Discussion: Right there with you

It is shameful and unacceptable. I am past done with this.

It was surreal watching all the video of this insanity right outside of my workplace. Pretty happy to working remotely right now...

On about the same level as what happened in DC are the stories coming from state capitols. Burning an effigy of the Oregon Gov? Setting up a guillotine in Arizona?

This is insanity. Anyone pretending that it's not a problem or that all sides do stuff like this needs to wake up and understand the slope we're sliding down.

I'm sorry to be so political in an athletic space, but I wear this country's uniform and I now feel like have to find ways to justify wearing it. What country is this?

while hearing about the terrorist act today I especially thought of you Boris given that it took place (like you said) ‘outside your workplace’. I’m So glad you and your family are safe working remotely in Montana.

I really, really, really hope the US can turn the corner and find better days very, very soon.

I share Trudeau’s statement “ Canadians are deeply disturbed and saddened by the attack on democracy in the United States, our closest ally and neighbour. Violence will never succeed in overruling the will of the people. Democracy in the US must be upheld - and it will be.”

So surreal. Especially considering the decency and integrity of the Americans I know, fine ambassadors all.

Are you familiar with term "false flag"? You believe everything the news channels show on TV?

Yurets>>I was in ongoing contact with colleagues, friends, and Hill staffers who were experiencing this live, in person. You may trust the TV, and you may not, but this had nothing to do with false flags.

yurets was that you with the horns?

Boris--I continue to admire how phlegmatic you are, among other things.

@Hammer: Thanks for your well-wishes for the US. Every time I visit, I ask why the US cannot be more like Canada.

Do you think if the US had remained loyal to the King, had not gone to war, and instead rejected the rabble-rousing of those rich revolutionaries.....that we'd be much more like Canada today as a member of the UK?

@simmo

His name is Jake Angeli, a known actor-provocateur. Guess who hired him to infiltrate protesters?

BTW, for those of us who closely followed Maidan - 2014 and other colour revolution scenarios, it is clear-- the directors are the same

Actual evidence is needed for that stuff, Yurets. Otherwise your statements are worthless. But you already know that.

Info from Reuters. (But Reuters is mainstream media, so we can safely assume that this is all lies, I guess.)

On the one hand, yes, it's terrible what happened, but on the other hand, I think it is highly likely to be good for the USA, on net, that Trump and oh, let's say roughly the most deplorable half to one third of his followers, demonstrated how terrible they are so unmistakably that only people approximately as crazy as yurets are prepared to deny it.

We did get an even clearer picture, didn't we, Jon?

In my understanding, Yurets doesn't really deny this stuff. He's quite intelligent and knows what to read and how to read it to understand situations.

But it seems as though he likes to post to stir the pot--politically and othewise--and get reactions out of people. In my opinion, that is just as bad because it continues to spread false information and the illusion that there is some other hidden story.

That's why I'm going to keep asking you to back up statements like that, Yurets, because saying that stuff even if you don't believe it is still damaging.

Which is to say, he's a troll. But we knew that. And he has admitted exactly that, to my face, within the past year.

Nice ! I didn't realize you had an in-person admission, JJ!

JJ is delusional. He is a skilled manipulator though.
His mentality is of a typical progressive liberal: if someone has a different view--one must be a troll. This reflex is now hard-wired in his brain, after thousands of repetitions by CNN, Reuters or whatever he takes instead of real information.

@Gswede, there is plenty of evidence, hundreds of people involved made sworn statements, affidavits. It is your choice to brush it off. Can't help it.

@jtorranc: these 'bad-bad' people are the last productive, hard-working members of this society: blue-collar workers, farmers, small-business owners. They respect Law and Order, they support police and law-enforcement. It is your friends who went on rampage last year, looting stores, destroying public property, vandalizing historical monuments, attacking police and everyone who disagrees with their sick leftist agenda.

And yet those affidavits were all dismissed as hearsay or incorrect and not credible, or lawyers simply declined to present them in court when given the opportunity to. (https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-cries-election-...)

It feels so warm and fuzzy when you try to be on the attack.

But seriously, these stupid comments aren't funny, harm public discourse, and as an adult you know better.

If anyone feels we should just ignore Yurets and other online trolls so we "don't feed them," I think we should consider what we've seen in recent history when we don't push back against people spouting off disinformation and misinformation for various reasons, particularly online.

If you'd like to socialize with people without trying to trigger them, Yurets, I'd love to chat with you. Email me some time.

“Democracy is not automatic – it takes work every day...We must always work to secure our democracy, and not give comfort to those who promote things that are not true or give space for hate and extremism”

I, for one, don't particularly care whether yurets, when he posts on AP about anything remotely political and, for that matter on almost all topics most people consider not political at all, is knowingly shitposting just for the lulz, deliberately spreading disinformation with malign intent, or sincerely deluded. He's an awful person in any scenario explaining his motivation I can imagine short of his entire public persona being a performance delivered under duress, and none of us have the power to send a trio of ghosts to visit him and accomplish a Scrooge-style transformation.

@Gswede, no thanks, not worth my time. Sadly, you sound as a brainwashed activist. I realize at the age of 15, as a Komsomol member, I was probably at same level.

@the- last-but-one comment -- you are full of hate. I remember your rabid russophobic comments in WADA thread.

Sadly, I’m pretty sure jtorranc feels the same way about me.

Clearly I agree with the general sentiment. However I do wonder whether the Democrats now moving to impeachment is a good idea? Surely it will just further alienate the not-insignificant number of Trump supporters, and Trump will anyway be gone in 10 days. So what is the point?

A couple points: first, he can be impeached even after he's out of office, and if both the House and Senate voted for it, he would be unable to hold federal office in the future (some of those yahoo Senators who want to run in 2024 may like that). Also, what he did was so egregious that, baring him resigning (yeah, that ain't gonna happen) or the 25th Amendment (the RNC just reelected their chairman and the party seems still in trump's thrall), impeachment may be the only way to get him out. Agree that time is very short and it's unlikely to be successful, but to many Americans, it shows that Congress is taking this very seriously.
There's also a Congressional 25th Amendment thing getting started -- apparently it can be invoked by the Cabinet/VP *OR* another group the Congress determines, which is what a new law (?) written by my Congressman would create. (I don't know if the VP still needs to be involved, which would probably kill this procedure as well.)

In 10 days, he can do a ton of damage. And outrage. Expect a whole bunch of pardons in the next week +.

And trump supporters are outraged at everything. Whatever is done they'll be mad about. Because they've bought all the thousands of lies POTUS, Fox, OAN, Newsmax, Parler, Epoch Times, QAnon etc etc have fed them for 5 years.

Removal from office (via impeachment, anyway), would also affect the post-office perks (pension, travel allowance, Secret Service protection). Or so I read somewhere yesterday.

Yuri's admission of trolling was on February 1. I'm not claiming that he said everything he writes is trolling, but he did describe something that he had done as trolling, with no evident regret and perhaps a bit of pride.

Yes, I recall meeting with JJ in February last year @ O'ring meet in NC. The rest is BS. I did mention to him he reminds me this guy (the character)

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwUizOU8pPWXdXNni...

It would be worth impeaching him again for no other reason than to make him think twice about any urge to give a blanket pardon to everyone who stormed the Capitol on Wednesday - who knows, maybe that would be enough of an outrage to make 17 Republican senators vote to convict. Not that there aren't a lot of other good reasons to impeach him. The only halfway reasonable counterargument I've seen to date is that the Senate will have a lot of other urgent things to do once Biden is sworn in given all the problems Trump and the not soon enough late, not worth lamenting Republican-dominated Senate will be handing off to them, and maybe shouldn't prioritize holding a trial. Which I think undervalues the importance of deterring future officeholders from violating their oath of office by inciting domestic terrorism but at least isn't as crazy as thinking people should be allowed to incite domestic terrorism without consequence in the name of national healing.

inciting domestic terrorism

So, again, tell us how did Donald Trump incite your kinds to do those heinous despicable things we all witnessed over the past year...

I can only recall two other groups, in addition to your friends, who destroy historical monuments in recent years. Those would be ISIS, who vandalized ancient Palmyra, and Taliban, who destroyed Buddhist statues.

President Ford's pardon of Nixon was motivated by a desire for peace and closure. Unfortunately, it set the historical precedent that presidents will not be held accountable for corruption or other illegal behavior.

BTW, if you don't already do so, I recommend reading Heather Cox Richardson's Letters from an American, posted nightly on Facebook. It typically distills the day's events in the context of American history.

The NYT provided one of the most recent interviews with HCR within the past few weeks: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/27/business/media/...

She is also rather active on Twitter.

I have to correct myself, I thought about it some more, and yurets did not admit to trolling to my face. I was wrong.

However, what I was remembering was that he did do so in emails on 12/31/2019 and 2/12/20, which I still have in my inbox.

JJ is hallucinating again, i guess those shrooms are now legal in massachusetts.
One of these btw was me shaming JJ for making fun of a poor woman in her log.

Speaking of trolls, several years ago someone on A /P presented his list of The Four Trolls of A/P, on which yurets was in 4th place. But I was #1. The ranking elicited a lot of humorous comments. And I was proud to be in First Place in a O event!

@CTC, I am not a troll, I am a constitutionalist...do not fall for communist propaganda.

There's no ranking to those four trolls, they could have been listed in any order, they're just the four quadrants from D&D.

And if yurets thinks I was shaming someone, it's a demonstration of either his perception or his lack of social skills. Could be both.

Yurets: His name is Jake Angeli, a known actor-provocateur. Guess who hired him to infiltrate protesters?

JJ's Reuters' link above and other news references patently dispute your insinuation. Do you have any evidence to support your bullshit, or are you simply hurling misinformation in the hope that the mere suggestion of impropriety will cast doubt on the facts, that an organized mob of Trump supporters, incited by Trump, perpetrated acts of domestic terrorism against the United States?

They respect Law and Order, they support police and law-enforcement.

In what universe is an armed and violent insurrection respecting "Law and Order?" Unless you meant the television show, I guess.

You are rich with contradictions. On the one hand, you sanctimoniously cast aspersions on Boris's ludicrously well documented observations:
You believe everything the news channels show on TV?

But then, you remark to GSwede:
... there is plenty of evidence, hundreds of people involved made sworn statements, affidavits. It is your choice to brush it off. Can't help it.
Oddly enough, these vague sworn statements and affidavits seem much less persuasive than the overwhelming amount of evidence that Trump incited a mob to attack the US Capitol.

Second, you claim that JJ calling you a troll because you disagree with him is an act of an intolerant and delusional "progressive liberal":
His mentality is of a typical progressive liberal: if someone has a different view--one must be a troll. This reflex is now hard-wired in his brain, after thousands of repetitions by CNN, Reuters or whatever he takes instead of real information.

Yet when GSwede presents evidence contradicting you, you dismiss him as a "brainwashed activist":
Sadly, you sound as a brainwashed activist. I realize at the age of 15, as a Komsomol member, I was probably at same level.

It should be obvious to everyone here that you are at best an inflammatory polmecist, hoping to provoke emotional responses and avoid meaningful, factual, substantive discussion. And at worst, you are a contributor to the misinformation and demagoguery that threatens the foundations of democracy and civil society in our country and world. I don't completely understand your motivation, as no one is swayed by any of your incoherent and irrational rhetoric. In any case, you are quite plainly an internet troll, and a poor one at that. This should be obvious to anyone who has come across your remarks, but as GSwede noted, there is a great danger in ignoring the misinformation and chaos sown by people like you. If you have anything meaningful to contribute to the discussion, I encourage you to share it. Otherwise, your inane and destructive ramblings have no place in our forum.

simply hurling misinformation

Hey, if it works for the leader of the free world...

Don’t wish to be impertinent, for this discussion started earnestly, addressing an important topic.

But, then it veered into trolls. About that—US orienteering has a scent of trolls. It always struck me as odd—something that doesn’t travel well, being an inside joke of sorts?

It seems to emanate from New England, and perhaps inherited from the Norwegians? But, I suspect (hope) it was something of a irreverent, even regretted trope over there which was breathed new life over here?

Anyway, apologies if anyone around here that still has a plush troll at home. In DVOA, I struggled mightily to bust that old varmint we had as a mascot.

Perhaps the AP trolls could go the way of orienteering trolls and be deprecated?

@iansmith: Lots of pompous fussy words, but very little substance, a typical leftist emboldened by lawlessness over the past year... your agenda is clear (by words choice, e.g.).

I learned some history, and I grew up under a totalitarian regime, so I am immune to communist demagoguery, while many younger Americans unfortunately are not.

Yurets, no one is trying to convince you. We know you don't actually believe the stuff you spew, and if you do then you're too far gone anyway.

We're making sure it's clear for everyone how flawed your arguments are.

As much as you might like it to be, this discussion is not about you. But please call me a brainwashed activist again. It really provides a solid foundation for your points.

Get off my lawn, all of you.

Let me map your lawn first, Boris.

Yes please.

@JJ -- I just found that email, it was not easy the way google sorts.

With my greetings for the New Year, I wanted you to be happy, and you insisted so hard that I admit being a troll, that I just could not resist. Was I lying then? Maybe.

This book, one of my all-time favorites, has it on pages 3-5.

@Boris --- did not see before posting

NEOC's mascot is a troll, thanks to some founding Swedes, long predating its current meaning.

I thought that was supposed to be a hedgehog until 30 seconds ago.

I am really interested in this troll thing (I suppose in both senses of the word.) Attempting to respect Boris' space, I'm going to invite myself to continue the discussion on JJ's log. Apologies in advance--don't mean to be a troll, or at least the bad kind?

Sure, head over to my log. That ghost town could use a little livening up.