Billy_T wrote:

Loved it too. Very strong performances, especially by the lead, whom I remembered from “The Witch.” Well written, paced, directed. Very compelling.

The series spurred me to read the novel it was based on, by Walter Tevis. It’s pretty good so far, though a few early scenes made me cringe. Won’t give anything away, except to say I think the TV folks made some wise decisions regarding what to keep and what to leave out.

Some talk about a second series, but I don’t think it needs that at all. Apparently, Tevis was thinking about writing a sequel before he died.

Seriously good “peak TV.”

I have an attraction to strong successful women. Can’t help it. Tayor-Joy not only is weirdly attractive but also flawed in the series. Who wouldn’t be given her natural and adopted mothers. But she is so gifted. I can readily identify with the scene in the restaurant where she initially orders a coke. She then spots someone drinking a Gibson and changes her mind and orders a Gibson with a twist. Been there done that. That’s exactly how easily relapses are-but they do say that they are also part of the recovery.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 5 months ago by waterfield.

1933 Germany

wv wrote:

waterfield wrote:

This following article was on the front page of the L.A. Times this morning under the title “Portland anarchists spark backlash”

“Portland’s anarchists say they support racial justice. Black activists want nothing to do with them….

==================

I have many layers of thoughts/feelings about ‘anarchist’ direct-action campaigns like this. Too many to list.

…On the one hand, i think most-if-not-all of the young-anarchists have a higher Political-IQ than 90 percent of the American population. I think they understand what capitalism is doing to the nation, and to the biosphere.
So, they are smart, informed, passionate, critical-thinkers, for the most part.
(at least the ones who are legit anarchist, and not proud-boy-types doing false-flag games)

But, being young, and passionate the anarchists are utterly stupid when it comes to strategy, tactics, etc. Many are impatient, and reckless and selfish. And they are young, so there is no getting thru to them.

And to just shoot from the hip…I have noticed in my life, that Anarchists tend to be giant pains-in-the-Ass. To everyone. Including other Anarchists.

Switching to another layer….when i put it in a wider context, Corporate-capitalism is causing mass extinctions, fracking poisoning of children, pollution, Climate Change, Mass Incarceration, Ungodly-Inequality which leads to massive suffering and death, Imperialism, Massive Lie-Campaigns, Coups, Torture, etc etc etc.

So you have THAT on one hand. Meanwhile the LA Times focuses on a small group of anarchists breaking windows.

That is corporate media. Perfect example of corporate media. What they cover. How they cover it. And what they dont cover.

w
v

Well-the L.A. Times has published many articles about Portland that run the spectrum. So I don’t subscribe to the notion that they “focus on a small group of anarchists breaking windows”. I also don’t accept the idea that the anarchists were simply breaking windows. I don’t live there and was not there at the time but my childhood and long lasting friend lives outside Portland and said it wasn’t just “windows”. Also my son and his family were visiting Portland after picking up my grandson after a ski camp at Mt. Hood. He said also that it was scary and he is not afraid of broken windows.

As far as anarchists having a higher IQ than 90% of the US population. That’s simply an outburst. Me? I think most “anarchists” love anarchy. Doesn’t matter what the issue is. They love causing unrest. Not because of political issues. They simply love causing unrest. These are not college post grads going back to coffee houses and discussing Marx and Keynesian economics. No these are simple souls saying “hey look at me. Rage against the machine. You don’t like it-fuck you . Ha,Ha,Ha !” That’s my outburst.

Billy_T wrote:

Zooey wrote:

wv wrote:

Well, what exactly are Democrats supposed to do? Trump is taking cases to court. Courts will decide them.

w
v

Sirota is arguing that the Democrats should be out there controlling Spin as well. He’s right. They do a very poor job of framing issues. They should be out there using language like “Coup, unAmerican, Democracy” Whatever. Call them out for what they are doing.

I think they need to do more than just counter the narrative, but that is essential. I think they need to bring counter-suits, alleging voter suppression by the GOP. They can easily show evidence of Trump and GOP efforts to jam up voting via the Postal Service, purging voter rolls, reducing polling places in areas dominated by Dem voters, etc.

They can’t count on the courts to rule in their favor. The system is far too political and partisan for that.

Trump and the GOP have shown that reality can be overturned by unified, relentless, unwavering lies. He would have been booted from office already if that hadn’t been surprisingly successful. They created an alternative reality, which means we have a duel.

If one side doesn’t even show up, the lies and the alternative reality win.

“They can’t count on the courts to rule in their favor. The system is far too political and partisan for that.”

The Democrats are winning in court. Meaning they are in court opposing what the Republicans are doing. On another court issue re the ACA-Kavanaugh is agreeing with Roberts that if one part of the Act is unconstitutional (i.e. tax on those who don’t sign up) that doesn’t mean the entire Act is unconstitutional. Hopefully, this is a sign that the US Supreme Court is now quite as politicized as feared. If the Courts did everything the Republicans wanted we would be back in 1933 Germany. (i.e. Judgment at Nuremberg)

Zooey wrote:

Well my Twitter feed is ablaze with fear of a Trump coup after Pompeo’s remark.

Here is David Sirota:

https://www.dailyposter.com/p/trump-is-staging-a-coup-why-are-dems

Trump Is Staging A Coup — Why Are Dems Not Sounding The Alarm?
Republicans are following a clear plan to try to overturn the election results, just like they did in 2000. And once again, Democrats are not sounding a loud enough alarm.

David Sirota

The recent HBO film 537 Votes about the Florida 2000 election mess offers one overarching message: Democrats’ refusal to sound a clear alarm about the slow-motion heist in process ultimately let the election be stolen.

In that debacle, Democrats seemed to think things would break their way with well-honed arguments inside the cloistered confines of the legal system — they never understood how public-facing politics can play a role in what ultimately ended up being a pivotal political brawl outside the courtroom.

Twenty years later, the lesson of that debacle isn’t being heeded. Donald Trump and his cronies are quite clearly waging a public-facing campaign designed to create the conditions for the Electoral College process to pull off a coup.

This is a full-scale emergency — and yet the Democratic strategy seems to be to try to pretend it isn’t happening, in hopes that norms win out, even though nothing at all is normal.

Trump Has A Deliberate Strategy
In the week since the election, Trump’s and his Republican allies have waged a public campaign to call the election results into question — not just in the courtroom, but in the public’s mind. Their lawsuits and Attorney General William Barr’s recent memo are designed as much to win rulings and initiate prosecutions as they are to generate headlines. Their tweets asserting fraud, and their high-profile promises of financial reward for evidence of fraud are all designed to do the same thing.

Most ominously of all, Republican lawmakers in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Arizona are already insinuating the results may be fraudulent, even though they haven’t produced any evidence of widespread fraud.

Why is public perception so important? Because as Ohio State University law professor Edward Foley shows in a frighteningly prescient 2019 article, legislatures could use the public perception of fraud to try to invoke their constitutional power to ignore their states’ popular votes, reject certified election results and appoint slates of Trump electors.

In an article that predicted almost exactly what has already happened in Pennsylvania, Foley imagined Trump seeming to be ahead at first, then losing his lead as votes are counted, then making allegations of fraud, setting the stage for this:

At Trump’s urging, the state’s legislature — where Republicans have majorities in both houses — purports to exercise its authority under Article II of the Constitution to appoint the state’s presidential electors directly. Taking their cue from Trump, both legislative chambers claim that the certified popular vote cannot be trusted because of the blue shift that occurred in overtime. Therefore, the two chambers claim to have the constitutional right to supersede the popular vote and assert direct authority to appoint the state’s presidential electors, so that this appointment is in line with the popular vote tally as it existed on Election Night, which Trump continues to claim is the “true” outcome.

The state’s Democratic governor refuses to assent to this assertion of authority by the state’s legislature, but the legislature’s two chambers proclaim that the governor’s assent is unnecessary. They cite early historical practices in which state legislatures appointed presidential electors without any involvement of the state’s governor. They argue that like constitutional amendments, and unlike ordinary legislation, the appointment of presidential electors when undertaken directly by a state legislature is not subject to a gubernatorial veto.

Foley notes how public-facing politics — outside the cloistered legal arena — could then come into play.

“It might be too much of a power grab. One would hope that American politics have not become so tribal that a political party is willing to seize power without a plausible basis for doing so rooted in the actual votes of the citizenry,” he writes. “If during the canvass itself, Trump can gain traction with his allegation that the blue shift amounts to fraudulently fabricated ballots — along the lines of his 2018 tweet about Florida — then it becomes more politically tenable to claim that the legislature must step in and appoint the state’s electors directly to reflect the ‘true’ will of the state’s voters.”

Normalizing The Idea Of A Second Trump Term

To be sure, pulling this off would be complicated.

Republicans would have to get not one but many of the five Biden states with GOP legislatures to try to ignore the popular vote.

Congress would also have a role to play deciding which electors to recognize, which gives the House Democratic majority some leverage.

And it’s not clear that any of the maneuvers would hold up in court (though let’s remember: the Supreme Court now includes three Republican-appointed justices who worked directly on the Bush v. Gore case that stole the 2000 election for the GOP).

But this is quite obviously what the GOP is aiming for — and they’ve basically said it out loud. Indeed, Trump’s son has promoted the idea of legislatures overturning the election, and so has Trump’s staunch ally, Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. Meanwhile, a Republican lawmaker involved in Wisconsin’s new election fraud investigation suggested his state’s popular vote could be ignored.

This is why we’ve seen Republican officials and policies continue pretending that Trump didn’t lose the election, and presuming that there will be a second Trump term. This isn’t merely infantile behavior or an immature temper tantrum — it is part of a cutthroat plan.

They are trying to normalize the idea that regardless of how Americans actually voted, a second Trump term is inevitable because state legislatures and Congress will ultimately hand him the Electoral College.

Where Is Democrats’ Call To Action?
One big takeaway here should be that in the long-term, the Electoral College has to go — it has now become an even bigger threat to democracy, beyond just routinely throwing elections to the losers of the national popular vote. The system is being weaponized by a Republican Party determined to thwart the will of voters.

In this particular crisis unfolding right now in the short term, a strong and serious response is needed.

We do not need silly, self-aggrandizing, money-wasting vanity stunts from grifter groups like the Lincoln Project, who are preparing a campaign to try to make Trump attorneys at Big Law firms feel bad about themselves — as if a vicious pol like Trump can somehow be deprived of ruthless legal representation.

We need a vociferous public campaign focused on preventing state legislators from feeling empowered to ignore their own voters. And such a campaign could be successful because at least some of these states’ legislatures are only narrowly controlled by the GOP — meaning they may be sensitive to a future voter backlash in 2022 that could come from their actions to steal a presidential election.

And yet… instead of sounding the alarm, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris seem to have settled on a “nothing to see here” approach.

The Biden-Harris campaign has been proceeding as if everything is fine, rolling out some transition team names and announcing that Biden has talked to some world leaders. Biden’s comments today about the election were even more sedated and anodyne than Al Gore back during the 2000 Florida recount. The most he could muster was an assertion that the GOP’s behavior is embarrassing and might hurt Trump’s legacy — as if this is a West Wing episode inanely presuming that any single Republican elected official in the country cares about such things.

Zooey: this might help calm your nerves-it did for me-for at least a few minutes. She is a Boston U prof, historian, and general political/psychology background. All facts-no hype.

https://www.facebook.com/heathercoxrichardson/videos/379595136792840/

InvaderRam wrote:

i’ll be honest. some of you guys got me a little shook. i mean this couldn’t possibly happen could it? could trump turn this country into a dictatorship? that would have to be the mother of all hail marys.[/quote

1933-Germany

Zooey wrote:

the task is enormous, though. They have to have some kind of legal pretext to throw out votes, and it has to pass at least 2 courts, a state court, and the SCOTUS. At least, I think that’s how it works. They really cannot just say, “These ballots were mailed, so they should be thrown out.” That just won’t fly.

It will be state by state and decided by the highest court in each state-not the US Supreme Ct. Each state has it’s own constitution and the final determinations of any alleged violation of state election laws are not reviewable by the US Supreme Ct. unless the state’s election procedure has violated federal law or the US Constitution. Bush v Gore was a very unusual circumstance and arguably the single worst decision ever made by the Court with separate opinions by each jurist sitting. How the court found a US federal violation either by federal statute or the Constitution is what baffles scholars today. The order by the US Supreme Court that Florida Supreme Court’s decision to keep counting Florida votes must stop was based on the simple notion that the USSC had jurisdiction because the founders had provided for each state to make its own election laws. How circular is that ? Most Constitutional scholars believe the matter should have ended with the Florida Supreme Court.

I’m sure there is a far better explanation re Bush v Gore. All I know is that most constitutional lawyers-at least the ones I drink with-don’t believe the US Supreme Court has jurisdiction to hear the issues being raised in these Trump lawsuits alleging voter fraud. The Republicans can’t argue voter fraud in Pennsylvania is against federal law-its against Pennsylvania’s election laws. So it is only about overturning the state’s election and not the entire election. Its a state by state jurisdiction.
c

zn wrote:

Well, to be honest, it doesn’t matter that he commands the military. I can’t think of any possible conditions under which the military would act to maintain him in office. If anything they would forcibly remove him. He is no longer president after a certain date and at that point Biden commands the military. And he will have no legal grounds to claim the election is void, no matter what he thinks of the fairness of the vote. His presidency expires. Removing him is easy–at a certain point he just no longer has the right to occupy office, or the white house, or to expect to be able to command the federal government.

Keep in mind the only “official” date I know is 12/14/20 when the electoral college actually meets and cast the necessary votes. Trump can do a lot of damage to interfere with that. Not all states are under the same legal mandate to cast their votes as we assume. 70 days can give him time to do whatever he wants knowing he’s got a Republican congress in his hands. Moreover, over 40 million people do not support a transition of power. He has cards to play including the prospect of a civil war. The lawsuits seeking emergency relief are only his first step. My fear is we are in danger of losing a peaceful transition unless we exercise the 25th amendment now and to do that we need the Congress which we don’t have at this time. This could end up, god forbid, in invalidating any and all elections. We then have a true dictatorship-which may have been his goal all along.

Democrats can dance !!

wv wrote:

The dum rightwingers actually believe the lie. They actually believe Biden/Hillary/Obama are evil-socialists.

I guess my real question should be: how can they possibly believe that? I mean is it simply political in that they don’t believe it but are simply repeating what Trump says for effect? Or are these people really that stupid. I can understand if they don’t believe it but will still vote for Trump. But to actually believe he is a communist or socialist -I mean if they only get their news on Fox-no one at Fox even says that.