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For those of you who might not know how overwhelming the evidence may be indicating conspiracy, here’s just 1 text gathered in evidence, taken from a defedant involved with the fake elector effort:
“I must ask for your complete discretion in this process,” Sinners wrote. “Your duties are imperative to ensure the end result – a win in Georgia for President Trump – but will be hampered unless we have complete secrecy and discretion.”

For all of you who say there was nothing illegal with having fake electors, note the secrecy. We also have Trump’s lawyer’s memo to Trump telling him the fake elector plan won’t pass legal scrutiny. So here you have the fact that Trump knew of the plan, knowledge that it probably wasnt legal, and the coordinated efforts to do it anyway on the behalf of Trump’s behalf (lawyers by definition work on the clients behalf) and campaign. So the ‘just following lawyer’s bad advice’ defense isn’t available to Trump. This is a big reason why it’ll be legally relatively straightford to prove conspiracy to commit a crime. This is way bigger than watergate, folks.

Participant: Jack and 2cents are correct. You are not allowed to be a vigilante even if the election was crooked. Hopefully the law itself gives a route to challenge or verify an election. And it does. In this case, Rudy, Trump, & Co. pursued numerous legal avenues to challenge and verify the elections. They introduced testimony and eveidence, ALL of which has been discredited. This includes bogus claims of shutting down voting centers due to a pipe break (untrue), lots of dead people voting (not true) and accusations that poll workers were tampering with votes (which Rudy is in big trouble for now). The State, including Trump-appointed officials failed to find any irregularities, and certified the vote after 2 recounts.

So that’s where the vigilantism comes in: the alledged crimes all occured AFTER Trump had already exhausted all legal avenues for both verifying and challenging the vote count, and after Georgia officials (as well as Trump-appointees and his own election security team) all said there’s no evidence of fraud and nothing even suspicious. One can always blow up reality and play with our minds by repeating accusations and consiracy theories. I am looking forward to a fair trial before the election as any true “law and order” president should want as well.

Avira, thanks for seeing my post. In other words, I think you are saying, ‘who cares if our efforts to get goyim to keep the 7 creates upheavel against us, it’s our job to advocate this at any cost.’
I am not a rabbi nor a historian, but I don’t believe that to be our mesorah. We’ve always fought for the ability for Jews to keep mitzvos and learn Torah, but when have we ever risked ourselves to ensure goyim keep their mitzvos? By “risks” I mean either risk of prosceution or increased antisemitism by those we offend.
Even without any risks, is there any time in history when we’ve been preocccupied with prosthyletizing or advocating for new-Jews? And why is this the time for compulsion compared to, say, when things were going well for Jews in Spain before the inquisition?
Additionally, I believe laws have not been persuassive in changing social attitudes, so the more effective way would be to befriend these people – at your own risk versus creating risk to your fellow Jews who don’t share your “mesorah.”

AviraDeArah: I agree that the extreme left’s influence on the democratic party with the celebration/promotion of transgenders, for example, is problematic. But this is why I would be open to vote for a democrate as a frum Jew:
I believe frum political conservatives aren’t in touch with how awful things were for our grandparents in the old world. Every country where a religious group imposes idealogy on others lacks stability. Think Syria, Iraq, Iran. And demanding US keeps the 7 Noahhide laws, for example, leads to the same type of prosecution of others that we sought to escape from. Of course there are laws that must be kept universally, and there’s always going to be a tension as to how to where and how to draw the line. I’d rather live with that imperfection, knowing that the tides are less likely to turn against us, lo aleinu.
There have always been ‘alternative lifestyles.’ I don’t condone this and feel uncomfortable that politicians and media are trying to push this on us. But what caused all this? Republicans trying to motivate their base through fear. It started when they started passing laws against trans using bathrooms. How would anybody ever even know if a boy who looks exactly like a girl is sitting in a stall in the girls’ bathroom? Err on the side of live and if you care so much about these people, develop relationships with them and try to show them the way. I do miss the age of centrist democrats. But republicans clobbering others over the head with ideaology only incites (and someties creates) the “other side.”

Avira’s initial post was well-thought out. Question:
So long as I am within halacha, isn’t there a variation on how “fair” to be based on that person’s nature and compass? As a practical matter, if I am lending to a goy, can I not charge below market interest, market-rate, or 18%. Is it possible to avoid one’s personal sense of fairness in coming up with a rate, which depends on their personality, how much return he subjectively believes he requires, and what he feels entitled to? What is “fair” is unavoidably part of the picture, whether relying directly on a Torah source or not. I’m sure there are sources to rely on to determine boundaries on what to charge ad what not to charge. But if halacha says no problem charging the 18%, does that mean I am not allowed to charge 12%? I am assuming in my example there are no ulterior motives for charging the 12%. For example, maybe he has no one else to borrow from, and let’s assume you’ll never be doing business with him again.

If I am correct, then the next step may be to recognize that its impossible for any one of us to know 100% what motivates our sense of fairness. Does it come in part from the medina we are living in? A Torah source? How your parents raised you?
So maybe it’s not that we are relying on Christian sensibilities, but it’s OK in certain situations to have rachmonis where halacha permits.
Thoughts appreciated.

Lostspark: Generally agreed that goyim will be goyim. But there is no denying that Trump has gone to the extreme, for example, to stay in power, the likes of which we’ve never seen in U.S. history. It’s too general to say this extreme is on both sides. Gore filed suit against Bush but respected the court’s decision against him. So this does warrant special attention and the truly patriotic need to speak up to preserve national stability, which we’ve always benefited from. Criticizing Trump “feeds” it a bit because it keeps Trump in the news, which he thrives on. But again, we need to call it out. What really feeds it are the Trump cultists who are egging him on. ALL of Trump’s advisors and campaign officials agree it was a fair election. So his supporters are what keeps him feeling powerful and talking.

Smerel: yes, I agree you are consistent on those talking points. Point #3 is a matter of degree, as I write above. Politicians lie and are self-interested. But none are SO self-interested that they are willing to manufacture conspiracy theories and ignore votes.
I don’t understand your #4. Anti-Trumpers have more power over Trump supporters than Trump does?

By the way smerel: I find your comments don’t push anything forward. On one hand you’ve taken on pro-Trump stances, bash democrats, and seem generally ambivalent about whether eroding democracy is a concern. On the other hand, you don’t like Trump either. And now you tell people not to mind much about anything you read in the news. Yet you participate in this forum. I highly doubt your participation is to just tell people not to care. My hunch is you are still developing your “way?” If you are reading the news and desire a true opinion, I suggest reading news from all sides. Practice listening, and develop and constantly test your ideals. What is your ideal society in a country of hundreds of millions of people from all over the world?

Curiosity: “Just look at the comments from Biden’s own prosecutor Michael Sherwin, who explains the real reason for jailing protestors was to create “shock and awe” as a deterrent before the inauguration.”
Your statement is dishonest. Not sure if you read the actual interview or got it from a trump website? Sherwin (a Trump appointee, by the way) said the reason why they wanted to charge many people QUICKLY before January 20 was to deter more violent people from coming to the inauguration. Law enforcement was going to pursue this either way. But as we law and order folk understand, one of the reasons behind enforcement is deterrence. He was just saying they wanted to move quickly in this case. Shame on you or those who twist your mind for trying to twist ours. Try emes.

Anonymous: I understand your gist and I accept that you believe he’s been treated unfairly. But please note your examples aren’t proof: Impeachment is not about proving “guilt.” It’s whatever the legislature votes. Repbulican politicians couldn’t shake off his grip and so didn’t vote to impeach. Many many gop privately can’t stand him and do acknowledge he’s off to say the least. They just don’t want to commit political suicide like Cheney.

Apukerma:
I addressed your flawed statement in another post. Just because you can come up with a novel legal theory, it doesn’t shield from seizure. If someone is arrested for carjacking, he could argue that it’s really his car. Or he could show he had the legal right because he did it to rescue someone from a burning building. If law enforcement doesn’t buy it, he can bring up at trial. Otherwise you could never arrest a car jacker.

Contrary to what Trump claims, the FBI has been trying to work the issue of classified docs with Trump for months. If Trump had a good legal argument or evidence that he was within his rights, the DOJ would have dropped everything. Or if it was even a sketchy argument, he could have sought a declaratory judgment. He did not.

Trump lost 60-something cases last year on “novel” legal interpretations. Don’t hold your breath. Perhaps you didn’t see my post to you on this earlier, but if you’ll have to address this as a matter of your credibility.

2cents: just because there were a couple of biased people who hated Trump working on the case, it doesn’t mean the investigation was politically motivated. They were removed from the case. There are racist cops out there. It doesn’t mean that every time they bust a black person they do so for racist reasons. Last I saw, Roger Stone got sentenced to prison for lying about. . . .Russian interference and Trump’s knowledge of coordination with wikileaks! Others got in trouble too for related things. Why would Stone and others lie and tamper with witnesses if everything is kosher?
Similarly here, why won’t Trump release warrant to the public if he has nothing to hide?
Again, the crux of disagreement seems to stem from your starting point that every governmental official is corrupt or biased that they can’t be trusted to do their duties. Thus the rush to assume conspiracies. With your implicit biases, Trump can do no wrong. You have fallen for this trick. And with every conspiracy conservative media machine manufactures in their headlines, they never bother telling you when they are disproven.

Syag:
1. I am in wonder over your statement: “Will there be a time when we can actually have a conversation without comments like that?” On the committee hearings you were in full agreement that we need to see the evidence/testimony ourselves before giving an opinion. At that time, I was actually hopeful you’d watch the hearings. Likewise, if you haven’t read the Mueller report it would be a disfavor to yourself and humanity to let your perceived conclusions of what the report says cloud your political opinions. I’ve pointed out examples of some bad stuff in the Mueller report because no one seems to be willing to read it.
2. Your next message about Hilary, Hunter, etc. Classic deflection by trashing “the other side.” Again, Hillary and Hunter aren’t our heroes. And even if we did like Hillary, we wouldn’t hold her up to god-like status. If they did anything illegal they need to be held accountable. Just like Trump. I would not object to a Hillary investigation.
In all, you put your head in the sand when it comes to readily-available evidence and trash “the other side.” Which isn’t necessarily the other side; Trump vilifies others to take focus off himself and make himself look like a victim. Don’t you see all this?
I was open-minded enough to vote for the guy once. You’re stuck in a loop.

Most posters here (correctly) seem to be less troubled by the raid, given it even went through Trump appointees, and the legal process requires specificity in what they are searching for. I give benefit of the doubt that our legal system DOES work. There are sometimes surprises and scandals, but not as much as Trump portrays. I doubt they would have searched if it was just for the possible crime mishandling classified documents or to recover those documents. That’s too minor to make such a splash. We shall see in time.

Remember: Trump and Guilliani were the first to mainstream the calls to lock up political opponents and to assume all official governmental proceeding was unlawful, etc. Many posters go in to any news article with that bias implanted in their heads. Seems Trump may learn that one reaps what he sows.

2cents: if your opinion of the search is colored by Mueller report, it is not true that the report was illegitimate. Please read the report yourself instead of Trump/Fox’s characterizations. Trump barely cooperated and also worked to derail the investigation, so Mueller was limited. Nevertheless there are many troubling things in the report. Nothing arose to criminal, the report said, because of our tradition of not charging a president while in office, as well as the lack of cooperation in getting testimony.

Just catching up on thread. A few thoughts:
Always Ask and Modern’s combined homicide stats suggests we’ll always see higher crime rates in cities no matter who is in charge. And that it’s a false republican politician/media narrative that crime is more prevalent in blue cities. Thanks modern, I’d like to know where you got those.

ujm – I’d like to know how republicans fought against discrimination. Unless you’re talking about slavery 160 years ago? Seriously.

Hi Reb Eliezer -“The Republicans caused that we need two salaries to make a living, so the woman’s place cannot be at home anymore.” how did they do this? I assume it’s more democrats who created a culture of women wanting working full time. And figured the resulting higher family incomes allowed companies to take advantage by charging more and making more dumb “necessities” to waste everyone’s disposable income on.

There’s been lots of stats lately showing that for all the talk and reporting of NYC crime, Republican-controlled states have a way higher violent crime rate per capita. Of course NYC will have more incidents of crime than a place like Fort Worth since there are way more people. But on a per capita basis, NY is as safe or safer than republican states, especially regarding violent crime and homicide. It’s just that republican media and politicians are good at this narrative. See for your self and let us know what you find.

And as Reb Eliezer alludes to, there are a lot of programs and policies supported by democrats that pro-republican folks take for granted. In addition, democrats pushed or support the 5-day work week, protection from discrimination in the workplace, and equal pay for women, to name a few. Maybe we think some of these go to far, but should a YWN reader be happy that his hard-working wife would make less than a man? Should it be OK to fire someone for wearing a yarmulke? This is a sampling of issues republicans try to role back.

Points on allegation that Hutchinson lied:
1. Tony Ornato and the secret service guy’s testimonies agreed with Hutchinson that Trump did argue to go to capital and was very upset. The only thing disputed is whether he lunged for the wheel and pushed somebody. So largely they AGREE.
2. Ornato was initially with secret service but became a confidante of Trump, and Trump appointed him Deputy Chief of Staff due to his loyalty. So he’s 1000% a Trump guy and has more credibility issues than Hutchinson, who has no obvious reason to lie about this detail and whose testimony largely is backed up by others, texts, and emails. Also the committee members had said that Ornato and secret service guy were very evasive during testimony and were clearly protecting Trump.
Any flawed reasoning with the above?

Akuperma: again, this is not a criminal trial. This is to investigate and publicize some evidence they choose to highlight. Guaranteed that most decisions you’ve made in life – , who NOT to do business with, who NOT to lend money to – who NOT to vote for – were not based on opportunities to cross examine. Watch the hearings yourself and judge credibility for yourself.

young rechnitz, the reason why there are only 2 republicans is because republican senator Kennedy decided the republicans would not to cooperate with the committee. The initial proposal before the committee came into existence was a full-on bi-partisan congressional investigation, which was also rejected by republicans. So it’s unfair to cry foul about a committee with majority democrats. At least you have a couple cooperative republicans. And the most damning evidence (including texts and emails) are from Trumpers and republicans. If there’s a point this goes to trial there will be opportunity to cross examine. But most judgments you make every day are not proven to criminal court standards anyway. Damning evidence is exactly what it sounds like.

1. Don’t get too wrapped up with the term “constitutional crisis.” Per my last post, it meant to say that Trump already lost 60 court cases but he did not respect the rule of law. So who knows what he would have done if he lost in supreme court?
2. A lawyer may not bring a frivolous case that has 0% chance of winning. That is why Guiliani is in trouble with the bar. Per my last post, there is nothing novel to argue. White house staff testified as such and even said Trump is wading into criminal territory.
3. Syag – common ground is I agreed with you they should investigate BLM at capitol if they really thought there was something important to learn from the investigation.
4. I seem to have fallen for an old trick. The exercise in comparing Jan 6 to BLM is just to create a distraction. Few people here seemed to have watched the hearing testimony. Of course it’s not a trial and not 100% rebuttable, but it’s unquestionably damning. In the face of ugly evidence why not point across the aisle and cry fire?
Watch the hearing, perhaps at 1.5x speed. But I challenge you all to do it. I won’t tell your friends you saw it!

My reason could partly be ignorance. I am not aware of too many of the details that took place at federal buildings. Aside from that, according to the principles I laid out above, it’s a ‘totality of the circumstances’ analysis: A coordinated plot to carry out a coup is more serious than a bunch of hoodlums. We’ll always have hoodlums, the way to deal with it is through better law enforcement and there are fewer things to investigate. With a plot, particularly who was involved and assessing whether this can happen in the future, it’s more imperative to investigate right away for the stability of our country. It doesn’t mean we should go easy on BLM rioters. They should investigate the BLM actions if they think there was a coordinated plot beyond violently venting anger, or if there are security lapses that they could fix to prevent in the future.

Again, not aware of elected officials who supported anything more than peaceful protests, or if these people were talking out of both sides of their mouths. Based on totality of circumstances, even encouraging violent thuggery (??) is less serious than encouraging a violent (or non-violent) coup. In addition to being more serious, it’s a way more complex case, involving texts, phone and other records, and cooperation of governmental officials’ testimony.
Am I right?

One group was led or at least inspired by the President to overthrow our government and democratic process. These same people ironically root for “law and order.” And distrust government control so much that they want to disregard votes of the people and subjugate their brains to their leader. Another difference is that Trump tweeted his love to Jan 6 rioters, whereas he warned BLM matters that “once the looting starts, the shooting starts.”

n0mesorah: well said.

Gefilte: please provide backup for your claims about bipartisan concern about mail-ins. And for democrats being concerned.

Smerel: Are you questioning whether anybody adequately investigated the claims of voter fraud? 1st answer: You can be sure Barr has the information and can assess whether an investigation has been adequate. Note he was still supportive of many Trump positions at the time and isn’t biased against Trump. Same can be said for Trump’s campaign officials. Same for 50 or 60 court cases, many of whom were conservative Trump-appointed judges. If that’s not enough, there’s plenty online that debunks each of the claims. That’s about as good as you can get. You seem to be saying, “yeah but there still MIGHT be something out there we don’t know about, we didn’t inspect the voting machines.” That’s like putting someone in jail even after allegations are proven false, because WHO KNOWS if there’s a tangible leads out there. Nothing was suspicious in the vote results. No reason to indulge in a conspiracy or seize machines.