Russell Moore: 'If I were a member of Congress, I would vote to impeach' President Trump

“ ‘This is not about politics. This is about our country, about the rule of law and about the sanctity of human life,’ Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, wrote in a Jan. 11 op-ed posted on his website.” - CPost

Discussion

JD’s comment brings to mind why the conspiracy theories abound; the “debunking” that occurs in most media is simply local election officials asserting “yes, we were doing things by the book”. That’s not quite what a lot of people would like to see; FEC officials going to local polls to verify that this is indeed true, and then creating a public list of allegations, locations, and conclusions that we could all appeal to.

The rumor mill goes nuts because we simply have the accused and accuser going at it.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

JD’s comment brings to mind why the conspiracy theories abound; the “debunking” that occurs in most media is simply local election officials asserting “yes, we were doing things by the book”. That’s not quite what a lot of people would like to see; FEC officials going to local polls to verify that this is indeed true, and then creating a public list of allegations, locations, and conclusions that we could all appeal to.

This was even what some of the controversy over Trump’s call with GA was about. He wanted the results of these investigations to be released and that request was refused.

And some think those who voted for Trump are extremists! Joe is more radical in his anti-Trumpism than anyone I have seen on SI who voted for Trump.

Joe, why are all the charges raised by Trump supporters lies and unfounded rumors, but similar charges raised against Trump are accepted at face value? I have seen charges that Capitol rioters planned to carry out executions. Investigators state that they have found no evidence of that. I am reading your charge that Trump gave $500,000 to the rioters to carry out mayhem. I have not seen evidence for that. In fact, I haven’t even seen that charge in the left-leaning mainstream media. Where are you getting this stuff?

If Trump’s charges of voter fraud must be rejected until proved by clear evidence, why should unfounded charges against Trump be accepted without evidence? IOW, if you want the Right to tone it down and deal with facts, not rumors, as I do, you need to tone it down and deal with facts in opposing Trump.

G. N. Barkman

The claim that some of the rioters intended to capture and assassinate came from a DOJ court filing.

http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2021/images/01/15/5-main.pdf

It was apparently later reversed.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/15/politics/capitol-capture-assassinate-ele…

My advise to everyone: There is plenty of serious stuff in the sequence of events Jan 6 that isn’t in doubt. There’s not much value in debating the details at this point. Some of the details will turn out to be important, but we already have the big picture of what happened and why. The details that emerge aren’t likely to change that much.

Edited to add: It’s worth noting that the media did not invent the ‘some rioters wanted to capture and kill’ story. It was based on a court filing.

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

It’s worth noting that the media did not invent the ‘some rioters wanted to capture and kill’ story. It was based on a court filing.

It is also worth noting that not all the allegations of voter fraud were invented by Trump or right wing media sources.

Joe, let’s consider the fact that the DOJ first appears to have accused the rioters of designing to kill Congressmen, and then walked that back. Consider also that the rumors to which you refer are yet to be corroborated by any major media of which I’m aware.

Consider also that the FBI seems to be moving a LOT faster on this than they appear to have moved on the IRS scandal, Fast & Furious, the Hilliary Servergate scandal, and the Biden pay to play scandal. We might infer that it’s strongly likely that the FBI is way more motivated to investigate—and the DOJ way more motivated to prosecute—crimes committed by suspected conservatives than crimes committed by liberals.

Now if we admit that hypothesis and apply it to the idea that Trump paid people off to riot, if there was significant evidence that Trump had done so, I would have expected a leak, and for it to have landed on the front page of the Times, the Post, and the like.

Since I don’t see that, my take is that the rumors Joe is referring to are not true. It simply doesn’t fit what I know about how DC works. One final thing that does not make sense in light of this is that it is extraordinarily difficult to track transactions on Bitcoin—that’s part of the appeal—and even more significantly, when you’re trying to do something covertly, it’s generally done without a trail of purchase orders that say “yes, this was done by so and so for this purpose.”

I could be proven wrong, but the evidence I see says that whoever Joe was listening to is “factually challenged.”

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

Joe, the response is “which conspiracy?” The FBI is—as I note above—doing a great job to show motivation to arrest those directly responsible. The question that comes up is who is indirectly responsible, and I was responding particularly to the notion that it was a payoff from Trump himself. I don’t doubt that there might have been a few guys talking recklessly on QAnon and who were later found at the Capitol. What I doubt is that anyone has clear evidence at this point of a payoff from the President’s organization. The news I see from DC simply aren’t consistent with that.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

Is there any evidence against Boebert other than that she was seen giving private citizens a capital tour? This is not unusual. I have never been to the national capital, but I took my boys to our state capital a couple of years ago. We had never been there and were standing around like we were lost when a man walked up and introduced himself as a Senator. We did not even know what party he was from and he did not know what parties I had voted for. He however proceeded to give us a personal tour of the state capital and pointed out many interesting details. He showed the boys the committee room and told them that they could visit and even speak in the committee meetings if a subject they were interested in was being discussed. He then took us down to the Senate floor. He unlocked the door and told us the public is normally not allowed there but took us in and showed the boys his desk on the Senate floor. It was a wonderful civics lesson for our kids. We thanked him enthusiastically and later sent him a personal thank you note. It made a great impact on our boys and made then want to visit the capital again, which we did.

Regarding the “significance” of Boebert’s tour, like JD notes, that’s common, and regarding whether one could have gotten a lot of G2 as a result, it’s worth noting that the floor layout of the Capitol is on wikipedia. It’s really not that big of a building that you can’t figure out where is where.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

Regarding the “significance” of Boebert’s tour, like JD notes, that’s common, and regarding whether one could have gotten a lot of G2 as a result, it’s worth noting that the floor layout of the Capitol is on wikipedia. It’s really not that big of a building that you can’t figure out where is where.

Does that mean that the name calling of Boebert may not have been appropriate?

What I’d say, JD, is that in any investigation, especially one that is prominent or politically linked, you’re going to have a certain amount of things said that probably go beyond the evidence known to those saying them. That’s unfortunate, but just reality. There’s also a certain part of guesswork that is not just allowable, but commendable. Notice, for example, that I chose in this thread to infer something from the relative silence of known good sources on the “bitcoin payment” question. Educated guess on my part, and no problem with that within reason, IMO.

What you hope and pray for is that the people whose public statements go well beyond the available evidence are not those leading the investigation and/or prosecution.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

On inauguration Day, a group of 150 protesters appear to have attacked federal facilities in Portland. Now granted, ICE headquarters is not the same as the Capitol, but I would still argue that a coherent response to crime ought to involve the same kind of investigations that the FBI used regarding the Capitol riot.

If not, they are adding fuel to the fire of suspicion that their fingers are on the scales of justice.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

Joe Biden is now our President. 1Timothy 2:1 says, “I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.”

I find it interesting that conservatives are NOT rioting, but Antifia IS. When will progressives start showing some integrity and condemn violence and encourage quiet and peaceable life?

May we as Christians continue to remind each other that we should be praying that our leaders allow us to live quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and honesty. That does not include rioting and I am glad that the overwhelming majority of Christians seem to understand that.

One difficulty is who decides what is a “terrible candidate” and by what standard? If you aren’t careful, you will eliminate every candidate from each political party and end up not voting for anyone ever.

No, this is actually very easy. There’s such a huge gap between Trump and, say John McCain, that there is no risk at all of unrealistic standards. Look at Mitt Romney or Ben Sasse and the gap is even larger. The GOP hasn’t even had a pre-nomination candidate that isn’t miles above Trump in the presidential character camp. Any one of them would easily have gotten my vote, though some with far less enthusiasm than others.

It would be very difficult for the GOP to nominate anyone with lower character than Trump—though, given what dominates the right currently, they may find a way to do it. Maybe Steve Bannon? If he were still alive, I suppose they’d try nominating Jeff Epstein. Or the QAnon Shaman (very different kinds of ‘low’ character here, but all down there). But Trump may still be available as an option in 2024, so going lower will have to wait. Maybe he’ll pick QAnon Shaman as his VP next time to fortify his base.

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

[Bert Perry]

On inauguration Day, a group of 150 protesters appear to have attacked federal facilities in Portland. Now granted, ICE headquarters is not the same as the Capitol, but I would still argue that a coherent response to crime ought to involve the same kind of investigations that the FBI used regarding the Capitol riot.

If not, they are adding fuel to the fire of suspicion that their fingers are on the scales of justice.

The Antifa stuff going on in Portland has been under investigation for some time and that effort continues. It clearly doesn’t deserve the degree of attention we’re giving to a direct attack on the nation’s capitol while congress was meeting inside.

The situations are profoundly different in scale.

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.