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The so-called "Anti weaponization fund" has been defeated due to public and internal backlash.
It was so unpopular that even Republican senators were furious and yelling at Blanche over it. According to Ted Cruz
But why did it die?
Republicans are willing to bow their heads to Trump on most things, but the same way defund the police was unpopular (because people like the police), senators really like the capitol police and don't approve of rewarding the cop beaters with money. Trump got away with the pardons, but actively awarding attacking the cops who protect them is a step too far from many.
It was also just really unpopular among voters. Just like the senators, voters don't approve of giving money to cop beaters. Not even many republican ones are supportive of that just because they did it in Trump's name. Of course it's also quite likely that many interpreted the question as a fund for victims of Trump's weaponization, such as James Comey whose lead prosecutor just stepped down or Jerome Powell but not all probably did.
As my own senator put it
Senators also felt that the deal was too blatantly corrupt and hard for them to defend with a straight face.
Either way, they've dropped it now and the fund is dead in the water. Interesting showcase of how many republican congressman haven't completely neutered themselves for the executive yet, they just mostly argue behind closed doors.
As an aside, I do appreciate that you bring a different viewpoint into TheMotte. Anyway, this slush fund is corruption, just because the other side does it doesn't mean it's ok that your side does it too. I do recognize that for a lot of people here it's a feeling of "look what you made me do" or "you made me do this", or maybe a bit of accelerationist, who knows, but the whole point is the ability to curb the extremes and either appeal or force each other to be better without violence and resentment. Anyway, I still feel the slush fund is small, I am more outraged about all the stock trading Trump does.
Yeah, it's always just an excuse for their own hypocrisy. One way you can tell that's the case is that "both sides!" use the same logic. It's like Scott's piece cautioning bias arguments https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/07/17/caution-on-bias-arguments/
It doesn't make sense that the pro Israel and pro Palestine side both felt the documentary was biased against them, so it's explained better by their own personality and victim complexes.
In the same way, it doesn't make sense that pro right and pro left sides both give the excuse that "the other one started it and we're just being equal", so it is explained better by their own personality and victim complex.
Hell just look at some of the conversations I've had here already. The standard of evidence for many motte users that cops unfairly assaulted a protestor on Jan 6th is apparently "this guy on X said so". Meanwhile cases, like a guy who shot a black man and was charged with manslaughter that have gone to trial, been convicted at trial and had the conviction upheld as illegal isn't enough if it's something they don't like. They're either shifting goalposts or have a standard of evidence that is completely alien to me.
This also of course goes into the classic partisan issue of thinking everyone is as partisan as them. The average American taxpayer, the victim of corruption from either party, is not some diehard progressive or die hard conservative. It's stealing candy from a baby and saying "but John stole candy too" as an excuse.
You are lying.
Let's go through the "many motte users" who made claims of unfair J6 assault while referencing X:
... I was planning to go through the other users one by one, but I actually can't find any others. Could it be that you took a single Motte user who linked to a photo on X, lied about what they said, and then used this as a basis for "many motte users"?
It's entirely possible I've missed a bunch of other comments. If you can link me to them, I'll be happy to review them to check if you're honestly representing them, or just lying about them too.
There is an incredibly easy way to see it, TheMotte like similar sites has a mechanism built in! His comment has 6 upvotes at this time meaning at least 5 others are in general agreement. Probably more considering some users might have down voted so it might be +10vs-5 or whatever I wouldn't know.
Does (at least) 6 people count as "many" for you? I can change it to "several" if you disagree what constitutes many.
So... you're not contesting that you lied about what he said?
Or are you hoping that, if you don't address that point, people won't notice?
To check I've got my facts straight: one Motte user links to a photo that they think shows unfair assault of a J6er. Six people upvote this. You choose to lie and represent this as:
This is called lying.
I am doing exactly that? I explained to you where the many people come from. I was wrong however about it being at least 6 users, someone informed me how to see the upvote numbers and it's at +8/-1 now so it was probably +7/-1 before and someone has added on since my original check of 6.
Your facts are straight, at the time at least six people (turns out seven but I didn't know I could check the ratio then) had upvoted the comment saying
And the only external evidence provided was a post on X, which also provided no evidence whatsoever that a protested was charged for bruising the officers knuckles. There was a video that maybe the X user believed was of police brutality, but nothing whatsoever was provided of what charges were or were not brought up of the guy.
Now could it be "Well people just upvote anything!"? No, because my comment was down voted where I said the tweet was a still image (I didn't see the video underneath but again it doesn't evidence the claim about charges were brought for what reasons), did a quick double check if there was any other corroborating evidence for the claims (I could not find any nor could the chatbots) and asked
So it's not that people are just upvoting anything. What is it then? A form of endorsement. Which would mean that +7 people endorsed "Here's an X user making a claim without any external proof" as a fine evidentiary standard.
In fact you followed up and also didn't find any external affirmative evidence that the X users claims were real! https://www.themotte.org/post/3781/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/449800?context=8#context
You literally went to double check and ChatGPT said it doesn't have any knowledge of that case.
As I said "Random X user just claims it" is F tier evidence in my world. I gave particular examples of evidence I would consider as quality like a Fox News article or court documents.
So to clarify There has been no even semi decent evidence provided that a protestor was charged for blocking his face from police fists and thus causing the knuckles to be bruised. The only evidence, extremely low quality f tier evidence, provided is a guy on X claims it happened without anything else attached. And yet this evidentiary standard was endorsed by at least 7 people.
@UwU -- this is a perfect example of magicalkittycat just openly fucking with people.
Dude, I asked you: "So... you're not contesting that you lied about what he said?"
The "many people" part is not part of that. You know this. Why do you deliberately conflate everything? Do you think people reading your comment are stupid, or are you just so used to lying that it doesn't even register as lying any more?
You lied about the contents of his comment. Then I asked you about it. This attempt to deflect onto "b-but I'm addressing that!" while talking about something completely different is exactly the bullshit you pulled when we were discussing Nowak.
You are lying, again. As I said in my comment, multiple times, the evidence was a photo. Not verbal evidence. Not someone on X "saying" something. A goddam photograph of a situation. You can disagree with his take on the photo; I'm not even endorsing his take. But pretending that the photo doesn't exist is a fucking lie.
Yeah, not actually relevant to you lying about what other Motte users said, though, is it?
Oh, go fuck yourself, you liar.
Mods, I'll happily eat a ban for this; sorry, but the gaslighting from magicalkittycat is getting ridiculous.
As anyone who cares to actually follow your link will see, I was explicitly pointing out your stupid, inconsistent use of ChatGPT. I've done this multiple times, and each time you deliberately misrepresent what I'm doing.
I wasn't looking for external affirmative evidence. I was proving that your position of using ChatGPT as a neutral, impartial arbiter is obviously insane and wrong. I look forward to explaining this to you another fifteen billion times, as you don't seem to be interested in ever actually listening to what other people explain to you.
You are lying.
"The only evidence, extremely low quality f tier evidence, provided is a guy on X claims it happened"
Again, for the infinity billionth time: there is a link to a photo. I'm not claiming it's good evidence; I really don't give a shit about the object-level claim. I give a shit that you are repeatedly lying on the Motte.
Like, you are just objectively, repeatedly, incontestably saying untrue things. Then, when challenged, you switch to an entirely different thing, smugly conflate the two, and act like that's what you were saying all along. It's absolutely pathetic.
I did contest what he said!
I said that I can not find any even semi decent evidence the claims of the X user he cites as his argument are real.
How about instead of having a meta conversation, we have the actual conversation where someone finally provides semi decent evidence for their claims a guy was charged for bruising and officers fists while blocking beyond "guy on X said so".
It all seems like a way to dodge that maybe said evidence might not actually exist. I couldn't find any! You double checked and didn't find it. So where is it?
Where in the photo does it back the claim the guy was charged for injuring an officer while defending himself? Seriously, go look at the photo and tell me how I can glean "This guy was later charged for blocking punches".
There isn't any way. It does not back up the claims at all.
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One day ban, cool off and please refrain from this sort of outburst in the future.
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If you hover your cursor over the score, you can see the upvote and downvote counts. (Allegedly, Reddit used to have this feature many years ago, but removed it.)
Oh thank you very much.
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The general impression (however incorrect in this case) was that it would go in substantial part to Trump personally. Even GOP voters know that it’s precisely Trump who paints himself as an immensely rich and successful billionaire, so this is giving some very rich guy a lot more taxpayer money, which is hard for politicians to justify.
More generally, every government rewards its supporters, and there are far more under the table ways to do it than this kind of fund. Trump has already done so much of it through the crypto companies, expediting approvals for various Trump tech aligned businesses, endorsing or engaging in partnerships with startups that have his sons on the board etc. If he wants to reward his supporters, this is the way to do it.
The main strategic issue for the right isn’t making it more profitable to be on the right, it’s on making it more personally challenging to be on the left. He needs to much more aggressively steal from and prosecute and expropriate violent leftist activists, make their life hell the way the left did to the right in power. This has far better long term utility. Put people on no fly lists, have banks close their accounts, stop renewing passports and drivers’ licenses.
The Trump admin has been trying to do this, they're not even subtle. James Comey is the most blatant and unarguable example.
Ironically this exact argument is exactly what FIRE, the free speech organization that became famous when it fighting against progressive universities, warns of.
This is to them, a door that hasn't been opened yet that Trump is opening now and if you want to see what weaponization against conservatives could really look like, then just wait.
Hopefully we don't get 2028 Dem who is that vengeful and abusive, I would like for us to start shutting doors instead of continually opening new ones. But I will at least be glad to point out these "it's ok to do what you want against your enemies" arguments to people who seem to suddenly change their mind in three years.
Thankfully the Trump admin will fail here. And so will the 2028 vengeful Dem. But what a shame that everyone just wants to keep opening doors anyway, eventually we'll cross a threshold where society breaks down.
What are we talking about? This is James Comey, he did all this to Trump first. High-profile supporters of the President have already been through being put on the no-fly list, or had their clearances threatened or pulled, or had bullshit process investigations launched against them. Comey pioneered a lot of it! They spied on Trump's campaign! And the people who did it, like Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, got sue-and-settle sweetheart deals from FBI because oh the public controversy has hurt their reputations they deserve millions of dollars in reparations.
Comey even had to break laws to do it. He had to lie and cheat. They simply cannot get him because Washington refuses to allow it.
Everything you are decrying already happened! That barn left the door, the horse is wide open. If you want to complain about weaponization of the federal government for political views let's start with Michael Flynn. You can go first.
Imagine the following alternate timeline: Crossfire Hurricane is a public investigation that plays a prominent role in the news cycle for the entire summer of 2016, culminating in Comey's announcement a few weeks before the election that he is considering recommending charges. Trump loses the election. Meanwhile, the FBI has quietly been conducting an investigation into Hillary Clinton's email server and it only becomes public knowledge after a leak is published in the Weekly Standard on Halloween. Trump loses the election, and some on the right speculate that the FBI investigation played a major role in the loss. Would you consider Comey a Republican stooge in that scenario?
This is not antipodal to my position, which is not "Comey is a Democratic stooge".
Moreover it's completely different from what actually happened. Crossfire Hurricane was based on an underlying charge everybody involved knew was bogus. (Hillary did process classified emails on private computer servers.) Comey stonewalled the investigation and appointed friendlies to Hillary to its top positions. His boss, Loretta Lynch, famously crossed paths on the tarmac with Hillary and Bill to warn them about the investigation. The FBI closed the investigation and was only forced to reopen it when Republican senators found new evidence and submitted it to the FBI, forcing their hands. Finally, Comey famously gave a speech recommending that Hillary not be charged. At every point in fact he acted to minimize the damage to Hillary. (Or to maximize his own leverage and political power, which is not incompatible with etc.)
The opposite world James Comey hypothetical looks something like this:
A large and public investigation is opened into Hillary Clinton murdering and eating a child. James Comey privately assures President Clinton that he knows these allegations are not true, then tells Congressmen and Fox News that raping babies is a serious crime and the dignity of the Republic requires taking this seriously. He gets fired, but not until after the investigation gets launched and consumes two years of Hillary's Presidency. It ultimately concludes in a report that, although there is no proof that Hillary murdered or ate any children, she refused to cooperate with the investigation and so we can't be so sure that she's innocent. And we know that there are Chinese school exchange programs in New York and Washington DC and Hillary met with the Chinese schoolkids and the Chinese won't tell us what they know. Hillary is eventually impeached for threatening the Prime Minister, but during the proceedings everybody just debates whether President Clinton ate those babies or not. Hillary wins and it gradually comes out that James Comey and all his subordinates knew the entire time that everything about eating babies was totally made up and came straight from the Trump campaign via the Bolivian government. Oops!
Now Hillary tries to have James Comey prosecuted, but, you can't do that, you can't weaponize the Justice Department like that! Democrats will really regret politicizing the government to prosecute their enemies, which is something Republicans have never done before. We can't even really say that James Comey is a Trump guy. After all, during the 2016 Campaign, there was a large public investigation into how Trump shot and Killed someone on Fifth Avenue, something nobody denies he did. It's well known how James Comey undermined the Trump campaign by giving a big speech saying that what Trump did was a crime sure but not a big deal. Besides, James Comey is a registered Democrat, he was appointed by Democrats who hate Hillary, so for him to be doing all this it must be out of a deep devotion to duty. (Maybe Hillary and Bill got a divorce.) He investigated both sides. He's non-partisan. There's just no other explanation except that Hillary is a vengeful witch who is politicizing the government and destroying America.
I like to imagine that Hilldawg Democrats are really incensed about "Hillary Derangement Syndrome" and that Republicans, who just elected Timothy McVeigh to Congress, are complaining about how the Democrats have all become like Hitler and it was much better when Obama was around.
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FIRE is among the many, many, many organizations who lost their way and don't support what they say on the tin. Look at their tagline for that very article:
Do they think I'm an idiot? Do they think I haven't been paying attention? Did they forget the world they themselves have lived through?
I don't need to wait, because I've seen it for well over a decade at this point. I know exactly what it looks like when Democrats want to censor political opponents, and it looks like massive coordinated deplatforming from every institution or large conglomerate in the world.
What the fuck is FIRE thinking publishing this kind of dreck? They ought to know better, but then again, see my first sentence.
Thinking about the Obama administration: malicious tax audits of non-profits, Operation Choke Point debanking conspiracy and Citizens United outright censorship. So yeah I don't have to imagine very hard.
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Wait since when? It sounds like you are just pissy that they have principles. Meaning they defend free speech even when its a conservative in the executive.
Their archive has a ton of recent cases that do not cleave to a left vs right dichotomy but instead a free speech principled stance. https://www.fire.org/cases
Greg Lukiaoff the CEO has talked about this before and calls it "hypocrisy projection"
https://x.com/glukianoff/status/1784609444124316135
You see this constantly in replies to FIRE lawyers, people who have no idea what they are will go "You didn't say anything about X or Y" when no, FIRE definitely did do that. It's constant from all political directions.
People just fling out accusations of hypocrisy at them to cover up for their own hypocrisy.
Being a principled person is a fun life cause you'll have people telling you're biased and unfair in every direction you can imagine and there's just no convincing them. They don't want to be convinced, you can lead the horse to a river, dunk their head in and make them drink it and they'll spit it out!
You're actually correct on this one; that's some good theory of mind.
On this page, you have a bunch of people repeatedly asking you for evidence your positions; you consistently obfuscate, deflect, and pretend to misunderstand what they're saying.
I understand that it's flattering to cast yourself as a principled person, and anyone disagreeing with you is just terminally stupid.
Thing is, it's not actually true.
Actually pretty easy way to to check it, let's call it the Mr Rogers test.
If Mark tells you that John is a thief, you might be more cautious of John's behavior. If Mark then follows up with "Mr Rogers is a thief", then you know Mark's head isn't screwed on right, he just claims people are thieves if he doesn't like them for whatever reason and his claims about John hold little weight. Mr Rogers after all was famously a very nice guy and no credible accusations have ever been made that he stole from others, so Mark just claiming lowers Mark's own reputation.
So let's look at things that are very principled to use as our baseline to see if people's accusations have any weight here.
FIRE is extremely principled, probably one of the most principled organizations out there. So someone who makes claims against FIRE loses any weight they have in other accusations. The comment currently making claims against FIRE is at +14, so at the very least 14 people here throw out frivolous accusations just because they don't like when principled beliefs are against them.
Well maybe these are not the same people interacting with me, but there's not that many people on the site so there's a pretty good chance that several of them are. I don't give them any weight because they've already lost it by failing the Mr Rogers test.
And it's not just FIRE either. I learned recently that Trace Woodgrains was effectively bullied out of this site roughly a year ago, someone had linked his profile in response to me talking a view of his. Woodgrains is someone I've seen to be respectable and honest and he's constantly been willing to speak up against both left wing and right wing views he disagrees with. He's quite respected in the rationalist aligned community. Taking such major issues with him that he is effectively hounded off is a failure of the Mr Rogers test.
That's to be expected, it's the default of the internet really. Even people I disagree with substantially (but respect as principled in their beliefs) have it happen constantly. Micheal Tracey is experiencing that treatment right now. I think he's wrong about Epstein and his many other denials of public officials accused of abuse, but he is very consistent in holding this stance. Elliot Hamilton (among many other X users) falsely accusing Tracey of being a partisan hypocrite have lost any weight I might have given their accusations. If I ever had Elliot Hamilton say I'm being partisan, I know I can dismiss that because he just says it if he doesn't like what you say.
Edit: Actually here Trace Woodgrains speaks out another big of the issue that's still ongoing https://www.themotte.org/post/1018/smallscale-question-sunday-for-may-26/217142?context=8#context
Is it the case that there just isn't left or centrist rationalists capable of discussion here? Highly unlikely, Woodgrains himself is a good example of that. He's also a good example of what really happens, the community here is generally hostile in pursuit of the implicit purpose. Many users simply don't want to hear the arguments they disagree with, so the people who have arguments they dislike get burnt out from the hostility.
So Mr Rogers test, I'm not gonna put much weight into hounding from a site and people that also hounded out Woodgrains.
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I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but it would be great for accusers of MKC to post receipts along with their accusations. Right now it just seems like people are ganging up on him for no good reason.
If magicalkittycat doesn't have to post receipts for claiming to be principled, or casting other members of this forum as stupid illiterate horses, then it's a pretty asymmetric demand that I have to post receipts to push back on that. (Also, "for no good reason"? You can literally see a reason in the comment I'm replying to! Anyone who goes "I'm great and principled; other people on this forum are stupid" is opening the door to being told: "no".)
Very charitable, thanks.
One reason that thread is so long is because I (and others like FtttG) spent a ton of time not being vague! We specifically repeatedly explained how mkc was being dishonest. If we'd been vague, it would've been a much shorter thread!
So, we explain the dishonesty in detail => thread becomes long => you say "thread is long, you are vague". Doesn't really seem fair.
But I do get where you're coming from, so I'll explain some specific points of dishonesty in that thread. This isn't a complete accounting, it's just off the top of my head:
Another problem with your policy of "I need specific individual instances of bad faith; I won't read a long thread" is that it allows posters like mkc to fly under the radar. If you're looking for a threshold of (say) 60% bad faith in an individual comment, and someone is consistently operating at 55% bad faith, then any one individual comment isn't going to set off your alarms. But the cumulative effect of 55% bad faith is much worse than a single 60% bad faith comment!
(EDIT: here is a clear example of mkc posting in bad faith. He got ChatGPT to say "this photo's caption is untrue". I got ChatGPT to say "I can't verify whether this photo's caption is true or false". mkc's response to this contradiction: "this supports me, I am right!" This isn't good faith; this isn't anything. This is purely him throwing whatever words he can at an argument, without regard for truth or consistency.)
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Well, this did happen just yesterday and today in the thread you're talking in right now. Pick your poison of long "Fetch more comments" threads involving the person you just replied to. Or go to the profile in question and search "Bottom" for low-lights.
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”Goal posts were packed up and moved to Sudan” is one of those lines you wish you’d remember to use the next time it’d be appropriate.
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Lmao if you keep agreeing with me and I with you, someone might call me your sockpuppet. Brb gotta go touch grass with my real life obligations.
But yes, very intuitive to what behavior is happening here.
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I didn't see this one in there.
So your stance is words are worth more than actions?
What about this one, this one, this one
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That article is a reprint and kept the tagline from the original. Lukianoff himself at least remains aware, though whether he still controls FIRE or it was skinsuited out from under him I don't know.
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Can you give a single example where FIRE took the pro censorship side?
They're a free speech organization in favor of free speech and they know one way that you convince people to support free speech is to get them to consider "what if it happens to me?". Would you want to have the government claim you threatened the next president for saying 86 48?
Here is an example of them aligning with Democratic interests to facilitate homelessness.
Just like the when the Sierra Club starts talking about immigration rights instead of saying that immigrants to the US are bad for the environment, when FIRE starts talking about homelessness I recognize it as Conquest's Second Law.
They lost their way on free speech by standing up for free speech?
Cause that's what they're doing
They're the free speech org, of course they're against government ordinance that suppresses unliked or unwanted speech.
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I don't want to see any politicians rewarding their supporters, but I guess I might as well wish to hold back the tides.
I'm particularly reminded of USAID disbursements to progressive NGO's worldwide, and also welfare allocations to client groups in Minnesota.
Yes. Basically this sort of weaponisation needs to be turned on their original developers. Only then you can you reach detente through MAD. There are some hardcore conflict theorists that think this will never happen and that the end goal is the destruction of the political opposition. Things have been pretty bad, but I'm surprised at how far this is all going.
Regarding this point, I have always been under the impression that NGO's that try to help people in foreign countries receive education, medicine, and emergency aid are progressive in nature. Assuming part of the president's policy is to make the world outside the US a better place by providing foreign aid, it thus follows that most of that money would go to progressive groups. Because by and the majority of charities today lean left.
Is that wrong? Are there solid charities out there which are either apolitical or lean conservative which provide foreign aid, but were neglected by USAID in favor of some kind of nepotism?
Correct; USAID was a slush fund that provided cushy jobs to loyal progressive partisans as a reward for their agitation on behalf of progressive and/or Democratic Party causes, or in opposition to right-wing and/or Republican Party causes. If any of the money USAID spent managed to make life better for the poor and downtrodden in other countries, that made the US look better, then all the better, but that was not to primary driver of the program.
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WorldVision is an explicitly Christian aid organisation with a generally good reputation and which I haven't seen accused of being skinsuited by leftists. (Christian Aid and CAFOD in the UK have, I think, been thoroughly skinsuited)
Numerous religious denominations, some of them conservative-aligned, run overseas missions which combine proselytisation with aid work, although I am not familiar with specific examples.
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The ostensible realpolitik argument was that by dispersing charity to foreign nations, the US was gaining soft power and influence. It just so happened that there were links between the Democrat party and the people running and working in the NGOs receiving the money to distribute (and fund the required salaries and overheads for the organisations themselves). This was often obfuscated by layers of organisations and sometimes lead to the money being spent on things that were incredibly dubious (eg $2M for sex change surgeries in Guatemala; $47K for a "transgender opera" in Colombia; $75K for a drag show workshop in Ecuador.)
I need to be fair and say I haven't really gone digging for a USAID spending breakdown by left and right wing causes. I guess in some ways 'free welfare' type spending is by definition left wing.
Realpolitik is not the only argument for foreign aid though. There is also the progressive view that those who own a lot should use their possessions to help those who have less. Since the US is one of the wealthiest nations in the world, she has a duty to help poorer nations prosper. If that is the motivation for program, it seems natural that the charities used would mostly share a similar world view.
I think this kind of altruism is a way more common justification among leftist voters than realpolitik. The latter is really just a way to clown on Trump. They want to donate because they believe it is the right thing to do, and would do so even if the benefit to their home country is basically null. Unfortunately, this is easily weaponized by activists. "One dollar is nothing to you, but give it to a family in Africa, and it buys all of them enough water for the entire day". You also see this to a fairly extreme extent in immigration discourse in Europe, where many on the left are more concerned about doing the "right thing" by admitting refugees and immigrants, than they are about the effect this has on their culture and economy.
Why not both? Gaining a good reputation for doing good things is the system working as intended. There's also downstream effects. The benefit of disease control activities in Africa is lower risk of eventually spreading to Americans. Alleviating poverty helps prevent anti-American terrorists from gaining power.
Has a nation-state ever started a war or funded terrorism against another nation-state simply because the richer state was richer and refused to provide charity to the poorer state?
Perhaps client states or vassal-like relationships could work this way, but they involve political subservience in exchange for material resources.
Alleviating poverty does not prevent anti-Americanism, it just alleviates poverty and creates a culture of dependency.
Simply because? No, unless you're counting warlords who want more stuff. But gangs and terrorists find poor places fertile breeding ground. If you have nothing, what are you supposed to do about them? And it's easier for the cartel to recruit a poor kid from the street than a middle class child. Life is all about contributing factors.
It does though? Are you going to tell me you aren't nicer to someone who gives you stuff? It's no magic bullet, but it helps. That what soft power is - influence.
And again I will point out the value of preventing disease outbreaks.
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There are very many (christian) religious charities operating in all developing countries, most of which obviously lean conservative (btw, USAID is still working with plenty of them to this day). For the most part, these are centered around providing the basics: Alleviating poverty, providing fundamental education, giving out medicine, etc. However, they are often accused of just wanting to abuse this status to spread their religion. Some of them even openly do so. In the past, the christian western countries would frequently overwhelmingly fund these charities, citing the same arguments as you do: They are the primary charities operating in these places. You should see how this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: If they get funded but the others don't, they'll necessarily be the primary ones. That's how it works.
We have a very similar situation now; Imo arguably worse in some ways, but YMMV. Plenty of progressive NGOs are very blatant about spreading specifically their particular worldview. Usually in addition to basic aid, sometimes even without that fig leaf, but they'll often get funding anyway. And if you try looking into what they are actually doing on-the-ground, it's not only often exceptionally difficult to even find out where all that money is even going, but in the few cases where you can find something, they'll usually even exceed their claimed mandate substantially.
At least from my vantage point, we have successfully pushed these religious charities to tone down their missionary purposes and concentrate on the aid part if they want to get our funding. I'd like for the same to happen to progressive charities.
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The obvious place to look would be religious charities, wouldn't it?
Many denominations have been captured by progressiveness.
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Your post confuses me. Which happens a lot in the bubbles of the internet. I don't really know what is going on cuz I barely follow anything closely enough.
My understanding is that this lawsuit was in part about the IRS targeting politically conservative groups. Which they were shown to have been doing back in the obama administration.
Why the stuff about cop beaters? I suppose that is in reference to people attacking cops during the Jan 6th thing. But I wasn't aware of many organizations that claim credit for that surviving until the modern day. I admit to not knowing the status of the proud boys. Though the FBI and CIA are still around and their funding is not linked to this, so that also doesn't make sense to me.
I think there is a very difficult political problem being pointed at here. Trump's involvement just muddies it all.
Government controlled by Party A has done things to wrong Party B. The judiciary is supposed to be an independent entity that steps in and arbitrates these disputes.
What exactly is supposed to happen if Party B does not realize they have been intentionally wronged until they control the government?
If they sue the government its just Party B suing the government they control. Of course they win. That is what happened in this case.
Options:
A. Nothing happens. B. Punish rule breakers. C. Reward victims.
I am heavily in favor of option B, but no one in power is in favor of that option. The people in power in party A that carried out the harm have a set of preferences like A > C > B. The people in party B that have been wronged have a set of preferences that generally looks like C > B > A.
Rewarding the victims is a good compromise option. Because the people that suffer are taxpayers, and who gives a shit about taxpayers? Republican politicians is apparently a fair answer for any who opposed this payout. Had the roles been reversed would democrats have done the same? I'm sure we will find out. (if we haven't already from some buried issue or court case that has been ignored for a few decades)
It's unclear who and what will benefit from the fund. Idk if the ambiguity and shadow is intentional or not, but many Republican senators such as Tillis seem to believe that it will be going to Jan 6thers among others, including the specific criminal ones.
Well do I have good news for you then. The Biden admin prosecuted Charles E Little John (the leaker of Trump's tax records) and secured a felony conviction against him. He wasn't let off lightly either, he got the maximum penalty.
Well in this specific scenario, we don't even have to ask then! The government under the Biden admin won the case and secured the conviction against the leaker.
Good to know faith in political system increased
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I don't think this is a great example, because Charles E Little John harmed members of both parties, and the stated reasoning for his conviction is not because he leaked Trump's tax records, but because he leaked the tax records of thousands.
If a member of government controlled by party A does something that harms both members of Party A and Party B (which includes many of the wealthiest members of both parties), then party A convicting that person to me doesn't seem the same as party A convicting someone that did an action that mostly harms members of party B with little harm to members of party A.
If Charles had only leaked Trump's record, would he have received the maximum penalty? Would he have even been prosecuted during the Biden era? Would he have been pardoned by Biden if he did face any penalty?
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The problem with this statement of the case, is that Trump was president when the IRS leak of his tax documents happened. And he's president now.
What Trump could have done is ask the case to be held in abeyance, which would freeze the clock on the case and wait for the case to be resolved until after his presidency finished up. That would have been the usual "avoiding corruption, or the appearance of corruption" version of Trump bringing the complaint that created the massive settlement fund.
The whole reason this could happen is that despite being president, he didn't control the government.
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This just results in the case being dropped. Why would you think this would work?
Why do you think it would not work?
The guy who actually leaked Trump's taxes got fired and sentenced to 5 years in federal prison. It's not like Trump never gets fair court proceedings.
Heck, he's won a fair few cases in the Supreme Court during this presidency. I actually believe that if Trump had held the case in abeyance, he would have gotten a just outcome from genuinely adversarial proceedings, whatever that might have looked like.
The decade-plus of two Democratic Presidential Administrations and their politically appointed Justice Departments coordinating and executing security state abuses and lawfare against Trump, rather than curtailing it or holding the people doing so to account?
You do not need to 'never' get fair court proceedings for the court proceedings you do get to be far more unfair to fair, particularly when lawfare strategies use the process as the punishment.
And for their conduct, major establishment Democrat politicians have publicly and repeatedly advocated packing the courts, with greater party establishment support each election cycle.
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One of the protestors mentioned on X they can still just sue the government and have them settle regardless of if the money comes from a specific fund or not. So may not matter much in the end. Just another example of GOP congresspeople trying to pretend keeping the moral high ground matters at all compared to simply wielding your power for your allies and against your foes.
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It is basically political suicide for Republicans to come out against this without getting meaningful legislation banning it. Obama and Biden did the same thing dozens of times, for totals far higher than the current fund, for more spurious reasons. Unilateral disarmament is never a good idea.
It is becoming clear that the "Republicans" aren't really a solid entity; there's the Uniparty and there's the MAGA party. The Uniparty includes all the Democrats (including the DSA and Bernie) and the remaining old-guard Republicans.
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The main difference for Obama and Biden era sue and settle, was that that the people footing the bill for the slush funds were private companies, or where there were large payouts from the taxpayers, congress voted and approved it.
The Trump situation is the current president suing the government he now controls in his capacity as a private citizen for a wrong done to him while he was previously president, by people who he was theoretically in charge of. The money is coming from the taxpayers, and the slush fund is being administered by the federal government. There's lots of ways this could have the whiff of corruption on a different order than the Obama and Biden era precedents.
There's lots of things Trump could have done differently:
Apparently it can't happen without Congress approving it, so it is not in fact the government that Trump controls.
Luckily, we live in a constitutional republic, so occasionally there are checks and balances on abuses of power by one of the three branches of government.
Doesn't mean that Trump isn't in charge of the executive branch. Just means that he doesn't get act like he's an absolute monarch who can do whatever he wants.
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The Trump administration didn't do the Republican Party in general many favors by making it so easy for people to describe this initiative as a slush fund for Trump supporters, even if the idea of stopping government institution weaponization against Republicans is in principle good for Republicans. I think the optics of trying to do these things could have been handled much more subtly, especially when Republican leaders are already uneasy about the midterms.
Not while Trump is in the White House.
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Disappointed they backed down on this. Political slush funds are very powerful. Being able to reward friends is powerful. Dems ran this playbook for years and the dominated institutions. Having more money for bribes might get more gop working in the beauracracy now if you have money give them a check later.
GOP have been soundless since Iraq
At least they did something - it was terrible and dumb but by golly they did it
Giving money to supporters who were politically lynched by their political opposition? Step too far!
If Trump were 15% more competent …
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Well, you can only cut 'em off once, and these senators already gelded themselves long ago to remain in the good graces of the left. Not that interesting at all. And "cop beaters" sound an awful lot like Chinese Robbers. And honestly after all the NGO networks came to light, I'm mostly indifferent towards graft if it's going to my political allies or fellow travellers. The money likely will be stolen, it's just a question of whose side is strengthened by the theft.
If you will allow me a meta-question -- what was your intention with this post? Heavily spun partisan pro-MAGA screeds are boring to read, but so is this triumphalist leftist sneering. "Good to see at least some republicans aren't total CUCKS who want to steal TAXPAYER MONEY and give it to COP BEATERS" is a Twitter tier opinion. I guess you will get a bunch of >(you)s but that sort of violates the spirit of this place. Why not post some substantive analysis about why you think these Republicans still aren't fully sold on MAGA?
I don't think you understand how Chinese robbers fallacy works.
The fallacy is "some Chinese people are robbers = Chinese are robbers". Not "most Chinese people haven't done robbery = this specific chinese person who just robbed a store should be let off".
The average Jan 6th attendee did not commit any crimes, including violence against the police. The specific ones who did, the ones charged and convicted of crimes, did do crimes.
I did! The Republican senators stood up to this because they don't want to award money specifically to cop beaters (amid other criminals) who would have the "victimization claim" available to them and they don't feel like they can defend what appears to be blatant corruption. You think it's a Twitter tier opinion, I think you gave a Twitter tier response of not reading.
"Some Jan 6 Electoral Justice Protestors tussled with cops = we can round all Jan 6 protestors off to 'cop beaters'"
Looks like I understand it just fine.
What do you base this on? Taking politicians' sound bites at face value? Do you also believe congressmen when they say that the American Freedom Panopticon Surveillance Bill is meant to "keep our children safe?"
Anyway, I'm still curious to know what sort of discussion you hoped to start with your OP.
"Tussled with cops" is a brilliant way to try to lighten it. The people who attacked cops are cop beaters. Whether it's described as "tussling" or not, that behavior is wrong.
But that's not what happened! The problem isn't with the general jan 6th protestor, but the ones who committed a crime. Considering that Republican senators also seemed to interpret the fund as including the specific criminals who did crime, it at the very least was unclear even if it wasn't the intention.
Sure senators like Cruz or Tillis or Fitzpatrick could be lying about their objections here. But why? What do you suppose the real objections is then? That's a whole lot of Republicans who were apparently mad about it so it wouldn't make sense to just be "Tillis and Cruz hate all Jan 6thers in a way others don't" (Unless that was made up too I suppose).
It's already started a good discussion. What do you think the real reason is for Republican senator backlash then if it's not about crime or the appearance of corruption? Or if it wasn't from internal backlash, why do you think it was dropped?
I think most of the prosecutions were over the top. If you have cops threatening you, it’s not unusual for you to fight back. It was a completely chaotic situation where people who had never been in a situation where the cops are trying to stop them and wielding batons. Most of the protestors were older Americans who had up to that point only gotten a couple of speeding tickets. They were not hardened criminals who went in trying to beat up cops for no reason. They went in believing they were protesting the election of 2020 being stolen, they perhaps intended to chant in the halls of congress or something. Trying to treat such people as if they went in intending to beat up cops and harm members of Congress ignores the reasons they had and the character of those people.
I’m not completely on board with a fund, but these were not hardened criminals and talking about this as if the fifty year old small business owner was exactly like a gang member looking to shoot a cop is ridiculous.
Unusual? Yes, people attacking cops (especially in the way you can see on video, beating them while they're on the ground with metal rods and other weapons) is actually pretty rare.
But even if it was not that unusual its still illegal to beat up a bunch on cops. They were tried and convicted under a jury of their peers. A pardon does not change that they were found guilty, it is an act of clemency over the punishment itself.
If you want to take it a "it's normal to take a giant rod and slam it down on a cop while they've been knocked down on the floor" approach feel free to do so, most Americans do not agree.
I mean that honestly intent actually matters and nobody im aware of in this crowd had a substantial criminal record, nor at the time that they entered the Capitol did they intend to go around beating up cops. There is evidence of this, the most famous and obvious being the rather famous images of these same people respecting the ropes around the rotunda in the Capitol. But also the number of people who showed up in cosplay outfits and so on.
Had the cops simply used normal techniques of crowd control, I don’t think the people who would not cross a rope barrier are suddenly going to beat up cops. They started beating up cops once the cops broke out the mace.
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What about cops attacking nonviolent protestors on video, and then charging those protestors for the temerity of bruising the officer's knuckles.
That's just a still image, which also doesn't show what happened before then.
Most "police brutality" cases are out of context and don't show the police are responding to aggression.
Also checked to see if it was true at all
I asked
And for
And
Do you happen to have the charges against him where what they outline is that he blocked his face and that's what was the assault?
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Many senators are still very media sensitive. J6 carries undue weight in DC because of the media, the culture (95%+ of their neighbors will be Democrats), and other factors. The reality is that this is a tiny slush fund by Obama standards; has a very legitimate purpose outside of J6 defendants (for instance, reimbursing conservative media outlets for legal fees from when Biden forced social media companies to de-platform them); and certainly wont be the last such fund if ever a Democrat is President. The fact that this isn't legislation gives the game away that this is just Washington Generals behavior.
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