The biggest conspiracy theory and insurrection attempt was the fake Russian conspiracy and the conspiracy to affect the election outcome conveniently described by time magazine.
I'm completely uninterested in a ragtag group of curly haired shirtless weirdos who stormed congress. I am concerned about large corporations, rich interest groups and large multi media conglomerates that have actual power to affect political dialogue without any consequence.
Why does every single article about Facebook manipulating data talk about the Jan 6 riot instead of the years long onslaught of fake news?
Probably because the Jan 6th riot is one of the most recent and tangible outcomes of that years-long onslaught that set the stage for this sort of thing to happen.
Do you not care about people attacking your biggest symbol of power. Within in reach of many of your representatives. Driven by years of hate and misinformation? You should care.
Russian interference is well documented by American intelligence agencies and private individuals.
No I think people should in fact focus their rioting towards politicians. That's much better than harassing or committing violence against your fellow citizens because of something your government did.
For example if your government is oppressing you and your response is to burn your fellow citizens car dealership or vandalize their shop, that is less Noble then going after your government officials.
I disagree with the Jan 6 rioters but they correctly targeted their efforts . On the other hand, blm Chicago called for looting private businesses, many of whom had even come out in support of their cause.
BLM riots were drien by just as much misinformation. Studies show that progressives are way more likely to overestimate the number of minorities killed by police. A good portion of them believed tens of thousands were being killed a year. This number is way off. Conservatives were most likely to accurately estimate, although even they were skewed towards overestimating.
And the Russia collusion narrative is a hoax. While Russia certainly has an interest in interfering with us, the claim was that trumps campaign directly aided them. That is false. It is provably false. Stop changing the goal posts. You yourself are spreading misinformation.
Edit: and for the record, the federal government of the USA derives legitimacy from the people not buildings
Perhaps I am of the minority opinion, but I damn sure was never worried about a bunch of selfie-taking unarmed rednecks destroying the United States of America. My faith in this country goes a little deeper than that.
People are much less concerned about the unarmed rednecks taking selfies than they’re concerned about the armed folks searching the grounds for certain representatives, the people planting pipe bombs around DC, and anti-government militias comprised heavily of former military and law enforcement. Oh yeah, said militia members stashed guns at a nearby hotel (according to their own testimony and video footage).
This could’ve gotten way uglier and who knows what the ramifications would be. Let’s not fixate on the selfies.
Well, I am going to fixate on the selfies because there were a bunch of dimwits taking selfies.
“Armed” folks armed with what? Yeah, I’m pretty sure the most powerful nation ever to occupy the earth wasn’t going to fall to a bunch of pitchfork wielding social media posting hayseeds demanding to have Frankenstein’s monster handed over to them.
Hundreds of dipshits taking goofy selfies and you post a fact check that talks about 3 people charged with weapons outside the capital grounds and a single person on the capital grounds that had a holstered weapon. Also someone using a flag pole to gain entry.
Let’s agree that at least a thousand people breached the capitol. So at least 99.96% of the crowed were angry pitchfork waving villagers and .04% were some dorky Van Helsing wannabes.
In what world does that constitute a threat to topple to most powerful country ever to exist on this earth? It’s not.
A world that’s governed by complex legal codes, procedures, and norms with a variety of loopholes and undefined states. One that’s not safeguarded by rah rah “we are most powerful country ever” therefore our bureaucracy is immune to bureaucratic failure!
We simply don’t really know what would’ve happened if e.g. the ballots were destroyed. They would’ve had to get duplicate ballots from the states. Would all the state election boards have stuck with their previous results now seeing an apparent opportunity to install their leader and feeling galvanized by the “fraud” of vote-by-mail?
It’s interesting how many people will complain about clear bureaucratic failure in basic day-to-day tasks like the DMV, and then imagine that the most complex bureaucracy in history is held together by patriot power and not, you know, bureaucracy, with all of its strengths and vulnerabilities.
The point is that this event is characterized as an insurrection and a threat to the the United States. It wasn’t.
If you want to shift the conversation to election integrity, that’s fine…but that was actually the whole point of the demonstrations. You have one group that felt that they had legitimate concerns about the election’s integrity. The other side downplayed those concerns, does not want to improve election integrity, and actually wants to erode it further.
I am pretty sure that if you want the bulk of America to feel that elections have integrity you should make it a priority and not downplay concerns just because your candidate won and I apply that standard to both parties since both are guilty over the last few election cycles.
To clarify, when I refer to ballots being destroyed I’m referring to electoral college ballots being destroyed by rioters during the Jan 6 insurrection. It wasn’t a coincidence that they were called to DC on that particular day when a normally extremely boring and mundane procedure is carried out. It has no symbolic value, it has no cultural value, it has no value except ensuring the legal, procedural basis for transition of power. That’s why it was attacked.
Yes, if that succeeded, it would’ve harmed the US.
In any case, your suggestion that the democrats “actually want to erode [election integrity] further” reveals a lot.
Does it? What exactly do you think it reveals? I’m not a Republican, and haven’t voted for a Republican for any office for decades. So what does that tell you?
It might reveal that I am not happy with the political party that once upon a time were liberal and good but are now just filled with power hungry intolerant authoritarians. At least the republicans don’t pretend that they are good people.
You're talking about a small group of Oath Keepers in an otherwise peaceful protest. But I'm curious, why do you think Stewart Rhodes was never arrested? Would it make more sense given the context that the boogaloos behind the Whitmer kidnapping plot turned out to be FBI agents, as did the leaders of other right-wing groups including the Proud Boys and Atomwaffen Division? Who does the right-wing terrorism scare serve?
Right-wing terrorism scare? We all watched angry mobs attempt to disrupt the peaceful transition of power on live TV. These are the same people who proudly fly the flag of literal traitors to our country and call the press the “enemy of the free state.”
If all it takes for your movement to attempt to kidnap elected officials or disrupt transfer of power is a few undercover agents nudging along, your movement is a huge problem.
> If all it takes for your movement to attempt to kidnap elected officials or disrupt transfer of power is a few undercover agents nudging along, your movement is a huge problem.
If it takes more agents then perpetrators to pull off your sting, and if the agents conceptualized, planned, financed, managed the operation, and participated in it…
Well, let’s just say I am going to be the wrong person to sit on your jury if you want a conviction.
They aren't strictly synonymous but, as you should know, in this context an "informant" is a kind of agent, both on paper and in practice. They aren't informants in a conventional understanding of the term, just feeding information back to the government. They receive training and are employed to proactively infiltrate and participate in criminal organizations much as any investigator would (or, in these cases, steer non-criminal organizations into criminality).
We all watched protesters demonstrate in a public building, and yes, disrupt the transition of power. Peaceful disruption of the government is the quintessential act of protest.
>call the press the “enemy of the free state.”
Criticism of media is terrorism?
>kidnap elected officials
That group was comprised almost entirely of undercover agents along with a couple of mentally ill people. The FBI orchestrated the entire thing.
In a democracy, the results of a free and fair election are actually not a valid target of protest if your form of protest entails an attempt to overturn those results.
Feel free to disrupt traffic and make a scene elsewhere.
In a democracy, people should be allowed to protest if they believe an election is not free and fair, no? If not, why? This is a strange line in the sand that to my knowledge has never existed before in American history. People have protested and contested elections numerous times.
> Feel free to disrupt traffic and make a scene elsewhere.
Yes, disrupt the worker bees, not the queen.
Edit: it does seem strange that you wouldn't include some sort of disclaimer in this convo about your employer's stake in "counter-terrorism".
I wonder if your opinion would be different if those unarmed rednecks were able to get to Speaker Pelosi, Leader Schumer, Minority Leader McConnell or VP Pence?
Those "unarmed rednecks" were able to do something not even the various armies of the Confederacy couldn't: get inside the capitol.
People are not terrified enough, because this group of people saw they could do it and I have a strong feeling they will try again.
I watched the live stream. The capitol police opened the barriers in front of the building to let them pass. They seemed friendly towards the protestors.
The capitol is (normally) a public building. There is a sitting senator who has been arrested at a protest in the building. Likewise it was not long ago that the capitol was full of protesters accosting senators in the lead up the the supreme court pick.
It's not meant to be a secure building that takes an army to get into.
Susan Rosenberg was part of a group of former Weather Underground members that bombed the U.S. capitol in 1983. She was pardoned by Clinton and became involved with the company bankrolling the largest BLM organization in the world.
In what way is a group of proles walking around, taking selfies, and breaking some glass comparable?
What's Undetermined
In the absence of a single, universally-agreed definition of "terrorism," it is a matter of subjective determination as to whether the actions for which Rosenberg was convicted and imprisoned — possession of weapons and hundreds of pounds of explosives — should be described as acts of "domestic terrorism."
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/blm-terrorist-rosenberg/
Interesting fact checking.
They weren't. You, I, and everyone else knows that hyperbolic, sometimes violent language is par for the course on both sides of the aisle. It's actually protected speech.
Whataboutism increasingly seems to be used as a thought-terminating buzzword by people who want double standards.
Comparing this to the civil war is ridiculous. They were literally invited in by the capital police because it is a public building. The south is not at war with the north. The only shots that were fired were from the capital police. No one brandished a firearm in that capital except the police.
“But what if…” is a pointless exercise because the past has already proven that those things didn’t happen and is just a mechanism for a bunch of people who desire authoritarianism in this country to justify making a free people less free.
Marie Antoinette was similarly not worried about the visceral expressions of very real problems across the nation of France. It's not a problem until it's a problem.
No, being overthrown by the populace was a mistake from the perspective of the French monarchy. You might want to stop looking at the world as black and white at some point.
Some people forcibly entered the Capitol to protest during Justice Kavanaugh’s nomination. A few people got arrested. Life went on.
Personally, I think the mortal fear politically active leftists have of any sign of opposition, no matter how trivial, speaks volumes about how they feel about their own position.
I think Jan 6 was a problem in its origin, not in its means or ends. As an American, I truly do not care about people attacking Congress, or the White House, or any politician, because they are not symbols of my power anymore than my local carwash or plumber is a symbol of my power. They are public servants, worthy of no more respect than the pizza delivery person (a lot less, actually, since the pizza delivery person is working to make a living).
If they were attempting to overthrow actual despots, about whom everyone agreed something Must Be Done, the popular reaction would be much different. I think the current reaction is on the money: they are violent, idiotic, hooligans.
But the ability to storm the capitol is a necessity.
I thought that foreign manipulation of the 2016 election was well in fact documented. If you don’t believe that the Russian government interfered with the election, you must at least believe that a private company located in the UK did so. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Ana...
Unfortunately private companies and foreign governments from Tel Aviv to Dubai spent countless millions to influence our elections and buy our lawmakers.
Changing the goal posts. The claim was that the trump campaign directly participated in Russian efforts to interfere with the election, including direct collusion. This is a false claim despite the media spending years on it and Pulitzer prizes being awarded.
The claims were made without evidence. The origins of the claim ... The Steele dossier... Is itself fake.
> Now the glow has faded — from both the dossier and its promoters. Russia, as Mr. Steele asserted, did try to influence the 2016 election. But many of the dossier’s most explosive claims — like a salacious “pee” tape featuring Mr. Trump or a supposed meeting in Prague between Michael Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former attorney, and Russian operatives — have never materialized or have been proved false. The founders of Alfa Bank, a major Russian financial institution, are suing Fusion GPS, claiming the firm libeled them. (Fusion has denied the claims.) Plans for a film based on Mr. Steele’s adventures appear dead.
>
> Beneath the dossier’s journey from media obsession to slush pile lies a broader and more troubling story. Today, private spying has boomed into a renegade, billion-dollar industry, one that is increasingly invading our privacy, profiting from deception and manipulating the news.
It's a perfectly legitimate concern and it's a shame you're being downvoted. Anyone who is concerned about fake news and misinformation should be appalled by the media's treatment of the bogus Russian interference story.
Now the glow has faded — from both the dossier and its promoters. Russia, as Mr. Steele asserted, did try to influence the 2016 election. But many of the dossier’s most explosive claims — like a salacious “pee” tape featuring Mr. Trump or a supposed meeting in Prague between Michael Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former attorney, and Russian operatives — have never materialized or have been proved false. The founders of Alfa Bank, a major Russian financial institution, are suing Fusion GPS, claiming the firm libeled them. (Fusion has denied the claims.) Plans for a film based on Mr. Steele’s adventures appear dead.
Beneath the dossier’s journey from media obsession to slush pile lies a broader and more troubling story. Today, private spying has boomed into a renegade, billion-dollar industry, one that is increasingly invading our privacy, profiting from deception and manipulating the news.
The Committee did indeed release a bipartisan report making those assertions. Their assertions were bogus because no evidence is cited anywhere in the report. Claims of secret evidence are not evidence.
Considering the polarizing nature of the topic, it seems unlikely there would be a bipartisan agreement on the issue without classified intel to get people on both sides of the aisle behind it.
That, of course, is not proof. But we have also had reports of activity traced back to Russia from other organizations.
They could all be lying, but then that claim takes us strongly into the conspiracy theory territory at the same time that it runs afoul of the "lack of evidence" problem quite a bit more than alternative explanation.
>Considering the polarizing nature of the topic, it seems unlikely there would be a bipartisan agreement on the issue without classified intel to get people on both sides of the aisle behind it.
Congressional support for US global military empire has, unfortunately, always enjoyed complete bipartisan support.
>But we have also had reports of activity traced back to Russia from other organizations.
All sorts of organizations released conclusions, none of these conclusions come with any evidence that be scrutinized. Further, on the rare occasions when arms were twisted under oath, all of these conclusions turned out to be completely baseless. One of the most prominent debunked claims was that of Crowdstrike that the DNC servers were hacked by Russians. In fact, in December 2017 when testifying before the House Intelligence Committee, CrowdStrike President Shawn Henry admitted that not only was there no evidence that Russians hacked the DNC, they had no evidence that it was hacked at all, rather than leaked, or exfiltrated in some other manner. I was never a Trump supporter, didn't vote for him, don't like him at all, but I hate false propaganda even more. Whether it was the CIA and the DOJ doctoring documents in order to spy on US citizens or DNC lawyers feeding false information to the FBI (as detailed in the recent Durham indictment), all of the publicly available information (which after 5 years is voluminous) indicating a "Russian attack on our election" have all been based on lies and baseless assertions. Given this, and the documented record of lies and obfuscations peddled by our "intelligence agencies" for decades, its clear that the conspiracy theory here is the one being pushed by the Washington blob and not people who demand evidence for their wild and oft debunked assertions.
I would be interested in the portion of Shawn Henry's testimony that you are referring to. Because Cloudstrike still maintains their response to the DNC hack observed a Russian presence in examining their servers, and Henry's response to Congress on the topic was:
"We said that we had a high degree of confidence it was the Russian Government. And our analysts that looked at it and that had looked at these types of attacks before, many different types of attacks similar to this in different environments, certain tools that were used, certain methods by which they were moving in the environment,and looking at the types of data that was being targeted, that it was consistent with a nation-state adversary and associated with Russian intelligence."
Attacks that coincide with patterns seen from Russian intelligence is evidence. Evidence isn't proof. If you're standard of evidence is "A Russia n defector with server logs and video recordings of FSB officials confirming the acts".... Well, then you're using the word "evidence" wrong.
I'm completely uninterested in a ragtag group of curly haired shirtless weirdos who stormed congress. I am concerned about large corporations, rich interest groups and large multi media conglomerates that have actual power to affect political dialogue without any consequence.
Why does every single article about Facebook manipulating data talk about the Jan 6 riot instead of the years long onslaught of fake news?