Trump booted from Screen Actor’s Guild for inciting the insurrection.
You can’t boot me, I QUIT
But not before I tell you my entire acting resume!
I wonder if that means he’s planning to try to get an entertainment industry gig in a non-union shop.
I’ve occasionally seen flyers at election times, here in London, urging people not to vote, on religious grounds. But those came from radical Islamists, of course (whom the vast majority of Muslims promptly ignored).
the union president said it was because he made the workplace unsafe for broadcast reporters. they were already reviewing his membership for the “enemy of the people” rhetoric and other comments, jan 6th just expedited it.
Seems like this oughta count for something.
From the letter:
…
Many of us attended school in the post-Columbine era and were trained to respond to active shooter situations in our classrooms. As the mob smashed through Capitol Police barricades, broke doors and windows, and charged into the Capitol with body armor and weapons, many of us hid behind chairs and under desks or barricaded ourselves in offices. Others watched on TV and frantically tried to reach bosses and colleagues as they fled for their lives.On January 6, the former President broke America’s 230-year legacy of the peaceful transition of power when he incited a mob to disrupt the counting of electoral college votes. Six people died. A Capitol Police officer—one of our co-workers who guards and greets us every day—was beaten to death. The attack on our workplace was inspired by lies told by the former president and others about the results of the election in a baseless, months-long effort to reject votes lawfully cast by the American people.
…
As Congressional employees, we don’t have a vote on whether to convict Donald J. Trump for his role in inciting the violent attack at the Capitol, but our Senators do. And for our sake, and the sake of the country, we ask that they vote to convict the former president and bar him from ever holding office again.”
My bold.
These staffers are young people and learned in school to deal with active shooter situations. That’s bad enough. But to encounter this at your workplace. In the United States Capitol Building?? Incited and egged on by the CEO, your ultimate boss? Holy crap.
I just remembered another highlight from a Christian textbook, it rather infamous. It’s from a “science” text that claims “No one knows where electricity comes from” .
Now, at first glance it may seem that this is just a little nugget of ignorance for the sake of ignorance. Really, what’s that advantage of telling your kids that no one knows where electricity comes from?
But think about it a little more. By positioning electricity as a gift from God, an unlimited natural resource…they are setting the stage for considering the selling of electricity to be a secular abomination - another act of an oppressive government out to deny you what is yours by natural right. There is a method to their madness.
One of the few times I ever felt like I was actually having something approaching a reasoned debate about gay marriage (as opposed to just dealing with naked bigotry) was on the SDMB, and someone was making a version of that argument… basically, when something is scarce that makes it precious. So if it’s less scarce, that makes it less precious. So opening up marriage to gays makes his marriage less precious.
That kind of comes within shouting distance of being reasonable. For instance, if people started using the word “married” to describe any casual romantic relationships, even one night stands, one might reasonably think that lessened the import of a lifelong loving commitment.
But of course it falls apart when you think about it for even a second. And in fact, it’s really quite the opposite. If you want kids to grow up and respect the idea of marriage, its foundational status in our society, etc., what makes them respect marriage more: uncle bob and uncle jack, who live together and love each other and are clearly just as much a committed couple as any straight couple, being married, or not being married? If bob and jack aren’t married that makes marriage less special, not the other way around, because obviously it’s not really needed or important.
I just posted this to the election security thread, but I really feel it’s an important article, so I want to post it in this thread as well to make sure everyone doesn’t miss it, even if it’s a tad OT.
A very informative and important article.
Quote from the article
*“Every attempt to interfere with the proper outcome of the election was defeated” says Ian Bassin, co-founder of Protect Democracy, a non-partisan rule of law advocacy group. “But it’s massively important for the country to understand that it didn’t happen accidentally. The system didn’t work magically. Democracy is not self-executing.
That’s why the participants want the secret history of the 2020 election told, even though it sounds like a paranoid fever dream - a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information. They were not rigging the election, they were fortifying it. And they believe the public needs to understand the system’s fragility in order to ensure that Democracy in America endures.”*
Of course, the right-wing crazy sphere is exploding with “We were right, it was rigged, the Deep State is real.” In fact, I wouldn’t have found the article had it not been for the right wing loon heads exploding over it.
I saw that my mother had posted this on Facebook earlier today. Unfortunately she’s one of those people who believes the election was rigged and this article cemented her beliefs.
No point in mentioning to her that many of the people working to ensure a free and fair election were middle ground GOP, GOP donators?
Anyhow, I do sincerely hope that there are aspects of that TIME article that will be informing the Senate trial. It does look to me that there could be a will within GOP to oust the rabid vote stealing Trumpists since so many of their donors and staff were part of the program to protect the election.
Seems to me that the work of that campaign has achieved the immediate objectives but should now move on to developing strengthened protocols to ensure the continuation of free & fair elections through state legislatures, national legislatures and robust measures to promote and facilitate voting.
One of the more shocking things it seems to me is that the Trump campaign expected to meet a counter - protest on Jan 6 and had prepared for it, and when that counter protest did not take place the seditionists were undercut and left them with an uncontrolled mob that had been given a target that no longer existed.
Once the mob had been programmed with rage and violence and the likeihood of conflict its then kind of hard to call it back when the target planned by Trumpists wasn’t there, and this speaks massively to the organising of the seditionists by the Trumpists themselves.
From then on it gets incredibly difficult for the Trumpists either to redirect the mob, get it to stand down or admit that they had been programmed to take part in a violent act that the Trumpists had already planned.
NOW TELL ME HOW CLOSE THE US CAME TO A COUP!
Probably not. I’m simply left to wonder what the hell happened to pull my sweet mother down the rabbit hole and into the cesspool.
This is one of the more brilliant strategic twists in the article, answering one of my nagging questions from that day — why weren’t Trump’s zealots met by any opposition? Of course, it makes perfect sense that they would have wanted to meet counter protestors, so they could brawl in the streets, and then Trump gets to point at the violence and send in the troops. Taking this card away from the Administration was a high-stakes gamble but in retrospect a genius move.
I agree. I was surprised myself that there was no counter-protest, but the article explained it nicely.
I’m reminded of that slogan from the 1960s: “What if they gave a war and nobody came?”
It sounds like they are “reviewing” it, but it’s not clear from the article whether Trump is currently getting the briefings. I hope not. This should be an easy consequence to decide and execute. You undermine the entire democratic electoral process and instigate an attack on the Capitol and Congress itself, you don’t get to be on the inside as far as intelligence briefings.
Oops, just saw that it says, “unrelated” not “related.” Either way, I agree, though I guess that makes it off-topic for the thread. Carry on.
I hope Trump won’t be getting the briefings either, but he didn’t read them when he was President. Why would he start now? only slightly /s
Why would any former President get intelligence briefings anyway? If they’re not in the job any more and back being a private citizen, what would be the value to them or the current President?
The idea is that only 40-odd people in history have ever been President and truly understand the pressure and complexity of the position. In modern times, previous Presidents are kept up to speed on current events so they can act as a sounding board in case the current President needs to seek advice. It happens more often than you might expect.
And that’s the best argument for cutting Trump out of the tradition, because can you imagine anybody asking that ignorant gasbag for advice on anything?