WHEN HUMANS SEE OTHERS: At last, we have confirmation, she said!

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 26, 2022

But we have confirmation of what?: Last night, cable news viewers got to observe a moment of pure cable joy.

Right at the start of her "cable news" program, our tribe's biggest star was finally able to say it. She opened the program with the topic she loves most of all. Here are the key parts of what she said at the start of her program:

MADDOW (1/25/22): At last, we have confirmation of what we thought might be going on here.

[...]

Tonight, the story moves forward, thanks to a very rare interview that CNN scored with Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. CNN has now got the U.S. Justice Department commenting, on the record, for the first time, on the requests they have received from state attorneys general and others to investigate these forgeries—to investigate the Republican elector forgeries as possible federal crimes.

[...]

Monaco said, quote, “We’ve received those referrals. Our prosecutors are looking at those, and I can’t say anything more on ongoing investigations,” 

So there it is! Welcome to the ongoing investigation phase, everyone!

"At last," we have confirmation, the cable star said. But we have confirmation of what?

Before we try to answer that question, let's take a look at the record:

For the record, MSNBC's onscreen clock said it was 9:02 P.M. at the point where the transcript we've provided leaves off. 

By now, the cable star's program was a bit more than two minutes old—but the star had already used the term "forgery / forged" five separate times by this point!

As we've noted, the cable star had been flogging this beast with great abandon over the past several weeks. At last, we have confirmation, she said last night—and she opened her program with her report of Lisa Monaco's statement.

At last, we had confirmation! But we had confirmation of what?

For starters, consider Monaco's statement. The quoted statement was about as anodyne as any such statement can be:

Some referrals have been received, Monaco said—and they are being looked at.

That just isn't a very big deal at this particular point. In this morning's Washington Post, Matt Zapotosky starts by providing some basic background:

ZAPOTOSKY (1/26/22): Federal prosecutors are examining the decision by Republican electors in some states won by President Biden in 2020 to send in signed statements purporting to affirm Donald Trump as the victor of the election, a top Justice Department official said Tuesday.

Their actions were criticized at the time as a political stunt meant to bolster Trump’s unfounded claims of election fraud. But they have drawn additional scrutiny in recent weeks, as the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol seeks to understand the origin of the Trump elector slates, and two Democratic attorneys general, in New Mexico and Michigan, have asked federal prosecutors to investigate whether the certifications could amount to a crime.

Let us translate for you:

Two Democratic attorneys general have found a way to finesse the politics of this tricky matter. 

They've passed the matter along to the feds. This helps explain away the fact that they aren't charging these "Republican electors" with any state-level crimes.

The state AGs have passed it along. The DOJ is giving it a look. A year from now, a mumbled statement will emerge explaining why no federal charges have been advanced against the various (mostly little) people who signed those stupid statements. 

In the meantime, we liberals just wanna have fun! And so we turn on cable each night, where Rachel says forgery forgery forged.

(Or possibly not! But this sort of fandango has occurred again and again and again over the past six years as blue tribe cable news has become a venue devoted to endless speculation and accusation concerning very bad crimes.)

Question! Did those "Republican electors" really believe that Trump had won their states? 

If so, we think they were very dumb. But millions of people did (and still do) believe such claims, and there was no attempt in real time to hide what these "Republican electors" were doing and had done.

In real time, their signed statements were derided "as a [silly] political stunt." Thirteen months later, we liberals are looking for crimes!

No one was going to be deceived by the signed statements these people composed. Members of Congress weren't going to think that Trump really had won the state of Wisconsin, despite what they'd heard on CNN and read in the nation's newspapers.

No one was going to be deceived by those inaccurate claims. No one was going to think that those were the official declarations of the seven states in question.

For that reason, we have no idea why you'd want to say that those signed statements constituted "forgeries." Rather, we do know why you'd want to say that:

Forgery is a serious crime—and Rachel Maddow is strongly inclined to want to get Others locked up. This has long been a basic impulse for Maddow. She has betrayed this basic impulse for a large number of years.

At present, Maddow keeps going on the air and yelling forgery forgery. According to experts, this is the way we war-inclined humans are strongly wired to behave.

The weakest among us identify Others, and then we charge them with crimes. Maddow is strongly inclined in that direction. This robs her of insight.

"Forgery" sounds like a crime. That's why she keeps saying it. (That's why we all kept saying that Kyle Rittenhouse had "crossed state lines" on his way to Kenosha. Even though it was completely pointless, it had a wonderfully criminal feel.)

The wiring of our badly flawed brains inclines us in such ways. We're inclined to believe that the Others are evil, and to accuse them of crimes.

If they believed that Trump won their states, those people were very gullible. But so are we liberals, night after night, as we sit in front of our TV machines and swallow Our Own Scholar's guff.

Why would you call those signed statements "forgeries?" Maddow has never explained that point. She just keeps repeating the word! 

One basic final point:

The wonderful words "forgery / forged" don't appear in the Post's report.

They don't appear in the corresponding report in today's New York Times. Nor did Monaco say those magical words.

The exciting word "forgery" doesn't appears in the Washington Post or the New York Times. Maddow had used the term five separate times by 9:02 last night!

Maddow wants to get people locked up. This has always been a key step on the road to national perdition—and, according to major experts, this unfortunate part of our human nature just isn't real likely to change.

The dumbest Others like to do this to Us. Our stars like to do it to Them.

Tomorrow: Drum's commenters talk about Others


31 comments:

  1. "The state AGs have passed it along. The DOJ is giving it a look. A year from now, a mumbled statement will emerge explaining why no federal charges have been advanced against the various (mostly little) people who signed those stupid statements. "

    Somerby doesn't know that this will amount to nothing a year from now. It could as easily be instrumental in nailing down a plot to help Trump stay in office by setting aside the legitimate election results.

    Somerby doesn't know, but he is perfectly willing to speculate in an authoritative voice, while criticizing Maddow for using the word forgery to describe fake elector lists submitted to official channels under the forged state seal of seven (count them, 7) states, falsely declaring Trump the winner of states that Biden actually won.

    But Somerby claims Maddow has no right to say this stuff, based on his own speculation that nothing much happened. And this IS Somerby's speculation. No one agrees with that idea except Republicans.

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    1. He's right. This is nothing and it will go nowhere. There's absolutely no question about it. Sorry. They're just keeping you on the hook. They know you're a dupe. They'll keep doing it again and again and again and again. You are Charlie Brown. They are Lucy. That's just the way it is. It's all just fast food and you keep coming back for more and more and more and more and more and you will never stop. That's why Somerby is right to criticize Maddow. It's not his fault you're too stupid to see it.

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    2. And you know this how? You have no more reason to claim that this will go nowhere than Somerby does.

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    3. Okay we'll see what happens.

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    4. I'll come back and point out you were wrong when it's official that you are. Just like I had to with Russia.

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    5. You have never proved anything whatsoever about Russia.

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    6. Same back at ya sweetie.

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    7. "the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."

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    8. But they did show that they interfered. Russians were charged and Russia was sanctioned.

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    9. The only way Republicans will be held accountable for their actions, is if they rip-off rich people.

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    10. Forgery and fraud are crimes punishable by prison time if the perpetrator is black.

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    11. Russia was sanctioned for interference. They did interfere. It's in the Mueller report. That's true. That is most certainly not what the cockeyed propagandist Maddow went on about for years and years though. That they interfered was never really in dispute.

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    12. Of course Trump colluded.

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    13. George Floyd was killed for allegedly trying to pass a counterfeit $20 bill. But if you're a white Republican, trying to pass a fake list of electors to overthrow a valid election result is just a stunt?

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  2. "The state AGs have passed it along. The DOJ is giving it a look. A year from now, a mumbled statement will emerge explaining why no federal charges have been advanced against the various (mostly little) people who signed those stupid statements. "

    Hmm, who knows, dear Bob.

    Isn't it possible that, to the great delight of your liberal-hitlerian cult, the feds will choose to incarcerate more political prisoners?

    ...always a possibility nowadays, dear Bob...

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  4. "At last, we had confirmation! But we had confirmation of what?"

    This is confirmation that the Attorney Generals of some of the states considered the fraud sufficiently likely to refer the matter to the DOJ for investigation.

    The state officials did not prosecute on their own because there were similar potential crimes in seven separate states. That makes it a federal crime. Further the plot to engage in these forgeries seems to have been coordinated by the Trump campaign, which is also a national entity engaged in activities in multiple states. That's why this was kicked up to the DOJ.

    Somerby implies that the Attorneys General did not want to pursue the matter because it was not much of a crime, so they kicked it up to the federal level. That isn't how such things work. If they didn't want to pursue it, they need not have done anything about it.

    Somerby's idea that this action constitutes an exoneration is ridiculous. But what can he say? The documents exist and they are fake. Nitpicks over the word "forgery" are making Somerby sound ridiculous. Like he is manufacturing reasons to complain about Maddow, who is saying the same things as the other cable news hosts (excluding Fox News of course).

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  5. "In real time, their signed statements were derided..."

    Those were not "signed statements." They were fake elector lists modeled to be identical to the official document, submitted to the National Archives as if it were an official document. A simple signed statement would not have included the official state seal. It would not have followed the wording and format of the official document. It would not have been submitted and represented as an elector list, as it was.

    See the photos of the elector list presented by Maddow here:

    https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/similarities-suggest-coordination-in-fake-elector-letters-from-republicans-in-five-states-130662469836

    Seeing what these "signed statements" actually looked like should make Somerby's suggestions ludicrous and show why Maddow keeps referring to them as forgeries.

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  6. "Forgery is a serious crime—and Rachel Maddow is strongly inclined to want to get Others locked up."

    We are a society of laws. Most people, excluding criminals, want to see criminals prosecuted and punished appropriately for their crimes. If criminals are permitted to engage in criminal activities without interference, our society will not function well. That laxness gives rise to vigilantism and impedes our ability to live our lives in safety and without fear.

    It isn't appropriate for Somerby to pick and choose which criminals he thinks should NOT be prosecuted or locked up, and which he thinks are no big deal. Laws apply to all and procedures should apply equally to all.

    Somerby has never seemed to understand why attacking our democracy, as these fake electors have done, is dangerous to our nation's prosperity. He doesn't understand the peaceful transfer of power inherent in our system. He is making a ridiculous charge against Maddow, implying that she has a bug-up-her-ass about criminals, that she is enacting a vendetta, when she is mostly calling for our system to work properly and put these wrongdoers in jail.

    I for one agree with Maddow and would not want to live in a world like the one Somerby admires, where criminals are not locked up and where forgery and fraud are no big deal because it doesn't matter to Somerby whether Trump's big lie is permitted to spread and infect idiots who get themselves in trouble by attacking the capitol and killing 6 people.

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  7. Somerby seems to be arguing that these were phony fakes, not real fakes.

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  8. That the hard right wing of the Republican Party is harmless is Bob’s gospel, many people I grew up listening to swore by it. They only did harmless stunts.
    Now there is no hard right wing, it’s the whole party, and they less harmless than ever.
    And Bob is lost. Even if he’s paid to post this drivel, he’s very lost.

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  9. "(That's why we all kept saying that Kyle Rittenhouse had "crossed state lines" on his way to Kenosha. "

    Kyle Rittenhouse DID cross state lines on his way to Kenosha.

    The false part was that he took his gun across state lines. He didn't do that -- he went and got it from his friend's house in Kenosha, once he arrived there after having crossed the state line between Illinois and Wisconsin.

    Yet Somerby repeats his own lie, implying that Rittenhouse DID NOT cross a state line, when he drove 20 miles, from IL to WI to attend the riots.

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    1. Is Bob intimating the snowflake was wind-blown across state lines?

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    2. Come on this isn't a very difficult one. Saying he crossed state lines, while technically true, is misleading because it makes it sound like he traveled a long way.

      It became a repeated talking point, "crossed state lines!" with the goal being to dumb people down and just have everyone repeat it to spread the notion that he went far out of his way to shoot him some rioters. The dumbing down part appears to have worked!

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    3. When you live in a rural area, 20 miles is a long way. People won't drive that far to see a movie, for example.

      The point of "crossed state lines" is to say that Rittenhouse didn't live in Kenosha (and it doesn't matter that his father did, since he lived with his mother). It means that he went there for a specific purpose, to participate in the riot, not that he was defending personal property or that he just happened to be there. Although not presented at trial, it was pointed out that Rittenhouse responded to a call to arms from local militia groups.

      Somerby never acknowledges information about Rittenhouse that was not part of the trial itself. For example, Rittenhouse dropped out at age 14. He was presented at trial as someone studying nursing remotely at Arizona State University. He briefly enrolled in a GED-type program (since he could not attend college with a high school diploma) during the trial, but dropped out of that program immediately after his acquittal. He now has no connection at all with ASU. He was never studying nursing there.

      So, there are quite a few lies that Rittenhouse told to make himself more appealing to the jury. Somerby believes all of them (including that he was a trained medic, when he just borrowed first aid supplies from his nurse mother) and then turns around and nit-picks this sentence about crossing state lines (which happens to be true).

      Now you come around and call people dumb for believing something that is factually correct. What does that make you?

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    4. without a high school diploma

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  10. "this unfortunate part of our human nature just isn't real likely to change."

    There is nothing "unfortunate" about wanting to prevent bad people from hurting others. That is why people get locked up for committing crimes.

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  11. The full significance of the subject elector lists will largely depend on the activities surrounding their creation and transmission - whether there's evidence of a conspiracy to defraud. By themselves, they will leave open the defense (to which TDH points) that the signers "really believed" Trump had won. Intent will need to come from the higher ups.

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    1. a conspiracy to defraud

      What else could it be? There is an established legal protocol to follow for certification of the elector ballot. You know, the procedure followed by the real electors. They knew precisely what they were doing and they knew it was totally out of bounds. This wasn't Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney deciding to put a show on in the barn. Cripes.

      Can someone here please ask Peter Navarro to explain Operation Green Bay Sweep to the posters here. The whole plan was to create a pretext for VP Pence to throw out the votes from these states. What the hell is the matter with TDH, they fucking are bragging about their scheme.

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    2. Operation Green Bay was described here last week. The forgeries were placed into that context when Somerby first began discussing this topic.

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