I'm going to wait to see how this plays out. I don't want to get involved in a war with Syria, but if we're there to support the Kurds again... I can get behind that. They're some of our closest combat allies, and Trump's decision to leave them is one of the few areas I disagreed with him.
It's not about war, it's about supporting our allies who have fought and died alongside us fighting terrorism. Not a single soldier I've ever known who has worked with the Kurds has known them as anything other than fellows brothers-in-arms. I'd like to see that alliance reestablished.
Two. Cool! Two of us!
Hard to tell right now. I've been trying to fact-check stuff as I see it with varying degrees of aggressiveness by pedes being questioned.
Fact is, though, we HAVE to be more careful right now. We don't have Trump out here telling us anything. We don't have much of our own media anymore. We have plenty of people looking to kick this movement while its down.
It is SUPER EASY to spread misinformation right now due to how badly this community wants to see a way for Trump to win somehow. People don't naturally want to question hopium.
Some of us have to be dicks about it. I haven't deported people for peddling fake news, since it's not super easy to tell right now and I don't believe most pedes are doing it with malicious intentions. But you can't just let it go. Otherwise, this site will just become another Q LARP.
Skepticism needs to go in every direction until we're reorganized and back on our feet.
I still can't believe Fauci is 80. Regardless of anything else, he clearly knows how to keep himself healthy.
On the other hand, as someone pointed out, the intention probably wasn't for regular citizens to actually live in DC.
But they do. They live and work and have their own economy and everything. They live like normal citizens, just in a wonky area of voting representation.
I'm not sure that in itself makes a cogent argument for keeping them there. The Boston Tea Party wasn't less valid just because British law wasn't on-board with it. People have a right to representation, even if they want different values than your own represented. It was true of us and the English, and I don't see why it shouldn't be true for literally anyone legally considered a US citizen.
I can kind of get behind that, but I'm not sure how cleanly it solves the representation problems.
For instance, if a DC resident is represented as a voter in Maryland, does that mean that any federal laws that specify something to Maryland also applies to the DC voters? Do Maryland state laws now apply to DC residents, since a DC resident not living under Maryland state law would not necessarily have the same voting concerns as a Maryland resident proper?
Also, would this solution satisfy the people who quite clearly are just looking to prevent extra Democratic voters at any cost? Because they'd still be getting the vote, and they'd still probably be voting Democrat.
That is the biggest mask I've ever seen.
There's a difference between believing that something is going to happen and WANTING something to happen.
Wanting something to happen is where the energy is. WANTING to win. WANTING to beat the liberals. WANTING to fight.
But believing is based on logic and observation. Right now, we have no real avenues to fix this right now. Biden/Harris will likely serve out their four years.
I am not one of the people around here that is convinced the voting system is hopelessly compromised, mostly because the election fraud "evidence" has come largely from people like Wood, Powell, and Giuliani, all of whom have been proven right exactly zero times in the last three months. Since I am a skeptic at heart, I am willing to consider that perhaps the voting systems aren't as fucked as they wanted us to believe and were unable to prove in court.
I don't accept the opinions of perpetual losers, and they did nothing but lose.
So I'm not dooming, because I believe that we can survive this Democratic Presidency, just like I survived every other Democratic Presidency people told me would be the end. I survived Clinton (twice). I survived Obama (twice). I will survive Biden.
And I suppose we'll see in four years if the bullshit clowncar legal team that utterly destroyed the morale of pedes around here by filling them with false hopium actually were telling the truth when they told us that democracy is dead. Because I'm not going to base that on one highly unusual election in the middle of an apparent pandemic.
Sorry, I just don't get disheartened that quickly. I voted Trump into office after Obama. I voted Bush into office after Clinton. I am not going to assume I can't vote another conservative into office after Biden based on fuckhead grifting lawyers who have no proven competence in understanding how this was going to play out. I still believe.
The impeachment trial isn't over whether or not voter fraud occurred. They aren't going to be litigating whether or not the protestors were correct in assuming that the election was being stolen.
They are attempting to link Donald Trump to what happened on Jan 6th. Basically, if they can convince each other that the Capitol situation wouldn't have escalated, or even occurred, without Trump's rhetoric, then they can hold him responsible as the lynchpin of the "riot."
That's all they need to do. "Would this have happened if you hadn't called these people out? No? Then you're responsible."
Don't get your hopes up beyond that. Congress considers the voter fraud situation closed. If even a single legal victory had come down in our favor, maybe that wouldn't be true, but nobody in Congress has the political capital to continue arguing about voter fraud after the accusation was directly connected to an "attack" on the US Capitol.
Just so that we're on the same page, what is the argument against DC residents having statehood besides the fact that they'd all vote against us? Is there an actual non-political reason that we're arguing here?
I get that DC and Puerto Rico statehoods would be bad for our voting bloc, but I am struggling with subjecting people to US laws and collecting taxes from them and giving them no representation in federal government if they want it.
We need a better argument than, "You don't vote the way I want you to" to tell US citizens they aren't allowed to be federally represented in Congress. I can't stand behind that one.
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I get the handshake thing. I had to remake my account after the site fuzzed around election time. I'm just pointing out how hard it is to establish credibility around here.
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They were probably kicked out by a dick who didn't want the Capitol building to look like a war zone after Biden took office. People work in that building, and take pictures in that building, and dignitaries visit that building, and the first days are very optics-heavy. Nobody in the Biden team would want the first "healing days" in office to be marked by battle scars from the previous administration, to show "moving on." It's an optics thing, nothing more.
Military people are used to this sort of thing. Doesn't make it less irritating, but it's hardly abnormal for soldiers to be affected by optics stuff, considering the optics of having soldiers deployed in the Capitol.
- Yes, I have known when military security has used nuclear, chemical, and biological specialists on our home soil. I actually used to know someone who is a chemical specialist who has worked such details. It's primarily for VERY VIP-type people, for whom a nuclear, chemical, or biological attack might actually be used.
IE, for a President.
It's actually a shame that the hard-core security routines are kept secret for obvious reasons. It's pretty cool. They have people prepared for possible drone strikes, chemical attacks, sound-based attacks, space attacks, and so forth surrounding Presidential security.
They literally try to have a contingency for everything. I would honestly be completely shocked if there WEREN'T radiation specialists involved in inauguration security.
Why do hot dog buns come in different quantities than hot dogs when packaged? It's fucking annoying. Should I just be making my own from scratch, or should I just accept that I'll need to buy at the lowest common denominator between the two?
Again, this is nothing against you, but I don't change my beliefs about something just because some anonymous internet person is telling me that they personally know people that would disagree with me. It's just a bad habit.
I don't know what's going on with your profile, but you have a decent amount of karma, no handshake, and it says you joined five days ago. Not sure how that's possible.
I have no idea who you are. I can't verify that you know literally anybody in the NG. I can't guarantee that your alleged friends are in the NG. I can't verify that they are telling the truth. I can't verify that you aren't just a leftist here to spread misinformation. I can't verify that you aren't an FBI glowie trying to falsely convince people that the NG will have my back if I want to take a second trip to DC.
Again, I'm not accusing you of anything. But if I just accepted what everyone told me I should accept because I should trust them, then I could literally never hold a single belief if anyone on the internet disagreed with it. That would be insane. I cannot establish truth by accepting without question everything I hear from people like you.
And even if it was 100% true, your two friends deciding to "disrespect" Biden by doing exactly what some members of the security detail were already ordered to do anyway in the course of their duties offers us literally nothing in contesting Biden's inauguration.
So I'm not sure what else you think you can contribute here, unless you can get a source for me supporting your view that I can actually examine, rather than just take your word for it.
That actually has been happening to me for a few months. Rarely, but every now and then. Not sure what's causing it, but I'm fairly certain it was before all the weirdness with the site started in earnest.
Why not actually ask around at Bragg, then? They have a public affairs officer.
Also, ask if they salute each other in combat zones because they're supposed to. Ask them if they remove their covers indoors while on guard duty. Ask them if they're supposed to snap to the side of the hallways at attention every single time an officer passes outside of boot. Ask them if soldiers of different rank always use formal rank designations when talking to their daily coworkers. Ask them if they're always wearing black socks under their boots, or why SpecOps doesn't shave their beards, or what happens if their brand of Oakley sunglasses doesn't technically meet uniform regs while deployed overseas.
The expectations you seem to have for military protocol sound like they come from someone with very little experience in actually living under military protocol.
I promise you that if you talk to somebody who actually knows anything about this, the answer they give you will be the same one given by the National Guard. I can promise you they will tell you that the security detail assigned to the motorcade is not under the same obligation to salute it that other soldiers NOT on security duty have.
I don't dox myself around here. Nothing is anonymous on the internet. But I am speaking from a place of experience, and if all it takes to convince you is that the person says they know what they talking about, then I can tell you on THIS QUESTION more than any of the others, I know what I'm talking about.
Take it as you will.
Sign Language is FAKE.
Birds aren't real.
The earth is flat.
Anything I don't understand is fiction. Ignorance is power. I have zero responsibility to be smarter or to learn, and instead can just reject anything that eludes my cognitive competency.
This guy doesn't have a clue. I'm done talking to him. He can't see beyond his own perspective of the usefulness of interpreters, and has absolutely no dog in this fight besides thinking that interpreters are "woke" culture like a fucking idiot.
Ignore him. He has nothing useful to offer this conversation. He cancelled himself with his own useless ignorance that he refuses to rectify.
I don't mean to sound like a dick, but everyone here claims to know somebody on the inside who definitely confirmed their pet theory once people start pushing back on it.
Every day I see posts here and on GAW where someone says they know a guy who is in Trump's inner circle. Every day I see someone who says that they know a guy who knows Q and therefore we should take their word for it.
So no offense, but I just don't use anecdotes from randos on the internet as evidence. I could say that I served on an Air Force color guard, and definitely know a thing or two about how these procedures work, but you have absolutely no reason to take my word for it, either.
That's why we need to focus on empirical stuff. I have a statement from the National Guard spokesman in response to this exact story saying that it's nonsense. As a matter of sanity, I can't overwrite that based on what you say that your two friends said. It's nothing against, you, but that's not the way you counter a fact-check.
Both Obama and Trump have videos of their motorcades where their "ceremonial" security faces outwards. It's not unusual. It's just that nobody has ever cared enough to analyze it before, and therefore, it looks like some new strangeness. It's not.
That's fine, but trying to make arguments desperately grabbed from randos on Facebook is not the way we're going to win anything. It's just going to make us look like crazy people.
Look at Lin Wood, Sydney Powell, and Rudy Giuliani right now. You think we're in a better position because they pursued every single off-the-wall claim that was made? You think we're in a good place after the bullshit CIA vs Delta Force story, or Q, or anything else that went absolutely nowhere? You think their reputations are going to recover from all this, and our reputation for following them down those rabbit holes?
Having your arguments taken seriously means not looking completely goddamn desperate, and that means rejecting arguments that can be dismissed with a simple fact check. Only Trump can get away with doubling-down on literally everything. We have to be more cautious around here, because we aren't playing with Trump's poker hand.
The National Guard public affairs spokesman has already said it's standard procedure. Name is Nahaku McFadden. I can't link to it here due to the way this site handles hyperlinks, but you can find it yourself if you put in the effort.
Yes, that is what I'm telling you. Because there are two types of "security" when you're talking about heads of state and such.
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There's the security that you're talking about, which is guys with rifles, drones, cameras, quick-response teams, and so forth. Those guys are DEFINITELY out there and doing their jobs.
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There's "ceremonial" security. These guys are still security, but they're the ones who are supposed to be visible, and therefore, will be doing things like standing in formations, wearing colors, and that sort of thing.
Like, you know the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier? The guys pacing that for hours every day ARE "security." They can and will defend that tomb if they have to. But since they are "ceremonial" security, they perform their security in a very procedural, stylized way, because they're seen by the public and will have a different way of presenting themselves.
If you've ever watched the Swiss Guard at the Vatican, you'll see the same thing. Those guys are wearing hilariously colorful and impractical outfits, but it's because they're on ceremonial duty. They can and will still fuck you up in the course of their duties if necessary.
So yes, the public security team will be facing in different directions, roughly in formation, standing at attention or parade rest. Because they're being presentable in military fashion. The heavier duty security are people you're rarely going to see on camera, and they're the ones covering the angles that public security is not.
BTW, unless you think the Reuters is fabricating a story from Nahaku McFadden, the public affairs person for the National Guard, then they have already confirmed that this was all standard security procedure. I'm not sure I can link it here, but we have absolutely no reason to believe this as a lie beyond REALLY wanting to.
No worries on that. Asking questions and even being wrong isn't shameful. Refusing to grow and learn when the answers don't give you what you want is shameful.
Unfortunately, I see a lot of that around here, but not always, and I'm kinda done pandering to the, "Don't prove me wrong!" crowd around here, considering where that attitude left us.
But there's nothing wrong with asking questions as long as we're honestly open to the answers and not just to winning. If nothing else, just be careful with believing or sharing shit that's passed around on Facebook or even around here without some questions.
Skepticism should go both ways. Not just toward the Dems and the MSM, but toward anything from here as well. We are just as susceptible to misinformation and lies from both allies and enemies.
I honestly appreciate you saying that. I know how this community tends to react to fact-checking based on the MSM's definition of it, and I bit my tongue on a lot, but at this point, I don't think we have anything to lose by trying to be more careful with the ledes we chase down. If we're going to bring out arguments into the public sphere, they need to be surgical and useful, not throwing any more shit at the wall just in case there's something to it.
I know! Fucking insanity. I thought 60's too.