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Old 5th August 2022, 02:14 PM   #801
Lurch
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Originally Posted by JoeMorgue View Post
All of the excuses for the EC are lies. It was never meant to protect the rural areas, it was never meant to protect the smaller states, it was never about "making sure most of the States elect a President."

It was a failsafe because as forward thinking and Democratic as the Founding Fathers were they were still terrified of the common people.
It's just good sense to be terrified of the common people. Look around!

And one Party is working assiduously to make the commoner ever more terrifying.
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Old 5th August 2022, 02:19 PM   #802
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Originally Posted by Lurch View Post
It's just good sense to be terrified of the common people. Look around!

And one Party is working assiduously to make the commoner ever more terrifying.

So Democracy is a bad idea?
Or maybe the answer is the HG Wells solutioo in several of his later novels: Let a small scientifc elite takes power and creates Utopia?
You seem to be going near the line between healthy cynicism and out and out nihilism.
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Old 5th August 2022, 02:20 PM   #803
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Originally Posted by JoeMorgue View Post
Again the issue is that "A Group of Elites overriding the will of the people for the good of people" isn't like a perversion of the Electoral College or some procedural technicality that the Electoral College let's happen... it's what the Electoral College is in form and function, both letter and spirit.

We have to get rid of it, not go "Well let's just not let it do the thing it was designed to do."
Getting rid of it is going to be hard, but we can modifying state by state to make it less dangerous.
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Old 5th August 2022, 02:21 PM   #804
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Originally Posted by Stacyhs View Post
100% agree. The EC is an undemocratic and archaic institution that needs to go. The presidency should be determined like every single other elected position: by direct, popular vote. The EC undermines our concept of "one person, one vote" and no vote having more power than another.
I agree, but that is going to be hard to do. There are ways, in the meantime, it can be defanged.
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Old 5th August 2022, 02:22 PM   #805
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But maybe this discussion should be in another thread?

Mod Info

I think it makes most sense to keep this post where it is, but yes, that conversation has indeed been moved to the Official Alex Jones thread

http://www.internationalskeptics.com...8#post13871488

Posted By:jimbob
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Old 5th August 2022, 03:00 PM   #806
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The EC "winner-takes-all" method is very undemocratic.

For example, Florida has 29 EC votes, and the 2020 election result was Biden/Harris 5,297,045 (48%), Trump/Pence 5,668,731 (52%). Under the current system, all 29 EC votes went to Trump - effectively rendering the votes of 5,297,045 Floridians powerless, meaningless and irrelevant.

I suggest that a better and fairer way is to allocate EC votes by percentage of the popular vote, so

52% of 29 = 15.08 ~ 15 EC votes for Trump
48% of 29 = 13.92 ~ 14 EC votes for Biden

Even the "congressional district" system used by Nebraska and Maine are fairer than the current system.

I also think your Senate should be proportionally representative of state populations, with each state having a guaranteed one seat, and additional seats allocated according to population (which could result in a total of more than 100 seats in the Senate... but this is a different debate for a different day.
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Old 5th August 2022, 06:04 PM   #807
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And the Jan ^th Commitee is definently interested in Jones cellphone....
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Old 5th August 2022, 09:39 PM   #808
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Originally Posted by JoeMorgue View Post
And the other issue the Right has decided since they can't win fairly, I mean they've openly admitted this and can't put the genie back in the bottle no matter how hard they try, BUT they've sold us on the whole "Okay so that means if you want things to be fair, you're just biased against us." thing.

I mean we've seen it here. The same troll argument everytime we talk about getting rid of the EC. No it's impossible to want the state that has *checks notes* has two escalators in the entire state to not have the same amount of political power as as the 4th the largest economy in the world without just being a cuck for the Democrats.
Sure you're not thinking of the Senate rather than the EC, there? Senate would be same amount of power. For the EC, it's more like said two escalators in the entire state state has significantly lower total power and dramatically more power per individual voter than said state that has the 4th largest economy in the world.

Originally Posted by smartcooky View Post
I suggest that a better and fairer way is to allocate EC votes by percentage of the popular vote, so
That would be great, for the record, but I would strongly recommend adding a provisional implementation clause, to make it so that it wouldn't be so easily used simply as a political weapon to make the final EC count skewed even further away from actually being reflective of the vote.
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Old 6th August 2022, 02:06 PM   #809
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Originally Posted by Aridas View Post
Sure you're not thinking of the Senate rather than the EC, there? Senate would be same amount of power.
Both, just from slightly different angles so they functionally wind up the same thing.
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Old 6th August 2022, 03:42 PM   #810
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Originally Posted by dudalb View Post
Getting rid of it is going to be hard, but we can modifying state by state to make it less dangerous.
I think far more radically than most Democrats although it's not necessarily more liberal. I think we should get rid of not just the EC and the Senate but the States themselves. I see the States as a silly division that might have made sense in 1789 but makes very little today. I still believe there is a need for county governments, but I see State governments redundant and get in the way of progress.
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Old 6th August 2022, 04:15 PM   #811
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Originally Posted by acbytesla View Post
I think far more radically than most Democrats although it's not necessarily more liberal. I think we should get rid of not just the EC and the Senate but the States themselves. I see the States as a silly division that might have made sense in 1789 but makes very little today. I still believe there is a need for county governments, but I see State governments redundant and get in the way of progress.
If the states are eliminated, what do you call the country, The United Something of America?
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Old 6th August 2022, 04:34 PM   #812
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Originally Posted by Mike! View Post
If the states are eliminated, what do you call the country, The United Something of America?
It doesn't matter.
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Old 6th August 2022, 05:40 PM   #813
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Originally Posted by Mike! View Post
If the states are eliminated, what do you call the country, The United Something of America?
AMURICA!
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Old 6th August 2022, 10:06 PM   #814
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Well, if we add more Parishes to the mix, we could chant "UP-A USA!"
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Old 6th August 2022, 10:45 PM   #815
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Originally Posted by Mike! View Post
If the states are eliminated, what do you call the country, The United Something of America?
How about "The Democratic People's Republic of America", because if things keep going they way they are, and The Fat Orange Turd, or someone like him gets the Presidency with a Senate/House majority at any time in the future, that is exactly what you will end up with!
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Old 7th August 2022, 03:15 AM   #816
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Originally Posted by acbytesla View Post
I think far more radically than most Democrats although it's not necessarily more liberal. I think we should get rid of not just the EC and the Senate but the States themselves. I see the States as a silly division that might have made sense in 1789 but makes very little today. I still believe there is a need for county governments, but I see State governments redundant and get in the way of progress.
You will still need constituencies to elect individual members of whichever house. And like the UK, you will still end up with non-representative voting (see below) results unless you have a very honest body setting up the constituencies to avoid gerrymandering and so on, or possibly some form of PR.

You will also end up with a very centralised government, possibly starving the various constituencies/counties of funds.


UK results, last election.

See what I mean?
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Old 7th August 2022, 04:14 AM   #817
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Originally Posted by acbytesla View Post
I think far more radically than most Democrats although it's not necessarily more liberal. I think we should get rid of not just the EC and the Senate but the States themselves. I see the States as a silly division that might have made sense in 1789 but makes very little today. I still believe there is a need for county governments, but I see State governments redundant and get in the way of progress.
Getting rid of the states makes as much as sense as getting rid of the countries of the EU.
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Old 7th August 2022, 07:23 AM   #818
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Originally Posted by JoeMorgue View Post
All of the excuses for the EC are lies. It was never meant to protect the rural areas, it was never meant to protect the smaller states, it was never about "making sure most of the States elect a President."

It was a failsafe because as forward thinking and Democratic as the Founding Fathers were they were still terrified of the common people.
I think it was mostly to account for all the people that couldn't vote (black people,.women).
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Old 7th August 2022, 10:33 AM   #819
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Originally Posted by BobTheCoward View Post
Getting rid of the states makes as much as sense as getting rid of the countries of the EU.
Does it? Getting rid of the states make a lot of sense. It would prevent states from buying companies through tax loopholes etc. It eliminates government waste and redundancy.
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Old 7th August 2022, 10:40 AM   #820
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Originally Posted by SteveAitch View Post
You will still need constituencies to elect individual members of whichever house. And like the UK, you will still end up with non-representative voting (see below) results unless you have a very honest body setting up the constituencies to avoid gerrymandering and so on, or possibly some form of PR.

You will also end up with a very centralised government, possibly starving the various constituencies/counties of funds.


UK results, last election.
http://www.internationalskeptics.com...f908c2db6d.jpg
See what I mean?
Please forgive me. I don't understand what I'm looking at.

That said, I agree that an end to gerrymandering is required and a lot of honest thought would have to go into setting it up. It doesn't really matter how it is set up if all the players are corrupt.
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Old 7th August 2022, 11:25 AM   #821
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Originally Posted by dudalb View Post
So Democracy is a bad idea?
Or maybe the answer is the HG Wells solutioo in several of his later novels: Let a small scientifc elite takes power and creates Utopia?
You seem to be going near the line between healthy cynicism and out and out nihilism.
Consider my admonition of being afraid of the commoners as along the lines of Churchill's tone when he said, "Democracy is the worst form of government. Except for all the others."

But add a dash of real worry when considering the you lot elected the prolapsed orange anus. And more fearfully still, the rotten sludge, as up to this very moment, still has a chance (!) at slithering back into the White House.

So yeah. It is wise to regard the commoner with at least a jaundiced eye.
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Old 7th August 2022, 11:34 AM   #822
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Originally Posted by acbytesla View Post
Does it? Getting rid of the states make a lot of sense. It would prevent states from buying companies through tax loopholes etc. It eliminates government waste and redundancy.
Several countries are federations. I think that when a country gets to a certain size, the distance between the national government and the individual citizen gets too big. There must be some kind of intermediate layer, so citizens can still feel they are part of the process.

That said, I honestly think the election systems of the US and partly the UK are insane. Other nations have implemented much more functional systems.

However, we must be aware that democracy was never claimed to be the most effective system. It is just the one that has the potential to make people actually feel involved.

Hans
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Old 7th August 2022, 01:05 PM   #823
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Originally Posted by acbytesla View Post
Please forgive me. I don't understand what I'm looking at.

That said, I agree that an end to gerrymandering is required and a lot of honest thought would have to go into setting it up. It doesn't really matter how it is set up if all the players are corrupt.
Gerrymandering does not happen here for a couple of reasons

1. We have is an independent body called the Representation Commission, which consists of seven people made up of four government officials; the Government Statistician, the Surveyor-General, the Chief Electoral Officer, and the Chairperson of the Local Government Commission, plus a representative of the governing party or coalition, and a representative of the opposition bloc, and a chairperson (often a judge) nominated and agreed to by the other members.

2. The Representation Commission must use an official formula which ensures that the size of electorates is determined such that all electorates have approximately the same population (each electorate contains approximately 70,000 people (5m pop/72 electorates), and that each electorate is as near as possible, shaped within the confines of "hard" boundaries such as rivers and coastlines and, where applicable, "soft" boundaries such as provincial and district borders. This prevents the possibility of ending up having the ridiculous, pretzel-like shapes found in many gerrymandered US districts. There is no way that an electorate shape such as this one could ever be generated here..

[image]https://www.dropbox.com/s/cagst4stlrs7jgl/Gerrymander.png?raw=1[/image]


3. The formula does not incorporate voting statistics or party support statistics in determining electorate sizes and boundaries, and the Representation Commission is not allowed to use such statistics.

Of course, gerrymandering cannot affect which party becomes the government in any case, because the government is elected by popular vote. If Party "A" gets, say, 55% of the popular vote, it gets 55% of the seats in parliament (66 of the 120) and it becomes the government.
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Old 7th August 2022, 01:08 PM   #824
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Originally Posted by acbytesla View Post
Please forgive me. I don't understand what I'm looking at.

That said, I agree that an end to gerrymandering is required and a lot of honest thought would have to go into setting it up. It doesn't really matter how it is set up if all the players are corrupt.
Sorry about that. Which bit is causing confusion?
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Old 7th August 2022, 01:22 PM   #825
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Originally Posted by acbytesla View Post
Does it? Getting rid of the states make a lot of sense. It would prevent states from buying companies through tax loopholes etc. It eliminates government waste and redundancy.
and ending countries in the EU would have the same advantages
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Old 7th August 2022, 01:27 PM   #826
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Originally Posted by Lurch View Post
Consider my admonition of being afraid of the commoners as along the lines of Churchill's tone when he said, "Democracy is the worst form of government. Except for all the others."

But add a dash of real worry when considering the you lot elected the prolapsed orange anus. And more fearfully still, the rotten sludge, as up to this very moment, still has a chance (!) at slithering back into the White House.

So yeah. It is wise to regard the commoner with at least a jaundiced eye.
That's a rather broad brush you're painting with when you consider 7 million more did NOT vote for the orange anus than did. It's our crappy EC, not "us lot" that put him into office.
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Old 7th August 2022, 02:22 PM   #827
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Originally Posted by Stacyhs View Post
That's a rather broad brush you're painting with when you consider 7 million more did NOT vote for the orange anus than did. It's our crappy EC, not "us lot" that put him into office.
Actually, the majority in 2016 against Hillary was 3 million. Trump had 7 million fewer votes in 2020.
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Old 7th August 2022, 02:24 PM   #828
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Originally Posted by BobTheCoward View Post
and ending countries in the EU would have the same advantages
Works for me there too. But I'm not a European citizen. I said it makes sense in the US.
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Old 7th August 2022, 02:46 PM   #829
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Originally Posted by MRC_Hans View Post
Several countries are federations. I think that when a country gets to a certain size, the distance between the national government and the individual citizen gets too big. There must be some kind of intermediate layer, so citizens can still feel they are part of the process.

That said, I honestly think the election systems of the US and partly the UK are insane. Other nations have implemented much more functional systems.

However, we must be aware that democracy was never claimed to be the most effective system. It is just the one that has the potential to make people actually feel involved.

Hans
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Old 7th August 2022, 03:18 PM   #830
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Originally Posted by acbytesla View Post
Actually, the majority in 2016 against Hillary was 3 million. Trump had 7 million fewer votes in 2020.
I am not sure what you mean here. According to the Wikipedia page on the 2016 Presidential Election, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_U...ntial_election,
Hillary got 65,853,514 votes or 48.2% of the vote. Trump got 62,984,828 votes or 46.1% of the votes cast.

Hillary got 2,868,686 more votes than Trump in the 2016 election. Neither candidate got a majority of the vote although Hilary got more votes than Trump.

In the 2020 election, see Wikipedia page of 2020 Presidential Election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_U...ntial_election Biden got 81,268,924 votes or 51.3% of the popular vote. Trump got 74,216,154 votes or 46.9% of popular vote.

Biden got 7,052,770 more votes than Trump. The very large leap in the number of people voting between the two elections is rather good evidence of just how seriously people took the 2020 election.
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Old 7th August 2022, 03:36 PM   #831
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Originally Posted by acbytesla View Post
Actually, the majority in 2016 against Hillary was 3 million. Trump had 7 million fewer votes in 2020.
Ah, yes...I was thinking of 2020 when 7 million more voted for Biden than Trump. But the OP did say "elected" so that would be 2016. But my point stands: more of "you lot" didn't vote for Trump than did.
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Old 7th August 2022, 03:38 PM   #832
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Originally Posted by Pacal View Post
I am not sure what you mean here. According to the Wikipedia page on the 2016 Presidential Election, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_U...ntial_election,
Hillary got 65,853,514 votes or 48.2% of the vote. Trump got 62,984,828 votes or 46.1% of the votes cast.

Hillary got 2,868,686 more votes than Trump in the 2016 election. Neither candidate got a majority of the vote although Hilary got more votes than Trump.

In the 2020 election, see Wikipedia page of 2020 Presidential Election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_U...ntial_election Biden got 81,268,924 votes or 51.3% of the popular vote. Trump got 74,216,154 votes or 46.9% of popular vote.

Biden got 7,052,770 more votes than Trump. The very large leap in the number of people voting between the two elections is rather good evidence of just how seriously people took the 2020 election.
Yeah...That's pretty much what I said although I rounded the figures.
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Old 7th August 2022, 06:02 PM   #833
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I misunderstood your comment "Actually, the majority in 2016 against Hillary was 3 million." to mean that you thought that Trump got 3 million more votes than Hillary. I see what you were in fact saying was that the total number of votes for candidates other than Hillary were 3 million more than the votes for Hillary.

Mea Culpa!!
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Old 7th August 2022, 06:08 PM   #834
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Old 8th August 2022, 11:15 AM   #835
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Originally Posted by Stacyhs View Post
That's a rather broad brush you're painting with when you consider 7 million more did NOT vote for the orange anus than did. It's our crappy EC, not "us lot" that put him into office.
If you have a system that unfairly biases to the minority, but the majority cannot do anything about it, then you do not have a democracy. Or if there does not exist sufficient drive to fix things, then accept the system the nation as a whole is clearly sufficiently satisfied with.

A long time ago a People rose up to establish a better system. Wars were fought over and for it. But since then it seems a general apathy has taken hold, all while an accelerating decline is underway.

I'll say it again. A People gets the Government it deserves.
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Old 8th August 2022, 11:31 AM   #836
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Originally Posted by Pacal View Post
I am not sure what you mean here. According to the Wikipedia page on the 2016 Presidential Election, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_U...ntial_election,
Hillary got 65,853,514 votes or 48.2% of the vote. Trump got 62,984,828 votes or 46.1% of the votes cast.

Hillary got 2,868,686 more votes than Trump in the 2016 election. Neither candidate got a majority of the vote although Hilary got more votes than Trump.

In the 2020 election, see Wikipedia page of 2020 Presidential Election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_U...ntial_election Biden got 81,268,924 votes or 51.3% of the popular vote. Trump got 74,216,154 votes or 46.9% of popular vote.

Biden got 7,052,770 more votes than Trump. The very large leap in the number of people voting between the two elections is rather good evidence of just how seriously people took the 2020 election.
The take-away here is the brutal fact that the orange excrescence still got not much less than half the electorate on his side. This frightening razor's edge the US has been teetering on for a while now is a phenomenon explicable only by one or more of cement-headed ignorance, anti-democratic fervor, nihilistic obstreporousness and insanity.
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Old 8th August 2022, 11:49 AM   #837
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Breaking News.

The January 6 committee is now in possession of more than two years of Alex Jones's text messages that were inadvertently sent by his attorneys to plaintiffs suing him.


My question is this. Will they find incriminating evidence in them?
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Old 8th August 2022, 11:51 AM   #838
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I mean sure, but they won't find anything more incriminating then everyone involved openly bragging for a couple of years about doing what they are accused of doing.

At this point the January 6 committee couldn't prove water is wet while water is sitting there going "Lookit how we I am."
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Old 8th August 2022, 12:16 PM   #839
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Originally Posted by acbytesla View Post
Breaking News.

The January 6 committee is now in possession of more than two years of Alex Jones's text messages that were inadvertently sent by his attorneys to plaintiffs suing him.


My question is this. Will they find incriminating evidence in them?
yes.
it will be another proof that Trump planned Jan 6th to stay in power, using violent groups like the Oath Keepers and using platforms like Jones' to mobilize the Mob to come. Jones seems to have spend money on this, so it's very likely that he expected to, and maybe was, reimbursed - which would be RICO if any Prosecutor wanted to go that way.

There might also be communication with Tucker or similar right-wing media Big Names to make sure that the proper Narrative is being promulgated.

Mostly, the messages could mean prison for Jones, as they seem to contain illegally obtained medical records of Sandy Hook parents.
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Old 8th August 2022, 12:49 PM   #840
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Originally Posted by The Great Zaganza View Post
yes.
it will be another proof that Trump planned Jan 6th to stay in power, using violent groups like the Oath Keepers and using platforms like Jones' to mobilize the Mob to come. Jones seems to have spend money on this, so it's very likely that he expected to, and maybe was, reimbursed - which would be RICO if any Prosecutor wanted to go that way.

There might also be communication with Tucker or similar right-wing media Big Names to make sure that the proper Narrative is being promulgated.

Mostly, the messages could mean prison for Jones, as they seem to contain illegally obtained medical records of Sandy Hook parents.
I haven't seen evidence that they were illegally obtained. I think they were obtained through the disclosure process.

That said, his attorneys look like they are in trouble for how they were handled. A Connecticut judge ordered Alex Jones's lawyer Reynal to explain why he shouldn't be punished for releasing the records.
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