Are we now in full blown fascist totalitarianism?

[Jimmy Higgins]

So Comey even admits he was overconfident and wrong about the FBI's procedures?!! What bullshit!! Comey knew good and well Hillary's dossier was pure crap yet still took (at tax payer expense) the FBI into a kangaroo mission based on it!

I wrote this out, but then realized that'd require reading, so I made it easier to follow instead:

May 2016: Aussie intelligence contacts FBI about a drunken Trump Campaign official, George Papadopoulos, drunkenly going on about Russia having dirt on Clinton.
June 9, 2016: The top Trump Campaign officials (everyone but Donald Trump) meeting with Kremlin linked officials about dirt on Clinton
June 10, 2016: DNC becomes aware of a hack.
June 15, 2016: First leaked document gets out.
July, 2016: Wikileaks leaks 20,000 or so documents stolen from the DNC.
October 7, 2016: Billy Bush tape finds it way into the campaign.
October 7, 2016 (30 minutes after the "grab them by the pussy" publication): Wikileaks leaks the Podesta Emails.

This whole, 'there is nothing to any of this' is so blatantly full of shit. Sure, this could have been coincidental, but Trump's subsequent actions that have helped Russia really push the argument that this wasn't coincidental, especially in light of how coordinated the leaks were, particularly after the pussy grabbing publication.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Right wingers refusing to look at the actual evidence as usual and just denying, denying, denying.

 

[bilby]

Then why did we call it "Obama Care"?

In order to make dumb racists hate it and vote against it, even though it benefited them enormously.

 

[bilby]

The problem being that in a fundamentally racist society*, such as that of the United States, there are no programs "based purely on meritocracy and performance"; Just programs based on the attititudes and biases of employers and managers.

The "Inclusive programs" you deride are necessary to prevent that underlying racism from coming to the fore, and most of those clamouring for their removal (including the current President) have racist motives for doing so. (The rest are "useful idiots").








* And I use the word 'fundamentally' in both senses; The USA (like South Africa and Australia) was founded on racist ideas and actions; And racism continues to be a driver of much decision making at every level in these nations.

Why do you say we are fundamentally racist?

Because it is true, and for the reasons already given in the post to which your question forms a reply.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

(immigration law) It's more complicated than most people think due to procedural issues.

It can be a bureaucratic nightmare in a lot of cases requiring expensive legal assistance.

Sometimes. For us it was a nightmare but because of their stupidity, paying a lawyer wouldn't have helped.

The border issue did/does need addressing and deportation is a key aspect of that.

Hmmm, I am not so sure about the border issue needing addressing. The recent "border crisis" was manufactured during Brandon's tenure and since Trump took over, illegal border crossings are way down. You only need to deport people if you allow them entry. If you don't allow them entry in the first place, then there is no requirement for deportation.

It was a manufactured issue because the Republicans absolutely refused to do anything about the situation so they would have a fire to blame on Biden.

And it's not like your answer worked--the Gestapo is going after the tiniest things because they simply can't find enough illegals.

However, the way it's being done is way too heavy handed,

Is it though? Sometimes these operations are targeting violent criminals and a bit of heavy handedness is required.

Illegals do not require SWAT tactics.

and even worse is that Trump has his paramilitary force (ICE) and is recruiting more every single day.

"paramilitary force"? Hardly.

They waddle and quack. ICE should have no need of heavy tactics.

And they shouldn't be shooting at people who are simply filming.

A more simple way would've been to more tightly seal the borders and deport those who are arrested or stopped for another potential offense.

The first part appears to have been taken care of but then you have the so called "sanctuary cities" actively working against that.

The problem is that this forces them to extrajudicial means of recourse when wronged. Sanctuary cities operate better than other cities.

In the long run it would've been better for the entire country and certainly more humane than what's happening now. At the same time, we wouldn't be threatened by what appears to be an inevitable loss of many civil liberties.

What loss of civil liberties are you talking about?

Are you blind?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

He's still replacing the control structures with those loyal to him rather than to the law. But he's not encountering any meaningful opposition in doing so.

How is he doing that? This is stuff I keep hearing but nobody has explained it to me

Just look! Removing the top people of most regulatory bodies and replacing them with loyalists.

Look at what's happened with the CDC. The entire team that produces vaccine recommendations is gone, replaced with quacks.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Pay more attention. He's gone a long way towards controlling society.

Yet you're able to post here without fear of reprisals. How come you are not afraid the FBI will come for you and make you disappear?

We are little fish. Small board, not a lot of attention.

We've seen pretty severe reactions to people posting things on Facebook.

Not a racist? You realize some of his crowd have admitted they intend to purge the country of non-whites?

Where are the racist laws that he's passed?

Laws?! He doesn't care about the law! The Gestapo is stopping people on race alone.

ICE only stopping people who look Mexican is racial profiling. But its not irational. If they wouldn't do it they'd be retarded

And racial profiling isn't racist?

Not a rapist? He's admitted to rape.

No, he hasn't. Don't relativise rape. It's a serious crime. Not cool.

Some places specifically limit rape to a penis, others define it as sexual penetration even without it being a penis. The state he did it in uses the strict definition and thus his actions are only sexual assault as the penetration was by a finger, not a penis. But he's basically admitted to doing it.

We reserve the term for "rape" for more serious types of sexual assault. But where the cutoff point is, is inherently arbitrary. New York isn't wrong putting that limit there.

Its important to separate any serious crime from less serious crime in order for us to be able to talk about it and judge it correctly.

I'm not saying Trump is a good person. But if he wasn't convicted of rape its simply incorrect to call him a rapist. He's a "sexual predator". Or possibly "rapey". Or whatever you'd call someone on the less serious rapist spectrum.

New York called his actions sexual assault. I've already posted that the law here would call that very same action rape. Thus I have no problem referring to it as rape.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

He's still replacing the control structures with those loyal to him rather than to the law. But he's not encountering any meaningful opposition in doing so.

How is he doing that? This is stuff I keep hearing but nobody has explained it to me

One recent example is when the DOJ lawyers refused to indict James Comey, because it was obvious to anyone with prosecutorial experience that there was no case, he fired those people and replaced them with his own personal attorney (likely an illegal appointment), who was woefully unqualified for the position. That person then indicted Comey on the flimsiest of charges, which will quite likely be dismissed due to vindictive prosecution if not just for simply using no evidence of a crime.

So, this is exactly a case where he replaced those loyal to the law with someone only loyal to him.

And the Biden administration didn't do this? Or even the Obama administration for that matter? You mean there weren't Republicans complaining about Obama going after them for taxes? Or even any other administration during my lifetime? You think POTUS appointments are for people loyal with the laws they don't want inforced? Of course they fill these agencies with people who are loyal to them...and that was a big weakness for Trump during his first term because he had not yet had experienced or procured enough politically minded people he could trust.

I greatly despise lawfare. And there was a time when I would even be against Trump for going after Comey. But not anymore. I'm still against lawfare if the Trump administration does it against someone who hasn't yet committed lawfare themselves. But in the case with Comey he has been so dirty with his own lawfare...I'm just fine with it for him. Its still not the correct way to run a government, but what else can Trump do to disincentive people so corrupt as Comey?

And where do you have examples of lawfare from the Democrats? All the prosecutions of The Felon were for things he actually did.

Comey deserves everything he gets including all the legal fees and other inconvenience (if he gets off with no prison).

What law did Comey break? Nothing. He just didn't kowtow.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Comey did not prosecute anyone yet he did interfere in a POTUS election in a material way. You don't have to be a lawyer in court just to commit lawfare if you are head of the justice department IMO. Lets take (a hopefully unbiased look) at what google AI says:

Former FBI Director James Comey signed three of the four Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant applications to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page in 2016 and 2017. After a Justice Department Inspector General (IG) report in 2019 identified 17 "significant inaccuracies and omissions" in the FBI's applications, Comey publicly admitted there was "real sloppiness" and said he was "wrong" to have been overconfident in the FBI's procedures.
The FISA warrant controversy
The IG report detailed serious flaws in the FISA warrant process, though it did not find evidence that political bias motivated the overall investigation.

• Reliance on the Steele dossier: The FBI's applications relied heavily on information from the unverified "Steele dossier," while failing to disclose exculpatory information to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).
• False claims and omissions: An FBI attorney, Kevin Clinesmith, pleaded guilty to altering an email used in a FISA renewal application for Page, stating that Page was "not a source" for another government agency when he was.
• Comey's admission: Following the report's release, Comey told Fox News Sunday that he was "overconfident" and "wrong" about the FBI's procedures, and conceded there was "real sloppiness".
• Backlash and reform: The IG's findings drew sharp condemnation from the FISC and led to commitments from the Justice Department and FBI to reform their FISA processes and increase oversight.

So Comey even admits he was overconfident and wrong about the FBI's procedures?!! What bullshit!! Comey knew good and well Hillary's dossier was pure crap yet still took (at tax payer expense) the FBI into a kangaroo mission based on it!

That is the spirit of lawfare just as bad as if he were a prosecutor filing charges.

No. That's just a sloppy system.

Where you are getting it wrong is thinking this is some great outlier rather than common law enforcement practice.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Why do you say we are fundamentally racist? Most people of the current generation are not. What we are seeing is it being resurrected as something to blame to climb to power.

And yet, it's always white people saying shit like this. Usually while trying to justify a tepid or ineffective response to the "return" of racist actions, misinformation, or ideologies. Funny, that.

I am not trying to justify not responding to the racism coming from Washington!

I'm saying that most people aren't racist. Race rarely is an important factor in how something happens--and virtually everything that says otherwise does not separate race from socioeconomic status.

 

[Politesse]

Why do you say we are fundamentally racist? Most people of the current generation are not. What we are seeing is it being resurrected as something to blame to climb to power.

And yet, it's always white people saying shit like this. Usually while trying to justify a tepid or ineffective response to the "return" of racist actions, misinformation, or ideologies. Funny, that.

I am not trying to justify not responding to the racism coming from Washington!

I'm saying that most people aren't racist. Race rarely is an important factor in how something happens--and virtually everything that says otherwise does not separate race from socioeconomic status.

If that were true, "Washington's" racism could gave only a limited impact on the day to day lives of our citizens.

Over the last three years, employment for whites has been gradually increasing, while unemployment for Blacks has hit a record high three times. Currently at 7.5% for Blacks, 3.7%. And it's good jobs that are disappearing. What had been the Black middle class. All because of one racist man in Washington DC, I guess?

 

[DrZoidberg]

Pay more attention. He's gone a long way towards controlling society.

Yet you're able to post here without fear of reprisals. How come you are not afraid the FBI will come for you and make you disappear?

We are little fish. Small board, not a lot of attention.

We've seen pretty severe reactions to people posting things on Facebook.

Oh, stop it. A signifying symptom of fascism is that everyone lives in fear of reprisals if they speak out. They make sure all the fish are afraid. That's what the "total-" in "totalitarianism" is about. The funny thing is that USA is probably the least fascist and totalitarian country on the planet. The latitude of socialy permitted behaviour in USA, as long as it's not sexual, is greater than anywhere else. Especially expressing political opinions. And Americans are very vigilant about it. As this thread demonstrates. Americans are very sensitive about having their right to free expression. So it comes across as a bit humorous when Americans start complaining about living in a fascist totalitarian state. The norm, around the world, is to not have opinions about anything remotely controversial in public. Because doing so is dangerous.

Not a racist? You realize some of his crowd have admitted they intend to purge the country of non-whites?

Where are the racist laws that he's passed?

Laws?! He doesn't care about the law! The Gestapo is stopping people on race alone.

ICE only stopping people who look Mexican is racial profiling. But its not irational. If they wouldn't do it they'd be retarded

And racial profiling isn't racist?

Sure. But calling it out in this case is retarded. Skin colour is a thing. Ignoring it when it's a relevant factor is just dumb. It's like cops going in hard with full violence against angry women, because they want to treat the genders the same. It's not apropriate.

Not a rapist? He's admitted to rape.

No, he hasn't. Don't relativise rape. It's a serious crime. Not cool.

Some places specifically limit rape to a penis, others define it as sexual penetration even without it being a penis. The state he did it in uses the strict definition and thus his actions are only sexual assault as the penetration was by a finger, not a penis. But he's basically admitted to doing it.

We reserve the term for "rape" for more serious types of sexual assault. But where the cutoff point is, is inherently arbitrary. New York isn't wrong putting that limit there.

Its important to separate any serious crime from less serious crime in order for us to be able to talk about it and judge it correctly.

I'm not saying Trump is a good person. But if he wasn't convicted of rape its simply incorrect to call him a rapist. He's a "sexual predator". Or possibly "rapey". Or whatever you'd call someone on the less serious rapist spectrum.

New York called his actions sexual assault. I've already posted that the law here would call that very same action rape. Thus I have no problem referring to it as rape.

Ok, you do that. But you do understand that it makes stuff like this harder to talk about on the Internet? Because now I have to learn the legal norms for everyone I am talking with on the Internet. Some of which don't disclose their location.

 

[Swammerdami]

The inanity, ignorance and stupidity in this thread is ... disappointing. I'll not point fingers at the specific imbeciles -- they know who they are.

And less than a half-hour later we have:

He's still replacing the control structures with those loyal to him rather than to the law. But he's not encountering any meaningful opposition in doing so.

How is he doing that? This is stuff I keep hearing but nobody has explained it to me

One recent example is when the DOJ lawyers refused to indict James Comey, because it was obvious to anyone with prosecutorial experience that there was no case, he fired those people and replaced them with his own personal attorney (likely an illegal appointment), who was woefully unqualified for the position. That person then indicted Comey on the flimsiest of charges, which will quite likely be dismissed due to vindictive prosecution if not just for simply using no evidence of a crime.

So, this is exactly a case where he replaced those loyal to the law with someone only loyal to him.

And the Biden administration didn't do this? Or even the Obama administration for that matter?

No, they did not force out career civil servants. There are political appointments and civil service positions. The former serve the POTUS, the latter serve the country.

You mean there weren't Republicans complaining about Obama going after them for taxes? Or even any other administration during my lifetime? You think POTUS appointments are for people loyal with the laws they don't want inforced? Of course they fill these agencies with people who are loyal to them...and that was a big weakness for Trump during his first term because he had not yet had experienced or procured enough politically minded people he could trust.

I greatly despise lawfare. And there was a time when I would even be against Trump for going after Comey. But not anymore. I'm still against lawfare if the Trump administration does it against someone who hasn't yet committed lawfare themselves. But in the case with Comey he has been so dirty with his own lawfare...I'm just fine with it for him. Its still not the correct way to run a government, but what else can Trump do to disincentive people so corrupt as Comey?

Comey deserves everything he gets including all the legal fees and other inconvenience (if he gets off with no prison).

Comey didn’t prosecute anyone - he investigated. So he did not commit “lawfare” And recall, he helped Trump during his first campaign with his well-timed revelations about Hillary Clinton’s email controversy close to the election.

Mr Comey’s alleged corruption pales in comparison to Mr Trump’s proven corruption.

FFS, his administration pressured the director if the Eisenhower Presidential library for refusing to break the law!!! Add that to his felony convictions, his shutdown of the special prosecutor investigation, his pardoning of rioters, etc…

You condone lawfare against those you feel deserve it and despise it when it is against those who you feel don’t. That is not hate but hypocrisy.

Comey did not prosecute anyone yet he did interfere in a POTUS election in a material way. You don't have to be a lawyer in court just to commit lawfare if you are head of the justice department IMO. Lets take (a hopefully unbiased look) at what google AI says:

Former FBI Director James Comey signed three of the four Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant applications to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page in 2016 and 2017. After a Justice Department Inspector General (IG) report in 2019 identified 17 "significant inaccuracies and omissions" in the FBI's applications, Comey publicly admitted there was "real sloppiness" and said he was "wrong" to have been overconfident in the FBI's procedures.
The FISA warrant controversy
The IG report detailed serious flaws in the FISA warrant process, though it did not find evidence that political bias motivated the overall investigation.

• Reliance on the Steele dossier: The FBI's applications relied heavily on information from the unverified "Steele dossier," while failing to disclose exculpatory information to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).
• False claims and omissions: An FBI attorney, Kevin Clinesmith, pleaded guilty to altering an email used in a FISA renewal application for Page, stating that Page was "not a source" for another government agency when he was.
• Comey's admission: Following the report's release, Comey told Fox News Sunday that he was "overconfident" and "wrong" about the FBI's procedures, and conceded there was "real sloppiness".
• Backlash and reform: The IG's findings drew sharp condemnation from the FISC and led to commitments from the Justice Department and FBI to reform their FISA processes and increase oversight.

So Comey even admits he was overconfident and wrong about the FBI's procedures?!! What bullshit!! Comey knew good and well Hillary's dossier was pure crap yet still took (at tax payer expense) the FBI into a kangaroo mission based on it!

That is the spirit of lawfare just as bad as if he were a prosecutor filing charges.

On reading this I immediately recalled an ancient Old English proverb, translated here to Modern English:

You can lead a horse to water, push its head into the trough, close its nose with a clamp, promise it a date with the prettiest mare in the stable, but you cannot make it drink.

 

[ZiprHead]

So Comey even admits he was overconfident and wrong about the FBI's procedures?!! What bullshit!! Comey knew good and well Hillary's dossier was pure crap yet still took (at tax payer expense) the FBI into a kangaroo mission based on it!

I wrote this out, but then realized that'd require reading, so I made it easier to follow instead:

May 2016: Aussie intelligence contacts FBI about a drunken Trump Campaign official, George Papadopoulos, drunkenly going on about Russia having dirt on Clinton.
June 9, 2016: The top Trump Campaign officials (everyone but Donald Trump) meeting with Kremlin linked officials about dirt on Clinton
June 10, 2016: DNC becomes aware of a hack.
June 15, 2016: First leaked document gets out.
July, 2016: Wikileaks leaks 20,000 or so documents stolen from the DNC.
October 7, 2016: Billy Bush tape finds it way into the campaign.
October 7, 2016 (30 minutes after the "grab them by the pussy" publication): Wikileaks leaks the Podesta Emails.

This whole, 'there is nothing to any of this' is so blatantly full of shit. Sure, this could have been coincidental, but Trump's subsequent actions that have helped Russia really push the argument that this wasn't coincidental, especially in light of how coordinated the leaks were, particularly after the pussy grabbing publication.

Don't forget sending voter data to Russia to aid in social media targeting.

 

[Colonel Sanders]

The inanity, ignorance and stupidity in this thread is ... disappointing. I'll not point fingers at the specific imbeciles -- they know who they are.

I don't know if there's ANY path to progress in discourse here, but the question in thread title begs for a definition of fascism. But coming up with a consensus definition of that word might be like catching a slippery eel with your bare hands.

One Infidel pointed to a Wikipedia page called "Definitions of Fascism" or such and claimed that Trump couldn't be a Fascist because he hasn't resorted to violence. This post demonstrated extreme imbecility on several grounds:

• Said Infidel failed to notice the S in the Wikipedia page's very name: DefinitionS of Fascism. The Wikipedia page gave thirty-four (34) different definitions of Fascism of which only one (1) mentioned violence.
• Even that definition didn't make "violence" a prerequisite; it just mentioned that violence was used by Fascists circa 1930.
• Thirty-two of the 34 definitions didn't mention "violence" at all. The remaining one mentioned only "violent rhetoric", not quite the same as "violence."
• Said Infidel with faulty cognition ignored that Trump has deployed BOTH violent rhetoric and actual violence to further his fascism.

Madeleine Albright, whose smallest toe-nail knows more than all the imbecilic MAGGOT apologists here summed together, gives her own useful definition of fascism in her book titled -- can you guess? -- Fascism.

So ... should we take time out to finally define this word on which we've wasted more than 1300 posts? Perhaps that could be a non-partisan project for which hominins from "both sides of the aisle" could reach out and join in an intellectual cooperation.

I've stopped using the f word. I just call it authoritarianism now. It's much simpler to understand that Trumpco is an authoritarian regime with authoritarian goals. Regardless of what any particular authoritarian party/person may fall under, it's enough to understand what happens to people under all authoritarian governments.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Here's an Iranian guy commenting on Americans who struggle with understanding what fascism is