Team Trump’s legal arguments veering into paranoid kook-land

[Ad Orientem]

Sen. Joseph McCarthy liked to insist he had evidence of Communists in the government, but he couldn’t show you the names right now. The number of Communist infiltrators on his secret list changed from speech to speech.

Listening to President Trump’s legal team claim over and over again that they have voluminous evidence that the election was stolen, it occurred to me that we’re in a kind of repeat McCarthy era. Only this time, to borrow from that old-school Communist Karl Marx, history is repeating itself not as tragedy but as farce.

Take Sidney Powell, a former federal prosecutor who became a right-wing darling as the lawyer for Michael Flynn, Trump’s 24-day national-security adviser. Trump repeatedly touted her as a member of his elite legal team, a group nicknamed Strike Force.

Powell has hinted darkly that a state-of-the-art computer hacking program masterminded by the late Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez was used to hand the election to Biden, with the help of Cuba, George Soros, “likely” China and other “Communistic” forces. Powell subscribes to the view, pushed by pro-Trump lawyer Lin Wood, that the outgoing president actually got 70 percent of the popular vote and 400 Electoral College votes.

To Powell’s credit, she actually provided some “evidence” for this: a meandering affidavit from an anonymous whistleblower who begins his or her fevered meanderings, “I am an adult of sound mine.” No wonder Powell hasn’t released any more evidence.

On Sunday, Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and fellow Strike Forcer Jenna Ellis drummed Powell out of the unit, perhaps because her crazy was eclipsing Giuliani’s. But Team Trump is still making plenty of outrageous assertions. Giuliani, for example, claims that “many,” perhaps most, ballots were counted overseas. He claims massive fraud in Michigan based on a close analysis of election returns in . . . Minnesota.

Read the rest here...
https://nypost.com/2020/11/27/team-trum ... kook-land/

Note that the NY Post is a right leaning paper that has in the past been highly sympathetic to Trump on its editorial pages.

[pmward]

I'm curious to see this 60 minutes episode tomorrow with Chris Krebs, the Dept of Homeland Security director that Trump fired for making a public statement that there was no evidence of fraud. According to this article he claims Trumps claims are "farcical".

https://www.businessinsider.com/chris-k ... ud-2020-11

[Mountaineer]

I'm curious to see this 60 minutes episode tomorrow with Chris Krebs, the Dept of Homeland Security director that Trump fired for making a public statement that there was no evidence of fraud. According to this article he claims Trumps claims are "farcical".

https://www.businessinsider.com/chris-k ... ud-2020-11

So, you like Kabuki theater?

[pmward]

I'm curious to see this 60 minutes episode tomorrow with Chris Krebs, the Dept of Homeland Security director that Trump fired for making a public statement that there was no evidence of fraud. According to this article he claims Trumps claims are "farcical".

https://www.businessinsider.com/chris-k ... ud-2020-11

So, you like Kabuki theater?

Haha, well I'm at least curious what the has to say.

[vnatale]

I'm curious to see this 60 minutes episode tomorrow with Chris Krebs, the Dept of Homeland Security director that Trump fired for making a public statement that there was no evidence of fraud. According to this article he claims Trumps claims are "farcical".

https://www.businessinsider.com/chris-k ... ud-2020-11

So, you like Kabuki theater?

Congratulations! I've many times heard the term but had never read it. Had no idea what it meant. You putting it into writing motivated me to look up what it means. Thanks!

Vinny

Kabuki is a form of classical theater in Japan known for its elaborate costumes and dynamic acting. The phrases Kabuki theater, kabuki dance, or kabuki play are sometimes used in political discourse to describe an event characterized more by showmanship than by content.

[Maddy]

It's folly to dismiss what has come directly from the mouths of the Marxist elites who, even six months ago, were being defended by the Left as the object of delusional, boogeyman-type paranoia. Three examples that come immediately to mind: Klaus Schwab, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Gro Harlem Brundtland. All have told us, straight out, exactly what the plan is--and what the plan has been for decades.

[Ad Orientem]

...If the president hoped Republicans across the country would fall in line behind his false and farcical claims that the election was somehow rigged on a mammoth scale by a nefarious multinational conspiracy, he was in for a surprise. Republicans in Washington may have indulged Mr. Trump’s fantastical assertions, but at the state and local level, Republicans played a critical role in resisting the mounting pressure from their own party to overturn the vote after Mr. Trump fell behind on Nov. 3.

The three weeks that followed tested American democracy and demonstrated that the two-century-old system is far more vulnerable to subversion than many had imagined even though the incumbent president lost by six million votes nationwide. But in the end, the system stood firm against the most intense assault from an aggrieved president in the nation’s history because of a Republican city clerk in Michigan, a Republican secretary of state in Georgia, a Republican county supervisor in Arizona and Republican-appointed judges in Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

They refuted conspiracy theories, certified results, dismissed lawsuits and repudiated a president of their own party, leaving him to thunder about a supposed plot that would have had to include people who had voted for him, donated to him or even been appointed by him. The desperate effort to hang onto office over the will of the people effectively ended when his own director of the General Services Administration determined that Joseph R. Biden Jr. is the president-elect and a judge Mr. Trump put on the bench chastised him for ludicrous litigation.

“Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy,” Judge Stephanos Bibas, appointed by Mr. Trump in 2017, wrote for a three-judge panel of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia on Friday as it dismissed the latest of dozens of legal claims filed by Mr. Trump and his allies. “Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here.”

From here...
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/28/us/p ... sults.html


Trumpism is not a movement or philosophy. It is a cult. And the Trumpian claims of a stolen election are the political equivalent to flat eartherism. Those asserting a vast conspiracy to steal the election cite arguments and so called evidence, repeatedly debunked, in the same way as those who assert the world is flat. They dismiss rational evidence and the sources that rebut their own delusional beliefs, as leftist/communist and part of the great conspiracy. They inhabit a self reinforcing information bubble, constantly being fed and repeating dark conspiracy theories, all the while failing to grasp that they have become tools of the most dangerous demagogue in American history.

How deep this rot runs in the GOP is not yet clear, and it is too soon to see if the party can be salvaged. Is there enough left of the party of Coolidge, Thomas Dewey, Eisenhower, Everette Dirksen, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan or George H.W. Bush to save the it? My guess is probably not. But time will tell.

[glennds]

It's folly to dismiss what has come directly from the mouths of the Marxist elites who, even six months ago, were being defended by the Left as the object of delusional, boogeyman-type paranoia. Three examples that come immediately to mind: Klaus Schwab, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Gro Harlem Brundtland. All have told us, straight out, exactly what the plan is--and what the plan has been for decades.

Pray tell, what is the plan of which you speak?
Seriously, I really don't know.

[vnatale]

It's folly to dismiss what has come directly from the mouths of the Marxist elites who, even six months ago, were being defended by the Left as the object of delusional, boogeyman-type paranoia. Three examples that come immediately to mind: Klaus Schwab, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Gro Harlem Brundtland. All have told us, straight out, exactly what the plan is--and what the plan has been for decades.

Pray tell, what is the plan of which you speak?
Seriously, I really don't know.

Klaus Schwab, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Gro Harlem Brundtland

Of course I know who Zbigniew Brzezinski is. But until just this morning had never heard of the other two.

Does anyone here (aside from Maddy) know who are the other two and, more importantly, know what each has said? To be effective don't people have to be aware of movement leaders and what they promulgate?

Vinny

[Maddy]

Does anyone here (aside from Maddy) know who are the other two and, more importantly, know what each has said? To be effective don't people have to be aware of movement leaders and what they promulgate?

Not at all. When you control the Trilateral Commission, or the United Nations, you don't need public support. You don't even have to be recognized.

[vnatale]

Just starting to read a book on the 2000 election (written in 2000).

This is the 4th paragraph on the first page. Has anything changed in the last 20 years???!!

Vinny


Democrats were capricious, whiny, wimpy, and astoundingly incompetent. Republicans were cruel, presumptuous, indifferent, and disingenuous. Both were hypocritical—appallingly so, at times. Both sides lied. Over and over and over. Far too many members of the media were sloppy, lazy, and out of touch. Hired-gun lawyers pursued their task of victory, not justice. The American electoral system was revealed to be full of giant holes.

[pmward]

Just starting to read a book on the 2000 election (written in 2000).

This is the 4th paragraph on the first page. Has anything changed in the last 20 years???!!

Vinny


Democrats were capricious, whiny, wimpy, and astoundingly incompetent. Republicans were cruel, presumptuous, indifferent, and disingenuous. Both were hypocritical—appallingly so, at times. Both sides lied. Over and over and over. Far too many members of the media were sloppy, lazy, and out of touch. Hired-gun lawyers pursued their task of victory, not justice. The American electoral system was revealed to be full of giant holes.

Lol, sounds like 2020.

I don't remember things being like this back when I was a kid in the 80s. Was I just too young to notice or was there less animosity between both sides back then? From my memory, it was really the 90s with Clinton in office when the animosity and political warfare started. When the Republicans tried to impeach Clinton for the Lewinski thing. It seems like the animosity between both sides has done nothing but fester and grow worse since that point in time with every passing president. Like both sides are just stuck in this cyclical desire for revenge. Nobody really cares about the country, they just care about winning at all costs and making the other side's life hell in whatever way possible.

[pmward]

Also, have Republicans always lost their shit anytime a Democrat is elected? Or did that also start with Clinton? Every Democrat president I've ever seen elected they've lost their shit and acted like the world was ending. Clinton: they lost their shit. Obama: lost their shit. Biden: currently losing their shit. The only Republican president I've seen Democrats lose their shit over was Trump. While they might not have liked Reagan and Bush x2, I feel like on the whole most Democrats accepted the loss and moved on at least by the time the new president was inaugurated. Even in 2000, after the first week or two post election in my memory it felt like most Democrats just gave up and accepted that Gore was going to lose and the recounts, hanging chads, and the like were all moot. I even recall Gore after 9/11 saying something to the effect of "George W. Bush is my commander in chief". It just seems, at least outside of Trump, Democrats tend to move on quickly while Republicans tend to obsess for years over losing the presidency.

[vnatale]

Just starting to read a book on the 2000 election (written in 2000).

This is the 4th paragraph on the first page. Has anything changed in the last 20 years???!!

Vinny


Democrats were capricious, whiny, wimpy, and astoundingly incompetent. Republicans were cruel, presumptuous, indifferent, and disingenuous. Both were hypocritical—appallingly so, at times. Both sides lied. Over and over and over. Far too many members of the media were sloppy, lazy, and out of touch. Hired-gun lawyers pursued their task of victory, not justice. The American electoral system was revealed to be full of giant holes.

Lol, sounds like 2020.

I don't remember things being like this back when I was a kid in the 80s. Was I just too young to notice or was there less animosity between both sides back then? From my memory, it was really the 90s with Clinton in office when the animosity and political warfare started. When the Republicans tried to impeach Clinton for the Lewinski thing. It seems like the animosity between both sides has done nothing but fester and grow worse since that point in time with every passing president. Like both sides are just stuck in this cyclical desire for revenge. Nobody really cares about the country, they just care about winning at all costs and making the other side's life hell in whatever way possible.

I should have kept reading and also included here the next paragraph (by the way the book is excellent)...

Vinny

The people themselves were split into three groups: Those who cared so much about their candidate winning they lost all sense of reason, consistency, or civility. Those who were so apathetic they couldn’t care one way or another, they just wanted it to be over. And people like you, gentle reader, who fell somewhere in between.

[vnatale]

Also, have Republicans always lost their shit anytime a Democrat is elected? Or did that also start with Clinton? Every Democrat president I've ever seen elected they've lost their shit and acted like the world was ending. Clinton: they lost their shit. Obama: lost their shit. Biden: currently losing their shit. The only Republican president I've seen Democrats lose their shit over was Trump. While they might not have liked Reagan and Bush x2, I feel like on the whole most Democrats accepted the loss and moved on at least by the time the new president was inaugurated. Even in 2000, after the first week or two post election in my memory it felt like most Democrats just gave up and accepted that Gore was going to lose and the recounts, hanging chads, and the like were all moot. I even recall Gore after 9/11 saying something to the effect of "George W. Bush is my commander in chief". It just seems, at least outside of Trump, Democrats tend to move on quickly while Republicans tend to obsess for years over losing the presidency.

By the way here was the infamous "confusing" butterfly ballot which does not look all that confusing me me:

Capture.JPG (34.56 KiB) Viewed 3287 times

Also, here was part of Gore's behavior / response that election night.

In Nashville, Gore goes back upstairs to talk to his family. On his way, he runs into his chief speechwriter, Eli Attie, a thirty-three-year-old moptopped New Yorker. Gore and Attie had spent some time earlier in the day working on his victory speech.

“Do you have an alternative statement?” Gore asks him.

Attie nods.

“Why don’t you bring it to my room,” Gore says.

In fact, Attie has a bunch of speeches on hand. One for victory. One for an electoral victory, but a popular-vote defeat. One for a victory but a loss in Tennessee. One for a result where it’s all too close to call, and the winner won’t be known ’til Wednesday; Tad Devine had told him that it might come down to the absentee ballots in one state. And finally, Attie has a concession speech, one he wrote on Sunday in Philadelphia, while sitting in the back of a van. Gore goes upstairs; campaign chair Bill Daley and chief media strategist Carter Eskew go with him. Daley is focused on what Gore’s going to do; he thinks he should concede. Eskew is focused on what Gore’s going to say. Campaign manager Donna Brazile, long since edged out of the immediate circle, sends Gore a page: “Never surrender. It’s not over yet,” it reads.

Gore takes Daley aside, asks him what he thinks.

“I think you oughta call them,” Daley says, meaning the Bushies, meaning concession.

Lieberman, who has a tight race in his political history, tries to talk him out of it. But Gore isn’t buying it.“I just want to thank everybody for everything they did,” Gore says. He doesn’t want a prolonged, protracted, divisive fight. Gore’s kids start to cry.

Daley hands him a slip of paper.

“Is this the number?” Gore asks. Daley says yes.

At around 2:40 A.M., Gore calls Bush to concede. Bush tells Gore that he’s a “good man.” He sends his best to Gore’s wife, Tipper. “I know this is hard for you,” Bush says.


Vinny

[glennds]

Lol, sounds like 2020.

I don't remember things being like this back when I was a kid in the 80s. Was I just too young to notice or was there less animosity between both sides back then? From my memory, it was really the 90s with Clinton in office when the animosity and political warfare started.

IMO the single biggest catalyst for the animosity of that time was Newt Gingrich, and yes it was in the 90s during the Clinton years. It was under Gingrich's leadership of the GOP that I first noticed the parties shifting from being rivals to being sworn enemies. Added influences included the Christian Coalition and Grover Norquist and the Americans for Tax Reform organization. But Gingrich brought in a whole new attitude that party leadership was the functional equivalent of being a field general in warfare, and we've never looked back.

In the 60s, 70s and 80s, the parties were rivals, but worked together at the end of the day because country took priority over party.

One of my favorite factoids about Newt Gingrich is that at time he was crusading to impeach Bill Clinton over the Lewinsky scandal, Newt himself was having an affair with his own 20 something year old intern, whom he later left his wife to marry.
Her name is Callista Gingrich, and Donald Trump appointed her Ambassador to the Vatican after he was elected!

[pmward]

Lol, sounds like 2020.

I don't remember things being like this back when I was a kid in the 80s. Was I just too young to notice or was there less animosity between both sides back then? From my memory, it was really the 90s with Clinton in office when the animosity and political warfare started.

IMO the single biggest catalyst for the animosity of that time was Newt Gingrich, and yes it was in the 90s during the Clinton years. It was under Gingrich's leadership of the GOP that I first noticed the parties shifting from being rivals to being sworn enemies. Added influences included the Christian Coalition and Grover Norquist and the Americans for Tax Reform organization. But Gingrich brought in a whole new attitude that party leadership was the functional equivalent of being a field general in warfare, and we've never looked back.

In the 60s, 70s and 80s, the parties were rivals, but worked together at the end of the day because country took priority over party.

One of my favorite factoids about Newt Gingrich is that at time he was crusading to impeach Bill Clinton over the Lewinsky scandal, Newt himself was having an affair with his own 20 something year old intern, whom he later left his wife to marry.
Her name is Callista Gingrich, and Donald Trump appointed her Ambassador to the Vatican after he was elected!

Yeah it did seem like there was some shift that happened in the Clinton years. I wasn't paying much attention back then though, so I wasn't sure the exact root cause, I just know shit got real when they tried to impeach him, and since that point it seems like it's never been the same. The Republicans especially have stuck to the same basic playbook for the last 25 years, they always paint their opponent as a criminal in some form and they always say he should be impeached for some reason (whether real like Clinton/Lewinski or fabricated like the Birther thing, the Qanon stuff, and likely the phony "fraud" allegations with Biden this time around). Then they spend the entire term waging straight up warfare on the other side. Blocking any legislation, hammering cabinet picks, trying to intentionally tank the economy, etc just to stick it to the other side.

Really Trump is the only president I've seen the Democrats wage war on. And if any other Republican won in 2016 instead of Trump I don't think they would have done the same. I think it was mainly because of Trump's character/personality flaws that they waged war on him. We will have to wait to see when the next Republican president comes to power if this holds true or not, or if the Democrats are now also beyond the point of no return like the Republicans were after the Clinton years. I hope and prey they aren't, because if they are going to continue to repeat this going forward there is no hope for deescalation of tensions.

[vnatale]

Lol, sounds like 2020.

I don't remember things being like this back when I was a kid in the 80s. Was I just too young to notice or was there less animosity between both sides back then? From my memory, it was really the 90s with Clinton in office when the animosity and political warfare started.

IMO the single biggest catalyst for the animosity of that time was Newt Gingrich, and yes it was in the 90s during the Clinton years. It was under Gingrich's leadership of the GOP that I first noticed the parties shifting from being rivals to being sworn enemies. Added influences included the Christian Coalition and Grover Norquist and the Americans for Tax Reform organization. But Gingrich brought in a whole new attitude that party leadership was the functional equivalent of being a field general in warfare, and we've never looked back.

In the 60s, 70s and 80s, the parties were rivals, but worked together at the end of the day because country took priority over party.

One of my favorite factoids about Newt Gingrich is that at time he was crusading to impeach Bill Clinton over the Lewinsky scandal, Newt himself was having an affair with his own 20 something year old intern, whom he later left his wife to marry.
Her name is Callista Gingrich, and Donald Trump appointed her Ambassador to the Vatican after he was elected!

Yes! Now that you jog my memory with that, I agree!

By the way. How much have you listened to Newt Gingrich speak? He is King Hyperbole!

Vinny

[SomeDude]

One of my favorite factoids about Newt Gingrich is that at time he was crusading to impeach Bill Clinton over the Lewinsky scandal, Newt himself was having an affair with his own 20 something year old intern, whom he later left his wife to marry.
Her name is Callista Gingrich, and Donald Trump appointed her Ambassador to the Vatican after he was elected!

I remember that. It took a lot of guts for Newt to do that. I heard he divorced his wife when she dying of cancer, I could be misremembering. If that's true, that's a real beast. He either loved Callista so much or despised his wife so much that he risked being the jackwagon of the century. Truly Epic.

Why on Earth does the United States need am Ambassador to the Vatican?!?!?!?!

[glennds]

One of my favorite factoids about Newt Gingrich is that at time he was crusading to impeach Bill Clinton over the Lewinsky scandal, Newt himself was having an affair with his own 20 something year old intern, whom he later left his wife to marry.
Her name is Callista Gingrich, and Donald Trump appointed her Ambassador to the Vatican after he was elected!

I remember that. It took a lot of guts for Newt to do that. I heard he divorced his wife when she dying of cancer, I could be misremembering. If that's true, that's a real beast. He either loved Callista so much or despised his wife so much that he risked being the jackwagon of the century. Truly Epic.

Why on Earth does the United States need am Ambassador to the Vatican?!?!?!?!

You're remembering it correctly SomeDude.
Gingrich presented his second wife with divorce terms at her hospital bed when she was recovering from cancer surgery. That was his second wife, the one he left for Callista the intern.
His first was his geometry teacher from high school.

Like all things in politics, maybe some people see these as examples of a fighter and a person who relentlessly pursues liberty and happiness. A decisive maverick. A true model of those values enshrined in the Constitution. An inspiration to all Americans.
On the other hand, some might think he's the jackwagon of the century, a walking, talking sack of shit.

Maybe with the copious amount of time he must be spending around the Vatican with Callista, he should ask Pope Francis for an opinion.

[SomeDude]

His first was his geometry teacher from high school.

BEASTMODE!

I'm joking of course. But I will say as I get older (I've crossed into the 40's), I'm much less likely to judge how people handle their personal relationships because I am not in it with them. I have been horribly miserable in relationships before, but never in a marriage. I've only been married less than 8 months (first time). His wives might have been miserable, horrible, nasty, alcoholic (I dated one for years) or God knows what. You can't really know what goes on behind closed doors, but man he looks like a douche.

Personally, I never held it against Clinton that he had countless affairs. I mean for God's sake imagine Hillary in the sack. I almost weep for him. That was the LEAST of his faults.

[SomeDude]

Does anyone know how to delete a post? I tried to edit it a few times to get the quoting right and it ended up posting a bunch of extra times..............

[vnatale]

Does anyone know how to delete a post? I tried to edit it a few times to get the quoting right and it ended up posting a bunch of extra times..............

I predict that our forum superhero Xan will come to your rescue!

Vinny

[l82start]

Does anyone know how to delete a post? I tried to edit it a few times to get the quoting right and it ended up posting a bunch of extra times..............

Done