Dedicated to fighting authoritarianism, bigotry, greed, corruption, climate change denial, white supremacy, racism, stupidity and general evil, as well as the exploration of interesting ideas and conspiracy theories including 9/11, UFOs, ET's, the paranormal and the general unknown.
A good analysis of the massive irregularities in Kentucky with Mitch McConnell's recent "election".
Some of the fraud was in the presidential election too, and helped trump.
All of the screaming by the GOP about a stolen election is pure projection and a distraction away from their own crimes.
So what matters more, the president’s desire to overthrow American democracy, or his inability to follow through?
Just how fascist was Trump? Part of the answer depends on whether you’re evaluating Trump’s ideology or his ability to carry it out.
It seems obvious enough that the spirit of Trumpism is fascistic, at least according to classic definitions of the term. In “The Nature of Fascism,” Roger Griffin described fascism’s “mobilizing vision” as “the national community rising phoenix-like after a period of encroaching decadence which all but destroyed it.” Translate this into the American vernacular and it sounds a lot like MAGA.
Fascism is obsessed with fears of victimization, humiliation and a decline, and a concomitant cult of strength. Fascists, wrote Robert O. Paxton in “The Anatomy of Fascism,” see “the need for authority by natural chiefs (always male), culminating in a national chieftain who alone is capable of incarnating the group’s historical destiny.” They believe in “the superiority of the leader’s instincts over abstract and universal reason.” This aptly describes Trump’s movement.
Yet Trump was only intermittently able to translate his movement into a government. The national security state was more often his antagonist than his tool. There were Justice Department investigations of the president’s political enemies, but they mostly came to nothing. The military was deployed against protesters, but only once.
Trump celebrated what may be the extrajudicial killing of Michael Reinoehl, an antifa activist wanted in a fatal shooting, but such killings weren’t the norm. He put children in cages, but was pressured to let them out. And in the end, he lost an election and will have to leave.
The damage he’s done, however, may be irreversible. On Twitter, Robin argued, correctly, that George W. Bush, far more than Trump, changed the shape of government, leaving behind the Patriot Act and the Department of Homeland Security.
Most of Trump’s legacy, by contrast, is destruction — of even the pretense that the law should apply equally to ruler and ruled, of large parts of the Civil Service, of America’s standing in the world. (If mainstream liberals are more deeply horrified by Trump than some leftists, it could be because they maintain greater romantic attachments to the institutions he’s defiled.)
Most consequentially, Trump has eviscerated in America any common conception of reality. Other presidents sneered at the truth; a senior Bush official, widely believed to be Karl Rove, famously derided the “reality-based community” to the journalist Ron Suskind. But Trump’s ability to envelop his followers in a cocoon of lies is unparalleled.
The Bush administration deceived the country to go to war in Iraq. It did not insist, after the invasion, that weapons of mass destruction had been found when they obviously were not. That’s why the country was able to reach a consensus that the war was a disaster.
No such consensus will be possible about Trump — not about his abuses of power, his calamitous response to the coronavirus, or his electoral defeat. He leaves behind a nation deranged. The postmodern blood libel of QAnon will have adherents in Congress. Kyle Rittenhouse, a young man charged with killing Black Lives Matter protesters, is a right-wing folk hero. The Republican Party has become more hostile to democracy than ever.
Both the Trump and Bush presidencies concluded with America a smoking ruin. Only Trump has ensured that nearly half the country doesn’t see it.
I documented so much weirdness over the years.
Jeff Hill was the guy who managed to get so many incredible phone interviews with dozens of 9/11 witnesses.
-- This UA175 puffball discrepancy with his footage still is great proof of composited video.
Eventually Jeff Hill and others shifted away from the no-plane theory.
So many times in the last few days, since Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were declared the winners of the presidential race, I've heard someone say that it's fine to be happy, but "we have to grapple with the fact that 70 million still voted for Donald Trump despite everything that we know about him. What are we going to do about that?"
My response is simple: Maybe we just need to accept that at least 70 million Americans are just shitty people. And, frankly, it's on them to change. They're not fucking children. They're adults who made adult decisions. I'm so fucking sick of the infantilization of the Trump voter, the idea that they're these naifs who need to be nurtured into some kind of maturity, that they have fears of the progressive world (even as they benefit from it in many places with expanded Medicaid), that they are uneducated and inundated with bullshit from Fox "news" and its devolved progeny in the nutzoid right-wing media.
Fuck that. They chose this ideology. They chose what to believe. They decided to be a bunch of scabby pricks. They gotta own that shit. Forgiveness is wasted on those who refuse to believe they need to be forgiven. The more charitable of you might be able to do it, but I'm not fuckin' charitable to these goons and freaks and worms. Donald Trump played 'em like a goddamn fiddle. Hell, he's still playin' them, squeezing them for more cash under the umbrella of his bullshit "voter fraud" lawsuits. Until they wake the fuck up or are woken the fuck up, they need to exist as a warning not to let them get more power than they have and to work like hell to take away their remaining power.
It's time to tell Trump voters to spend a little time trying to understand Biden voters so they can see why we fucking kicked Trump's ass.
Ultimately, the election isn't even close.
Biden will have won with the biggest vote total and 2nd biggest vote margin in history. Kamala Harris makes history as the first female VP, first woman of color as VP.
Some various pieces for posterity:
So Trump: -- lost the popular vote massively both times -- only won in 2016 by flipping normally Dem states by barest of margins -- never cracked 50% in approval poll average as POTUS -- was IMPEACHED -- had an absolutely disastrous 1st term: net job loss, 230,000 COVID dead...
-- 2020 lost with those same Dem states flipping back to Dem
-- 2020 lost 2 other red states (run by GOP governors)
But yeah, sure tell me how he only lost by vote fraud.
Election disinfo
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/04/us/spanish-language-misinformation-latinos.html
GOP theft
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100214528992
Post election
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-will-have-his-own-deep-stateand-his-own-resistance?ref=author
https://theweek.com/articles/949070/trump-demonic-force-american-politics
Despite the great power and amazing insights and opportunities that the US presidency offers, Donald J. Trump will leave office the same exact stupid, deeply dishonest, horribly corrupt, extremely narcissistic asshole as when he entered office. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
The plane wheel in the knocked out WTC columns.
The lamp post knocked into the taxi in the Pentagon attack.
The strange, impossible flight 93 hole.
19 years, later, still makes no sense-- either the with official story or with any other good explanation.
After making that claim, Rhodes made a number of unhinged statements, including saying Oath Keepers would follow directives from President Donald Trump to take members of the “deep state” into custody and “do what we have to do,” that Trump should invoke the Insurrection Act before the election, that Oath Keepers will “be in range” of Washington D.C., to stop a “Benghazi-style” attack on the White House on election night, and that a war will have to be fought against Democrats on the West Coast who are “bought” by the Chinese government.
Rhodes also hyped the possibility of a second civil war where his “battle-hardened” supporters kill the “street soldiers” and “command and control” of “the radical left.” He later claimed the United States is already in a civil war because “you have sitting politicians who are part of the enemy’s ranks.”
Disturbingly, Rhodes telegraphed how he will interpret election results, saying that he would consider a win by Democratic nominee Joe Biden illegitimate and evidence the election had been stolen, presaging how he and his militia might react to that outcome.
Rhodes’ Oath Keepers militia, which is comprised of “former law enforcement officials and military veterans,” is described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as “one of the largest radical antigovernment groups in the U.S. today.”
The Los Angeles Times reported Rhodes has indicated that some Oath Keepers “have signed up as poll watchers, while others plan to monitor the election armed and ‘undercover,’ drawing their weapons if needed.”
During an October 27 appearance on The Alex Jones Show, Rhodes said members of his militia are going to “stand up and protect people on Election Day” at the polls because opponents of Trump will be supposedly “coercing and threatening” his supporters as part of an effort by Democrats to steal the election.
Previously I had posted about Rhodes' Group in 2009 in a positive light. In retrospect, it was clearly rightwing extremist crap.
MINNEAPOLIS -- A Texas man who says he is affiliated with the Boogaloo Bois anti-government movement and is suspected of opening fire on a Minneapolis police station during a protest in May is facing riot charges, a federal prosecutor announced Friday.
Video shot on the night of May 28 shows a person later identified as Ivan Harrison Hunter firing 13 rounds from a semiautomatic assault-style rifle on the Third Precinct police station while people believed to be looters were inside.
U.S. Attorney Erica MacDonald said Friday that she has charged the 26-year-old Hunter, of Boerne, Texas, with traveling across state lines to participate in a riot.
According to a criminal complaint, Hunter traveled from Texas to Minneapolis in late May to join in protests over George Floyd's death. Floyd, who was Black, died on Memorial Day after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee on his neck for nearly eight minutes. The incident sparked protests against police racism and brutality across the country.
According to the complaint, Hunter claims to be a member of the Boogaloo Bois, a loosely-connected anti-government group, and he made statements on social media describing what he did in Minneapolis. Police in Austin, Texas, stopped a pickup truck on June 3 in which Hunter was a passenger for multiple traffic violations. Hunter had six loaded magazines for a semiautomatic rifle in a tactical vest he was wearing. Officers also found multiple firearms in the truck. Several days after the stop, federal suspected of opening fire on a Minneapolis police station during a protest in May agents learned of Hunter's online affiliation with Boogaloo Bois member Steven Carrillo.
Federal prosecutors have charged Carrillo in the death of a federal protective officer in Oakland, California, during a protest over Floyd's death on the same night Hunter allegedly opened fire in Minneapolis. MacDonald said Hunter made his initial court appearance Thursday in San Antonio, Texas. It's unclear if he has an attorney. His case isn't listed in online federal court records from both Minnesota and Texas.
It's November 3rd-- 11/3
3 x 11 = 33
Just VOTE!!! Vote the goddamned psychopathic conman and traitor out of office!!!
In normal times, we might regard any vote as ethical. To participate in an election is to dignify oneself as a citizen with a voice, and to express with others the interests and values that guide the future of our land. But these are not normal times. This is clear from the perspective of the candidates. During a normal campaign, both candidates take for granted that they will walk free after the election. One will be in the Oval Office; the other will go home.
This year is different. One candidate, Donald Trump, knows that, should he not remain in power, he will descend into poverty, go to prison, or both. He can hold the ongoing criminal investigations at bay so long as he is president, but not thereafter. Trump owes hundreds of millions of dollars to his creditors and has no visible means to pay them back. As president he can expect his creditors to wait; as a private citizen he cannot.
If someone can maintain wealth and freedom only by holding onto power, that person will fight to hold onto power. Behind the ideologies and the propaganda, this is the core history of tyranny: government becomes the bodyguard of a gangster. Modern authoritarians such as Vladimir Putin have much to say about why they must remain in power, but the real issue is that they wish to die wealthy and in their own beds rather than poor and in prison. In authoritarian countries, the anxiety of the tyrant can be allayed by a promise not to prosecute the leader and his family, and to leave their bank accounts in peace.
Because the rule of law still (more or less) prevails in the United States, no one can offer Trump such a deal. He is therefore in a fight for his life; from his point of view, he needs to spend the rest of it in the White House. His predicament might not be obvious to Americans, but people in authoritarian countries see it right away.
It is also unusual, in an American presidential campaign, for one of the candidates to admit defeat. Trump has a fine political mind, and he can read polls and the national mood as well as anyone. For months now, he has been signaling that he cannot beat Joe Biden in an election. When he tried to summon the armed forces to aid him in June, it was the gesture of a man who needed unusual forms of help. When he tweeted in July that elections should be delayed, he revealed that he did not think he could win them. Undermining the United States Postal Service, asking his supporters to vote twice, and saying that he will not accept the results: all of these are ways of saying that he expects to lose. His campaign has ignored swing voters, and the Republican National Convention made no attempt to reach the undecided.
In the first presidential debate, Trump tried, as he has done for months, to delegitimize the election as such. The plan is not to win the popular (or even the electoral) vote, but rather to stay in power in some other way. If we take Trump at his word and begin from the premise that he cannot win the election, then his actions make sense. The plan is not to win the popular (or even the electoral) vote, but rather to stay in power in some other way.
We don’t even really have to guess about this, since Trump has spelled it out himself: he will declare victory regardless of what happens, expect state governments to act contrary to vote counts, claim fraud from postal ballots, court chaos from white nationalists (and perhaps the Department of Homeland Security), and expect the Supreme Court to install him. In general, the idea behind these scenarios is to create as much chaos as possible, and then fall back upon personal ruthlessness and an artificial state of emergency to stay in power.
If Trump creates a constitutional crisis while his supporters commit acts of violence, the Supreme Court might be intimidated. In this transition from democracy to authoritarianism, otherwise known as a coup d’état, the actual number of people who vote for Trump matters less than it would in an ordinary election. In this scenario, it matters more how angry they are, and how willing some of them are to endorse extraordinary actions by Trump, or to take such actions themselves. Since he is treating election day as the occasion for a coup, Trump has good reason not to soften his message to reach more voters. In doing so he would risk losing some of the emotion he needs when he tries to stay in power by non-democratic means. He only has to stay within about ten points of Joe Biden to avoid the demoralization that arises when even core supporters realize they have been deceived by their leader and overwhelmed by their fellow citizens at the polls. It is unusual for a plan for a coup d’état to be broadcast so clearly.
Yet there is a political logic here, one with deep moral implications. By telling Americans in advance that he intends to stay in power regardless of the vote count, Trump is implicating his supporters in the action as it unfolds. He is giving them notice that they are siding with someone who intends to work hard to see that votes are not counted. He is giving them to understand that they are participants in the unravelling of American democracy. They might not want to face this reality squarely, which would be a normal reaction. This is a lesson of modern tyranny: authoritarianism need not be a conscious project of those embraced by it. They need only sleepwalk through the roles assigned to them. When democracy lies in the dust, they will find rationalizations for what they have done, and will support the authoritarian regime that follows, because they are already involved. No argument from emotions or interests can stop that process. The degradation is ethical, and so the question is about ethics.
What, then, is the moral meaning of a vote for Donald Trump on November 3? To vote for Trump is to traduce the meaning of voting, which is a normal part of the transition to authoritarianism. Since the collective effect of votes for Trump is to create background plausibility for a coup, each vote for Trump is participation in a plot to end the American republic. It is to vote for a future in which voting does not matter. It is a choice by Americans to no longer make choices as Americans. It transforms individuals with interests and values into elements of a spectacle that legitimates an authoritarian regime change.
If Trump stays in power, elections will continue to take place, but they will be meaningless. Soon we will not bother to speak of fraud, because voting will be a joke. In that dark scenario, the joke is on the Trump voter, since a vote for Trump is a vote for spiritual self-annihilation. If Trump stays in power in 2021, a Trump voter will enjoy the quick hit of “winning,” a spasm of joy that distracts from a profound moral loss. It is no victory to vote for never voting again, to beg for voicelessness. It is submission.
Joe Biden is not a perfect candidate, but he is a candidate who supports democracy: the American dignity of representing oneself, and the American aspiration to see our values and interests prevail in our government. If our democracy dies, a Biden voter will be able to say to herself that she did the right thing, did what was possible, did not give in. A Biden voter can speak proudly about America’s past as a democracy, will preserve the moral resources to resist authoritarianism, and might at some later point contribute to a resurrection of the republic.
In a moral sense, a Trump voter has much more to lose than a Biden voter, since the stakes in November are not only about what the candidates would do in office, but about who we will be afterward as individuals. The Trump voter is risking something precious: his or her standing as an American to be counted, as a person to be reckoned with. To vote for Trump is to cast away that standing; it is to become, as the president likes to say, a “sucker” and a “loser.” To vote for Trump is to give away something that rightly belongs to others, their future in a democracy, and to lose something of yourself that you can never recover, the dignity of a citizen of our republic.
--Having his white supremacist asshole supporters intimidate Democratic voters at the polls
-- Slow down the mail service and interfere with mail balloting
-- challenging the validity of mail-in ballots in swing states in the courts
-- winning the case in his rigged Supreme Court
--as a fall-back throwing the electoral college into disarray and winning the election by bizarre, sleazy and extraordinary means.
One way or another, he wants to disenfranchise millions of voters and destroy our democracy. It's sick and he's one sick fuckface.
The GOP has totally squandered whatever credibility they had on national security with this heavily compromised psychopath.
Second, his debate performance with Joe Biden was a massive trainwreck, shitshow, dumpster fire. It showed off what a complete sociopath this president is.
Then he got the Coronavirus because he's a fucking dumbass and got sick enough to be taken to Walter Reed Army Hospital.
For a president who bathes in bad news, this was rough week even for him.
Did you know that that Felix Sater, a Russian mobster and one of Trump's business partners had Osama bin Laden's phone number?
What a crazy coincidence.
On Alex Jones' show. Stone also said federal authorities should seize all Nevada ballots, federal agents and GOP state officials should “physically” block voting, that Trump should nationalize police forces, and that Trump should order widespread arrests
Roger Stone is making baseless accusations of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election and is urging Donald Trump to consider several draconian measures to stay in power, including having federal authorities seize ballots in Nevada, having FBI agents and Republican state officials “physically” block voting under the pretext of preventing voter fraud, using martial law or the Insurrection Act to carry out widespread arrests, and nationalizing state police forces.
Stone, a longtime confidant of the president, made the comments during a September 10 appearance on far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Infowars network. On July 10, Trump commuted a 40-month prison sentence that was handed down to Stone after he was convicted of lying to Congress and tampering with witnesses as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into 2016 election interference. Namely, Stone lied to Congress about his contacts with WikiLeaks, which released hacked emails with the aim of boosting Trump’s prospects. In the weeks leading up to the commutation, Stone made a number of media appearances where he asked Trump to grant him clemency and said that in exchange, he could be a more effective campaigner for the president’s 2020 reelection efforts.
Stone’s efforts are now underway, and his aim appears to be to spread conspiracy theories about voter fraud and call for actions that would likely intimidate potential Joe Biden voters.
During his September 10 appearance on The Alex Jones Show, Stone declared that the only legitimate outcome to the 2020 election would be a Trump victory. He made this assertion on the basis of his entirely unfounded claim that early voting has been marred by widespread voter fraud. Stone argued that “the ballots in Nevada on election night should be seized by federal marshalls and taken from the state” because “they are completely corrupted” and falsely said that “we can prove voter fraud in the absentees right now.” He specifically called for Trump to have absentee ballots seized in Clark County, Nevada, an area that leans Democratic.
Stone went on to claim that “the votes from Nevada should not be counted; they are already flooded with illegals” and baselessly suggested that former Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) should be arrested and that Trump should consider nationalizing Nevada’s state police force.
Beyond Nevada, Stone recommended that Trump consider several actions to retain his power. Stone recommended that Trump appoint former Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA) as a special counsel “with the specific task of forming an Election Day operation using the FBI, federal marshals, and Republican state officials across the country to be prepared to file legal objections and if necessary to physically stand in the way of criminal activity.”
Stone also urged Trump to consider declaring “martial law” or invoking the Insurrection Act and then using his powers to arrest Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook, “the Clintons” and “anybody else who can be proven to be involved in illegal activity.”
Just insanity. These crooked fucks need to all go to jail-- Stone, Trump, Barr and the rest of the treasonous gang.
10/ Mike Flynn, national security adviser Ω
Cut-rate traitor. Covered previously.9/ Erik Prince, mercenary
Real-life Bond villain.8/ Steve Bannon, campaign chair Ω
The LeCarre novel about him would be called The Man Who Wore Three Shirts. Cambridge Analytica principal. His fingerprints are all over the place, and now that he’s under indictment, he will flip like Nadia Comăneci.7/ Roger Stone, advisor Ω
Convicted felon. Nexus of Trump/Russia. The commuted sentence is going to be challenged and overturned next year. Covered previously.6/ Paul Manafort, campaign chair ΩΩ
Felon. That he is still treasoning from behind barsis a compelling argument for capital punishment.5/ Mark Zuckerberg, social network CEO
Hoodie-wearing fraud. Facebook is Russian malware. You know what’s cool? A million dollars. You know what’s even cooler? A billion dollars with vodka-soaked strings attached.4/ Rupert Murdoch, media mogul
Did not die on that accident aboard his son’s yacht, alas, so may yet live to see his ultimate dream fulfilled: the death of the republic.3/ Bill Barr, Attorney General
Most dangerous man in America. Previously covered.2/ Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Leader
No politician in my lifetime has done more to erode our democracy than Cocaine Mitch. Worst American since Robert E. Lee. This seditious piece of neo-Confederate dogshit a) refused to jointly condemn Russian election interference when Obama made the request in 2016, and b) refuses to allow a vote on a bill to safeguard the 2020 election from foreign interference. (I’m sure it has nothing to do with mega-oligarch Oleg Deripaska’s company building an aluminum plant in Kentucky.) Giving aid and comfort to an enemy is treason. That’s the high crime in which Addison Mitchell McConnell, Jr. is actively engaged.1/ Jared Kushner, Acting President
Boy Plunder has broken so many laws, I’ve lost track. Some of them, like for example espionage, are traditionally punishable by death. As the pandemic raged, he shelved his own secret team’s plan, hoping for a Blue State Genocide. He’s an evil, evil fucker, with the political sensitivity of a Novocained glans penis, and he’s absolutely calling the shots.
Trump is not included because he's obviously the main traitor and this list is his enablers.
Earlier this week, New York Times columnist Farhad Manjoo warned that American democracy is ending. He pointed to political violence on the streets, the pandemic, unemployment, racial polarization, and natural disasters, all of which are destabilizing the country, and noted that Republicans appear to have abandoned democracy in favor of a cult-like support for Donald Trump. They are wedded to a narrative based in lies, as the president dismantles our non-partisan civil service and replaces it with a gang of cronies loyal only to him. He is right to be worried. Just the past few days have demonstrated that key aspects of democracy are under attack. Democracy depends on the rule of law.
Today, we learned that Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who rose to become a Cabinet official thanks to his prolific fundraising for the Republican Party, apparently managed to raise as much money as he did because he pressured employees at his business, New Breed Logistics, to make campaign contributions that he later reimbursed through bonuses. Such a scheme is illegal. A spokesman said that Dejoy “believes that he has always followed campaign fundraising laws and regulations,” but records show that many of DeJoy’s employees only contributed money to political campaigns when they worked for him.
Democracy depends on equality before the law. But Black and brown people seem to receive summary justice at the hands of certain law enforcement officers, rather than being accorded the right to a trial before a jury of their peers. In a democracy, voters elect representatives who make laws that express the will of the community. “Law enforcement officers” stop people who are breaking those laws, and deliver them to our court system, where they can tell their side of the story and either be convicted of breaking the law, or acquitted. When police can kill people without that process, justice becomes arbitrary, depending on who holds power.
Democracy depends on reality-based policy. Increasingly it is clear that the Trump administration is more concerned about creating a narrative to hold power than it is in facts.
Today, Trump tweeted that “Our Economy and Jobs are doing really well,” when we are in a recession (defined as two quarters of negative growth) and unemployment remains at 8.4%.
This weekend, the drive to create a narrative led to a new low as the government launched an attempt to control how we understand our history. On Friday, the administration instructed federal agencies to end training on “critical race theory,” which is a scary-sounding term for the idea that, over time, our laws have discriminated against Black and brown people, and that we should work to get rid of that discriminatory pattern.
Today, Trump tweeted that the U.S. Department of Education will investigate whether California schools are using curriculum based on the 1619 Project from the New York Times, which argues that American history should center on the date of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans to Chesapeake shores. Anyone using such curriculum, he said, would lose funding. Government interference in teaching our history echoes the techniques of dictatorships. It is unprecedented in America.
Democracy depends on free and fair suffrage. The White House is trying to undermine our trust in the electoral system by claiming that mail-in ballots can be manipulated and will usher in fraud. While Trump has been arguing this for a while, last week Attorney General William Barr, a Trump loyalist, also chimed in, offering a false story that the Justice Department had indicted a Texas man for filling out 1700 absentee ballots. In fact, in 2017, one man was convicted of forging one woman’s signature on a mail-in ballot in a Dallas City Council race. Because mail-in ballots have security barcodes and require signatures to be matched to a registration form, the rate of ballot fraud is vanishingly small: there have been 491 prosecutions in all U.S. nationwide elections from 2000 to 2012, when billions of ballots were cast. Interestingly, an intelligence briefing from the Department of Homeland Security released Friday says that Russia is spreading false statements identical to those Trump and Barr are spreading. The bulletin says that Russian actors “are likely to promote allegations of corruption, system failure, and foreign malign interference to sow distrust in Democratic institutions and election outcomes.” They are spreading these claims through state-controlled media, fake websites, and social media trolls.
At the same time, we know that the Republicans are launching attempts to suppress Democratic votes. Last Wednesday, we learned that Georgia has likely removed 200,000 voters from the rolls for no reason. In December 2019, the Georgia Secretary of State said officials had removed 313,243 names from the rolls in an act of routine maintenance because they were inactive and the voters had moved, but nonpartisan experts found that 63.3% of those voters had not, in fact, moved. They were purged from the rolls in error.
And, in what was perhaps an accident, in South Carolina, voters’ sample ballots did not include Democratic candidates Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, although they did include the candidates for the Green, Alliance, and Libertarian parties. When The Post and Courier newspaper called their attention to the oversight, the State Election Commission, which is a Republican-majority body appointed by a staunch Trump supporter, updated the ballots.
Democracy depends on the legitimacy of (at least) two political parties. Opposition parties enable voters unhappy with whichever group of leaders is in power to articulate their positions without undermining the government itself. They also watch leaders carefully, forcing them to combat corruption within their ranks. This administration has sought to delegitimize Democrats as “socialists” and “radicals” who are not legitimate political players.
Just today, Trump tweeted: “The Democrats, together with the corrupt Fake News Media, have launched a massive Disinformation Campaign the likes of which has never been seen before.” For its part, the Republican Party has essentially become the Trump Party, not only in ideology and loyalty but in finances.
Yesterday we learned that Trump and the Republican National Committee have spent close to $60 million from campaign contributors on Trump’s legal bills. Matthew Sanderson, a campaign finance lawyer for Republican presidential candidates, told the New York Times, “Vindicating President Trump’s personal interests is now so intertwined with the interests of the Republican Party they are one and the same — and that includes the legal fights the party is paying for now.” The administration has refused to answer to Democrats in Congress, ignoring subpoenas with the argument that Congress has no power to investigate the executive branch, despite precedent for such oversight going all the way back to George Washington’s administration.
Just last week, a federal appeals court said that Congress has no power to enforce a subpoena because there is no law that gives it the authority to do so. This essentially voids a subpoena the House issued last year to former White House counsel Don McGahn, demanding he testify about his dealings with Trump over the investigation into the ties of the Trump campaign to Russia. (The decision will likely be challenged.) On September 4, U.S. Postal Service police officers refused Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) entry to one USPS facility in Opa-Locka, Florida and another in Miami. Although she followed the procedures she had followed in the past, this time the local officials told her that the national USPS leadership had told them to bar her entry. “Ensuring only authorized parties enter nonpublic areas of USPS facilities is part of a Postal Police officer’s normal duties, said Postal Inspector Eric Manuel. Wasserman Schultz is a member of the House Oversight and Reform Committee.
And finally, democracy depends on the peaceful transition of power. Trump has repeatedly suggested that he will not leave office because the Democrats are going to cheat.
So we should definitely worry. But should we despair? Absolutely not. Convincing people the game is over is one of the key ways dictators take power. Scholars warn never to consent in advance to what you anticipate an autocrat will demand.
If democracy were already gone, there would be no need for Trump and his people to lie and cheat and try to steal this election. And I would certainly not be writing this letter. Americans are coming together from all different political positions to fight this attack on our democracy, and we have been in similar positions before.
In 1858, Abraham Lincoln spoke under similar circumstances, and noted that Americans who disagreed on almost everything else could still agree to defend their country, just as we are now. Ordinary Americans “rose each fighting, grasping whatever he could first reach---a scythe---a pitchfork-- a chopping axe, or a butcher's cleaver,” he said. And “when the storm shall be past,” the world “shall find us still Americans; no less devoted to the continued Union and prosperity of the country than heretofore.”
The criminal shitbeast in the WhiteHouse is driving me nuts, driving us all nuts.
One result of the lunatic POTUS pushing stupid conspiracy theories is it really has made me lose interest in any conspiracy theory stuff. I feel kind of guilty now for promoting any conspiracy theories that may have helped the evil shitbeast get into office.
NOTE-- I'm not disavowing conspiracy theories or anything I've written here. Just I've lost the taste for it.
I hate this moronic, racist, psychopathic, gas lighting, treasonous Russian-puppet POTUS with a passion.
He has done so much damage to this country, including killed around 200,000 Americans. His inaction on the climate crisis has cost all of humanity and life on earth, dearly.
What's maddening how deeply in denial, how deluded, his "base" is, about his countless crimes, corruption and lunacy. The Qanon assholes that support him are even worse.
I have hope he will get driven out of office in November and we can move forward with progressive politics in 2021, but I also have much despair that he's fucked up everything beyond repair and has really rigged the system in his demented favor.
But if nothing else, these are interesting times.
By the way, they have changed the blogger interface and it's somewhat difficult to start new posts on this blog. Between my loss of interest in conspiracy theories, being very active on social media, my real job and the new interface, I'm not sure how much I will post here.
I am not abandoning this blog, just not sure how much I will post. I do tend to keep my GOP ASSHOLES blog more up to date as that is somewhat easier to post on that topic.
In any case,
stay safe and vote blue!
The very idea seems, on the face of it, sheer madness. In Portland, Oregon, federal security officers dressed for combat—wearing jungle-camouflage uniforms with unclear markings, carrying heavy weapons, using batons and tear gas—are patrolling the streets, making random arrests, throwing people into unmarked vans. The officers do not come from institutions that specialize in political crowd control. Instead, they come from Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Transportation Security Administration, and the Coast Guard. These are people with experience patrolling the border, frisking airline passengers, and deporting undocumented immigrants—exactly the wrong sort of experience needed to carry out the delicate task of policing an angry political protest.
Unsurprisingly, these troops are making rudimentary mistakes. Instead of working with local leaders, they have antagonized them. Instead of coaxing people to go home, their behavior has caused more people to come out onto the streets. Instead of calming the situation, they are infuriating people. They have escalated the violence. They have made the situation worse.
Why has this been allowed to happen? Any rank amateur could have predicted that unprepared troops with guns would increase tension and prolong the crisis. The people in the White House and the Department of Homeland Security who have sent employees of ICE and the Coast Guard into Portland surely knew that they would make people angrier.
But although the administration’s behavior makes no sense as law enforcement, it makes perfect sense as a new kind of campaign tactic. Welcome to the world of performative authoritarianism, a form of politics that reached new heights of sophistication in Russia over the past decade and has now arrived in the United States.
Unlike 20th-century authoritarianism, this 21st-century, postmodern influence campaign does not require the creation of a total police state. Nor does it require complete control of information, or mass arrests.
It can be carried out, instead, with a few media outlets and a few carefully targeted arrests. That these tactics are not “totalitarian” doesn’t make them legal, acceptable, or normal. I repeat: Citizens’ rights are being violated in Portland. People have been hauled off the streets into unmarked vehicles. Long-standing precedents about the relationship between states and the federal government have been overturned. Lawsuits have already been filed.
WHEN JEFFREY EPSTEIN signed his notoriously lax plea deal in 2007, one of the stipulations to the agreement was that his co-conspirators, especially including his premier partner in sex crime, Ghislaine Maxwell, be granted immunity from prosecution. In an interview with Narativ’s Zev Shalev last month, Maxwell family associate Laura Goldman explained that her friend Ghislaine was not concerned about prosecution, because of that plea deal. The erstwhile socialite thought the feds couldn’t touch her. She thought wrong.
Yesterday, in a shocking development, the FBI arrested Ghislaine Maxwell. She’d been “roughing it” in her skytop redoubt in the pristine New Hampshire town of Bradford—a property she purchased via a shell company after Epstein’s arrest, called, appropriately, “Tuckedaway.” The locals had no idea. “You wouldn't believe they’d be up here, of all places,” Bradford resident Angela Murphy told NBC Boston. “We are in the middle of nowhere.”
The indictment charges her with enticing a minor to travel to engage in criminal sexual activity, transporting a minor with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, conspiracy to commit both of those offenses, and perjury in connection with a sworn deposition.
The Indictment unsealed today alleges that between at least in or about 1994 through 1997, MAXWELL and co-conspirator Jeffrey Epstein exploited girls as young as 14, including by enticing them to travel and transporting them for the purpose of engaging in illegal sex acts. As alleged, knowing that Epstein had a preference for young girls, MAXWELL played a critical role in the grooming and abuse of minor victims that took place in locations including New York, Florida, and New Mexico. In addition, as alleged, MAXWELL made several false statements in sworn depositions in 2016.
At a high-noon press conference, Audrey Strauss, the freshly-minted Acting US Attorney for the Southern District of New York—who appears to have taken the “Acting” part of her title literally—said, “As alleged, Ghislaine Maxwell facilitated, aided, and participated in acts of sexual abuse of minors. Maxwell enticed minor girls, got them to trust her, and then delivered them into the trap that she and Jeffrey Epstein had set. She pretended to be a woman they could trust. All the while, she was setting them up to be abused sexually by Epstein and, in some cases, Maxwell herself.
Today, after many years, Ghislaine Maxwell finally stands charged for her role in these crimes.” Maxwell was remanded to custody, and it is unlikely the judge will grant bail. So: Jizz Lane’s going down. And she has the power to take a lot of wealthy and powerful individuals down with her. Not only was she Epstein’s chief accomplice, involved in years of unspeakably odious activity, but as the daughter of the superspy Robert Maxwell, she is the keeper of the kind of secrets that could upend governments, to say nothing of individual lives. The ripple effects of her arrest extend to the ends of the earth.
Here is a smattering of famous and not-so-famous people who should be shitting a brick this morning:
Bill Clinton-- It was Ghislaine, best as I can tell, who brought Clinton into Epstein’s orbit. As I wrote last week, I have not seen any charges that the former president availed himself of the young women in Epstein’s entourage—the “Filthy Rich” documentary makes no such allegations; to the contrary. On the other hand, Clinton is certainly lying about how chummy he really was with Epstein. He wasn’t just on the “Lolita Express” for the big humanitarian trip to Africa—he flew on Epstein’s private jet a lot. And he claims never to have visited Little St. James, but the telecom worker interviewed in the documentary insists that he saw Clinton on Epstein’s island. What else might 42 be lying about?
Donald John Trump-- Eric Trump, the president’s dimmest son, posted a photo of Ghislaine Maxwell at the wedding of Chelsea Clinton. He took the post down, after he was deluged with pictures of his father in the company of Ghislaine and her beau, Jeffrey Epstein. There are allegations that Trump partook of Epstein’s rape parties. Are the allegations true, and if so, will Maxwell confirm them?
Prince Andrew-- If Queen Elizabeth’s son manages to avoid prosecution, it is only because he is Queen Elizabeth’s son. He has been friends with Ghislaine for a long time; best as I can tell, they have known each other since they were children. She has the power to destroy him once and for all. Will she?
Les Wexner-- The exact nature of his involvement with Jeffrey Epstein is not just Victoria’s Secret; it’s Ghislaine’s.
Alan Dershowitz-- The criminal defense attorney to the stars has been in meltdown on Twitter all week, making allegations against the Miami Herald’s Julie K. Brown that, to be honest, I don’t fully understand. One of Epstein’s victims, Virginia Roberts Guiffre, alleges that Epstein coerced her to have sex with Dershowitz. He has vociferously proclaimed his innocence, on every platform available to him. Doth he protest too much? Ghislaine knows.
Alex Acosta-- Trump’s former Secretary of Labor was the US Attorney who covertly negotiated, and signed off on, Epstein’s sweetheart plea deal. At last, we may get to know why.
Bill Barr-- Last week, the corrupt Attorney General tried to replace Geoffrey Berman, the US Attorney for SDNY, with one of his own loyalists, presumably to quash a big case in the Southern District. The gambit failed. Might this have been the indictment he was trying to torpedo? Barr certainly has connections to Epstein: his pervy father hired him at Dalton, and he himself was in charge when the sex trafficker and arms dealer “committed suicide.” Ghislaine likely has dirt on the Barr family, too.
And these are just the people we know about. There are sure to be others. Ghislaine Maxwell grew up as a spoiled socialite who worshipped her father—the media magnate and spy who, when he died in 1991, was in the middle of a Ponzi scheme in which he stole money from his company’s pension. From what I’ve been told, and what I’ve heard others report, she is painfully insecure, constantly name-dropping and talking about how great her dad was. She allowed Epstein to manipulate her for decades. Laura Goldman insists she’s “nice.”
The point is: I don’t get the sense that she’s the mentally toughest person around. She ain’t Paul Manafort. Odds are, she will cooperate. Which must be disturbing the restful slumber of everyone on the above list. Ghislaine Maxwell was dangerous when she was out and about. Now that she’s in federal custody, looking at decades in the slammer? Rich and powerful men would rest easier if she were dead. Which means that making the case against her is the easy part; the hard part will be keeping her alive through the trial. Fortunately, Audrey Strauss seems up to the task.
In this Sept. 11, 2001, file photo, people run from the collapse of one of the twin towers at the World Trade Center in New York.
Stephen Cooper, far left, fleeing smoke and debris as the south tower crumbled just a block away on Sept. 11, has died from coronavirus, his family said, according to The Palm Beach Post.
DELRAY BEACH, Fla. (AP) — A man photographed fleeing smoke and debris as the south tower of the World Trade Center crumbled just a block away on Sept. 11, 2001, has died from coronavirus, his family said. The Palm Beach Post reported that Stephen Cooper, an electrical engineer from New York who lived part-time in the Delray Beach, Florida area, died March 28 at Delray Medical Center due to COVID-19. He was 78. The photo, captured by an Associated Press photographer, was published in newspapers and magazines around the world and is featured at the 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York. “He didn’t even know the photograph was taken,” said Janet Rashes, Cooper’s partner for 33 years. “All of a sudden, he’s looking in Time magazine one day and he sees himself and says, ‘Oh my God. That’s me.’ He was amazed. Couldn’t believe it.”They just HAD to get the 33 in there....
I blog about politics, interesting ideas and conspiracy theories. Many or most of the official stories for key events are lies. For instance, the 9/11 plane hijackings and crashes appear to be clever hoaxes. The WTC1, WTC2 and WTC7 towers were brought down by demolition, and there is evidence for the use of small nuclear bombs in the demolition of WTC1 and 2. It seems that 9/11 was an evil hoax foisted upon the world, done in order to spark the obscene "war on terror", to cover up financial fraud and to further the ends of the global elite. However, 9/11 was only part of the fraud and evil committed by the evil powers that be (PTB).
