“The revived fortunes of fossil fuels, especially coal, may explain some of the weakened resolve for decarbonization. Global bank lending to fossil fuel companies is up 15 per cent, to over $300 billion, in the first nine months of this year, from the same period in 2021, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. This is Wall Street just doing its job: making money. Banks earned more than $1 billion in revenue from fossil lending during the first three quarters, in line with 2021. Why quit business with a booming sector over a distant climate goal?”
– Alistair Marsh, Bloomberg. ($) The US news service has been pushing the whole “Green transition” agenda in recent years in its coverage, at the behest of founder Michael Bloomberg, so there is something darkly amusing watching the organisation concede that decarbonisation has been a big loser for investors in recent months. If you are JP Morgan, BlackRock, Bank of America Merrill Lynch or a small investment house in Massachusetts, you have to explain to clients why you hugely lagged the stock market because of your “Green” decisions.
As the late Richard Feynman once said apropos the Space Shuttle, nature cannot be fooled. That applies to economics as well.
They, the banks, the investment companies (such as BlackRock), and the demented financial media (and they are demented – January 6th an “insurrection”, “Trump supported Nazis in Virginia in 2017” and all the rest of the absurd lies one sees on Bloomberg and even CNBC), face a choice.
The choice they face is between their Collectivist (“Woke”) ideology and making money.
However, they have for many years now, tried to “square the circle” by abolishing what is left of the free market – getting their money from the Federal Reserve, and other Central Banks, and (in their plans) having people TOLD what to spend money on (that is at the heart of the movement to end cash – and push digital currency).
It is just Disney and Amazon who say it is “a threat to democracy” to dislike their shows – it is the banks, and so on, as well.
For the good of “democracy” money must be produced by the Central Banks and the Credit Bubble commercial bank servants – then given to the “stakeholder” corporations (such as BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard) and when ordinary people get this money (much devalued by the time ordinary people get it – Cantillon Effect) they, the ordinary people, must be told what to spend the money – what they must like.
This is “democracy” – or it is Corporate State Fascism (harking back to Saint-Simon a century before Mussolini) – depending on your point of view.
If there is anything left of the free market then these vast “Woke” corporations (including the Credit Bubble banks – who have not been honest money lenders, dealing in Real Savings – the actual sacrifice of consumption, for decades) will cease to exist – “go Woke – go broke”, that is why they are trying to get rid of what is left of the free market.
Interesting that the fuel mentioned is coal. I was reading up about this quite recently. We have a great deal of it and it can be converted into something, gas or liquid, that will power an internal combustion engine. Apparently it also burns cleanly. I assume this not being pursued for the same reason nuclear is not, you will have nothing and be happy.
Coal is decidedly not clean burning, which is why the buildings in the UK used to be covered in coal soot. A lot of the particulate matter can be filtered out of the fume but this was a very expensive retrofit for most power plants and certainly not something that you’d pay for your personal chimney. That said a lot of the modern domestic multifuel burners filter the worst out of the smoke.
Conversion of coal into coal gas is a very old technology, that was used to produce gas for lighting as far back as the 18th century. There are various chemical processes to produce gas from coal none particularly efficient. Similarly coal liquefaction to produce liquid fuels is a process that requires significant energy inputs. It could be practical for conversion for storage of energy produced by e.g. wind turbines or solar, but the same result could be had from liquefaction of wood or other biomass without the need for the mining of the coal.
I’m talking about coal to syngas to ethanol. I believe Australia has a pilot plant? No idea how efficient it is.
“If you are JP Morgan, BlackRock, Bank of America Merrill Lynch or a small investment house in Massachusetts…”
In a free market, all of these simply deserve to fail and vanish from the landscape.
Via Instapundit
Netherlands shuts down rich natural gas field amid energy crisis
A cynic might suspect a policy of “We’ll allow dirty coal in this emergency while blocking clean natural gas in order to be able to point and cry ‘Look at how dirty the use of fossil fuels is! We were right to want them ultimately banned!'”
Paul, regarding your first point, it is entirely possible to agree with much of what you say without mocking the idea that Trump’s behaviour on Jan 6, 2020 was bad, and deserved to be called out. I’d add that Trump was conspicuously silent on the issue of Wall Street’s addiction to the morphine drip of cheap Fed money. The defenders of the former property developer seem indulgent towards him on this matter.
JJM writes: In a free market, all of these simply deserve to fail and vanish from the landscape.
Why would a small investment advisor business, for example, “deserve” to fail in a free market? Explain that comment.
Paul did not mock them, he merely offered the explanation that they were ‘demented’ (far too charitable if taken literally in all cases, but I assume he was characterising what it would need to truly believe all the narrative). Conscious deceit and indulgent self-deceit better explain how one could part-believe, part not-notice that a crowd of second amendment enthusiasts would turn up to an insurrection without a single gun. (Many were arrested; IIUC, not one single gun was recovered. The gun-holders were all on the state’s side and, as one might expect, the dead were all on the protestors’ side).
By contrast, I see why the fact of Trump’s telling the Jan 6th crowd to protest peacefully did not impress Dems who know how to get their protestors to use violence at one moment while uttering weasel words at another. Demented is still too kind but I can see why the people who called the Floyd riots “mostly peaceful” could persuade themselves that the word meant no more in Trump’s mouth.
To steal an election commits one to defending that steal by characterising protestors against it as criminals – the same playbook they used on parents protesting CRT and elsewhere.
It can be argued that Trump was naive not to anticipate and prepare guards against a false-flag operation. But, obvious though it may be in retrospect, did you foresee how Jan 6th would be played? Did I foresee it as clearly as I can now explain it? (This post confesses a similar slowness on my part.)
Niall, since you are a pedantic fellow, you are sucking yourself into a bear trap with me:
Paul did not mock them, he merely offered the explanation that they were ‘demented’ (far too charitable if taken literally in all cases, but I assume he was characterising what it would need to truly believe all the narrative)
Let’s remind ourselves (as I would pompously put it, like a grumpy maths teacher) of what Paul Marks wrote:
They, the banks, the investment companies (such as BlackRock), and the demented financial media (and they are demented – January 6th an “insurrection”, “Trump supported Nazis in Virginia in 2017” and all the rest of the absurd lies one sees on Bloomberg and even CNBC), face a choice.
The scare quotes around “insurrection” meant that Paul thinks the “demented” financial media were mistaken in thinking that the disgraceful scenes (and they were, let’s not try and make it out to be anything else) were an insurrection.
But they were an insurrection, albeit a stupid and ultimately pointless one. They were quite clearly an attempt to prevent the Electoral College of signing off the results as legit. Further, Mr Trump’s behaviour leading up to that episode, and his subsequent comments against the likes of Mike Pence – who finally gave consent to the College to move forward – mean that to all intents and purposes, he wanted the result of the 2020 election to be declared null and void.
I am going to speak plain. I think the “Dems stole the election and everyone knows it” is madness, and transparent madness. The far more sobering fact is that Mr Biden, who is a nasty piece of work who has for years tried to make out he is some sort of “moderate”, still won by the kind of margin that is outside the boundaries of fraud, even if – I suspect there was – sharp practice in this result. People who believe in small government, freedom and capitalism need to ask themselves why they lost, and it can’t be done by holding to ideas about fraud and low dealing, because even without these things, these ideas are not popular. They are not popular in the UK right now, even though some of what is going on with Truss, Kwarteng and the rest smells like a coup. But if we describe these things in terms of conspiracies, coups, cover-ups, “Hunter Biden’s laptop”, and all the rest of it, then we are going to be portrayed as kooks, as nutcases, and ignored.
Rant over. Let’s return to the subject of the original post.
The danger is implicit in Dem-ocracy. The word means People-power. The mob as ruler. No automatic protection of minorities. I might form a Pro-Localist Party, with the slogan “Locals, Rule!” Local, small, counties (or Cantons) should have more power then non-local governments. This seems to work in Switzerland.
I may be “a pedantic fellow”, Johnathan, but I have a sense of humour, so suspect I am not in a bear trap with you. You have just ‘plainly’ committed yourself to the Dem narrative in its most extreme form: that the claims of electoral fraud in 2020 were ‘baseless’ (“transparent madness”); that the Jan 6th protest was “an insurrection”, not a protest of a kind seen before in the US, still less one accompanied by a false-flag operation.
– If you have called “insurrection attempt” on several Dem-praised US protests over the last decade then you could indeed defend your (incorrect, or at best bizarrely weak – my pedantry is showing 🙂 ) definition of the word ‘insurrection’ for Jan 6th as at least consistent. And, equally, if not then not, for the reason I gave as well as obvious others.
– In the sole link I posted (and its links), the audit’s ‘pedantry’ was all on the side of minimising the unreliability of the Arizona poll. I do not know where the very latest vote fraud story – the Kennoch one – will go, but I offer the spectacle of the NYT ridiculing True-the-Vote’s suspicions of Kennoch just a few days before Kennoch was charged with compromising poll worker’s data as reason for a bit less plain speaking and a bit more cautious speaking. I could give you a link to a “transparently mad” site’s coverage of it (or by all means find several such on instapundit). Alternatively, disdaining such sources, you can read the NYT’s ever-so-sane coverage of the right’s “latest conspiracy theory” on October 3rd, and then the NYT’s own more recent and less plain-spoken coverage of the same issue. Sometimes, more caution up-front averts the need for more embarrassing caution post-hoc.
As far as much UK media go, never mind US, coverage of the 2020 election and Jan 6th is every bit as transparently-reliable as coverage of Trump’s “genius move” remark – coverage the Times pushed in a headline and the Daily Telegraph fell for in Charles Moore’s column of the same or next date. It is perfectly possible to agree with much in Charle’s Moore’s late February thoughts on Putin’s evil and the west’s folly without falling for the narrative on Trump.
Feel free, as you suggest, to return to on-topic comments and so will I – though likely on later posts. If you cannot resist responding to this one before doing so, feel free to enjoy the bear trap. 🙂
I appreciate that Johnathan did not claim that people who subscribe to the view that “Dems stole the 2020 election” are mad: he only claims that they have ONE ‘mad’ belief.
Having clarified that, I now feel free to argue that it is people who think like Johnathan on this issue who are delusionally insane on this issue (and about the “”insurrection””).
I argue, not so much to convince Johnathan as to show by example why, even while constantly doubting my own sanity, i feel confident about the delusional insanity of other people on specific issues.
I submit that
1. Anybody who, after the 2000 presidential election, trusts the integrity of US elections, is delusional. In fact, there is such a potential for massive fraud in US elections that most of them would probably be declared null and void in what i consider normal countries.
In a normal country, voting fraud need not be demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt: all what needs to be demonstrated is the potential for massive fraud, or even massive un-intentional irregularities. Such was the case in Berlin recently: the mere presence of irregularities might lead to the overturning of the local results of the national election, more than a year after it took place.
There is much that i find insane in German politics, but when it comes to elections, Germany is apparently a serious country. Unlike the US.
2. Any country which criminalizes the expression of doubt about the legitimacy of election results, is at best a fascist country. (At least, Mussolini made the trains run on time 🙂 )
3. WRT the 2020 presidential election in particular, i have expressed my doubts already in November 2020: when so many pundits have turned from neutral (or, in some cases, such as Glenn Reynolds and yours truly, anti-Hitlery but not MAGA) to pro-Trump, how come so many voters have turned anti-Trump?
(to be continued)
(continuation)
Before adding to my list, i should clarify that lists such as this make me think that it is insane to disagree with me ***on a specific issue***, but do not prove that i am not insane on other issues.
I define delusional insanity as imperviousness to falsification by empirical evidence.
I should add that i am open to refutation of my charge of insanity: simply provide cogent arguments against every item in my list!
On to items 4 & 5.
4. Johnathan writes:
There are several issues here:
4a: in a normal country, even the potential for massive fraud would render the election null and void, independently of whether the result is in doubt;
4b: how does Johnathan know what ‘the boundaries of fraud’ are?
4c: most important: has Johnathan even heard of the electoral college?
5. Arguably i reserved the best for the last.
Sample quote:
The article goes on to provide evidence that the election was “stolen” on the balance of the evidence — not beyond reasonable doubt; but the balance of evidence would be more than needed to make the election null and void in a normal country.
Niall rights: You have just ‘plainly’ committed yourself to the Dem narrative in its most extreme form: that the claims of electoral fraud in 2020 were ‘baseless’ (“transparent madness”); that the Jan 6th protest was “an insurrection”, not a protest of a kind seen before in the US, still less one accompanied by a false-flag operation.
The actions on Jan 6, 2020 were plainly designed to overturn the result. Not a single court ruled that there were cases to overturn the results of the specific state races, if I am correct. That does not mean that there was not fraud – American politics has a certain reputation – but it does mean that the claims that fraud swung the election were, as far as I can see, without merit. The margin of victory was sufficiently big, as I said, to rule that out.
If you have called “insurrection attempt” on several Dem-praised US protests over the last decade then you could indeed defend your (incorrect, or at best bizarrely weak – my pedantry is showing 🙂 ) definition of the word ‘insurrection’ for Jan 6th as at least consistent. And, equally, if not then not, for the reason I gave as well as obvious others.
But what happened on 6 Jan wasn’t just a protest, or a silly stunt. There were clear attempts to put members of Congress sitting at the time under pressure and force them to change their minds. People were afraid for their safety. Maybe they were mistaken – it is easy to be clever at a distance,, and with hindsight.
This was the most egregious example I have seen in my adult life of people trying to thwart the result of an election, and by intimidation. One can engage in whataboutery or keep repeating claims of stolen elections, but that is the fact of the matter.
Oh well, Samizdata is a broad church. I want to occasionally make it clear where I stand, and it is not with the Trump crowd, and what it represents, which I consider poisonous.
Johnathan Pearce (October 18, 2022 at 9:54 pm), welcome to what you call the bear trap. 🙂 One could instead call it a continuing discussion, though for that truly to be merited, some willingness to respond to counterarguments will be necessary.
You have a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome, causing you to make unreasonable assertions (unless your writing “Niall rights” was intended as a subtle signal 🙂 – but I suspect overlooking that typo is rather a signal of writing while in the grip of strong emotion).
Snorri, in his point 4, has sufficiently noted the bizarreness of your claim that Biden’s claimed victory exceeded the possible margin of fraud. Snorri’s point 4c was what most struck me when I first read your claim, but so did the answer to his question 4b. Both US history and arithmetic based on individual cases give some ranges for prior possible vote fraud, and TDS’ ability to make people not look would have to work overtime to keep you ignorant that 2020-pandemic-excuses saw much late razing of standard voter-integrity protections.
You appear ignorant how many of the vote-fraud cases were decided on procedural grounds that say nothing about their merits – which makes your argument there meritless. (Other points about the cases can wait till you inform yourself about that – or forever if TDS forbids you to do so.)
Your claim about the January 6th events is similarly TDS. The US constitution specifies the procedure for January 6th; its conditions for holding a debate and voting one way or the other, not a mere rubber stamp, were met. That in turn establishes the abstract legitimacy of proposing a negative vote, and the legitimacy of US citizens encouraging it by a form of lawful protest (under, of course, a moral duty to have valid grounds for their choice). Trump instructed the demonstrators to peacefully encourage their representatives to vote their consciences – an entirely legitimate protest action, and in no way unlike the (less aggressive of) the explanations provided by those demonstrators who protested Trump’s inauguration, who sought to encourage the Senate not to appoint Kavanaugh, and many etc.s.
Trump had recommended Pelosi arrange adequate security, as in other such cases. The authority rested with her. The ability of any Jan 6th demonstrators to enter the Capitol and break a window (when, for example, Kavanaugh demonstrators in a similar case banged on the door or shouted down senators), rests with her and other Dem figures. Why she did not take recommended steps, why Capitol police under her ultimate authority welcomed some protestors into the building, is a question for her, not Trump.
As to whether certain demonstrators who did not listen to Trump and follow his schedule, but instead went early to the Capitol area to remove the barriers placed there and seize control of the megaphone, were false-flag or not, I’m guessing you have not researched the information now available on that enough to debate it. But if you have an explanation you find convincing for the FBI’s role in not arresting Ray Epps and others, be my guest. I’m sure you are up to the exercise, but if pursued honestly it may encourage a bit more caution.
Alternatively, if you find the present day too debatable, suppose we study the Democrats’ stealing of the 1960 election instead. If you refuse to believe it happened, if you deny that it was done in Texas by LBJ and in Chicago by Mayor Daley, both men using techniques they’d often used before to enhance their careers (in Johnson’s case, in one Democratic Party primary, to ensure he continued to have a career), then I’d certainly have to qualify my belief that TDS alone is what is corrupting your ability to assess likelihood of vote fraud. If you do accept it happened, explaining how you know it did yet feel so sure 2020’s steal didn’t may develop your ideas about the “margin of fraud”, and the ability of Democrats+MSM to enforce its acceptance.
Well yes Snorri – the 2020 United States Presidential Election was rigged, but the question is “how many people know that?”
There is a big problem with knowing the election was rigged and the current American government is not legitimate – if you ever say that, they have a hundred ways to get back at you. For example, the IRS could decide to “audit” you (that can bankrupt a person), or the FBI could arrive and shove a rifle in your face – after all you are spreading “insurrection” talk.
For most people it is just is not worth knowing that the election was rigged – they cannot do anything about it and going around saying the election was rigged can get them and their families into serious trouble. They might lose their jobs – or worse.
So, for a lot of people it is a matter of “I do not WANT to know” – they just put their fingers in their ears and go “la, la, la” whenever anyone presents evidence that the election was rigged, and that the American government is institutionally corrupt (and vicious).
Of course, there are people who truly believe that Mr Biden won the election – they are not pretending to believe this, they really do believe it.
But such people also tend to believe that the Covid injections are totally harmless (unless they are told that they are harmful – because “Trump” made them so), and also believe in the sexual mutilation of children.
It is not just the Surgeon General of the United States (an odd “Admiral” – who wears a dress) who wants to sexually mutilate children, it is also the Attorney General of the United States.
And the Attorney General of the United States, Mr Garland, has large numbers of men-with-guns, and is open in his belief that anyone who dissents from the “liberal” line of the government (or just about anything) should be dealt with in a very harsh fashion indeed.
In such circumstances I can quite see why very large numbers of Americans want to “keep their heads down”.
I would not like Mr Garland’s associates to arrive at my home (dressed in black battle armour) and stick a rifle in my face, before dragging me off to prison to be abused (beaten up, raped, and so on).
As you say Snorri – America is not a “normal country” anymore, not in the sense it was. Things could be worse, American is NOT yet a totalitarian state – but it is going that way.
The real test is “will these utter bastards leave power?” will they allow both houses of Congress, the Senate as well as the House, to leave their control after the election in November 2022, and will they allow President Trump to return on January 20th 2025?
If the answer is “no – they will do whatever it takes to prevent that” then America is in for very violent times indeed.
We will know in a few weeks – if they rig the votes to keep the Senate Democrat, then really bad times are about to start.
Really bad economic times are going to start whatever happens in the elections – the American economy is going to collapse, the strategic oil reserve has been looted to keep down oil prices (for the election) and GOLD is flowing out of the United States at an “interesting” rate.
The question now is – not “will there be an economic collapse?”, of course there is going to be an economic collapse. The question now is – “will people start killing each other in large numbers?”
For example, the FBI thugs come to house – but instead of a terrified family screaming for mercy (mercy they will not receive) they find a large number of armed men, say the local sheriff and deputies, waiting for them. The local law enforcement till the FBI to please leave – that their fake “warrant” gives them no authority (as the Federal Government is not supposed to have the “police power” outside D.C. and Federal bases and buildings), but the Feds say they are not leaving – that they are going to “arrest” the family for the “crime” of dissent. What happens then?
We do not have long to wait – if they allow the Senate to change hands it means they have got “cold feet” and do not want a Civil War.
We shall have to see – it is not our decision to make (we are thousands of miles away), the left have to decide for themselves whether or not they wish to rig the elections for the House and Senate in November.
I hope they decide to “back off” – but I do not decide what they are going to do. They must make their own decisions.
One problem is that if President Trump does return – it will NOT be the same President Trump who was in office before, who still (and here I condemn him) basically trusted the government machine – so he allowed people such as General Flynn (the ex head of military intelligence) and Paul Manafort to be persecuted – Paul Manafort spent three years in prison for paperwork “crimes” – but really because he refused to turn on President Trump (who did NOTHING to help Paul Manafort, or General Flynn, or Roger Stone – or anyone, apart from pardon them as he went out the door).
But now, we are told, that since the rigged election of November 2020 the scales have (finally) fallen from the eyes of Donald John Trump – and he wants these filth, the FBI, the “Justice” Department, all the rest of them, punished-for-their-crimes.
How can the left leave power when they know that the first order of business of a new Administration would be take revenge against them?
Perhaps that was the real point of an article by Tyler Cowen that I just misunderstood (I misread the article) – Mr Cowen is not saying that “the right” are wrong in their charges against the American regime, he is saying that the attitude of “the right” (the desire for REVENGE) is wrong – that a “right wing” FBI would be just as bad as a “left wing” FBI – and so on.
And that is true – justice and revenge are not the same thing.
But the one thing that has kept some people alive over the last few years (the one thing that has stopped them killing themselves in their despair) has been the desire for revenge.
Even the once left of centre Elon Musk may, at some level, be motivated by the desire for revenge – revenge for what the left did to his son. He may not admit that to himself – but the left fear that the desire for revenge is there.
If the Democrats had governed from the centre after the rigged election of November 2020 things might have been different.
But they governed from the far left – their policies have been insanely extreme (on everything from government spending to the sexual mutilation of children), and they have carried on persecuting people (more people seem to be threatened with prison every passing day – for absurd “crimes” such as refusing to participate in leftist rituals such as the “January 6th Committee” which is not even a properly constituted Committee of the House).
There can be no “forgive and forget” of the rigged election (as the rigged election of 1960 was forgiven), because of the way the Democrats have governed and continue to govern – the FBI (and so on) have become an openly partisan paramilitary group for the persecution of dissent.
If they wanted people to “forgive and forget” the rigged election (and the years of persecution of conservatives that occurred before the rigged election) why have they behaved like this?
Still, as I have said, the decision is for the left to make – and we will soon know.
If they give up the House and Senate (especially the Senate) then they have decided to “back off”.
Would I support an unofficial deal with the Democrats – that if they give up power, there will be no revenge?
Well – yes-I-would support such an unofficial deal.
But then I was not sent to prison for years – for NOTHING.
People who were (and were abused in prison) are likely to have very different opinion to me – indeed I know they do. They only thing that keeps such people alive is their desire for revenge.
Revenge – not impartial justice, that was the Tyler Cowen point about the “New Right” which I misunderstand in his recent article.
As Mark Steyn and others have pointed out – the Federal “justice” system is a sick joke, which is why people should not be extradited to the United States, because they will not get a fair trial. The “Justice” system being a “Conviction Machine” – with the whole thing being about a negotiation about what you will be convicted on (as so many paperwork things are “crimes” that carry years in prison – and there are thousand other traps in the system).
Again, referring to the Tylor Cowen article that I misunderstood – the problem is not that the charges “the right” make against the American establishment are false, the charges are true. The problem is that the “New Right” want to take over the system and use if for revenge – whereas, in Classical Liberal Justice, the system should be cast down.
Not the system be given over to President Trump or President Desantis in January 2025 – no, the Federal “justice” system needs to be done away with, it makes a mockery of all the principles of the Common Law, it is just a “Conviction Machine” which is used against anyone the powerful do not like.
Rassmussen Polling data.
Question: how likely is it cheating affected the outcome of the 2020 Presidential Election?
Results
Likely/Not Likely
All: 55%/40%
Rep: 75%/20%
Dem: 35%/61%
Ind: 53%/40%
White: 52%/40%
Black: 55%/40%
Hisp: 62%/35%
18-39: 55%/30%
65+: 49%/45%
(IIUC this was an early October poll.)
The issue of U.S. Election Integrity ranked #5 among all likely voters for the upcoming midterm elections with 84% Concerned, 61% Very Concerned.
Niall K, the good news is that we’ve not seen the rash of pre-election law changes that we did right before the 2020 election. It was those changes that made the difference then – and it was our failure to quash them as they were being imposed that made the election itself non-falsifiable.
JP might have more accurately stated that there is no way anyone can ever prove that that election was stolen. It was a matter of a barrel in a locked room into which we threw our anonymous ballots as we were admitted in, but they removed all the locks into the room first, and now we’re supposed to try to prove fraud with the evidence inside those barrels. Can’t be done.
Just watch for new “emergencies” arising between now and November 8th that require more new election changes. That will be key.
Niall, you’re just being abusive by saying I have a case of TDS. Show some manners.
If Attorney General William Barr thought there was insufficient evidence to prove the stolen election claim, and he was a Trump ally, that’s pretty solid, in my view.
Funny how Mike Pence did his constitutional duty. I guess he has derangement syndrome too. It’s incredibly contagious.
You have to let this go. You really do.
Niall – so 55% of the people are prepared to say the election was rigged, many of the minority also know the election was rigged, but dare not say so (not even to a pollster).
Sometimes I think the media and officials live in a bubble – where “only crazy people” think what are actually obvious truths, such as that the “vaccines” are dangerous, or the American election was rigged.
I have been involved in politics since 1979 and I have had many interesting talks with ordinary people “on the doorstep” (literally), but in spite of being a councillor for many years I have never (never) had an interesting conversation, or even heard anything worth hearing, in a council chamber or a committee room. Although naturally a talkative person (I am half Jewish and half Irish) I now normally say nothing in the council chamber or in a committee room – because these are just not good environments for discussion (they are “got you” places, where stale talking points are exchanged).
These days if, for example, someone said a word against the “Climate Emergency” or the “Diversity and Inclusion” agenda (or all the rest of it) their own political party would turn on them, and some regulation or other would be used to make them resign from the council or whatever body they were on.
As for the House of Commons – the Labour Party will say that the government should spend more money and impose more regulations, and the government will reply by listing some of the new regulations and some of the wild spending it has already imposed.
So, J.P. what is the point of me, or anyone else, listening to the House of Commons?
Indeed, what is the point of the House of Commons – if reducing, rather than expanding, the size and scope of government cannot even be discussed?
Well, 2 (Niall & Paul) out of 3 (not Johnathan) ain’t that bad.
Incidentally, Tulsi Gabbard has come around to my way of looking at things.
—Now i’d like to present some evidence that suggests (strongly, in my opinion) the delusional insanity of people believing that there was an insurrection on Jan 6, 2021.
A. Let me begin with a question: how many folks here have visited the Capitol (as anonymous tourists)? please show hands.
I ask because i did, back in 2004; and as far as i remember it would have been impossible for a few hundred people, even with guns, to break through security.
B. If it was an insurrection, was it planned in advance or stirred by Trump’s speech?
B1. If it was planned in advance, why no guns?
B2. If stirred by Trump’s speech, why did it start before the end of the speech? what kind of Trump fan does not listen to the entire speech?
C. Note also that Johnathan, like all believers in an insurrection, does not explain exactly what Trump said that stirred the “insurrection”. That’s because he hasn’t got a clue.
D. The Capitol Police numbered 1773 agents in 2016 (that’s the data that i have). Even assuming that only about half of them were on duty on Jan 6, how come 800 trained people with guns could not keep a similar or smaller number of people without guns out of the Capitol? That seems to me the most blatant evidence for a false-flag operation.
(But see also A above.)
E. Further evidence for a false-flag operation is the presence of FBI informers amongst the “insurrectionists”. Not to mention Antifa. Incidentally, none of them are in preventive detention afaik.
If the FBI can plot to kidnap the Governor of Michigan, why can’t they plot to entrap “insurrectionists”?
F. Then there is the remarkable coincidence of Pelosi’s daughter being in the Capitol with a video camera on Jan 6.
G. Finally, and hopefully i did not forget anything, why are people kept in preventive detention for over a year, instead of being put on trial, when all branches of the US government are acting as though their guilt has already been proven beyond reasonable doubt?
Niall, although we are now miles from the subject of the original post, I would add that I have read a number of analyses of the Jan 6 episodes and Trump’s behaviour during it renders him unfit to run for elected office again. I also don’t fully buy the whole “false flag” nonsense; this is tinfoil hat territory.
This analysis makes it clear why I think it is not hyperbole to suggest Mr Trump was guilty of insurrection. And I would add that his continued abuse of Republican politicians, including Mike Pence, for the sin of signing the election off, in his final act as VP, reinforce my view that Trump should be gone from public life, and that he is a cancer on the Republican Party. It has been sad to see so many people, with whom I generally agree on other things, fall for his madness.
I could reply, ‘Jonathan, you’re just being abusive by saying I (and Snorri and Paul) are “transparently mad”; show some manners.’ (In fact I thought it OK enough for you to say in this blog’s comments’ terms, even if you had not first said “Let me speak plain”.)
I thought the hypothesis of TDS fair to make in itself after you called Jan 6th
while setting no limits of geography to qualify the superlative over (one may surely assume) several decades of history. Not one yet more egregious case in the entire world over the last few decades of someone-not-Trump trying to thwart an election (and often succeeding through being more egregious than a bunch of unarmed protestors – happily such examples as the enemies of the Maidun events failed)? This also prompted my accompanying speculation about “writing while in the grip of strong emotion”.
However, I did also want to see how you would comment on ‘TDS’ in the light of ‘transparently mad’. Your apparent failure even to note the resemblance was not a great way to demonstrate I was wrong to suspect the former.
So, for the record, I did not see your ‘transparently mad’ as going beyond what is acceptable in comment – nor my TDS either. It is sensible to note that such strong ways of negating another’s view can be less persuasive. If you’ve read my comments in this thread attentively, you will have seen that (except as I note above in this comment), I have tended to recommend you become more cautious in your claims; changing that ‘most egregious’ to something gentler would be a start.
To end on a less contentious note, let me clarify your
to provide the one fragment of possible partial agreement in our sea of dissent. A Hail-Mary idea that the vice-president, on his own ipse dixit, not in obedience to and encouragement of the debate and vote but by preempting debate and vote, could send the results back for re-certification (or withholding therefore), was floated as a strain-the-words reading of the constitution. It was not as absurd as some fashionable woke misreadings but it was certainly simply wrong. I’ll assume I need not persuade you, Jonathan, of that, but be assured I know it was a straightforwardly wrong interpretation every bit as well as I know that various results were grossly unsafe and should have been returned.
Oh, I see that Niall rejoined the debate.
I cannot make much sense of Niall’s tortured prose in the last paragraph of his last comment, not after a healthy dose of whisky. But Niall is welcome to say i am wrong, when i say that what he meant is that Mike Pence would have been very wrong to “send the results back for re-certification (or withholding therefore)”.
I agree with that. Not only it would have been constitutionally wrong, it would have been strategically disastrous: If half the country is going to think that the President is illegitimate, much better that Biden is President, rather than Trump.
Too bad for Afghans and Ukrainians, but hey! they screwed up: they trusted the US.
–WRT William Barr: he might very well have been correct in his opinion that there was no evidence beyond reasonable doubt that the election was “stolen”.
But if he thinks that, in a serious country, there is a need to prove beyond reasonable doubt that an election is stolen, in order to declare it null and void, then he is nothing short of delusionally insane.
It certainly didn’t help that every time someone tried to get the evidence before a judge they were shot down for lack of standing. It’s real easy to say there is no evidence when it never has an avenue to be seen.
The Dems stole the election fair and square. It wasn’t the first time, it won’t be the last. The crime is We The People just stood by and did nothing about it. Those who wanted Trump gone saw what little faith we still had in the system being used as toilet paper as a small price to pay for getting rid of the Bad Orange Man. Those who voted for Trump were waiting for someone, somewhere to tell them what to do. At best a couple dozen knuckleheads stormed the Capitol building.
I will go to my grave believing the “insurrection” on 1/6/21 was supposed to be far more violent and fiery than it ended up because it was going to be the DNC’s Reichstag Fire. For whatever reason, it just didn’t go off as planned and the best they can do is keep dragging their Insurrection witch hunt out, keep un-convicted people in jail almost two years later over a couple misdemeanors, and keep on bloviating about an attack on our democracy while keeping Trump in the media’s crosshairs as the Big Bad Hitler-Wannabe.
What should have happened is those election officials who either allowed the fraud to take place or outright made it happen to be dragged from their homes either in chains and charged in court or hanged from the nearest lamppost.
But we’re too civilized to break out the tar and feathers or torches and pitchforks these days.
In a sense, it WAS worse — or rather, appeared to be worse — than the Reichstag Fire, because it seemed like Pence and assorted congresspeople were threatened.
And that is why i cannot believe that it was supposed to be far more violent: Nancy would not have been there if it was supposed to be.
Once again: there was no possibility that fraud could have been proven (not “beyond a reasonable doubt” – that’s the criminal threshold, not the applicable civil one, the “clear and convincing” threshold) based on ballot data.
The election had been set loose from any such proof as the pertinent states changed their election laws in ways that discarded all burdens of proving identity before casting the ballot into the box. And, once in the box, the ballots were anonymous and could show us nothing.
We just missed the moments when we could have prevented this.
Bobby: Thank you for the clarification.
If i may, i’d like to ask some more legal questions. Some of them, you might be unable to answer for lack of factual knowledge, as you will see.
1. I thought that, in a civil court, the criterion is the balance of evidence, rather than “clear and convincing” evidence.
2. Trump’s legal team presented lots of evidence, and i cannot bother right now to check what it was; but i vaguely remember that it amounted to
(a) criminal negligence and
(b) unconstitutional changes to electoral procedures.
If you know better, please inform us.
Doesn’t (a) fall under criminal, rather than civil, law?
3. What kind of evidence would be admissible in a civil court, in an attempt to render the election in a given State null and void?
Would the sort of evidence presented in the article at my link above be admissible?
Would statistical evidence that even the author of the aforementioned article says is above his head, be admissible if accompanied by expert testimony?
SG: This is going to be a messy and generalized answer. Election law in the US generally comes up in state courts. In the US, there are 50 separate state court systems, each with its own caselaw precedent that contains its own chosen definition of the applicable burdens. So, I can’t answer this definitively in state court terms. Plus, I only personally practiced law in eight of the states, and really don’t know the rest.
I’ll cheat by using the US federal court system’s definitions (which, again, can vary by US FedCourt district, but at least it’s a smaller set of possibilities.)
To start the sort: If Joe is caught rigging a ballot box, Joe will be subject to state criminal law. If someone is generally challenging election administration, it will be a state civil-court matter.
There are different burdens imposed for different types of civil cases. The lowest burden – the 51% burden – is the balance of the evidence burden, aka the preponderance of the evidence burden. “More likely true than not true.” Other cases have a slightly tougher burden – “clear and convincing” is the most common. More than 51%, less than “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Election law cases generally see this as the burden imposed. Why the difference? I’d have to list piles of court case opinions for you to read to answer this. There’s no easy answer.
Yes, such claims were presented in several instances. I was not impressed. First, as to (a), a civil court plaintiff making criminal charges? Doesn’t work. Crim charges are brought by The State. As to (b), reading their complaints, it struck me that they all knew they had no legally cognizable claims, because the new election laws specifically imposed no real burdens on the election officials to protect the integrity of the election. They mostly removed those duties and protections. The Trump plaintiffs were looking for public support far more than presenting legally viable claims. And the time in which to challenge the election law changes had passed. I suspect they knew it was a dead issue when they started these cases. At least, I hope they were knowledgeable enough to know.
As to the “evidence” in the article – first, it’s not actually factual evidence of the true state of each valid vote, nor of the invalidity of any actual vote. It’s trend data, it’s logical argument, it is certainly compelling – I believe him – but, as to the “secondly” part, it’s not dispositive evidence that THIS ballot that was marked for Candidate A should be removed from consideration, or that Joe snuck THESE ballots marked for Biden into the pile . . .
It’s akin to trying to prove that I ran a red light and hit John’s car by showing that 90% of the accidents at this intersection are caused by the driver in the southbound lane running red lights. It’s a good logical argument that I did that. It is NOT evidence that I did that. A good judge recognizes the difference between these two categories. And such cases need evidence, not argument.
The other problem with these cases is, there has always been a huge deference paid to elections by judges here. They do not lightly mess with them. It would take direct evidence of fraud and tampering with specific ballots to convince a judge in our system to step in and substitute his will for the supposed expressed will of the people, even when it is that expressed “will” that is being challenged. That’s partially why every court case disappeared as soon as the judges could find some procedural reason to dump them. Didn’t sign your affidavit with the blue ink pen? Dismissed! This is simply an area from which judges run away, preferring to let the political system handle it.
Like I said, messy answer. Messy area of US law.
Bobby: Thank you for the explanation, which i found quite exhaustive.
The key message for me was this:
Which i understand as: under the new rules, there was no way to bring a case to a civil court, it had to be a criminal charge. And (from what you wrote further down) for a criminal case, it is not sufficient to show that some ballots must be fraudulent: one has to show exactly which ballots are fraudulent and who did it.
Which actually is not so different from what i wrote, even though i was kind-of bullshitting 🙂
It just seemed the most obvious explanation for what happened.
JP “it is not hyperbolic to suggest that President Trump was guilty of insurrection”.
For saying “peacefully make your voice heard” and then saying “go home”.
That is some “insurrection” JP.
What about the blatant election rigging in November 2020, I watched (via the wonders of modern technology – mobile phones) registered Republican poll watchers being excluded or driven out from counting places in several urban counties – was that “insurrection”.
What about the vast numbers of fake “mail in ballots” – was that “insurrection”.
What about the looting and burning of wide areas of American cities (with the full support the Democrats and the media) in 2020 – was that “insurrection”? People such as K. Harris openly backed all of it – in spite of many people being murdered, but that is not “insurrection”?
How about cowards such as Mitch McConnell and Mike Pence refusing to do anything about anything (the southern border, the looting of wide areas of cities, the rigging of the 2020 election) – is that not aiding and abetting “insurrection”?
“Abusing Republican politicians” – what like the cowards and general wastes of skin who “lead” the Republicans in Congress?
I get the feeling that if some people were back in 1940s Athens, Tennesse they would be accusing the people of the town, who rose in armed revolt against a blatantly rigged election, of “insurrection”.
The million or so people who turned up on January 6th 2021 (only a tiny minority of them went on to the Capitol building – the rally was about a mile away) nearly all owned firearms – but nearly all of them LEFT THEIR FIREARMS AT HOME.
J.P. if you are planning an insurrection, you do not leave your weapons at home. If that million or so people had arrived with their firearms the criminals who control the United States Government (and they are criminals – vicious criminals) would not be in charge anymore.
No more of this – no more of it.
President Trump on January 20th, 2025.
Not because he is wonderful, he is NOT, but because that is who the people want to be President – and if the media and the bankers do not like it, then they can lump it.
If the Corporate types want to see a real “insurrection” then let them try and rig another election.
The people will not accept the rule of the Corporations – the media corporations, the banking corporations (who create money from NOTHING), the financial entity corporations (Woke BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard), the Woke censors of “Big Tech” (who want to make everywhere like their vile California), and the big pharma corporations – with their toxic injections.
The Corporations need to peacefully, peacefully, give up power. No more rigged elections – no repeat of 2020. No more “fortifying” the election – as they called their operation to give the Oval Office to a brain damaged person they could control.
As for those Republicans who have sold out to the establishment – they need to go, go peacefully, go in peace.
Just for completeness, I had a look at the article Johnathan linked (in October 20, 2022 at 7:12 am) to claim that Trump was guilty of the crime of insurrection on the 6th. Johnathan having presented it to my attention, I felt I should look at it.
This far down an OT thread, I don’t suppose anyone wants the sort of long essay it would need to do it full justice, so I’ll just remark one point that very strongly drew my attention. (More can be discussed as and if there proves to be still any interest, otherwise I’m more than happy to see this comment as completing any debate-obligation Johnathan’s mention of the article placed on me.)
(Summarising) the author begins by warning readers that the search for legally-sufficient evidence that Trump ‘planned, approved, criminally incited, or conspired to commit’ insurrection may fail. Instead he advises convicting Trump of ‘aiding’ the insurrection after it began. Omitting mention of Trump’s instruction to the crowd to protest peacefully, he makes a big point of Trump’s criticised Mike Pence in a tweet. He relates this tweet to the fact that
The author argues that Trump’s delay (of some two hours) between the Pence-tweet-incitement of bullhorn guy to ‘pour gasoline on the fire’ and telling the crowd to go home should suffice to convict him of criminally aiding an ongoing insurrection.
(My point) I had many thoughts but one that struck me early was a question about this guy with a bullhorn. It raised a specific difficulty with the argument, over and above the ones I leave to any interested readers still here.
In the early days after January 6th, a few guys with bullhorns in the area played a prominent role in MSM accounts of the ‘insurrection’ – as well they might. When not ‘relaying’ criticism of Mike Pence, their bullhorns urged protestors to enter the capitol, not to stop and protest outside it, and other ginning-up-the-protest things. So it was very understandable that the bullhorners got hostile coverage in the MSM. It was also understandable that the FBI displayed the picture of the guy later identified as Ray Epps prominently among those wanted for questioning about the Jan 6th events.
However, some things were odd from the start and more became so. It was a lot less understandable that bullhorners with Epps were not also on the FBI’s wanted website, though their faces appeared clearly and frequently in Jan 6th footage, . When members of the public (not the FBI), identified Ray Epps, he abruptly disappeared from the FBI website pictures of the Jan 6th ‘wanted’. IIUC Mr Epps has so far not been arrested, still less charged, still less convicted – nor were his bullhorn-wielding associates.
So, if anything could be more when all is most, my very first problem with the author’s thesis is this bullhorn wielder: it appears the very man the author specifically draws to our attention as a particular exemplar of Trump’s culpable influence may not himself have been sought, let alone arrested, let alone charged, let alone convicted, of anything, let alone of ‘insurrection’. So it should be logically difficult to convict Trump of ‘pouring gasoline on a bullhorn guy’s fire’, and then not swiftly enough dissuading the bullhorns from encouraging ‘insurrection’ if the relevant alleged-to-be intermediary megaphone men have themselves not been convicted.
IMNSHO, other problems with the thesis lurk behind this one.