• 0 Posts
  • 41 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
Cake day: July 1st, 2023
  • donuts@kbin.socialtoMemes@lemmy.ml•Relatable
    8·
    1 year ago

    Armed with what?

    Guns, knives, blunt weapons, tasers, bear spray, hand cuffs and zip ties.

    Taking the stand in the seditious conspiracy case against Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and four associates, Terry Cummings showed jurors an AR-15 firearm and an orange box for ammunition that he contributed to the so-called quick reaction force the Oath Keepers had staged at the hotel outside of Washington in case they needed weapons.

    “I had not seen that many weapons in one location since I was in the military,” said Cummings, a veteran who joined the Oath Keepers in Florida in 2020.

    https://apnews.com/article/capitol-siege-florida-virginia-conspiracy-government-and-politics-6ac80882e8cf61af36be6c46252ac24c

    But a review of the federal charges against the alleged rioters shows that they did come armed, and with a variety of weapons: stun guns, pepper spray, baseball bats and flagpoles wielded as clubs. An additional suspect also allegedly planted pipe bombs by the headquarters of the Democratic and Republican parties the night before the riot and remains at large.

    https://www.npr.org/2021/03/19/977879589/yes-capitol-rioters-were-armed-here-are-the-weapons-prosecutors-say-they-used

    Online sleuths who have aided in hundreds of Jan. 6 prosecutions say he is the same man they identified to the FBI who is currently individual No. 200 on the bureau’s Capitol Violence page, which he first appeared on three years ago. Videos and photographs from the Capitol on Jan. 6 showed him with what appears to be a gun in his waistband. As NBC News previously reported, that man, John Emanuel Banuelos, told Salt Lake City police that he was at the Capitol and had been captured on film with a gun. “I was in the D.C. riots,” he told the investigators, according to a police transcript. “I’m the one in the video with the gun right here.”

    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/new-jan-6-footage-appears-show-rioter-firing-gun-air-capitol-attack-rcna138137

    And I recall Hillary’s plot to get electors to “vote their concious”

    The source you’ve linked quotes Martin Sheen and other “celebrities”, not Hillary Clinton, who conceded the election as someone who believed in democracy would (despite being much more popular than Trump and winning the national vote by millions).

    Also, you should know that official electors are not always bound. As a Trump voter I know you’re not big on education or knowledge, but if you want you can read all about unpledged electors here.

    Meanwhile, what Trump and his gang of indicted co-conspirators did was to submit a slate of fraudulent and fake electors to the election certification process in order to literally steal swing state electoral college votes and appoint himself President. Or as he likes to say “dictator on day one”.

    Here’s a list of the names of the fraudulent electors in each state that Trump tried to overthrow.

  • donuts@kbin.socialtoMemes@lemmy.ml•Relatable
    223·
    1 year ago

    Just because he wasn’t charged with treason doesn’t mean he didn’t commit treason by advocating an armed insurrection against our democracy. (See: the US post-Civil War Reconstruction Era for further examples.)

    And if you want to why he wasn’t charged for that, it’s because of Republican Special Counsel Ken Starr’s disastrous opinion that sitting presidents are above the law and can’t be prosecuted, and must instead be impeached–which, if you remember, Trump was, not once but twice. Of course now Trump is arguing that he’s still above the law and deserves “total immunity”, which only further shows that he is, in fact, a wanna-be dictator.

    Saying “Trump wasn’t charged with a crime so therefore he did nothing wrong” and “Trump can’t be charged with a crime because current and former US Presidents must have total immunity from prosecution” is very clearly circular logic.

  • donuts@kbin.socialto196@lemmy.blahaj.zone•Shitter rule
    40·
    1 year ago

    Meh, to me BlueSky is really just the dude who made Twitter deciding he wanted to try making Mastodon too.

    Don’t get me wrong, it’s certainly better than “X” at this point, but I prefer Mastodon and the Fediverse in every way. (Features, community, population, etc). If BlueSky was compatible with ActivityPub then it’d be easy to recommend, but it seems unlikely for now at least.

  • donuts@kbin.socialtomemes@lemmy.world•Two Party System. Why.
    20·
    1 year ago

    Here are some cold hard Ameri-facts for you:

    • Having 2 dominant political parties is a reflection of how our political systems have been designed at almost every level (federal, state, local). American politics is very much based on first-past-the-post, winner-takes-all elections. These kinds of election systems are terrible for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the very real problem of vote splitting and the spoiler effect–leading to “third parties” which are almost all unserious, nonviable, and potentially backed by people with ulterior motives. The vast majority of the time, voting for a third party candidate in America is simply throwing your vote away and is effectively the same as not voting. (Even as a “protest”, it’s not a very good one, because it’s never clear what can be interpreted from why people vote the way they do.)

    The solution to this problem is changing how we run elections so that the most popular candidates are more likely to win, and so that people’s individual votes are less likely to become nullified in various ways (like by voting for a statistically nonviable candidate, for one). I like Ranked Choice Voting and STAR voting, but just about anything is better than the way that most American elections currently work.

    • Even in a hypothetical future where we have 10 viable parties (and more democratic voting systems), no political party is going to “give a fuck about you” as an individual. Republicans, Democrats, Greens, Libertarians, Vegetarians, Librarians, and whatever other parties spring up. The truth is, they all only give a fuck about getting your vote, so that they can get in a position of political power to do the things that they and their influential backers want (all the while reaping the benefits of doing so). There is no political party on Earth that is in it for the benefit of all of mankind–they all have some kind of agenda and ideology that they want to put in place.

    In that way American politics is like a tug of war, we current have 2 viable parties, one pulling the rope to the left and another pulling the rope to the right. You can spend as much time as you want lamenting where the rope currently is compared to where you would like it to be. But if you want the rope to move left, it makes sense to join the left side. And if you want the rope to move right, it makes sense to join the right side. Sitting out just makes it easier for the “other side” to make “progress”. Having more parties doesn’t really change that, it just turns a 1-dimensional battle into an n-dimensional battle.

    The biggest benefit that comes from having multiple (viable) political parties is increased competition of ideas. But again, America truly require huge systemic changes to how we run elections to make that a reality.

    I’m going to be voting for the party that more closely aligns with the direction that I want the country to move in. It’s the only smart move in the game of American politics.

  • donuts@kbin.socialto196@lemmy.blahaj.zone•rule
    17·
    1 year ago

    1. If you’re calling for a specific reason, like ordering food or whatever, write down what you want (plus any questions you have) ahead of time.

    2. If they ask you something that you’re not expecting or don’t understand, it’s ok to take a bit of time to think or ask them what they mean.

    3. Practice your intro or write it down if you need to. Something as simple as “Hello, I’m calling to make an appointment with Dr. Jones”, or “Hi, I’d like to place an order”, or whatever.

    4. And as a general anxiety tip, know that it’s always worse just before you do something. Most of the things we worry about never end up happening, and sometimes when they happen they aren’t that big of a deal.

    5. Take a second to remind yourself that what you’re doing is super normal, and so is making mistakes or being a bit awkward. The people who you’re talking to are used to dealing with all different kinds of strangers on the phone, including a lot of people with anxiety, hearing/speaking problems, etc.