. American democracy is hanging on by the skin of its norms. And the hearings are, quite by accident, shifting those norms.

American tolerance for political illegitimacy grows by way of exposure. Weekly, sometimes daily, the American public is shown some new completely unacceptable abuse of power. The revelations don’t make any difference or have any consequences. And as the American tolerance for political illegitimacy grows, the size of the monstrosity the country will accept swells.
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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

Post by Pyperkub »

The last (scheduled) hearing is tonight apparently. Some things to expect:

What to expect
Thursday will be the panel's second prime-time session, an effort to maximize viewership and attention.

The committee plans to zero in on Trump's conduct on January 6, 2021, focusing specifically on his response -- or lack thereof -- as rioters breached the Capitol walls and forced lawmakers to flee their chambers.
Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria of Virginia, who will be leading Thursday's hearing with GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, told CNN the committee will "go through pretty much minute by minute" the then-President's actions.
"He was doing nothing to actually stop the riot," the Virginia Democrat told CNN's Dana Bash on "State of the Union."
While the panel has not yet said who will testify, CNN previously reported that former Trump White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews is expected to be a witness.
The panel is also likely to lean heavily on video clips from the deposition of Pat Cipollone
Rolling Stone also expects a LOT of collateral damage...
two sources familiar with the committee’s planning.

“They have plans to paint a really striking picture of how some of Trump’s greatest enablers of his coup plot were — no matter what they’re saying today — quaking in their boots and doing everything shy of crying out for their moms,” one source tells Rolling Stone. “If any of [these lawmakers] were capable of shame, they would be humiliated.”
Black Lives definitely Matter Lorini!

Also: There are three ways to not tell the truth: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

Post by geezer »

This seems important...

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/21/top-trump-lawyers-briefed-on-granular-details-of-alternate-elector-plot-00047107
On Dec. 13, 2020, the day before electors gathered to cast their states’ presidential votes as required by law, Christina Bobb of One America News emailed several Trump campaign aides and allies to discuss arrangements for the false electors. Teeing up those pro-Trump electors to represent states that Joe Biden won in 2020 was a linchpin of Trump’s efforts to challenge his loss...

POLITICO reviewed the email, which has not been previously reported. It sheds light on how people in and close to the Trump campaign worked to contest the election, as well as the detailed planning that went into promoting alternate electors in states Biden carried....

Bobb opened the email by saying that Mike Roman, another Trump campaign official, held a call the night before with “the teams working the various states.”
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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

Post by LordMortis »

Republican megadonors no longer find Trump as appealing as they once did, at least this week,
The revelations don’t make any difference or have any consequences.
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Unagi
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Re: The insurrection committee's public hearings

Post by Unagi »

Well here we go, the Season 1 finale
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