"My sense is that a law or regulation is at best an opening bid. Is it binding, legally or morally? Maybe..."

"... but the presumption should be neutral at best, or, realistically, highly skeptical. After all, laws and regulations are the products of legislators and bureaucrats, who are presumptively corrupt and dishonest. And everybody know that, really."

Writes Glenn Reynolds, commenting on Ilya Somin's "Martin Luther King on the Ethics of Resistance to State Authority/Georgetown philosopher Jason Brennan offers a valuable summary of King's thought on these issues." 

Somin's piece is at Reason. Excerpt:

The obvious criticism of views like King's is that many people may have poor judgment about which laws are unjust. For example, those who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021 likely believed that enforcement of the laws against doing so would be unjust, because (in their view) Donald Trump had a right to stay in power. Similarly, both left and right-wing terrorists often believe they are justified in violating laws against murder and assault.

But the risk that individual citizens may be mistaken about matters of justice has to be balanced against the danger that government can be wrong about such things, as well. Even in democratic societies, there is a long and awful history of the latter. Throughout American history, many more people have been killed and oppressed by unjust exercises of government power than by individuals acting on mistaken assumptions about which laws are morally defensible. The toll of slavery and segregation (both imposed by law) alone easily outweighs that of all morally motivated private disobedience to law combined. The extent to which people should defer to the government's judgment on questions of justice depends heavily on how good that judgment is. All too often, the answer is that it is, at best, highly unreliable.

I'm not agreeing with everything I'm quoting. I'm offering it as worthy of contemplation and debate. 

"It has been exciting to watch as more men embrace vulnerability.... But my hope has begun to diminish as I’ve watched male vulnerability curdle into something toxic."

"Let’s call it petulant vulnerability. Think of the boyfriend professing loneliness to ensure his partner never sees their friends. Or the hundreds of texts and anecdotes of so-called softbois collected on the @beam_me_up_softboi Instagram account — men who express their feelings the way avalanches share snow, often as a form of manipulation or passive aggression.... The aftermath of last year’s Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol was a festival of petulant vulnerability. While the attack itself was violent and wrathful, many in the mostly male mob, who screamed obscenities or threw heavy objects at police officers that day, later wept as they expressed shame, offered excuses or complained about jobs and friends they lost.... If true vulnerability means accepting change, personal fallibility and the human condition of reliance on others, petulant vulnerability feigns emotional fragility as a means of retaining power.... What if, on Jan. 5, 2021, a man upset by Donald Trump’s electoral defeat had confessed to friends and loved ones that he was afraid and that he felt he was losing control in a world he believed no longer valued him? What if he had sat with those feelings, cried if he wanted to and discussed how to chart his path in a changing landscape? That would have been vulnerable."

From "This Isn’t Your Old Toxic Masculinity. It Has Taken an Insidious New Form" by Alex McElroy (NYT). We're told "Mx. McElroy is the author of the novel 'The Atmospherians,' about two friends who start a cult to reform problematic men." 

"Stewart Rhodes, the leader and founder of the far-right Oath Keepers militia, was arrested on Thursday and charged with seditious conspiracy for organizing a wide-ranging plot to storm the Capitol..."

"... last Jan. 6 and disrupt the certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s electoral victory, federal law enforcement officials said.... Mr. Rhodes, a former Army paratrooper who went on to earn a law degree at Yale, has been under investigation for his role in the riot since at least last spring when, against the advice of his lawyer, he sat down with F.B.I. agents for an interview in Texas. He was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, communicating by cellphone and a chat app with members of his team, many of whom went into the building. But there is no evidence that he entered the Capitol.... In an interview with The New York Times this summer, Mr. Rhodes expressed frustration that several members of his group had 'gone off mission' by entering the Capitol on Jan. 6, quickly adding, 'There were zero instructions from me or leadership to do so.' But at least four Oath Keepers who were at the Capitol that day and are cooperating with the government have sworn in court papers that the group intended to breach the building with the goal of obstructing the final certification of the Electoral College vote...."

The NYT reports.

Trump does a 15-minute interview with NPR.

Full text here. It begins on the subject of covid: 

The vaccines, I recommend taking them, but I think that has to be an individual choice. I mean, it's got to be individual, but I recommend taking them. Many people recommend them. And if some people don't want, they shouldn't have to take them. They can't be mandated, as the expression goes. And I think that's very important. Personally, I feel very comfortable having taken them. I've had absolutely no reverberation....

But then it's all about the 2020 election results, with Trump sticking to his attack on the election and the interviewer, Steve Inskeep, pressuring him until  Trump cuts it off. A few highlights:

Why did Republican officials in Arizona accept the results then?

Because they're RINOs, and frankly, a lot of people are questioning that....
It is not true that there were far more votes than voters [in Philadelphia]. There was an early count. I've noticed you've talked about this in rallies and you've said, reportedly, this is true. I think even you know that that was an early report that was corrected later.

Well, you take a look at it. You take a look at Detroit. In fact, they even had a hard time getting people to sign off on it because it was so out of balance. They called it out of balance. So you take a look at it. You know the real truth, Steve, and this election was a rigged election.

Why is it that you think that the vast majority of your allies in the United States Senate are not standing behind you?...

Because Mitch McConnell is a loser. And frankly, Mitch McConnell, if he were on the other side and if Schumer were put in his position, he would have been fighting this like you've never seen before. He would have been fighting this, because when you look at it, and this is long — is a long way from over.... 

Let me ask you this question. How come Biden couldn't attract 20 people for a crowd? How come when he went to speak in different locations, nobody came to watch, but all of a sudden he got 80 million votes? Nobody believes that, Steve. Nobody believes that.

If you'll forgive me, maybe because the election was about you.... 

The Ray Epps conspiracy theory story is powerfully viral — so let's see how it's handled by The New York Times.

I saw this, linked at Instapundit, here. My instinct is to compare what the NYT says about it, and there's a substantial discussion in a piece published yesterday: "The Next Big Lies: Jan. 6 Was No Big Deal, or a Left-Wing Plot/How revisionist histories of Jan. 6 picked up where the 'stop the steal' campaign left off, warping beliefs about what transpired at the Capitol." 

I'm reading this for the first time, so I'll excerpt and react as I go. There's a heading, "The Case of Ray Epps," but the first 2 paragraphs are general material about who is inclined to believe conspiracy theories about January 6th, so it's not as substantial as it looked at first glance. 

Next:

Adherents have built up characters to support their claims that antifa infiltrators or federal agents were the ones who whipped up the mob, in some instances doing so as events were unfolding in Washington. One is a man named Ray Epps, a Trump supporter who was captured on video the night of Jan. 5 urging his compatriots to “go into the Capitol” the next day.

Some in the crowd responded approvingly: “Let’s go!” rings out one reply.

“Peacefully,” Mr. Epps said, just before others began chanting “Fed, Fed, Fed!” at the man, who at age 60 stood out in the far-younger crowd.

There's no link to the video, so readers can't see how much "urging" there was or why there was enough to provoke some people — "others" — to call him out as a federal agent and to do it by chanting — as opposed to confronting him and arguing with him. The only reason I'm not linking to the video myself is that I didn't easily find something that wasn't either cut down or edited into commentary.

Mr. Epps, who lives in Queen Creek, Ariz., where he owns Rocking R Farms and the Knotty Barn, a wedding and event venue, according to PolitiFact, appears in another video taken the next day. He is seen yelling to a crowd: “OK, folks, spread the word! As soon as the president is done speaking, we go to the Capitol. The Capitol is this direction.”

No link for that video either.  

Both moments went largely unnoticed until June 17, when a poster on the online message board 4chan put up the video of Mr. Epps from Jan. 5, writing, “This Fed was caught on camera encouraging the crowd to raid the Capitol on the next day.”

Ah! Video this time. I watched the video (which I've seen before), and I get the sense that the man speaking, whoever he is, is insincere. By the way, the reaction of the people around him indicates that people did not come to the event with a plan to enter the Capitol. They seem as though they'd never even thought of the idea and consider it obviously stupid.

The anonymous poster added, “Who is this man?”

Another person then identified him as Mr. Epps. Soon after, the video and Mr. Epps’s name were posted in a Twitter thread, and a new conspiracy theory began its journey into the Republican mainstream.

The NYT has independently verified that the man is Ray Epps, right? I myself do not know.

Four months later, on Oct. 21, the video was being shown during a congressional hearing. There, Representative Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, used it to question Attorney General Merrick B. Garland about whether federal agents had acted as agitators on Jan. 6.

Within days, stories about Mr. Epps began appearing on websites like Revolver News... The Epps story gained further promotion on the far-right cable network One America News... and, far more widely, in [Tucker] Carlson’s “Patriot Purge.”

The NYT doesn't link to those places. I presume it has a policy about which sites get links and which don't. Readers can easily find those places if they want. Question whether it's good journalism to link to some but not others — to have, apparently, a black list (or a white list).

To date, no evidence has emerged linking Mr. Epps to the F.B.I. or any other government agency.

The absence of evidence is never going to convince people that there's no connection because one can easily make inferences from the lack of evidence. The connection, if any, would have been hidden. Perhaps it was hidden competently. Perhaps those who should have looked are in on the conspiracy.  

In fact, his known connections are decidedly anti-government: In 2011, Mr. Epps served as the president of the Arizona Oath Keepers, the largest chapter of the militia group whose members were among the mob that attacked the Capitol, though it is not clear if he remains a member of the group.

It's not clear? Find out! Let's hear more about that. How do we know he didn't infiltrate the group? The NYT set out to demonstrate that the Ray Epps story is a conspiracy theory, but it isn't doing what it needs to do to convince a close reader that there's nothing here. I realize it's hard to prove a negative, but if you want to squelch an actively spreading conspiracy theory you have to do much more than assure complacent readers that there's nothing to see here. You have to provide suspicious minds with reason to believe that you investigated to the point that if he were a government agent, you'd have figured it out.

Yet in the days leading up to Thursday’s anniversary, and on the anniversary itself, the speculation around Mr. Epps only seemed to snowball, amplified on countless social media posts, on Mr. Bannon’s podcast — part of a possibly “massive false flag operation,” as his website put it — and on Mr. Carlson’s prime-time show on Fox News on Wednesday and again on Thursday. “Is this guy going to be charged? Where is he?” Mr. Carlson asked. “It’s a legitimate question, why won’t they answer it?”

The section of the article on Ray Epps ends right there, with Carlson's questions, and no answer to them. I'd say at this point that I don't like referring to the story as a "conspiracy theory." I'm rewriting my post title. It's only a conspiracy theory if it's augmented with assertions of fact that are not backed up with evidence.

"I will stand in this breach."

Said President Biden, in his speech yesterday. You can encounter the line in context at the end of my previous post. 

This post is to examine the idiom. What are we talking about when we say "stand in the breach"? I think of Shakespeare's "Once more unto the breach." It's about taking up a warlike frame of mind:

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man,
As modest stillness and humility;
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger:
Stiffen the sinews, conjure up the blood...

So "the breach" is a broken open place in some fortifying wall, and the idea is to move through that space, into battle. If they don't move forward, the argument is that they will pile up dead until their bodies fill that space — close the wall up.

But that's about using the breach as an entry point into battle, not just standing there, which seems to be a poor military tactic.

From about the same time period, there is the King James Version of the Bible (1611), Psalm 106:23:

23 Therefore he said that he would destroy them, had not Moses his chosen stood before him in the breach, to turn away his wrath, lest he should destroy them.

There, "the breach" is the broken connection between God and human beings, and Moses was able to stand in that breach. To say "I will stand in this breach" — as Biden did — is to draw a parallel between yourself and Moses. Does Biden mean that the country is broken open with angry Trumpsters on one side and the rest of the people needing mediation that Biden, like Moses, can bring? It's a funny analogy, because not only is Biden a strange Moses, but because the nefarious insurrectionists are in the God position.

The Oxford English Dictionary has an entry for the phrase "to stand in the breach." One definition of "breach" is "The product of breaking... esp. 'A gap in a fortification made by a battery’ (Johnson). Hence to stand in the breach (often figurative)." The only example it gives of standing in the breach that Psalm (in the King James Version).

Searching a bit more, I see that there are some translations of the Bible that have the phrase "stand in the breach" in Ezekiel 22:30: "And I sought for a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the breach before me for the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found none."

Trumpsters perk up at "a man among them who should build up the wall." 

That's as far as I'll go in this blog post. I have a problem with understanding "the breach" as a break in a wall, because I don't see the effectiveness of simply standing there. I think it ought to mean a division between groups of people and serving as a mediator.

"A Capitol Police lieutenant was suspended for wearing a MAGA cap during the Jan. 6 riots but told his colleagues he did it to get fellow officers out of harm's way."

"If you took the fact out that he is the president of the United States and look at the conduct of the call, it tracks the communication you might see in any drug case or organized crime case. It’s full of threatening undertone and strong-arm tactics."

Said Michael J. Moore, the former United States attorney for the Middle District of Georgia, quoted in "Atlanta Prosecutor Appears to Move Closer to Trump Inquiry/The Fulton County district attorney is weighing an inquiry into possible election interference and is said to be considering hiring an outside counsel" (NYT).

"There was an eerie sense of inexorability, the throngs of Trump supporters advancing up the long lawn as if pulled by a current."

"Everyone seemed to understand what was about to happen. The past nine weeks had been steadily building toward this moment. On November 7th, mere hours after Biden’s win was projected, I attended a protest at the Pennsylvania state capitol, in Harrisburg. Hundreds of Trump supporters, including heavily armed militia members, vowed to revolt. When I asked a man with an assault rifle—a 'combat-skills instructor' for a militia called the Pennsylvania Three Percent—how likely he considered the prospect of civil conflict, he told me, 'It’s coming.' Since then, Trump and his allies had done everything they could to spread and intensify this bitter aggrievement. On December 5th, Trump acknowledged, 'I’ve probably worked harder in the last three weeks than I ever have in my life.'... Militant pro-Trump outfits like the Proud Boys—a national organization dedicated to 'reinstating a spirit of Western chauvinism' in America—had been openly gearing up for major violence. In early January, on Parler, an unfiltered social-media site favored by conservatives, Joe Biggs, a top Proud Boys leader, had written, 'Every law makers who breaks their own stupid Fucking laws should be dragged out of office and hung.' On the Mall, a makeshift wooden gallows, with stairs and a rope, had been constructed near a statue of Ulysses S. Grant.... I followed a group that broke off to advance on five policemen guarding a side corridor. 'Stand down,' a man in a maga hat commanded. 'You’re outnumbered. There’s a fucking million of us out there, and we are listening to Trump—your boss.' 'We can take you out,' a man beside him warned." 

From "Among the Insurrectionists/The Capitol was breached by Trump supporters who had been declaring, at rally after rally, that they would go to violent lengths to keep the President in power. A chronicle of an attack foretold" by Luke Mogelson (The New Yorker).

"Federal prosecutors offered an ominous new assessment of last week’s siege... saying in a court filing that rioters intended 'to capture and assassinate elected officials.'..."

"The detention memo, written by Justice Department lawyers in Arizona, goes into greater detail about the FBI’s investigation into [Jacob] Chansley, revealing that he left a note for Pence warning that 'it’s only a matter of time, justice is coming.' 'Strong evidence, including Chansley’s own words and actions at the Capitol, supports that the intent of the Capitol rioters was to capture and assassinate elected officials in the United States government,' prosecutors wrote.... 'When questioned as to the meaning of that statement, Chansley went on a lengthy diatribe describing current and past United States political leaders as infiltrators, specifically naming Vice President Mike Pence, former President Barack Obama, former Senator Hillary Clinton and U.S. President-elect Joe Biden as infiltrators involved in various types of wrongdoing,' prosecutors wrote. 'Although he stated his note was not a threat, the Government strongly disagrees.' The prosecutors’ assessment comes as prosecutors and federal agents have begun bringing more serious charges tied to violence at the Capitol.... In Chansley’s case, prosecutors said the charges 'involve active participation in an insurrection attempting to violently overthrow the United States government,' and warned that 'the insurrection is still in progress' as law enforcement prepares for more demonstrations in Washington and state capitals...."

From "'Strong evidence' suggests Capitol rioters intended to ‘capture and assassinate’ officials, US prosecutors say" (Fox News). Chansley is the rioter who's getting extra attention because he costumed himself in a fur hat and horns. He also, as the detention memo says, "has spoken openly about his belief that he is an alien, a higher being, and he is here on Earth to ascend to another reality."

"Some say the riots were caused by Antifa. There was absolutely no evidence of that. And conservatives should be the first to say so...."

"The President bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding. These facts require immediate action by President Trump, accept his share of responsibility, quell the brewing unrest and ensure President elect Biden is able to successfully begin his term. The President’s immediate action also deserves congressional action, which is why I think a fact finding commission and a censure resolution would be prudent."

Said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, speaking on the House floor in yesterday's debate on the impeachment.

Trump got his message out on Twitter.

pic.twitter.com/FIJbvCYGJ6

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) January 13, 2021

Transcript here. Excerpts: 

I want to be very clear, I unequivocally condemn the violence that we saw last week. Violence and vandalism have absolutely no place in our country and no place in our movement. Making America Great Again has always been about defending the rule of law, supporting the men and women of law enforcement and upholding our nation’s most sacred traditions and values. Mob violence goes against everything I believe in and everything our movement stands for. No true supporter of mine could ever endorse political violence.... Whether you are on the right or on the left, a Democrat or a Republican, there is never a justification for violence, no excuses, no exceptions. America is a nation of laws....

Now I am asking everyone who has ever believed in our agenda to be thinking of ways to ease tensions, calm tempers, and help to promote peace in our country. There has been reporting that additional demonstrations are being planned in the coming days, both here in Washington and across the country. I have been briefed by the US Secret Service on the potential threats. Every American deserves to have their voice heard in a respectful and peaceful way. That is your First Amendment Right. But I cannot emphasize that there must be no violence, no law breaking and no vandalism of any kind. Everyone must follow our laws and obey the instructions of law enforcement.... 

What is needed now is for us to listen to one another, not to silence one another....

"QAnon reshaped Trump’s party and radicalized believers. The Capitol siege may just be the start."

WaPo headline. 

Subhed: "The online conspiracy theory, which depicts Trump as a messianic warrior battling ‘deep state’ Satanists, has helped fuel a real-world militant extremism that could haunt the Biden era."

Oddly, that makes QAnon sound like the leader of the movement — QAnon, not Trump. But the impeachers portray Trump as leading an insurrection. Is Trump the evil mastermind, or more of a dupe, standing in the middle of things, thinking he's a fine leader and surprised by the violent turn taken by his adulators?

From the long article:

The baseless conspiracy theory, which imagines Trump in a battle with a cabal of deep-state saboteurs who worship Satan and traffic children for sex, helped drive the [January 6th] events and facilitate organized attacks.... QAnon devotees joined with extremist group members and white supremacists at the Capitol assault after finding one another on Internet sanctuaries: the conservative forums of TheDonald.win and Parler; the anonymous extremist channels of 8kun and Telegram; and the social media giants of Facebook and Twitter, which have scrambled in recent months to prevent devotees from organizing on their sites.

That has QAnon devotees as one of many sets of people who joined together. I can't tell what the proportions were or even when these sets merged into a single action. I'll read on.

QAnon didn’t fully account for the rampage, and the theory’s namesake — a top-secret government messenger of pro-Trump prophecies — has largely vanished, posting nothing in the past 35 days and only five times since Trump’s election loss....

So, there's no person called QAnon who's leading or purporting to lead any of the recent actions. We're just calling some leaderless group "QAnon devotees." Please note that I am merely interpreting sentences I'm reading in WaPo, not making any statements about anything I know or believe. 

On fringe right-wing platforms and encrypted messaging apps, believers are offering increasingly outlandish theories and sharing ideas for how they can further work to overturn the results of the Nov. 3 contest — with violence, if necessary. The fervent online organizing seen ahead of last week’s assault has begun building again....

This is a frustrating read. I am searching to understand the extent to which the January 6th event was planned, and now I see that they are doing it "again," but what are they doing again? What was the organizing? I see that it was "online" and "fervent," but I don't know what they did before they showed up in person and did what they did. And how do I even know that the fervent on-line people were the same set of people who showed up in person? 

[ADDED: The end of the article discusses some individuals who participated in the breach of the Capitol and who also followed QAnon theories.]

Frustratingly, this article purports to shed light on the workings of conspiracy thinking, but the article itself indulges in the mechanisms of conspiracy thinking!

Thousands more have flocked to QAnon-affiliated spaces on the private-messaging app Telegram. One 12,000-member channel was so overrun with new members that those behind the forum temporarily froze the chat feature....

Is 12,000 a big chat group? I'm willing to believe QAnon is a big and dangerous force, but this article isn't giving me enough facts. There are conspiracy theorists talking on line, and January 6th happened — connect it up!

In 2017, a writer on the anonymous message board 4chan, styling themselves as Q, wrote posts spinning a dark and cryptic fantasy — detailing how Trump was working tactically to dismantle the “deep state” cabal that controls much of the world. For years, QAnon spun a tale in the militant language of good against evil, promising that Trump, a soldier messiah, would strike down a global cabal of pedophile politicians and Satanist media elites in a day of reckoning called the “Storm.” 

The siege, for some believers, was seen as that online theory coming to life....

Some believers! And who are these people? As it reads, it seems that there was some vivid conspiracy theory on line, and whatever happened on January 6th happened, and some people who believed in the conspiracy theory also believed that what happened on January 6th had to do with the conspiracy theory. That's not connecting it up! That's saying that some conspiracy theory people fit new information into their conspiracy theory. Yeah, that's how conspiracy theory people think! 

Much of QAnon devotees’ energy has in recent months flooded to false allegations that Trump had been robbed of an election victory. The QAnon-boosting attorneys Sidney Powell and L. Lin Wood led a failing pro-Trump attempt to overturn the election. The QAnon conversation online had pivoted from taking down a global cabal to targeting a more specific mission: “Stop the Steal.” So when Trump invited supporters to Washington for mass demonstrations on Jan. 6, the day Congress was set to certify Biden’s victory, researchers said pro-Trump agitators and QAnon believers saw it as a demand for action. “Be there,” Trump tweeted last month. “Will be wild!”

I await further investigation and hope they can be conducted with professionalism.  

Watch Trump get impeached — live.

"This was not a protest, this was a well-organized insurrection against our country that was organized by Donald Trump."

Said Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts, Chair of the House Rules Committee, opening the debate this morning on the Article of Impeachment, quoted in "The House begins debating impeachment charge against Trump." (NYT). McGovern asserted that he looked into some people's eyes and "saw evil." I'm seeing the live vote embedded at the Times, and it is strictly along party lines...

... even though the text of the article says "Republicans were fracturing over the vote." And:

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, has embraced the effort as a means to purge Mr. Trump from the party, according to people who have spoken to him, and at least five House Republicans planned to vote to impeach.

I'm interested in seeing how the proof will be accomplished. McGovern sets a high bar in calling it "well-organized" and an "insurrection against our country" and saying that this organizing was done by Trump. 

ADDED: I'm interested in this notion that you can look into eyes and see evil. I remember how ludicrous it seemed when George W. Bush said he looked into Putin's eyes and "got a sense of his soul" — and decided he was "straightforward and trustworthy." 

But here's an article from 2011 in Scientific American, "The Eyes Have It/Eye gaze is critically important to social primates such as humans. Maybe that is why illusions involving eyes are so compelling." That's about the relatively objective issue of misperceiving where eyes are looking. Harder to study whether there is evil in there! 

Do courts allow witnesses to testify about what they feel they saw in someone's eyes? I have not researched this question, but I believe it would not be acceptable to testify "I looked into his eyes and saw pure evil." 

"President Trump on Tuesday showed no contrition or regret for instigating the mob that stormed the Capitol and threatened the lives of members of Congress..."

"... and his vice president, saying that his remarks to a rally beforehand were 'totally appropriate'” and that the effort by Congress to impeach and convict him was 'causing tremendous anger.' Answering questions from reporters... the president sidestepped questions about his culpability.... 'People thought what I said was totally appropriate,' Mr. Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews, en route to Alamo, Texas, where he was set to visit the border wall.... 'If you look at what other people have said, politicians at a high level about the riots during the summer, the horrible riots in Portland and Seattle and various other places, that was a real problem,' he said."

The NYT reports.

"Which comes closer to your point of view: democracy in the United States is alive and well or democracy in the United States is under threat?"

"Do you think that extremism is a big problem in the United States, or don't you think so?... Do you think that - the Republican members of Congress who tried to stop the formal certification of Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 presidential election were undermining democracy or protecting democracy?... Do you think that - the individuals who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6th were undermining democracy or protecting democracy?... Do you think that President Trump should resign as president, or don't you think so?... Do you think that President Trump is mentally stable, or not?... Do you consider what happened at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th a coup attempt, or not?... Do you want to see the individuals who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6th held accountable for their actions, or not?... Do you hold President Trump responsible for the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, or not?... Do you think that law enforcement officials did everything they could to prevent the initial storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, or don't you think so?..."

Lots of great question at this new Quinnipiac poll. Read the details.

"Pseudocoup. Can be pronounced like Sudoku if wordplay demands it."

"An attempt to overthrow the government that, due to both poor planning and execution, fails in an incredibly underwhelming fashion." 

Urban Dictionary. Entry dated January 9, 2021. Declared "Word of the Day" on January 13th.

"We began preparing for Inauguration Day last year."

Write Guy Rosen, VP Integrity, and Monika Bickert, VP Global Policy Management of Facebook, setting off my bullshit detector. Last year was 12 days ago. I'll keep going. I want to read the original document, not the NBC News summary — "Facebook bans all 'stop the steal' content" — that I can see is getting lots of links. 

I don't believe Facebook would ban everything with the 3-word phrase. That would include all sorts of people who are just talking about what is the biggest news story going. It must be that "stop the steal" is a search term, and there's some additional judgment going on. 

Back to Rosen and Bickert:

But our planning took on new urgency after last week’s violence in Washington, D.C., and we are treating the next two weeks as a major civic event. We’re taking additional steps and using the same teams and technologies we used during the general election to stop misinformation and content that could incite further violence during these next few weeks. 

We are now removing content containing the phrase “stop the steal” under our Coordinating Harm policy from Facebook and Instagram.

It doesn't say  "We are now removing all content...."

We removed the original Stop the Steal group in November and have continued to remove Pages, groups and events that violate any of our policies, including calls for violence.

So "stop the steal" is a search term, and it's being used to quickly get to things that might violate anti-violence policies. There's still analysis of whether those policies — which apply to everything on the site —  are violated.

We’ve been allowing robust conversations related to the election outcome and that will continue.

Okay. Robust. We can still have robust conversations. Facebook has "been allowing" them. We can be robust — but not violent — because Facebook has, thus far, allowed it. We have freedom at the sufferance of Facebook. 

But with continued attempts to organize events against the outcome of the US presidential election that can lead to violence, and use of the term by those involved in Wednesday’s violence in DC, we’re taking this additional step in the lead up to the inauguration....

As always, we will continue to remove content, disable accounts and work with law enforcement when there is a risk of physical harm or direct threats to public safety.... 

Facebook should take steps to keep people from using it to plan acts of violence, but it should not obstruct the planning of rallies and protests. What should it do when there's a category of rally that has had an element of violence? I think it should work at achieving viewpoint neutrality. But the Inauguration this year is a unique situation, and special focus is justified. 

After the inauguration, our label on posts that attempt to delegitimize the election results will reflect that Joe Biden is the sitting president.

Hey, remember "Not My President Day," February 20th, 2017? From the Wikipedia article on the topic:

"Not My Presidents Day"... was a series of rallies against the president of the United States, Donald Trump, held on Washington's Birthday... Protests were held in dozens of cities throughout the United States.... The marches were mostly coordinated through Facebook.... 

The downfall-of-Trump conspiracy theories will go on for 100 years. They will never end in my lifetime. I have accepted this reality.

Americans love our great conspiracy subjects. The JFK assassination.... Area 51... We were talking about that last night, and I happened to say, "Truthers. Remember Truthers. What were the Truthers?" 

I had to stop and think which conspiracy subject had the people called "Truthers." I remembered: 9/11.

Now, 2 hours before sunrise, I'm seeing the headline "Some members of Congress fear the Capitol mob attack was an inside job" (Axios). Oh no. It's like the 9/11 Truther theory: inside job!

It will never end. We're just getting started. 

Do I need to worry that this is the conspiracy theory that gets you ousted from social media? Is it a left-wing conspiracy theory or a right-wing conspiracy theory? If I say it looks like a left-wing conspiracy theory because it's Axios so I'm probably safe writing about this, am I wafting a right-wing conspiracy theory and therefore vulnerable?

First sentence of the Axios article: "An information gap following the Capitol assault has fueled fears among members of Congress that it was an inside job involving the Capitol Police." So, in the absence of evidence — an "information gap" — you can speculate about anything and feel afraid. Then the gap itself can be said to "fuel fears." 

There's only one member of Congress identified in the article, Tim Ryan, "a lone Democratic congressman from Ohio": 

The mass resignations by the Capitol Police chief and Senate and House sergeant-at-arms, coupled with few briefings by federal officials like the FBI, have left important questions unanswered and a lone Democratic congressman from Ohio trying to fill in the gaps. Rep. Tim Ryan, chairman of a House Appropriations subcommittee overseeing the Capitol Police, has held three virtual briefings to update reporters. 

On Monday, he shared the shocking news that two Capitol Police officers had been suspended and 10–15 were under investigation for their behavior during the riot. "One was the selfie officer, and another was an officer who put a MAGA hat on and started directing people around,” Ryan said....

It's one thing to point to individual officers who, surrounded by a mob, behaved in a manner that could be construed as friendly. But why wasn't there far better security overall? If you're going to hypothesize that the Capitol Police supported the mob, don't limit yourself to one hypothesis. Why did the mob get into the building in the first place? But don't be a Truther. Actually find out what is true.

But you can see how there's a left-wing hypothesis here and a right-wing hypothesis. I presume, under current conditions of censorship, that the left-wing hypothesis will get air. That fuel will catch fire. The right-wing hypothesis... well, where will it go?