the real political problem in America

update Feb 14:
Go here for the full text of the letter by the former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund to Nancy Pelosi. Main points (1) Intelligence services did not anticipate a violent attack (2) the police chief's request for National Guard before the day was denied due to bad "optics". (3) the police chief's urgent request for National Guard on the day was held up for approval for 4.5 hours.

Such levels of incompetence are impossible to believe.

Ted Cruz wanted to question Nancy Pelosi about her knowledge of the above https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1360627725694869514 but Democrats decided not to continue with witnesses in the impeachment process.

update Feb 12:
Did you hear that a police officer, Brian Sicknick was bashed with a fire extinguisher during the Capitol riot and later died? It turns out that that was fake news. Nobody seems to know how he died or even when he died. Read this.

update Jan 27:
(14) Rand Paul pushing back on Democrats double standards about inciting violence: link

(13) Tulsi Gabbard (combat veteran Iraq war, Democrat, 2020 Presidential candidate, accused by Hilary Clinton of being a Russian asset):
"The mob who stormed the capitol to try to stop Congress from carrying out its constitutional responsibilities were behaving like domestic enemies of our country. But let us be clear, the John Brennan's, the Adam Schiff's, the oligarchs in Big Tech who are trying to undermine our consitutionaaly protected rights and turn our country into a police state with KGB style surveillance are also domestic enemies, and much more powerful and therefore dangerous than the mob who stormed the Capitol .... (cuts to John Brennan clip) ..." https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1354035548524957697

(12) Capitol Police chief apologizes for security failures during the assault, including a delay in calling for Guard troops.
Yogananda D. Pittman, the acting chief of police, also confirmed that the Capitol Police Board, an obscure panel made up of three voting members, had initially declined a request two days earlier for National Guard troops and then delayed for more than an hour as the violence unfolded on Jan. 6 before finally agreeing to a plea from the Capitol Police for National Guard troops
(lots more detail in the article)

update Jan 25:
(11) Scott Adams listed 7 unanswered questions about the security of the US election system (link):
1) Has there ever been a large scale election fraud that was only discovered by chance? If so, does the opportunity for a similar fraud still exist?
2) Could a hacker with 'God Access' to election systems change a national election result in a big way that would be undetectable via recount, audit or any other method?
3) Would selective recounts and audits requested by the losing side be sufficient to detect fraud that could be spread across multiple precincts so as to look nothing like a good turn out?
4) Would the combination of physical ballot recounts plus statistical sampling to make sure that some number of individual ballots were valid, detect all forms of large scale fraud?
5) On a scale of 1-100%, how secure are our state election systems in terms of any opportunities for large scale national fraud?
6) Have US elections ever been rigged in ways that election officials never contemplated until it was discovered?
7) Have election EXPERTS seen any red flags for widespread fraud in the 2020 elections?

update Jan 21:
(10) Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (MI-13) led nine of her colleagues in sending a letter to Congressional leadership, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, urging that national security powers not be expanded in light of the attack on the U.S. Capitol that occurred two weeks ago, as such measures often lead to the erosion of Americans’ civil liberties.
Press release
Full text of letter

(9) Why the Dems impeached Trump a second time: to pressure him not to pardon Assange and Snowden
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1351641747718369284
https://twitter.com/danielchaitin7/status/1351704268563075072
He believed it might swing a few Republican votes for the impeachment

update Jan 17:
(8) Video with commentary showing a highly organised group leading the break in to the Capitol building. They were not typical Trump supporters (dressed alike in black, wearing masks). Who were they? The commentator says antifa. What seems clear, from a variety of sources, is that nearly all the protesters were peaceful but there was also a highly organised, military style group of unknown origin, who came with a plan and equipment to break into the Capitol. Will we ever know who they were? They were wearing masks so harder to identify. Here is the video.

update Jan 16:
(7) Credible eyewitness account from Jan 6:
I saw provocateurs at the Capital riot on Jan 6
Summary: Police acted very strangely tear gassing a crowd who supported them; well organised provocateurs (political persuasion not known) led the attack.

This account seems to me to be consistent with Giuliani's (point (2) below)

(6) The true voice of the new elite ruling class in the USA, expressed by Caitlin Flanagan in The Atlantic, describing the people who went to the Capitol:

Here they were, a coalition of the willing: deadbeat dads, YouPorn enthusiasts, slow students and MMA fans. They had heard the rebel yell, packed up their Confederate flags and Trump banners and GPS-ed their way to Washington. After a few wrong turns, they had pulled up into the swamp with bellies full of beer and Sausage McMuffins, maybe a little high on Adderall, ready to get it done.

Glenn Greenwald comments on the above:

"[T]hese people know they are scorned and looked down upon...& the more you humiliate & make them feel powerless, the more you take away their ability to organize and express that rage, it's gonna find an outlet in more destructive ways."
-source

(5) Manuel Lopez Obrador, President of Mexico:
“I can tell you that at the first G20 meeting we have, I am going to make a proposal on this issue,” López Obrador said. “Yes, social media should not be used to incite violence and all that, but this cannot be used as a pretext to suspend freedom of expression.”

“How can a company act as if it was all powerful, omnipotent, as a sort of Spanish Inquisition on what is expressed?” he asked.
- Mexican president mounts campaign against social media bans

(4) Profiles of some of the people who entered the Capitol on Jan 6th. Here. Note that some of them were not Trump supporters and played the role of provocateurs, see entries 6,7, 8, 9, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23. According to the last entry (23), John Sullivan may have been partly responsible for Ashli Babbit's death (10, 11)

(3) update Jan 14:
Just listened to a great podcast from Megyn Kelly, Tech Censorship And Independent Media, with Glenn Greenwald and the CEOs of Parler and Substack (2 hrs). She begins with her own analysis, then interviews John Matze, Parler CEO, then the CEO of substack, Chris Best and finally Glenn Greenwald. I found out a lot about Parler (not setup to be a right wing feed). At the end, Glenn Greenwald gives his opinion that the current craziness is a vengeful outpouring, built up since 2016, of those forces who saw their rightful ownership of the Presidency snatched away from them. Am I asking you to listen to a podcast that goes for a whole 2 hours? Yes, if you want to understand America, the world and freedom of speech.

(1)
I'll put this up now and add detail later if necessary. Glenn Greenwald correctly and succinctly identifies the real political problem in America at the moment:

Tech monopolies -- FB, Google, Apple, Amazon -- have more concentrated wealth & power than any in history. They have used brute force 3 times in 3 months to manipulate US politics: censoring NY Post, banning Trump, destroying Parler.

And liberals are overwhelmingly supportive.
- source

(2) I went to Rudy Giuliani's site to get his take. Then found that a video he had made about the January 6 Capitol protest has been censored by YouTube so he has republished it on rumble. So, better watch that one now before it disappears totally!

I watched it. Go here. I do think Rudy's analysis is important to obtain the full picture of what is happening. I'm not saying he is right, I can't tell, but do think he is very credible.

But one irritating issue is that his analysis is punctuated by ads. It destroys the ambience. He is discussing really important issues and it is broken up by adverts.

Anyway, Rudy was at the rally and did speak. He says there was no sign at the rally proper that there would be violence. The violence was planned beforehand and separate from the rally, he say, by antifa supporters. He presents evidence in his video in support of that claim.

One final thought here: What possible justification can YouTube have for censoring this video? They are Orwell's Thought Police, no other explanation.

US elections: the Kraken?

update Jan 3: Ted Cruz and 10 other Senators will not endorse US Presidential election results (link to full statement)
Extracts:
"Voter fraud has posed a persistent challenge in our elections, although its breadth and scope are disputed. By any measure, the allegations of fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election exceed any in our lifetimes.

"And those allegations are not believed just by one individual candidate. Instead, they are widespread. Reuters/Ipsos polling, tragically, shows that 39% of Americans believe ‘the election was rigged.' That belief is held by Republicans (67%), Democrats (17%), and Independents (31%).
...
"Ideally, the courts would have heard evidence and resolved these claims of serious election fraud. Twice, the Supreme Court had the opportunity to do so; twice, the Court declined.

"On January 6, it is incumbent on Congress to vote on whether to certify the 2020 election results. That vote is the lone constitutional power remaining to consider and force resolution of the multiple allegations of serious voter fraud.
...
Congress should immediately appoint an Electoral Commission, with full investigatory and fact-finding authority, to conduct an emergency 10-day audit of the election returns in the disputed states. Once completed, individual states would evaluate the Commission's findings and could convene a special legislative session to certify a change in their vote, if needed.

"Accordingly, we intend to vote on January 6 to reject the electors from disputed states as not ‘regularly given' and ‘lawfully certified' (the statutory requisite), unless and until that emergency 10-day audit is completed.

"We are not naïve. We fully expect most if not all Democrats, and perhaps more than a few Republicans, to vote otherwise. But support of election integrity should not be a partisan issue. A fair and credible audit-conducted expeditiously and completed well before January 20-would dramatically improve Americans' faith in our electoral process and would significantly enhance the legitimacy of whoever becomes our next President. We owe that to the People.
/update

We have been waiting a while (2 months) for reliable evidence to back the claim that the US election was stolen from Trump.

Providing some links here for such a claim and evaluation of that claim by Scott Adams. Adams is a Trump supporter who has spent time and energy debunking other such claims that initially looked credible.

1) Tweet from Rudy Giuliani, Jan 1, 2021 (link):

In a country with a free press, you would know:

1. The Georgia Senate Judiciary Committee issued a report demonstrating the vote was stolen from @realDonaldTrump .

2. The vote was unanimous and BIPARTISAN to audit Fulton County’s Absentee ballots.

3. And to de-certify Biden.

2) Summary of evidence (watch the 5 short videos) showing that votes were flipped from Trump to Biden by the computer system. The allegation is that the machines had a vulnerability and that Trump's votes declined and Biden's votes increased by the same amount at specific times. This should not be possible in a fair election.

update Jan 5: Data Integrity Group - Presentation to GA Senate Hearing 30 Dec 20 - Linda McLaughlin Data Analysis (14 min)

3) Scott Adams discusses the evidence here, watch from 18min 50 sec to 32 min. He points out that if this is not debunked within a day or two then it does discredit the whole US election process. If it was done in one place then obviously it could have been done in many places.

the fake news and Rudy Giuliani

Did you think that the Trump legal team presenting their opening statement of their preliminary findings and goals about the Presidential election on November 3rd would be reported objectively?

What we received from the main stream media was a shit storm of abuse directed mainly at Rudy Giuliani. Here are some of the headlines:

The Washington Post: Rudy Giuliani’s post-election meltdown starts to become literal

CNN: Fact-checking Giuliani and the Trump legal team's wild, fact-free press conference

Politico: Giuliani and fellow Trump lawyers crank out conspiracies as legal challenges implode

Financial Times: ‘Crazy’ allegations by Trump legal team prompt Republican rebukes

The Western Star: Trump lawyers’ wild, sweaty press conference

A few of the reports drew attention to Giuliani’s hair dye running down his face. Imagine the mindset of reporters who focus on that when evidence of massive election fraud is being outlined.

Back home one of the ABC News 24 “informative” pop ups reads “Donald Trump maintains false claim he wins the election”.

In my opinion the main problem is not Donald Trump. The attempts by the main stream media to manipulate our thinking is a much bigger problem. Rudy Giuliani is far, far more credible in the way he presents information than they are.

I invite you to watch the 90 minute presentation by the Trump legal team and make up your own mind: Rudy Giuliani and Trump Campaign Officials Hold News Conference at the RNC

How will this play out over the next few weeks? The most credible source I’ve found so far is Scott Adams, the Dilbert guy, who runs a daily entertaining / analytical podcast mainly (but not only) about this issue: here